Auditory attention: foundations, theories, and mechanisms

There are four fundamental processes of attention: working memory، top-down sensitivity control، competitive selection، and automatic bottom-up filtering for salient stimuli. Each process makes an essential contribution to attention. Voluntary control operates on the first three processes in a recurrent loop. We reviewed comprehensive researches، theories، mechanisms، and central nervous system functions of auditory attention.

In this study، publications on auditory attention from 1953 to 2012 in PubMed، Scopus، ProQuest، Iran Medex، and Goole scholar were reviewed. Keywords were auditory attention and related words.

In general، auditory attention plays an important role in auditory processing and modulates this process from cochlea to auditory cortex through its four primary components.