Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun the
ability (or thedifficulty ) offocusing one'sattention on a singleauditory source in a jumble of noises
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ofravens commented on the word cocktail party effect
As per the Wik: "The cocktail party effect describes the ability to focus one's listening attention on a single talker among a mixture of conversations and background noises, ignoring other conversations. This effect reveals one of the surprising abilities of our auditory system, which enables us to talk in a noisy place."
March 26, 2008