At a faculty party, Dr. Smith is attentively listening to Dr. Chen talk about her latest research on facial recognition when he suddenly becomes aware of someone mentioning his name on the other side of the room. This phenomenon is known as:

selective attention

Explanation:

"Selective attention" is related to the phenomenon of "Cocktail Party Effect."

The cocktail party effect is a phenomenon which allows a person's brain to focus on a particular stimulus while filtering out the other stimuli. This allows a person to stay focused on a "single conversation." The other voices and conversations are then tuned out.

However, in the case of Dr. Smith, he suddenly became aware of someone mentioning his name on the other side of the room. This is what you call as "selective attention" according to the "Attenuation Model." His attention was grabbed because he heard his name. A person's name has a "low threshold value" thus, it is easy for Dr. Smith to recognize his name.

Thus, this explains the answer.