DEFINITION OF ATTENTION

 DEFINITION OF ATTENTION

attention, in psychology, the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli.

Attention is awareness of the here and now in a focal and perceptive way. For early psychologists, such as Edward Bradford Titchener, attention determined the content of consciousness and influenced the quality of conscious experience. In subsequent years less emphasis was placed on the subjective element of consciousness and more on the behaviour patterns by which attention could be recognized in others. Although human experience is determined by the way people direct their attention, it is evident that they do not have complete control

Selective attention described by Duncan in Cognitive Psychology, "that we are constantly making choices regarding the stimuli to which we will pay attention and the stimuli that we will ignore. By ignoring or at least deemphasizing some stimuli, we thereby highlight particularly salient stimuli. The concentrated focus of attention on particular informational stimuli enhances our ability to manipulate those stimuli for other cognitive processes, such as verbal comprehension or problem solving".

Vigilance, as defined by Sternberg, refers to 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. Duncan explains that on many occasions, we vigilantly try to detect whether we did or did not sense a signal, a particular target of interest. Duncan continues to describe that through vigilant attention to detecting signals, we are primed to take speedy action when we do detect target stimuli.

FUNCTION OF ATTENTION

Attention has four functions, divided attention, vigilance and signal detection, search and selective attention. Selective attention and vigilance will be addressed as well as an exploration of how Guided Search Theory is supported by search and selective attention (Sternberg, 2003). Comparisons to research conducted by Shui-Shih and George Sperling and there use of guided search ties complementary functions together, in cognitive, attentional processing.

PROSEDURE RULES OF ATTENTION

The followings are some expressions we can use to show our attention. Some have been mentioned in activity 2.  Listen to your teacher, then repeat!

-          Are you serious?         -  So?                           -  Yes, of course

-          Really?                                    -  How come?              -  Oh, I see

-          Does it?                       -  Mm..                                    -  Tell me more about it

-          What?                          -  You are right                        -  Wow, (it sounds good)

-          And then?                    -  That’s true               -  etc.              

ASPECTS OF ATTENTION

Selective attention

Is an individual able to attend to more than one thing at a time? There is little dispute that human beings and other animals selectively attend to some of the information available to them at the expense of the remainder. One reason advanced for this is the limited capacity of the brain, which cannot process all available information simultaneously, yet everyday experience shows that people are able to do several things at the same time. When driving an automobile, they can apparently watch the road, turn the steering wheel, change gears, and apply

    EXAMPLES OF ATTENTION

1. We focused our attention on this particular poem.
2. My attention wasn't really on the game.
3. You need to pay more attention in school.
4. She likes all the attention she is getting from the media.
5. The actor avoids drawing attention to himself.
6. The book has received national attention.
7. The trial is getting a lot of public attention.
8. The children were competing for the teacher's attention.
9. A cat on a leash is sure to attract attention.
10. I would like to call your attention to a problem we are having.