Attenuation theory

Attenuation theory is a model of selective attention proposed by Anne Treisman, and can be seen as a revision of Donald Broadbent's filter model. Treisman proposed attenuation theory as a means to explain how unattended stimuli sometimes came to be processed in a more rigorous manner than what Broadbent's filter model could account for. As a result, attenuation theory added layers of sophistication to Broadbent's original idea of how selective attention might operate: claiming that instead of a filter which barred unattended inputs from ever entering awareness, it was a process of attenuation. Thus, the attenuation of unattended stimuli would make it difficult, but not impossible to extract meaningful content from irrelevant inputs, so long as stimuli still possessed sufficient "strength" after attenuation to make it through a hierarchical analysis process.