attention

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=__What Is Attention?__=

Attention has many definitions, and none of them are universally accepted due to attention theories being continually studied and updated constantly. Psychologist Robert L. Solso made one of the most widely accepted definitions: //“The concentration of mental effort on sensory or mental events.”// In order to realize the importance of attention, simply imagine humans without having any attention capabilities whatsoever – we would have no direction, and generally would be randomly wandering, unprioritized animals. Being able to focus our mental power on certain tasks, and even splitting it up on to multiple tasks, is an amazing skill that assists us in all our activities.

**//Selective attention://**
do we become aware of possible sensory inputs? This is demonstrated through the ability to talk to only one person in a crowd of talking people, and only “hear” (process to a deeper level) your conversation.

**//Divided attention//**:
how it is possible to direct our attention to a number of different sensory inputs. This can be demonstrated through any multitasking activity, such as driving a car and talking on a cell phone at the same time, or watching television and eating at the same time.

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**//Single Channel theories://**
Otherwise known as "bottleneck" theories, and originally developed by Broadbent. These models are based around the idea that sensory information is stored in our short term (working) memory and then filtered to sort out what we want to focus on - essentially the brain marking information with a discard or save flag. There are variations of this theory, most developed by co-workers of Broadbent such as Triesman, that argue that the unwanted information is not just discarded, but "turned down" or //attenuated//. This theory is debatable because it is hard to attribute the complexity of attention to a simple, single channel model.

//Capacity allocation theories://
This type of model is based on the idea that we have a limited amount of processing power, and we can do a task only if we have enough power to complete it. For example, if we have 10 points of processing power, it takes 8 to drive a car safely, and 3 to talk on a cell phone - one of those tasks will be compromised. We will either drive the car unsafely (and possibly get into an accident) or not pay attention to the phone conversation - or both. The "point-value" of tasks depends on factors such as the difficulty of the task, the physical effort of it, and how familiar we are with it. These models are debatable because they fail to explain just //how// we channel or direct attention. How do we decide what to pay attention to?

**//Automatic / Controlled theories://**
Primarily designed by Schneider and Shiffrin, who defined //automatic processing// (tasks that are easy to the user, make very little or no attention demands, difficult to change, and are unlimited by capacity limitations) and //controlled processing// (tasks that are difficult for the user, make heavy demands on attention, slow, limited capacity, and requiring conscious thought). This relates to capacity allocation models by stating that we only have a set amount of attention in regards to tasks requiring use of controlled processing (difficult tasks), however, we essentially can do as many automatic processing tasks as our physical limitations allow.

__Course Relevance__
Attention is one of the most important factors to take into c onsideration when designing a new interactive system. Any device that involves something safety related, either with physical danger or simply deleting a file, deals with attention because the device must somehow alert you to the danger. //Warning systems that demand attention.//

This dialogue box will pop up in the middle of your screen when you attempt to close a browser with more than one tab open in Firefox. This is a security feature to keep the user from accidentally losing work by forgetting they have more than one tab open. Alternatively, MSN messenger will not pop up in the middle of your screen (unless it is already there) but it will flash alternating colours along the taskbar to alert the user that there is a message waiting for them. This way, it will attract your attention without directly interrupting your work. Many devices that store and delete information (such as email programs, mobile phones and PDA's) all include a warning system to ensure that one doesn't delete information that is not wanted. Especially because these devices usually have a great amount of informtion posted very closely together, and navigation controls are rather small, this is a great idea of limiting/warning the anticipated action.

So, it's important that users' attention is focused onto the correct thing. However, it's also important to ensure that users aren't //distracted// by meaningless, unimportant things that can take away from the more vital factors. For example, when designing an advertisement, the creator must know what the main goal is in order to know what information to focus on and to bring into the user's attention before the other supplementary information.

__Sources__
Benyon, David, et al. //Designing Interactive Systems.// Pearson Education Limited. London, 2005.

Image source: http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/memory-formation4

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