Android, setSelected() and state_selected

I'm having trouble with View.setSelected(). Views are flagged as selected -- TextViews, for example, change their font color -- but my background selectors don't seem to register the change.

Example selector:

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:drawable="@android:color/transparent" />

    <item android:state_selected="true">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid android:color="#ff8600" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</selector>

I'm not even sure which kind of context information would be useful. The views are children of a LinearLayout, and I'm programatically setting the selected state inside a touch event. As I said, it does seem to work, since the font color goes from white to gray, but the background stays the same.

Edit: I checked for silly mistakes before posting :P. The answer is not "add the android:background attribute".