# Perceptual load theory
This is the theory that Lavie came up with to explain the cocktail party effect that was heavily debated whether the selection done by our attention is done early or late.
The theory proposes that we have a limited capacity of what we can pay attention to (processing capacity), and the amount of capacity that we have will depend on the complexity of the task or stimuli we're handling (Perceptual load).
# References
Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology (p. 95).
Lavie (1995) tried to answer this question by considering two factors: (1) processing capacity, which refers to the amount of information people can handle and process at a given time; and 92) perceptual load, which related to the difficulty of a task.
# Backlinks
- Distraction has low impact on tasks with high perceptual load
- Based on the Perceptual load theory, we have a limited capacity on our attention. If there's a complex information that we need to perceive, that may consume all of our attention, therefore us not notice distraction (we can't notice it, e.g. Inattentional blindess).
- Attention limits
- Perceptual load theory (Capacity)
- The evolution of model to understand attention
- The ability to divide attention depends on difficulty of the task
- This can be understood from Perceptual load theory. When a task is so hard it consumes all of our attention capacity, we'll not be able to use our attention for anything else.
- Dichotic listening can be explained by different attention models