Donald Broadbent

(United Kingdom 1926-1993)

Donald Broadbent was an influential psychologist who directed Cambridge's Applied Psychology Unit and later became a fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.

His 1958 filter model of attention is an early landmark theory of selective attention which opened the way to theories of information processing, an important branch of cognitive psychology which seeks to explain how human intelligence operates.

This theory starts from the premise that humans are limited-capacity processors who cannot interpret everything that their senses detect at a given time. We filter sensory information by storing it in short-term memory and then directing our attention in order to process only what select.

Activities

1. Play: Short and long-term memory
2. Read and reflect: Selective filter