Orienting Response

What it is

Ivan Pavlov called it the investigatory reflex: an animal's attention turns to a change in the room. Robert Cialdini recounts in Pre-Suasion that Pavlov's demonstrations of conditioning could falter when a stranger in the room drew a dog's attention, and uses the episode to show how much depends on where attention points when a signal arrives.

In effect

In the article on classical conditioning, it explains why a new presence in the room could interrupt a learned response.

What it does not say

It is a reaction to novelty, not a learned response, and it does not say which changes will capture attention for any one person.

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