Selectivity and coherence are necessary for effective action. We must be able to plan and execute actions selectively directed to relevant stimuli, while preventing the distractors affording a variety of actions from interfering with our movements. These operations have been conceptualized as attentional filtering processes, that is, processes enhancing the relevant stimuli and/or attenuating competing distractors. This review examines the existing experimental evidence for neural mechanisms involved in attentional filtering processes.