Understanding Some Basic Components of Attention

Let’s pretend I am dangling my car keys in front of you and then a few seconds later I put them in my pocket. For most people with intact sensory perception, the object is either perceived to be within view or it is not there. If there is confusion about this, an eye exam is probably in order.

Attention is very different from the act of seeing. We are quite aware that our eyes are open, however, attention is not always volitional and we are usually unaware of when it is occurring and when it is lapsing. Attention does, however, have a voluntary and involuntary or more reflexive component.

British Academy Global Professors Francesca Borgonovi and Maria Vedechkina, who study “digital technologies in education,'' have written about these two processes. “The Voluntary process is a reflection of goals, expectancy and past knowledge. The Involuntary process is automatic, reactive and reflects sensory stimulation” (Vedechkina & Borgonovi, 2021). Both of these processes are used as our senses quickly react to the sound of the keys chiming together as they hit each other and our eyes gaze upon the shiny objects. We also recognize the expected shape of a key because we have seen one before; we have come to accept that many people drive a vehicle, have keys in their possession, and that keys are commonly stored in our pockets. We run into issues when we try to track our own attention because it cannot be accurately quantified on request and it is affected by almost everything in our external and internal worlds.

The concept of attention itself can also be characterized into multiple subtypes such as sustained attention, selective attention, alternating attention, and divided attention (Zanto & Gazzaley, 2014). Sustained attention is when we focus on a subject and maintain vigilance for an extended period of time. Selective attention is when we try to focus on one activity in the midst of other things happening in the background. Alternating attention is when we alternate back and forth between tasks, and divided attention is when we try to complete two or more tasks simultaneously.

If we were to go through the DSM-5, we would observe that a vast amount of clinical presentations for many psychiatric diagnoses can result in a disruption, to varying degrees, of each of the subtypes of attention. All of the mood disorders (including anxiety/bipolar disorder/depression), psychotic disorders, eating disorders like bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa, and sleep-wake disorders can have clinical presentations of inattention. This is critical to understand because inattention, in this light, may be a symptom of a much larger issue.

I have outlined some of the possible reasons that attention has become a focal point of discussion in psychiatry in various other posts I have written. To summarize, modern-day schools (and jobs) have become more competitive and there appears to be a higher value placed on productivity and final grades. Smartphones and tablets have been integrated into our lives while we still struggle to figure out how it is affecting our psyche. Our ability to tolerate a small chunk of time where we are not trying to distract ourselves or be “productive” is limited. We do not allow ourselves to reach a state of “flow” because we are constantly disrupted by an external stimulus sitting on the table next to us. For some cultures, it has actually become unacceptable to be distracted and these behaviors are often shunned or punished, further prompting the mind to fear the “default mode network,” which may arise when an individual is “bored," “distracted,” or “daydreaming."

When the brain is not actively engaged in a goal-oriented activity, it is said to switch to the “default mode network.” This network consists of many regions of the brain that are “most active in passive control tasks where the experimenter's demands required are minimized” (Buckner, 2013). Passive tasks do not require attention and the individual is not responding to cues or interacting with the external world. The mind, essentially, wanders. The structures that make up the default network are connected anatomically to a circuit that allows access to mnemonic information allowing people “to construct models of personally significant events” or think about the future (Buckner, 2013).

Many have expounded on this concept to suggest that the mind creates a way to understand past experiences and make sense of the world. It could possibly be a network that enables spontaneous thinking and assists the executive control network in fostering creative thought processes. The executive control network is responsible for things such as working memory, task-set-switching, response inhibition, and many other attention-laden functions that are required in order to complete cognitive tasks (Beaty et al., 2015). This is the part of the brain that is alluded to in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as those affected by this disorder are thought to have decreased connectivity in this area (Tao et al., 2017).

I am baffled at requests by acquaintances I know to “fix” their issues with attention. First, attention is not a leaky pipe or a binary circuit; you cannot just tape it up or switch the circuit on or off. Second, to even begin discussing this subject, it would require an extensive history of this person, including collateral information and possibly an ongoing professional relationship. Finally, in the end, the assessment is subjective and the quality of impairment is often based on “noise” (Daniel Kahnemann, Author of Noise, defines “noise” as “an unwanted variability in judgments that should be identical” [Kahneman et al., 2021]). Variability in the processes used to assess attention can be a product of the culture that surrounds you and demographic information that creates bias in treating physicians.

Having read this, I’m sure you had to stop and re-read a sentence or two, probably, in part, due to poor grammatical choices, but also due to the fact that you are a human. Our brains have only recently had to compute this much information in one day and every new day brings more data to process. I am hopeful that we will reach a point where we can become more accepting of our limitations in ourselves and others, while at the same time continuing to push the barriers in what a brain can accomplish.