132. ATTENTION — PART B

TTS CUES #120 introduced the importance of attention. In this post, we add thoughts about attention from the following additional sources.

From Psychology Today: “Attention could be described as a spotlight that focuses an individual’s awareness on a particular facet of their environment, or on the thoughts in their head. The ability to pay attention to important things — and to ignore the rest — likely helped early humans survive and evolve. Now, it’s a skill that can help children and adults alike succeed in school, at work, and in their relationships.”

“Humans can be distracted both by internal forces, like wandering thoughts, and external cues, like the inviting ping of a text message. … But some researchers who study attention view it as sort of ‘muscle’ that can be strengthened with practice, and have hypothesized that certain strategies or techniques may be effective at building attention capacity over the long-term.”

From the online resource Verywell Mind by Kendra Cherry: “According to eminent psychologist and philosopher William James, attention ‘is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. … It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.’

“Think of attention as a highlighter. As you read through a section of text in a book, the highlighted section stands out, causing you to focus your interest in that area. But attention is not just about centering your focus on one particular thing; it also involves ignoring a great deal of competing for information and stimuli.”

“Not only does our attentional system allow us to focus on something specific in our environment while tuning out irrelevant details, but it also affects our perception of the stimuli surrounding us. In some cases, our attention might be focused on a particular thing, causing us to ignore other things. In some instances, focusing our attention on a primary target might result in not perceiving the second target at all.”

Q: How well does your use of attention serve you?