The cocktail¹ party effect (also known as selective attention) is the phenomenon of being able to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus² while filtering out a range of other stimuli³, much the same way that a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room.

 

鸡尾酒会效应（cocktail party effect），也叫选择性关注（selective attention），指将自己的听觉注意力放在某一个特定的关注兴奋点而将其余的点全部过滤出去的能力，就好像身处热闹派对中的人仍然能够专注于一段对话。

 

This effect is what allows most people to "tune⁴ in" to a single voice and "tune out" all others. It may also describe a similar phenomenon that occurs when one can immediately detect words of importance originating from unattended stimuli, for instance hearing one's name in another conversation.

 

这种效应能够让多数人将很多其他无关的声音关掉，只选择听自己关注的那一个声音。还有一个类似的情况是，人们能够从毫不关注的兴奋点中立即识别对自己重要的文字信息。例如，在别人聊天时听到自己的名字被提及。

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