 According to selection-for-action type views, the function of attention is not the management of capacity limitations. It is, instead, the management of capacity excess. It is because we can process multiple stimuli that we can be distracted by them, and because we can be distracted by them, not because we cannot process them, that we need mechanisms of attention to provide selectivity and focus. Attention, on this view, serves to lend coherence to, and to prevent interference between, the activity of several components in a system that has the capacity to handle far more stimuli than those pertaining to the subject’s current task. Such a view contrasts sharply with Broadbent’s conception of attentional selectivity as capacity-bottleneck management.