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Attention has an essential role in human functioning. For example, without attention, we would not form memories, do well in school, work or finish tasks. According to some psychologists, we have a limited capacity to attend to things. We mean by this that, when processing information or addressing various stimuli, there is a set amount of time we can be consciously aware of and attend to it before our minds naturally begin to drift and focus on other topics.
When paying attention to one thing, we will neglect other stimuli instead of focusing on it. Perception and attention in cognitive psychology are of great importance. Let us explore the definition of attention, different types of it as well as existing theories of attention in psychology.
Attention is a cognitive process involving people being able to focus or concentrate on one thing while ignoring other stimuli.
Attention means our cognitive processes/resources are focused on a certain stimulus in the environment, and we are actively ready to respond to it. Psychology research attempts to identify and explain brain parts and processes that are responsible for attention, in addition to understanding what factors affect attention.
Attention, Flaticon
Psychologists have found people pay different kinds of attention. The different types of attention are:
The type of attention that is available depends on certain factors. The factors affecting attention in psychology are whether there are distraction factors such as background noise. Depending on the context of these distractions and the stimuli we pay attention to, our ability to pay attention may vary. If something is particularly important to you (e.g., if you have a strong memory of it or a personal interest in it), you may be more inclined to pay attention to it, and your ability to pay attention may be affected.
Factors affecting attention in psychology, Flaticon
This is also true if you have little or no interest in or personal connection to the topic. In this case, you may have to make more effort to pay attention to a topic (voluntary attention), especially if the stimulus requires active involvement, as in reading.
Other forms of attention retention may be more involuntary. Thus, if something is particularly eye-catching or stressful (e.g., if you are in a dangerous situation), your attention may be drawn there. So we see that there are different forms of attention (effortless, involuntary, focused, spatial, etc.).
The characteristics of attention, according to psychological research, are:
A characteristic of sustained attention is intense concentration. On the other hand, selective attention is characterised by the ability to fixate on something while ignoring the 'background noise’.
The main theories contributing to our knowledge of attention in psychology are auditory attention and visual inattention. Auditory attention was researched and theorised by Cherry and Morray in 1959. Visual inattention theory was explored by Simon and Chabris (1999).
Cherry (1959) studied selective attention using dichotic shadowing research techniques. Cherry proposed the 'cocktail party effect' to explain how selective attention can change.This theory explains an example of auditory attention in the context of a party. When someone is in the middle of a conversation with their friends, they pay attention to that conversation. However, if they suddenly hear their name called from the opposite side of the room. The person's attention will be focused on the person who called their name and not on the conversation.
Selective auditory attention is the ability to focus on an audio stimulus that is of interest to the person while ignoring others.
Moray (1959) conducted three experiments to confirm Cherry's findings. He attempted to do this using empirical methods. His research also produced evidence of how the cocktail party effect works.
For example, Morray found that participants heard the 'rejected' message better when they heard affective versus non-affective cues. This finding suggests that people can shift their attention. This can happen even when they are fixated on a stimulus because they have heard something related to them.
Simon and Chabris (1999) investigated this by examining inattentional blindness. The inattentional blindness definition is not noticing a stimulus that is evidently there. The reason for this is that the person is concentrating on something else.
Visual inattention, like auditory attention, is when a person fails to see something that is physically present.
In the study, participants were made to fixate on a task. To ensure they focused only on the intended stimuli, participants were told to be tested after the video. The study's goal was to see if participants perceived an unexpected event. The unexpected event was a woman holding an umbrella or a woman in a gorilla costume.
The study found that people were more likely to notice things:
Similar to Cherry and Moray's findings, inattention can be overcome when the stimuli they are not attending to is something related to the person.
Attention is a cognitive process involving people being able to focus or concentrate on one thing while ignoring other stimuli. Our cognitive processes/resources are focused on a certain stimulus in the environment, and we are actively ready to respond to it.
Examples of types of attention are:
Characteristics of attention in psychology are:
There are five main types of attention in psychology.
The theories of attention in psychology are:
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