An exhausted, sleeping mother could ignore jarring thunderclaps, but would awaken immediately at the whimper of her baby. Her subconscious had taken in both the whimper and the thunderclap, but had known that only the whimper needed to be elevated to headquarters for further conscious attention. This was called the Cocktail Party Effect, after a phenomenon that was well known to those who attended crowded, noisy parties. A woman could be at such a party with a dozen unlistened-to conversations swirling around her, but if her name was mentioned in one of these conversations, her subconscious
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