The models of attention proposed prior to Lavie's theory differed in their proposals for the point in the information processing stream where the selection of target information occurs, leading to a heated[3] debate about whether the selection occurs "early" or "late".
[5] In contrast, Deutsch and Deutsch argued that this filtering [6] of irrelevant stimuli occurs in the late stages of processing: all of the information is processed on a sensory level, but the semantic content of the message in the unattended ear cannot access the consciousness.
Perceptual load theory makes three main assumptions: Thus, if the task-relevant stimulus uses all the attentional resources, none of the task-irrelevant stimuli (distractors) will be processed.
In a low-load task, more of the distractors will be processed because the attentional resources have not been exhausted, and the filtering step will occur later.
[11] This theory argues that the salience, or prominence, of a distractor is the primary factor in causing distraction, rather than the overall load.
Lavie's PhD supervisor, Yehoshua Tsal, the senior author on the original paper,[1] published a critical review of the perceptual load theory in 2013 with Hanna Benoni.