Attention

• Attention


  The means by which we actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available through our senses, our stored memories, and our other cognitive processes

  
• Attention includes both conscious and unconscious processes
• Attention


  Allows us to use our limited mental resources judiciously by dimming the lights on many stimuli from outside (sensations) and inside (thoughts and memories), we can highlight the stimuli that interest us
• Nature of attention

  • Focusing of consciousness on a particular object
  • Constantly shifting/changeable
  • Selective
  • A mental process
  • A state of preparedness or alertness
  • Has narrow range/span

  
• Factors related to attention

  • External factors
  • Internal factors
• External factors

  • Size
  • Intensity
  • Repetition
  • Duration
  • Change
  • Novelty
• Size


  Unusual size attracts attention, very big size or very small size too draws our attention when compared with normal size
• Intensity


  Loud sounds, strong smells and deep colors are attractive in nature
• Movement


  Moving things draws our attention more than stationary one
• Contrast


  Anything that is different from its surrounding is contrast
• Repetition


  If a thing or person or event is repeated several times, then our attention drawn to it
• Duration


  Attention is drawn to a thing that lasts longer
• Change


  Change draws our attention easily
• Novelty


  Newness attracts quickly than traditional one
• Internal factors


  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Motives
  • Aim/Goal
  • Habit
  • Past Experience
• Interest


  We are interested in some things and not interested in other things, interesting things draws our attention soon
• Desire


  A person's desire becomes a cause of paying attention to a thing
• Motives


  Basic motives like hunger, thirst, safety, etc., play a vital role in drawing attention
• Aim/Goal


  The immediate aim or ultimate goal of a person affects what they pay attention to
• Habit


  The kind of habit we found in our life, our attention is drawn to such things
• Past Experience


  Our past experience affects what we pay attention to
• Types of attention


  • Vigilance
  • Search
  • Selective Attention
  • Divided Attention
  • Sustained Attention
• Vigilance


  A person's ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus of interest
• Search


  Scanning the environment for particular features—actively looking for something when you are not sure where it will appear
• Selective Attention


  The ability to focus on a particular salient stimuli by simultaneously inhibiting the focus towards unwanted stimuli

  
• Divided Attention


  Focusing attention on more than one stimuli at a time
• Sustained Attention


  The ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous amount of time without being distracted
• Importance of attention

  • Survival value of detecting and responding to threatful stimulus
  • One of the primary and most important psychological process
  • Provides the base for further higher order cognitive processes like perception, learning and memory
  • Helps in monitoring our interaction with the environment
  • Assists us in linking our past (memories) and our present (sensations) to give us a sense of continuity of experience
  • Helps us in controlling and planning for our future actions

  
• Broadbent Theory of Attention


  The information from multiple sensory organs are filtered at the sensory filter level even before it reaches perceptual processors, the filter permits only one channel of sensory information to proceed and reach the processes of perception

  
• Treisman's Theory of Attention


  Instead of blocking out sensory information in the sensory filter level, we tend to attenuates (weakens) the strength of irrelevant stimuli, if previously considered salient stimuli doesn't produce much meaning in the perception or if the attuned stimuli carries some very important piece of information, the attuned stimuli will be pass on to the perceptual level

  
• Deutsch's Theory of Attention


  Stimuli are filtered out only after they have been analyzed for both their physical properties and their meaning, this later filtering would allow people to recognize information entering the unattended ear
• Synthesized model


  Pre-attentive processes: Automatic processes that are rapid and occur in parallel, can be used to notice only physical sensory characteristics of the unattended message

  Attentive, Controlled processes: Occur later, executed serially and consume time and attentional resources, can be used to observe relationships among features and synthesize fragments into a mental representation of an object

  
• Inattention & Attention


  The field of attention is in the center of consciousness and that of inattention to the edge consciousness, the things on the edge of consciousness influence the mind to some extent, but our attention is not diverted to them

  
• Neuroscience of Attention

  • Alerting
  • Orienting
  • Executive Attention
• Alerting


  The process getting to this focused, alert state, norepinephrine is the neurotransmitter involved, brain mechanisms responsible are Right frontal and parietal cortex, malfunction may result in ADHD
• Orienting


  Selection of stimuli to attend to, superior parietal lobe and temporal parietal junction, frontal eye fields and superior colliculus is responsible, acetylcholine is the modulating neurotransmitter, dysfunction can be associated with autism
• Executive Attention


  Includes processes for monitoring and resolving conflicts that arise among internal processes, anterior cingulate, lateral, ventral, and prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia are responsible, neurotransmitter responsible is dopamine, dysfunction can be associated with Alzheimer's disease, BPD, schizophrenia
• Automatic and Controlled Processes in Attention

  • Automatic Processes: No conscious control

  Controlled Processes: Accessible to conscious control and require it

  
• Automization


  The fine tuning and efficiency of our everyday tasks, occurs due to gradually accumulating knowledge about specific responses to stimuli
• Consciousness and Attention


  Our consciousness processes information from the Preconscious stage as it moves along our cognitive processes, Preconscious information are areas in the brain we are not thinking about currently, but can be retrieved from our memories