In psychology and psychophysiology there were many attempts to give a comprehensive definition of attention. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, medical definition of attention is ‘the act or state of attending: the application of the mind to any object of sense or thought; an organismic condition of selective awareness or perceptual receptivity; specifically: the complex of neuromuscular adjustments that permit maximum excitability or responsiveness to a given class of stimuli; the process of focusing consciousness to produce greater vividness and clarity of certain of its contents relative to others (Merriam-webster.com) while as stated in ‘On the neural basis of focused and divided attention’ (2005, p. 760), it ‘is not a unitary but a multidimensional concept with interacting subcomponents. Within this concept there is the aspect of selectivity that comprises two subcomponents, focused or selective attention, and divided attention.
Focused attention describes the ability to attend only to relevant stimuli and to ignore distracting ones [p. 760]. For example, a person can intently write, listen to something, read, or do some work. In all these cases, their attention focuses on only one of this type of activity and does not include others: when we read something, we do not notice what is happening around us and often do not even hear the question delivered to us. Focused attention is characterized by a high degree of intensity, making it a prerequisite for a successful implementation of certain important human activities: we demand focused attention from students in the classroom, from an athlete at their starting line as well as from a doctor during the surgery, etc., because only under concentrated attention, these activities can be carried out successfully.
The skill to distribute the limited mental resources to different sources of information is denoted as divided attention [p.760]. Distributed attention is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of many complex activities, which by their very structure require the simultaneous participation of diverse functions or operations: for example, when students listen and write the lecture, when the teacher explains lesson and monitors the behavior of students at the same time, when a driver carefully monitors all the obstacles in their way while driving the car, etc. In all these cases, the successful implementation of activities depends on a person's ability to direct the attention simultaneously on several different objects or actions.
A large number of experiments devoted to the study of attention, has given a rise to a variety of models that explain this phenomenon, and as a result two approaches of the study were formed: 1) attention as the selection; 2) attention as mental effort and resources.
The first approach comprises the studies of such researchers as C. Cherry (1953), who is the author of a ‘cocktail party phenomenon’, filter theory by D.E. Broadbent (1958), A.M. Treisman and her selective model of attention (1964), the study of D. and J. Deutsch (1963), with D. Kahneman, who is the representative of the second approach (1973).
Information approach to the attention was largely associated with studies of auditory and later with visual signals. Methods of C. Cherry is a technique of selective hearing. An examinee is given 2 messages, one of which they must keep track of and the other must be ignored. These studies made it possible to develop an experimental procedure, known as 'shadowing'.
While carrying out this procedure, the examinee was asked to repeat the message exactly as it was presented. This technique is called 'cocktail party phenomenon'. However, C. Cherry’s experiments had another feature: two messages were presented simultaneously - one of them should be "shadowed" and the other - ignored. Sometimes these messages were presented through headphones, sometimes through the speakers located in different places.
The path of the message, which is selected for further processing, Cherry called "the relevant channel" and the path of the message, which should be ignored - "irrelevant channel."
As a result, he discovered that it was hard to remember the message that was not paid attention to. The ability to focus on a single message is important for a human, as it allows to process a limited amount of information and not to overload the processing mechanism.
Since there is no reason to believe that at the sensorial level one of the messages did not reach the auditory cortex of the brain, an explanation of selective attention must be sought in the paradigm of information processing, which may explain how the messages are controlled by attention and how the uncontrolled messages processing can be explained (Cherry, 1953).
Cherry’s results were the basis for the attention models of early selection – the selection of relevant messages and irrelevant messages cut off in the early stages of information processing.
In 1958 the ‘Perception and Communication’ was published, where Donald Broadbent compared the functioning of attention with the work of mechanical filter that selects the information and protects the information channel from overload. If a person is simultaneously doing two things, the filter is supposed to switch from one sensory channel to another and to skip as much information as can skip this channel. Broadbent managed to explain the filtering of information, but could not explain how the information, that does not attract any attention, still perceived.
A. Treisman (1964) complements D. Broadbent’s theory, considering that between the sensor register and the filter with limited bandwidth there is an attenuation device, where the signal attenuation and semantic analysis (analysis of the language, especially words) take place.
F. and D. Deutsch (1963) found a simple assumption, considering that all the stimuli are processed in the working memory, the active repository of information, that points to the fact that the selection occurs later at the stage of processing. The possibilities of working memory are limited, and it turns out that only part of the information is stored there. Then the importance of this information is evaluated, and the working memory is responsible for this.
As an alternative to the selection models the model of U. Neisser (1981) was proposed. The attention in these models is understood as the active anticipation of the perception results, leading to the synthesis of sensory data based on internal circuits. Neisser separates all cognitive processes at two levels: coarse, fast parallel processes of preattentive processing and detailed, slow sequential processes of focal attention. He emphasizes the cyclical and unfolding in time character of cognitive activity. In his opinion, it is meaningless to locate the funnel towards the stimulus, or closer to the answer, as the perception is active and incentives are inextricably linked with the answers. Selectivity is one of the aspects of perception, provided by the necessary information anticipation and continuous tuning of perceptual schema.
Having developed the technique of selective looking together with his colleagues, Neisser showed that attention is not so much connected with signs filtration but with a cyclical organization activity, in particular action tracking. An experiment was conducted where the subjects were showed two films. In both stories the three players moved around the room and threw the ball to each other. In an experimental situation, both records were completely identical: the players appeared to be dressed in the same clothes, being in the same room, and playing with the same ball; in other situations the players had T-shirts of a different color. One video started earlier, and the subjects had to keep track of it by pressing the key whenever the ball in this game was passed from one player to another. The problem solution indicator was 0.67 for the terms of full identity and 0.87 for the terms of different T-shirts. When only one game was showed, the indicator was 0.96. In a further series in the moment when the subject was tracking one of two superposed videos, a girl with an opened umbrella suddenly appeared on the same screen and passed among the players in the same room. Naive subjects (with no experience in attention distribution) did not respond to her appearance (Neisser, 1981).
D. Kahneman (1973) pointed out the importance of the processes that occur during the implementation of the task. A person can perform several tasks at the same time, but working conditions must be perfect, and if one of the tasks will require high concentration of attention, then the rest of the tasks will be carried out not so well.
Kahneman made the assumption that there is a resource allocator that controls the allocation process of our capabilities. At certain stages the attentional resources are used to process stimuli. These resources vary, reaching their peak in the moments of greatest excitement. Much depends on the incoming stimuli, and sustainable predisposition (switching attention to loud noises, bright flashes, your name ) and short-term goal (situational disposition) affect the control of resources (Kahneman, 1973).
According to D. Kahneman (1973), attention and effort is the entrance to the central structures of information processing that comprise these structures and / or support them effectively. His understanding of the basic properties of attention the author formulates in the following conclusions:
“1. Attention is limited, but this limitation may differ each time. Physiological parameters of the activation are a measure correlating with the current limit;
2. The amount of attention and effort used at any instant of time depends mainly on the requirements of current activities. With the growth of requirements the contribution of attention is increased, but for the full compensation for the effects of increasing complexity it is usually not enough;
3. Attention can be distributed. Distribution of attention is the matter of its extent. At high levels of stress attention is becoming more unidirectional;
4. The attention is selected. It can be distributed to maintain processing of selected perceptual units or the implementation of selected activity units. Distribution policy reflects continued disposition and current intentions” (Kahneman, 1973, p. 201).
The model of D. Kahneman introduced new ideas about attention and its mechanisms. The attention began to be regarded as a universal resources of information processing that are over the scope of this processing. The model describes a very flexible resource of allocation mechanism, it main units and communications. The model also makes it possible to discuss the facts and phenomena of involuntary attention. Especially important and compelling is the development of perceptions about the connection of mental effort with general activation and, therefore, the attention with emotions and human motivation. In addition, these views largely clarify contradictory picture of psychophysiological indicators of attention, and therefore offer the possibility of creating new, objective and reliable study methods of its properties.
The important reason for the rapid success and widespread acceptance of this approach is its compliance with the everyday notions of attention and practice needs. It is also necessary to take into account the time of publishing of the work of D. Kahneman, coinciding with the crisis period in the psychology of attention.
A holistic view of the attention, its functions and mechanisms broke up and dissolved. After the enthusiasm of the 60s came discouragement and frustration. Moray, Fitter, (1973) emphasize the central position of attention in cognitive psychology studies, but the overall picture of the results is chaotic and contradictory. The authors do not doubt that the key to a reasonable explanation of this pattern will still be found. Some psychologists have found this key in the work of D. Kahneman. Behind diverse manifestations of the limited information processing, they again saw a single cause that is not in any particular part of the system now, but in the reservoir of mental effort used by all its components. The basic postulates of the attention models as a mental effort and common understanding of the limited resources of information processing are the subject of intense debate until now. The further development of the ideas of D. Kahneman was carried out both on the material of the empirical research and the lines of their theoretical development and inclusion in a broader context.
After mentioning all of these models and the results of the studies, we can conclude that the processing capabilities of the results are limited, but all the information from the different stimuli seeps into our consciousness. So, firstly, attention can be divided, and secondly, there are tasks the implementation of which requires almost no attention, since there is an automatic data processing.
Automatism of attention is achieved by constant practice, and the better a person knows the work performed, the better they will perform it, without hesitation and without giving it special attention, i.e. less cognitive resources will be used.
References:
Attention. (n.d.). In Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attention
Broadbent, D. (1958). Perception and Communication. London: Pergamon Press.
Cherry, C. (1953). "Some experiments on the recognition of speech, with one and with two ears.". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 25, 975-979.
Deutsch, J. & Deutsch, D. (1963). Attention: Some theoretical considerations. Psychological Review, 70, 80-90.
Kahneman, D. (1973). Attention and Effort. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Moray, N. and N. Fitter, 1973, ‘A theory and the measurement of attention: tutorial review’. In: S. Kornblum (ed.), Attention and performance IV. New York: Academic Press.
Nebel, Katharina; Wiese, Holger; Stude, Philipp; de Greiff, Armin; Diener, Hans-Christoph; Keidel, Matthias. On the neural basis of focused and divided attention. Cognitive Brain Research, Vol 25(3), Dec 2005, 760-776.
Neisser U. John Dean’s memory: a case study. Cognition 1981, 9:102–115.
Treisman A.M. (1964). Selective Attention in Man // British Medical Bulletin. № 20, pp. 12–16.
