Attention is defined as the mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or mental event:
the limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system. Attention can also be
defined as the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment
while ignoring other things. Attention has also been referred to as the allocation of processing
resources. Examples include carefully listening to what someone is saying while ignoring other
conversations in a room (the cocktail effect) or listening to a cell phone conversation while
driving a car. In 1898 William James, in his textbook Principles of Psychology, remarked that
“Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid
form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.
Focalization, concentration of consciousness is of its essence. It implies withdrawal from
something’s in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite
in the confused, dazed, scatter brained state which in French is called distraction, and
Zerstreutheit in German”.
There are many theories of attention; among them are the Attenuation theory, Filter theory,
Capacity model, Deutsch and Deutsch model, Multimode theory and the Schema theories of
attention. To begin I will tackle the Attenuation theory propounded by Anne Treisman. It is a
model of selective attention and can be seen as a revisal of Broadbent’s Filter model. Treisman
proposed Attenuation theory as a means to explain how unattended stimuli sometimes came to be
processed in a more rigorous manner than what Broadbent’s Filter model could account for. As a
result, Attenuation theory added layers of sophistication to Broadbent’s original idea of how
selective attention might operate; claiming that instead of a filter which barred unattended inputs
from ever entering awareness, it was a process of attenuation, thus the attenuation of unattended
stimulus would make it difficult, but not impossible to exact meaningful context from irrelevant
inputs, so long as stimuli possessed sufficient “ strength “ after attenuation to make it through a
hierarchical analyzation process. Treisman’s model overcomes some of the problems associated
with Broadbent’s Filter model. An example is that the Attenuation model can account for the
“cocktail party syndrome”. This theory also has some flaws and include that the theory does not
explain exactly how semantic analysis works. Also the nature of the attenuation process has
never been precisely specified.
Next is Donald Broadbent’s Filter model. Donald Broadbent is recognized as one of the major
contributors to the information processing approach, which started with his work with air traffic
controllers during the war. In that situation a number of competing messages from departing and
incoming aircrafts are arriving continuously all requiring attention. The air traffic controller finds
he/she can deal effectively with one message at a time and so has to decide which is the most
important. Broadbent designed an experiment (dichotic listening) to investigate the processes
involved in switching attention which are presumed to be going on internally in our heads.
Broadbent (1958) argued that information from al the stimuli present at any time enters a sensory
buffer. One of the inputs is then selected on the basis of its physical characteristics for further
processing by being allowed to pass through a filter. Since we have only a limited capacity to
process information, this filter is designed to prevent the information processing system from
being overloaded. The inputs not initially selected by the filter remain briefly in the sensory
buffer, and if they are not processed they decay rapidly. Broadbent assumed that the filter
rejected the non-shadowed or unattended message at an early stage of processing. Broadbent’s
theory predicts that hearing your name when you are not paying attention should be impossible
because unattended messages are filtered out before you process the meaning- thus the model
cannot account for the “cocktail party phenomenon”. Broadbent’s dichotic listening experiments
have been criticized because; participants reported after the entire message had been played- it is
possible that the unattended message is analyzed thoroughly but participants forget. Also that
analysis of the unattended message might occur below the level of conscious awareness.
Thirdly is the Capacity model propounded by Kahneman. Kahnemann’s model of divided
attention proposed a model of attention which is based around the idea of mental effort. This is a
description of how demanding the processing of particular input might be. Some tasks might be
relatively automatic ( in that they make few demands in terms of mental effort) despite the fact
that have a high information level, therefore Kahneman proposed that; some activities are more
demanding and therefore require more mental effort than others, the total number available
processing capacity may be increased or decreased by other factors such as arousal, also that
several activities can be carried out at the same time provided that their total mental effort does
not exceed the available capacity and finally that rules or strategies exist which determine
allocation of resources to various activities and to various stages of processing. Attention
capacity will therefore reflect the demands made at the perceptual level, the level at which the
input is interpreted or committed to memory and the response selection stage. Critics have
suggested that because of the ability to develop skills that it becomes impossible to accurately
judge the limits or capacity of the processing system. Stephen Red in his book Cognition (2000)
makes some summary comments on attention theories. He notes that Capacity models such as
Kahneman’s are not designed to replace selection models but rather to support them.
Another of the attention theories is the Deutsch and Deutsch model. Deutsch, Deutsch and
Norman were not fully convinced by Broadbent’s selection criteria based solely on physical
characteristics of a stimulus. The cocktail party effect influenced researches to look further than
physical selection features, to semantic selection features. The cocktail party effect is an example
of how unattended information can gain one’s awareness. For example if you were at a social
gathering having a conversation with some friends, when you hear someone mention your name
and it grasps your attention. This unattended-to- information somehow gained your awareness.
This fueled development of the memory selection model which shares the same basic principles
of early selection models that stimulus features are selected via their physical properties.
Attended and unattended information passes through the filter to a second stage of selection on
the basis of semantic characteristics or message content. Items which are selected are
incorporated into short term memory and awareness. It tis the second selection mechanism rather
than the filter that decides what information gains our awareness. An evaluation is that all
stimulus, including those deemed irrelevant, are processed fully. Also when compared to
Treisman’s model, the late selection approach appears wasteful with its thorough processing of
all information before selection of admittance into working memory.
The next theory is the Multimode theory. The Multimode theory combines both physical and
semantic inputs into one theory. Within this model attention is assumed to be flexible following
different depths of perceptual analysis. The feature that gathers awareness is dependent upon the
person’s needs at the time. Switching from physical and semantic features as a basis for selection
yields costs and benefits. Stimulus information will be attended to via an early selection through
sensory analysis, then as it increases in complexity; semantic analysis is involved, compensating
for attentions limited capacity. Shifting from early to late selection models reduces the
significance of stimuli rendering one’s attention, though it increases breadth of attention.
Researchers found that semantic selection requires greater attention resources that physical
selection. Johnston and Heinz have proposed the Multimode theory into three stages; Stage 1 is
the initial stage where sensory representations of stimuli are recognized which corresponds to
Broadbent’s filter theory. Stage 2 is the stage where semantic representations (meanings) are
constructed and this corresponds to the Deutsch and Deutsch model of attention. The final stage
is the stage where both sensory and semantic representations enter consciousness.
The last theory to be discussed in this paper is the Schema theory of attention. Ulric Neisser
(1976) offered a completely different conceptualization of attention. Simply put Schema theory
states that all knowledge is organized into units, and within these units of knowledge, or
schemata (plural), is stored information. A schema, then, is generalized description or a
conceptual system for understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is
used. According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts, objects and the
relationships they have with other objects, situations, events, and sequences of events, actions
and sequences of actions.
The theories of attention such as the Broadbent Filter theory, Treisman’s Attenuation theory
and the Deutsch and Deutsch model can be grouped broadly into Early and Late selection
models. The Broadbent Filter theory and Treisman’s Attenuation theory are both early selection
models and the Deutsch and Deutsch model is a late selection model. On the other hand
Broadbent’s, Treisman’s and Deutsch and Deutsch models are all bottlenecks because they
predict we cannot consciously attend to all of our sensory input at the same time. This limited
capacity for paying attention is therefore a bottleneck and the models each try to explain how the
material that passes through the bottleneck is selected. Capacity theories state we cannot pay
attention to two tasks if they exceed the available capacity, Multimode stresses on both the
physical and semantic inputs of information and the Schema theory states that all knowledge is
organized into units and that within these units is stored information.
REFERENCES
Anderson, John R. (2004). Cognitive Psychology and its implications
(6th Ed). Worth Publishers. P. 519.
Broadbent, D. (1958). Perception and Communication. London;
Pergamon press.
Cherry, E.C. (1953). Some experiments on the recognition of speech
with one and with two ears. Journal of the Acoustical Society of
America, 25, 975-979.
Deutsch, J.A; Deutsch, D. (1963). “Attention; Some theoretical
considerations”. Psychological Review 70; 80-90.
Eysenck, M.W. and keane, M.T. (1990). Cognitive Psychology; a
student’s handbook. Hove; Lawrence Erlbawn Associates limited.
James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. New York. Henry
Holt, Vol. 1, pp. 403-404.
Norman, D.A. (1968). “Toward a theory of memory and Attention”.
Psychological Review 75 (6); 552.
Treisman, A. (1964). Selective Attention in Man. British medical
Bulletin, 20, 12-16.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
THEORIES OF ATTENTION
BY: ERIC NKETSIA
©2013