the cocktail party effect.[11] Now, you might say this is an example of the second aspect of attention, involuntary attention, and at one level, sure. Like the shattering of the glasses a few moments before, what happened here was that something outside your cone of focus drew your attention without your willing it so. But overhearing your own name in another conversation is orders of magnitude more complex and astonishing as a feat of perception, so much so that I think it belongs in its own category.
