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 1960s, Robert Wurtz at the National Institutes of Health began recording electrical signals from the brains of macaque monkeys who were trained to perform attentional tasks. Although this model has received much criticism, it is still widely accepted or held up with modifications as in Jeremy Wolfe’s visual search paradigm. According to this model, attention is responsible for binding different features into consciously experienced wholes. In the 1960s, Anne Treisman began developing the highly influential Feature integration theory (first published under this in a paper with G. In the late selection models, the content in both ears is analyzed semantically, but the words in the unattended ear cannot access consciousness. In the early selection models, attention shuts down processing in the unattended ear before the mind can analyze its semantic content. After the task, the experimenter would ask the subjects questions about the content of the unattended stream.ĭuring this period, the major debate was between early-selection models and late-selection models. In a typical experiment, subjects would listen to two streams of words in different ears of a set of headphones, and selectively attend to one stream. The cognitive revolution admitted unobservable cognitive processes like attention as legitimate objects of scientific study.Ĭolin Cherry and Donald Broadbent, among others, performed experiments on dichotic listening. In the 1950s, research psychologists renewed their interest in attention when the dominant epistemology shifted from positivism to realism during what has come to be known as the “cognitive revolution” (Harré, 2002). Thus cognitive processes do not govern attention and attention is best viewed as a form of behavior that can be understood through purely objective experimental analysis. Behaviorism was rooted in positivism, an epistemology that rejects the study of, and the making of assumptions about, processes that that cannot be observed directly such as cognition, gravitational forces in Physics etc.
1900s to 1950sįrom the 1900s to the 1950s, the field of attention was relatively inactive as the dominant psychological paradigm at the time was behaviorism. This disagreement could only be resolved through experimentation. Walter Benjamin described this experience as “reception in a state of distraction.” Some thinkers felt that they were unable to do so, and other thinkers felt that they could. One major debate in this period was whether it was possible to attend to two things at once (split attention). However as early as in 1858 Franciscus Donders used mental chronometry to study attention and it was considered a major field of intellectual inquiry by such diverse authors as Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Max Nordau. In James’ time, the method more commonly used to to study attention was introspection. History of the study of attention 1850s to 1900s Attention is the aspect of consciousness that relates to the amount of effort exerted in focusing on certain aspects of an experience, so that they become relatively vivid”. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state.” (Principles of Psychology, 1890)ĭefinition by Titchner “Attention is a state of sensory clearness with a margin and a focus. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. One of the first major psychologists, William James, defined attention as follows: As such it is a gateway to the rest of cognition. 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. Sometimes attention shifts to matters unrelated to the external environment, a phenomenon referred to as mind-wandering or “spontaneous thought”.Īttention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It is a process of preferentially responding to a stimulus or a range of stimuli.Īttention can also be split, as when a person drives a car and talks on a cell phone at the same time. It is focusing the consciousness on a stimulus.
In other words attention is the first step in the observation. Examples include listening carefully to what someone is saying while ignoring other conversations in the room. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things.
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