... Lavie's work directs us to a promising compromise between a strict early or late selection theory. This essay will firstly outline the main principles of the early selection and late selection theories. Evidence for late selection will then be presented and evaluated in terms of the demands of the experimental tasks employed and it will be demonstrated that overall the results obtained under low perceptual load will be consistent with late selection. Contrasts with evidence for early selection will also be discussed where appropriate. The early selection approach claims that visual perception is capacity limited and therefore requires early attentional selection in order to proceed. In this case, rudimentary characteristics such as physical features are used to distinguish selected items from non-selected items and unattended stimuli are considered unperceived. Although the early-selection approach has warranted a great deal of empirical support, automatic processes have become the focus of attention theories. ...

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