A voice names a sound. You listen for it. It isn’t there — or you cannot pick it out from everything else — and the obvious conclusion is that something is wrong: the recording, your headphones, your ears, your attention.

Usually none of those. The protocol has a name for this and builds it in deliberately.

Potential sounds

Wells’ layout does not assume every location is making a noise. Some of the sounds in the arrangement are what the manual calls potential sounds — locations you are directed to attend to where the sound may not exist during the practice[1].

Those locations, the manual adds, can be operationalised solely as locations in space — the example it gives is asking someone to focus on any sounds in the far distance that might be detected[1]. Note the wording: sounds that might be detected. The instruction is built to survive there being nothing there.

So being told to attend to a direction where you hear nothing is not an error being handled gracefully. It is a specified condition of the exercise.

Why silence is arguably the purer version of the task

Think about what a loud, distinctive sound does for you. It holds your attention. You are not entirely doing the work — the sound is doing some of it, the way a bright light holds your gaze without effort.

A quiet or absent location gives you none of that. There is nothing to catch hold of, so whatever holds your attention there has to come from you. Given that the technique’s stated aim is to directly modify the control of attention[1], an empty direction asks for the control and nothing else.

What to actually do

Attend to the location, not to a detection. The instruction is where to put your attention. It is not a search task with a hit or a miss.

Don’t strain. Straining to hear something that isn’t sounding turns the exercise into effortful listening for a target, which is not what the phase asks for. Hold the direction; let it be quiet.

Bring it back when it wanders — same as always. The script’s standing instruction is to refocus whenever attention strays or is captured by another sound[1]. A silent location makes wandering more likely, so this is where most of the repetitions happen.

Don’t treat it as a failed session. Wells notes the general version of this misconception directly — people assuming they practised ineffectively because of what showed up during the session[1]. The aim is not to remove awareness of inner events but to practise controlling attention in a particular way[1], and that applies here too.

When it is worth checking something

Two cases where the answer is genuinely practical rather than conceptual:

You cannot tell two sounds apart. That is a real problem rather than a potential sound. The task is to hold one and switch to another, so sounds that blur into one another leave attention nothing to move between. Check that you are using headphones — the layout depends on sounds sitting at different points around you — and that the volume is high enough for quiet sounds without being uncomfortable for loud ones.

You cannot make out the voice. The script is the exercise; if the instructions are unclear, you are not being given the task. That is a recording problem, not a practice problem, and it is worth finding a clearer one — see ATT audio: what to listen to.

The short version

If you are told to attend to something and hear nothing, you are doing the exercise. That was in the design from the beginning: the manual’s arrangement mixes real competing sounds with locations that may be silent at the time[1].

For how the whole arrangement is built, see what sounds do you use for ATT?.

Questions and answers

I can't hear one of the sounds — is that normal?
Yes. Wells' protocol includes what it calls potential sounds: locations you are directed to attend to where the sound may not exist during the practice. Attending to a quiet direction is part of the exercise, not a fault.
Should I strain to hear it?
The instruction is to attend to the location, not to succeed in detecting something. There is nothing to catch when nothing is sounding.
What if I genuinely can't tell two sounds apart?
That is a different problem, and a real one — the task is to hold one and move to another, so sounds that blur together give attention nothing to move between. It is worth checking your volume and your headphones before assuming it is you.

References

  1. Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression. Guilford Press. Chapter 4: Attention Training Techniques.

Published by the makers of Heed, an app for practicing ATT-style sessions. iPhone · Android. Heed is a self-practice tool inspired by ATT research — not therapy, and not a medical device.