Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. Attention has also been referred to as the allocation of processing resources. Attention also has variations amongst cultures. Voluntary attention develops in specific cultural and institutional contexts through engagement in cultural activities with more competent community members.
Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Attention remains a major area of investigation within education, psychology and neuroscience. Areas of active investigation involve determining the source of the signals that generate attention, the effects of these signals on the tuning properties of sensory neurons, and the relationship between attention and other cognitive processes like working memory and vigilance. A relatively new body of research is investigating the phenomenon of traumatic brain injuries and their effects on attention.
Read more about Attention: Examples of The Exercise of Attention, Selective Attention, Bottom-Up Vs Top-Down, Overt and Covert Attention, Influence of Processing Load, Neural Correlates of Attention, Attention Modelling, Cultural Variation in Indigenous Communities
Famous quotes containing the word attention:
“If my sons are to become the kind of men our daughters would be pleased to live among, attention to domestic details is critical. The hostilities that arise over housework...are crushing the daughters of my generation....Change takes time, but men’s continued obliviousness to home responsibilities is causing women everywhere to expire of trivialities.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Think of all the really successful men and women you know. Do you know a single one who didn’t learn very young the trick of calling attention to himself in the right quarters?”
—Storm Jameson (1891–1986)
““It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital.... I would call your attention to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)