The term inattentional deafness is indebted to the Latin words in (not) and attentio (attention, notice). It was introduced in or shortly before 1995 by the American psychologists Arien Mack (b. 1931) and Irvin Rock (1922-1995). It is used to denote a failure to consciously perceive an above-threshold auditory stimulus because one's focus of attention is elsewhere. A typical setting in which inattentional deafness can occur is dichotic listening, i.e. where a test person is asked to listen carefully to a certain auditory stimulus, and is simultaneously presented with an unexpected, and quite different auditory stimulus, often (although not necessarily) in the unattended ear. A total unawareness of the presence of such an aberrant auditory stimulus is called " auditory deafness. Related phenomena include "inattentional blindness, " tactile insensitivity, and " change blindness.
References
Mack, A., Rock, I. (1998). Inattentional blindness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Parish, E. (1897). Hallucinations and illusions. A study ofthe fallacies ofperception. London: Walter Scott.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.