Donald Broadbent
British experimental psychologist of attention and applied cognition
British psychologist at the Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge and later Oxford. His 1958 book Perception and Communication proposed a filter model of selective attention that became a starting point for later attention research.
Why this person matters
Broadbent treated people as limited-capacity communication channels and tested attention with experiments on listening. His filter model gave later researchers, including Anne Treisman, a specific model to revise.
Main contributions
Perception and Communication (1958)
Published in 1958, the book set out a view of attention in terms of information flow between the senses and memory.
Filter model of attention
A filter sits between the sensory register and short-term memory and selects one message by physical features such as pitch and loudness. In a digit experiment, pairs of digits were presented one to each ear, and participants usually recalled ear by ear.
Applied Psychology Unit
He joined the Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge in 1949 and became its director in 1958, linking laboratory research to practical problems.
Context and limits
The filter model is an early selection model: it assumes unattended messages are blocked before meaning is analysed. It had difficulty explaining the cocktail party effect described by Colin Cherry, and critics asked why unattended information sometimes gets through. Anne Treisman's attenuation model, which weakens unattended messages instead of blocking them, was a revision in response.
In your introductory course
Sensation and perception.Appears in the attention section of perception and cognition chapters, usually as the first of the filter models, followed by Treisman's revision.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 5.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1949
Joined the Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge.
- 1958
Published Perception and Communication and became director of the Applied Psychology Unit.
- 1974
Moved to the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford.
Sources
- Wellcome Collection, Broadbent, Donald (1926-1993), experimental psychologistArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.
- Association for Psychological Science Observer, Applied Science Giant Donald E. Broadbent (1926-1993)Society or association. Abstract inspected.
- Wikipedia, Donald BroadbentReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Anne Treisman (on the criticism that led to attenuation)Reference work. Reference article inspected.