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The word attention refers to the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one thing while deliberately ignoring other things. Examples include listening carefully to what someone is saying while ignoring other conversation in the room. Attention can also be split, such as driving, putting on makup, and talking on the cell phone at the same time.

Attention is one of the most intensely studied subjects within psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Of the many cognitive processes associated with the human mind ( decision-making, memory, emotion, etc) attention is considered the most concrete because it is tied so closely to perception. As such it is a gateway to the rest of cognition.

The most famous definition of attention was provided by one of the first major psychologists, William James:

"Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought...It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others." ( Principles of Psychology, 1890)

1 History of the study of attention

1850s to 1920s

In James' time, the only method available to study attention was introspection. Very little progress was made in adding rigor to the field. For example, one major debate in this period was whether it was possible to attend to two things at once ( split attention ). Some thinkers felt that they were unable to do so, and other thinkers felt that they could. Without experiments, it was impossible to settle the debate.

1920s to 1950s

From the 1920s to the 1950s, the field of attention was relatively inactive. BehaviorismSocial philosophy Behaviorism (or behaviourism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. Within that broad approach, there are different emphases. Some behaviorists argue simply t, the then-dominant paradigm was strongly opposed to anything cognitive (in part as a reaction to the endless debates of the introspectivists), and there were still no tools for quantitative measurements.

1950s to present

In the 1950s, the cognitive revolution began, and psychologists renewed their interest in attention. CherryA cherry is both a tree and its fleshy fruit, a type known as a drupe with a single hard pit enclosing the seed. The cherry belongs to the Family Rosaceae, Genus Prunus (along with almonds, peaches, plums, and apricots). Sweet and tart cherries are differ and Broadbent , among others, performed experiments on dichotic listeningDichotic Listening is a procedure used commonly in investigating selective attention in the auditory domain. Two messages are presented to both the left and right ears (1 message to each ear), normally using a set of headphones. Normally participants are. In a typical experiment, subjects would listen to two streams of words in different ears of a set of headphonesHeadphones (also known as earphone, stereophone, headset) is a transducer that receives an electrical signal from a media player or receiver and uses speakers placed in close proximity to the ears (hence the name earphone) to convert the signal into audib, and selectively attend to one stream. After the task, the experimenter would ask the subject questions about the content of the unattended stream.

During this period, the major debate was between early-selection model s and late-selection model s. In the early selection models, attention shuts down processing in the unattended ear before the mind can analyze its semantic content. In the late selection models, the content in both ears is analyzed semantically, but the words in the unattended ear are prevented from accessing consciousness. This debate has still not been resolved.

In the 1960s, Anne Triesman developed the highly influential Feature Integration Theory . According to this model, attention is responsible for binding different features into consciously experienced wholes. Although this model has received much criticism, it is still widely accepted.

In the 1960s, Robert Wurtz at the NIH began recording eletrical signals from the brains of macaquesee text The macaques form the genus Macaca of Old World monkeys. Aside from humans (genus Homo , the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from northern Africa to Japan. Nineteen macaque species are currently recognised, and they includ monkeyFor the TV show Monkey see Monkey (TV series Cynomolgus Monkey at Batu Caves, Malaysia A monkey is any member of two of the three groupings of simian primates. These two groupings are the New World and Old World monkeys. Because of their similarity to mons who were trained to perform attentional tasks. These experiments showed for the first time that there was a direct neural correlate of a mental process (namely, enhanced firing in the superior colliculus).

In the 1990s, neuroscientists began using fMRI to image the brain in attentive tasks. The results of these experiments have shown a broad agreement with the psychophysical and monkey literature.