Attention

Different theories of attention

1. Attention Dr. Sushma Rathee Assistant Clinical Psychologist , PGIMER, Chandigarh Email: [email protected] 1

2. What is Attention Attention is a cognitive/mental ability that allows you to take in a limited portion of the vast stream of information available from both your sensory world (environmental stimuli) and your memory (personal internal states). Meanwhile the unattended items lose out, and they are not processed in detail .

3. Types of attention

4. Cont ….. Divided Attention: you try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages , responding to each as needed. In most cases, your accuracy decreases, especially if the tasks are challenging. Selective/Focused Attention: It is closely related to divided attention. In a divided-attention task, people try to pay equal attention to two or more sources of information. In a selective attention task , people are instructed to respond selectively to certain kinds of information , while ignoring other information.

5. Cont …. 3. Sustained attention: It  is the ability to focus on an activity or stimulus over a long period of time.. It is what makes it possible to concentrate on an activity for as long as it takes to finish , even if there are other distracting stimuli present . 4. Alertness attention: It  is the state of active attention by high sensory awareness such as being watchful and prompt to meet danger or emergency, or being quick to perceive and act.

6. Three basic categories of selective attention ( 1) Dichotic listening : Have you ever held a phone to one ear, while your other ear registers a message from a nearby radio? ( 2) Stroop effect : I nstructed to follow the message presented to one ear and ignore the message presented to the other ear. ( 3) visual search : You’ve probably conducted several visual searches within the last hour , perhaps a notebook, a sweater, or a yellow marking pen.

7. Theories of Attention: Bottleneck theories proposed a similar narrow passageway in human information processing . In other words, this bottleneck limits the quantity of information to which we can pay attention . Feature-Integration Theory : Anne Treisman has developed an elaborate theory of attention and perceptual processing. Her original theory, proposed in 1980, was elegantly simple. Early selection theory.

8. Cont …

9. What are the determining factors of attention? 1) External factors (external determiners) : come from surroundings and make concentration on relevant stimuli easier or more difficult. Some examples are: Intensity : the more intense a stimulus is (strength of stimulus) the more likely you are to give attention resources to it . Size : the bigger a stimulus is the more attention resources it captures . Movement : moving stimuli capture more attention that ones that remain static . Novelty : newer or strange stimuli attract more of our attention.

10. Cont … 5. Change : if a different stimulus appears that breaks the dynamic, our attention will be directed to the new stimulus . 6. Colour : colourful stimuli are more attention grabbing than black and white ones . 7. Contrast : stimuli that contrast against a group attract more of our attention . 8. Emotional burden : positive just as much as negative stimuli attract our attention more than neutral ones.

11. 2) Internal factors (internal determiners):  come from the individual and therefore, depend on each person. Some examples are: Interests : we concentrate more on stimuli that interests us . Emotion : stimuli that provoke stronger emotions attract more attention. However, it must be kept in mind that positive moods contribute to focusing attention resources, but negative moods make concentration more difficult . Effort required by the task:  people make a prior evaluation of the effort required to do a task and depending on this, it will attract more or less attention.

12. Cont …. 5. Organic state:  depends on the physical state that the person is in. So, states of tiredness, discomfort, fever, etc. will make mobilising attention more difficult. If, on the other hand, a person is in a state relating to survival, for example, thirst or hunger, stimuli related with the satiation of these needs will attract more attention resources . 6. Trains of thought:  when thoughts follow a determined course, based on concrete ideas, the appearance of stimuli related to these will capture more of our attention.

13. Thank You