selectivity
The ability of a person to attend to specific stimuli and exclude other competing stimuli. Selective attention is one of the most important cognitive abilities of a successful athlete. However, this usually useful ability can also have unfortunate consequences. A footballer, for example, may perceive the ball as the only important aspect of the game and ignore all other sources of information, The ball-watching may allow an opponent to move undetected and unmarked into a scoring position.
