Cognitive Theories Of Selective Attention Essay

Selective attention is the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. (Myers, 2016, p.82) In round 3, of competitive cheerleading, we have to focus on many things while competing. While we are in a stunt, we have to look at the other cheerleaders around us and yell the words. Bases and backspots have to look the the flier, and make sure she is stable in the stunt they are in. We also have to make sure she does not hit the mat when the flier come out of a stunt. Back stops are required to look at the flier the whole time she is in the air. Bases are able to look switch their attention from the flier to the crowd. When we are moving to different positions, we have to watch the other girls moving around us so we do not collide.

Being able to pay attention is something that some people take for granted without appreciating it. Bereft of this luxury, we wouldn’t be able to properly communicate with others, focus on our goals, and most importantly, live as who we are

Attention is thought to be selective-focused on one subject at a time. Traditionally, it has been assumed that automatic processing is involuntary, it does not require attention, and is relatively fast; whereas, controlled processing is voluntary, does require attention, and is relatively slow. We can conclude from this that the more we repeat a certain material or tasks the more it becomes automatic and effortless to us.

In the novel The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, a deeper way of how the mind works is shown. The authors explain what they call the “illusion of attention” by providing experiments and illustrations. The message being passed is that we as humans might think we are always aware of our surroundings, but we actually miss what is right in front of us. People usually focus on one thing at a time, therefore the unexpected goes unnoticed. The book explains how the brain only focuses on the object or area you are concentrating on, making you “blind” to everything else. Many experiments were held to prove to the readers that our intuition deceives us.

These tasks require mind-off-the-road. Researcher Green found out that the tasks which are not visually demanding like day dreaming or listening to a long speech in phone could increase the probability of crashes. Two different conditions and a control condition were compared with 24 participants actively participating in it [5].

Attention is defined as “the action of dealing with or taking special care of someone or something.” (Unknown). I define attention as the action of carefully observing, analyzing and interpreting a given act by someone or something. Attention is something that all children need especially from their parents. Parents need to give attention to their children to know what is going on with them, in order not to lose sight of who they are becoming.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a short-term, problem-centered therapy that is used to address psychopathology within the individual (Beck, 1995). This model of therapy is used to address issues of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, relational problems, and drug abuse, and can be utilized when working with individuals, as well as within group and family modalities. The core aspects of this therapy include collaboration and participation by the client, a strong alliance between therapist and client, and an initial focus on current problems and functioning (Beck, 1995). The theory of CBT emphasizes the relationship between the individual’s thoughts feelings and behaviors, which is seen as being the underlying cause of

Cognitive psychology is the study of higher mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking. Attention is the state of focused awareness on a subset of the available perceptual information. Language is what people say, sign, and write, as well as the processes they go through to produce these messages. Memory is the mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information. Perception is the process that organize information in the sensory image and interpret it has been produced by properties of objects or events in the external, three-dimensional world. Problem solving is thinking that is directed toward solving specific problems and that moves from an initial state to a goal state by means

Attention is a cognitive phenomenon that describes an individual’s ability to focus their awareness on salient external stimuli (Rensink et al., 1997). Automatic attentional capture, i.e.

According to Kellogg, attention is being able to select certain aspects of an environment or certain thoughts. However, multitasking attention can become difficult to achieve because attention can either be selective or limited. A selective attention means that an individual can only focus on one stimuli, therefore, having to ignore surrounding stimuli. On the other hand, limited attention defines the maximum capacity an individual can retain information. Therefore, because attention is selective and limited, when dividing attention into two tasks it can lead to negative consequences (Kellogg, 2016). A real world example of an individual performing a task that requires divided attention is texting and driving at the same time. Therefore, due to restrictions on attention, which are selective and limited, cause sending a text message impair an individual’s driving performance. As a result, driving distractions are due to the effects of dividing attention into two actions which are composing a text message and maintaining the car in the designated lane.

I have been affected by the concept of concentration a great deal more than others, starting from the early age of 8 when I was diagnosed with ADHD. At such a young age, I did not know what to think of it, especially when my doctor said that I had a ‘disorder’ I expected that I was going to die. I was prescribed medication to help defeat some of the symptoms that came along with ADHD; nonetheless the one thing I noticed was that I was able to concentrate for once in my life. With this newfound concentration I had developed over the medicine, my grades rose, my athletics approved and in general my life

We often tend to live our everyday lives without paying much attention to the factors that contribute to our every movement and function. Have you ever wondered what triggers your brain to complete simple tasks, such as reading road signs, or knowing how to follow a guided set of instructions? John Ridley Stroop became specifically interested in the part of the brain that measures selective attention [1]. Oftentimes, in order to maintain balance, the brain will carry out the action that is most common and easy and will stop the action that will take more work and effort. The process explained in the previous sentence is known as inhibition, and it regularly occurs in our minds [2]. Stroop gave participants a list of colors, such as green,

Early studies have widely researched attention with selective processing (Driver, 2001). Broadbent (1958) filter theory of attention states that certain information does not require focal attention. It is based on certain stimulus attributes such as colour and shape (Friedenberg, 2012). A previous study carried out by Treisman and Schmidt (1982) proposes that when attention is diverted from a display of several figures, the participants incorrectly combine the features of colour and shape therefore increases the illusory conjunctions portrayed by the participants (Tsal, 1989). Another study by Shaw (1978) found that reaction time of participant to identify targets varied with the probability that a target would appear in a particular display location. These results indicate that different amounts of attention towards the targets are distributed to different positions in the visual field. However, Houck and Hoffman (1986) found that the feature integration of colour and orientation can sometimes be accomplished without attention (James et al.,

Attention was described by William James (1890, cited in Eysenck & Keane, 2000, p130) as

Research carried out on attention has mainly been associated with the selective processing of incoming sensory information. It proposes, to some degree, our awareness of the world depends on what we choose to focus on and not simply the stimulation received by our senses. Attention is often linked to a filter that screens out most potential stimuli whilst allowing a select few to pass through into our conscious awareness, however, a great deal of debate has been devoted to where the filter is situated in the information processing chain (Martindale, 1991). Psychologists have made extensive contributions to this subject matter in the past century. Notable examples include Donald Broadbent's filter theory of attention (1958), which set the