A lateral-inhibition type neural field model with restricted connections is presented here and represents an experimental extension of the continuum neural field theory (CNFT) by suppression of the global inhibition. A modified CNFT equation is introduced and allows for a locally defined inhibition to spatially expand within the network and results in a global competition extending far beyond the range of local connections by virtue of diffusion of inhibition. The resulting model is able to attend to a moving stimulus in the presence of a very high level of noise, several distractors or a mixture of both.