Attention : A Key Cognitive Process
“Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others” William James, in his textbook Principles of Psychology.
Attention is one of the key cognitive processes; it’s like spectacles which determine what will be the content of our awareness. That for itself is a good reason to utilize it in the best way we can… Luckily, as many contemporary researches point out, attention can be successfully trained.
On the clinical-behavioral level attention has several faces:
Divided Attention - highest level of attention; it refers to the ability to respond simultaneously to multiple tasks or multiple task demands.
Selective Attention - the capacity to maintain a behavioral or cognitive set in the face of distracting or competing stimuli. Therefore it incorporates the notion of “freedom from distractibility”.
Sustained attention -This refers to the ability to maintain a consistent behavioral response during continuous and repetitive activity.
Orienting attention - the ability to respond to specific visual, auditory or tactile stimuli.
As you can see these skills may even seem conflicting: selective attention may look like the opposite of orienting attention! Yet - the neural network that supports these cognitive functions is distributed, allowing us to train each component of attention without interfering with the other attention skills. In order to do so the brain training should be very specific, that way it will refine the desired attention component without lessen other attention abilities.
