但是(如果我正确理解了这些方法之间的区别)，总是只选择一个线程进行进一步的监视采集。

这是不对的。o.notifyAll()唤醒在o.wait()调用中阻塞的所有线程。线程只允许一个接一个地从o.wait()返回，但它们将轮流返回。

简单地说，这取决于线程等待通知的原因。您是想告诉其中一个等待线程发生了什么，还是想同时告诉所有等待线程?

在某些情况下，所有等待线程在等待结束后都可以采取有用的操作。一个例子是一组等待某个任务完成的线程;一旦任务完成，所有等待的线程都可以继续它们的业务。在这种情况下，您可以使用notifyAll()同时唤醒所有等待的线程。

另一种情况，例如互斥锁，只有一个等待线程在被通知后可以做一些有用的事情(在这种情况下获得锁)。在这种情况下，您更愿意使用notify()。如果实现得当，您也可以在这种情况下使用notifyAll()，但是您将不必要地唤醒无法做任何事情的线程。

在很多情况下，等待条件的代码会被写成循环:

synchronized(o) {
    while (! IsConditionTrue()) {
        o.wait();
    }
    DoSomethingThatOnlyMakesSenseWhenConditionIsTrue_and_MaybeMakeConditionFalseAgain();
}

这样，如果一个o.notifyAll()调用唤醒了多个等待线程，并且第一个从o.wait() make返回的线程将条件保持在false状态，那么其他被唤醒的线程将返回等待状态。

notify()让您编写比notifyAll()更有效的代码。

考虑下面这段从多个并行线程执行的代码:

synchronized(this) {
    while(busy) // a loop is necessary here
        wait();
    busy = true;
}
...
synchronized(this) {
    busy = false;
    notifyAll();
}

可以通过使用notify()来提高效率:

synchronized(this) {
    if(busy)   // replaced the loop with a condition which is evaluated only once
        wait();
    busy = true;
}
...
synchronized(this) {
    busy = false;
    notify();
}

在有大量线程的情况下，或者如果等待循环条件的计算成本很高，notify()将比notifyAll()快得多。例如，如果你有1000个线程，那么999个线程将在第一个notifyAll()之后被唤醒和评估，然后是998，然后是997，依此类推。相反，使用notify()解决方案，只会唤醒一个线程。

使用notifyAll()当你需要选择哪个线程将做下一步工作:

synchronized(this) {
    while(idx != last+1)  // wait until it's my turn
        wait();
}
...
synchronized(this) {
    last = idx;
    notifyAll();
}

Finally, it's important to understand that in case of notifyAll(), the code inside synchronized blocks that have been awakened will be executed sequentially, not all at once. Let's say there are three threads waiting in the above example, and the fourth thread calls notifyAll(). All three threads will be awakened but only one will start execution and check the condition of the while loop. If the condition is true, it will call wait() again, and only then the second thread will start executing and will check its while loop condition, and so on.

摘自Effective Java博客:

The notifyAll method should generally be used in preference to notify. 

If notify is used, great care must be taken to ensure liveness.

所以，我的理解是(从前面提到的博客，“Yann TM”对公认答案和Java文档的评论):

notify() : JVM awakens one of the waiting threads on this object. Thread selection is made arbitrarily without fairness. So same thread can be awakened again and again. So system's state changes but no real progress is made. Thus creating a livelock. notifyAll() : JVM awakens all threads and then all threads race for the lock on this object. Now, CPU scheduler selects a thread which acquires lock on this object. This selection process would be much better than selection by JVM. Thus, ensuring liveness.

据我所知，以上所有答案都是正确的，所以我要告诉你一些其他的事情。对于生产代码，您确实应该使用java.util.concurrent中的类。在java的并发性方面，它们几乎没有不能为你做的事情。

Notify将只通知处于等待状态的一个线程，而Notify all将通知处于等待状态的所有线程，现在所有被通知的线程和所有被阻塞的线程都有资格获得锁，其中只有一个线程将获得锁，所有其他线程(包括之前处于等待状态的线程)将处于阻塞状态。

有用的差异:

Use notify() if all your waiting threads are interchangeable (the order they wake up doesn't matter), or if you only ever have one waiting thread. A common example is a thread pool used to execute jobs from a queue--when a job is added, one of threads is notified to wake up, execute the next job and go back to sleep. Use notifyAll() for other cases where the waiting threads may have different purposes and should be able to run concurrently. An example is a maintenance operation on a shared resource, where multiple threads are waiting for the operation to complete before accessing the resource.