Personal values as selective factors in perception.

W HAT one sees, what one observes, is inevitably what one selects from a near infinitude of potential percepts. Perceptual selection depends not only upon the "primary determinants of attention" but is also a servant of one's interests, needs, and values. Can one lean on the slender reed of "the limited span of attention" and its primary determinants to explain the selectivity of perception? That there is.a limited span can hardly be denied. But to invoke it in explanation of itself leaves unexplained the differences in the perceptions of individuals faced with the same stimuli and all hampered by a "limited span of attention" and governed by common primary determinants. The properties of the stimulus field as they affect the range and fluctuation of attention have been a'mply investigated: "intensity, quality, repetition, suddenness, movement, novelty, congruity with the present contents of consciousness are one and all [primary] determinants of attention" (13, p. 270). Yet, however far one pushes such research, half of the question remains unanswered: what does the individual con-