What does the dichotic listening task tell us about how we attend to information? Discuss with reference to early and late selection models of attention.

One definition of attention is a persons way of bringing focus to a specific feeling, sensory stimuli or object.   It is also the process of bringing awareness of something to a persons consciousness.  Attention can be grabbed and it can also be distracted.   The brain has a limited attention processing capacity (Driver, 2001) and how incoming stimuli are processed, within capacity limitations, determines how attention is reached.  Differing theories attempt to explain at what point attention occurs when processing incoming stimuli.   Research methods such as Broadbents (as cited in Driver, 2001) dichotic listing tasks  were used to test what audio information is processed and what audio information is lost.  Broadbent theorised that attention was captured by early selection of stimulus.   However, it was challenged by competing theories of late selection and attenuation.  Late …(short extract)