Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of
selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether
considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable
information. It is a state of arousal. William James (1890) wrote that
"[Attention] 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." Attention has also been described as the allocation of limited
cognitive processing resources. Attention is manifested by an attentional
bottleneck, in term of the amount of data the brain can process each second;
for example, in human vision, only less than 1% of the visual input data (at
around one megabyte per second) can enter the bottleneck, leading to
inattentional blindness.
Attention remains a crucial area of investigation within
education, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and
neuropsychology. Areas of active investigation involve determining the source
of the sensory cues and signals that generate attention, the effects of these
sensory cues and signals on the tuning properties of sensory neurons, and the
relationship between attention and other behavioral and cognitive processes,
which may include working memory and psychological vigilance. A relatively new body
of research, which expands upon earlier research within psychopathology, is
investigating the diagnostic symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury
and its effects on attention. Attention also varies across cultures.
The relationships between attention and consciousness are
complex enough that they have warranted perennial philosophical exploration.
Such exploration is both ancient and continually relevant, as it can have
effects in fields ranging from mental health and the study of disorders of
consciousness to artificial intelligence and its domains of research.
