WE HAVE BECOME VERY GOOD AT SELECTIVE ATTENTION You often hear advertising people suggest that radio is the most intrusive media – and in my view it is. What they are saying is that radio is the media in which selective attention applies the least. ‘Selective attention’, a concept drawn from psychology, is all about […]

WE HAVE BECOME VERY GOOD AT SELECTIVE ATTENTION You often hear advertising people suggest that radio is the most intrusive media – and in my view it is. What they are saying is that radio is the media in which selective attention applies the least. ‘Selective attention’, a concept drawn from psychology, is all about the capacity of the brain to cut through things it does not need to attend to in order to focus on what it does need to attend to. It is the capacity that facilitates speed reading. It is also the capacity that enables us to deal with the 8,000 – 10,000 advertising messages most of us see every day of our lives. If you attended to it all, you would go mad. Through the capacity to selectively attend to are able to focus and make sense of what you do attend to. Advertising agencies will…