Psychology Facts

▲ Attention ▲

》Attention, in psychology, the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli.
Attention is the important ability to flexibly control limited computational resources. It has been studied in conjunction with many other topics in neuroscience and psychology including awareness, vigilance, saliency, executive control, and learning.

》There are three types of attention:

Sustained attention

the ability to maintain attentional focus on relevant stimuli with repeated presentation over extended periods

Divided attention

simultaneous attention that allows us to process different information sources and successfully carry out multiple tasks at a time.

Selective attention

directing our awareness to relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli in the environment

》a Microsoft study that found that our attention span had dropped from twelve seconds in 2000 to eight in 2009. A fun fact for comparison: A goldfish goes nine.

》Many argue that our attention span is not decreasing, but the way we pay attention is. Some would say that because of the mobile age, our ability to multitask has improved.

》The study showed that Millennials generally shift their attention away, multitask and lose focus more often than Boomers and Gen-Xers. However, they also felt subjectively that they could concentrate and focus more effectively and for a longer time.

》11 million bits of information come through our sensory system every second, at maximum capacity we can only process 50 when performing conscious activities such as reading or playing the piano.

》You can capture attention via any change in stimulus, which is why novelty works so well. Experienced learning designers will often capture attention with something unexpected, innovative or surprising.

》When tasks are similar to each other it is more difficult to divide attention between them. For example, trying to listen to two streams of audio information—such as someone speaking to you while you listen to a podcast—makes it difficult to attend to.

》On the other hand, if one information stream is auditory and the other is presented visually, it is easier to attend to the second stream.