Donald Broadbent

Donald Eric Broadbent ( born May 6, 1926 in Birmingham, † April 10, 1993 in Oxford ) was a British psychologist.

Life

After studying at Cambridge University, he became in 1958 director of the Applied Psychology Research Unit there. In 1974 he became a Fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.

Broadbent mainly dealt with attention and memory.

Theory

Particular importance was his filter theory of attention (1958 ), in which he an early bottleneck (bottle -neck ) postulated in a strictly serial -working, limited capacity processing system ( limited- capacity- channel). On the basis of physical stimulus features will select which stimuli that reach simultaneously a sensory memory, be made available for further processing. The forwarding successes after the all-or- nothing principle. Unprocessed stimuli remained for possible future requests for a certain time in the sensory memory. Here, Broadbent was based on the concept of the psychological refractory period of Welford ( 1952).

Developed due to some explanatory gaps, other researchers, such as Anne Treisman (. Attenuationstheorie; Selective attention in man British Medical Bulletin 20 (1964 ) 12-16) or German & German (theory of the late selection; Attention: Some theoretical considerations Psychological Review 70 (1963. ) 80-90 ), based on Broadbent's considerations, alternative models of stimulus selection and attention allocation. Broadbent's theory, however, can be seen as fundamental to all subsequent theorizing.

See also: Attentional blink, Theory of Visual Attention.

Works

• Perception and communication. Originalausg. , Pergamon Press, Oxford, inter alia, 1958, ISBN 0-08-009090-7; as well as: 3rd edition, reprint, Pergamon Press, Oxford, among others 1969, ISBN = as before. (both English).
• Decision and stress. Originalausg. , Academic Press, London et al 1971, ISBN 0-12-135550-0; as well as: 3rd edition, reprint, Academic Press, London, among others 1985; ISBN = as before. (both English).
• In defense of empirical psychology. Originalausg. , Methuen young books, London, 1973 ( = Methuen 's manuals of modern psychology ), ISBN 0-416-76780- X. (English )