All of the following are examples of the cocktail party effect except:
A) You are sitting across from a friend in a coffee shop, looking her in the eye and nodding as she speaks, but you are really listening to the man at the next table describing a car accident.
B) You are in the soccer stadium watching a game as everyone around you cheers, but you manage to hear the announcer explain a penalty on the field.
C) All of your friends are singing "Happy Birthday" to you, but you pay particular attention to the loud soprano voice in the back of the room.
D) As you wait in a theater for a movie to begin, you tune out all of the chatter around you while you focus on a text message that has just arrived from your cousin.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The cocktail party effect refers to the ability to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, as if to hear one voice among many in a party. Option D involves focusing on a visual stimulus (a text message) rather than distinguishing among multiple auditory stimuli, making it the exception.

All of the Following Are Examples of the Cocktail Party