My paraphrase of the 2013 study’s findings:

• We pay attention to the present through the windows of perception that we’ve developed from our past;
• The rest of the world is blocked by our consciousness’ perceptual thresholds.

It was good to read an attention study that didn’t zap the subjects’ brains.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/4/E417.full “Prestimulus oscillatory power and connectivity patterns predispose conscious somatosensory perception”