Every minute a person focuses on the signals and objects of the outside world, filtering information according to the principle of importance and relevance.
But how does the “filtering” process take place and what is its basis?
The concept and types of attention in psychology
Attention - is the ability of a person in a selective manner to direct perception to one or another object, while concentrating at the same time thoughts, eyesight and hearing.
Attention can also be considered as a special property of the organism, allowing to pass and perceive information of high importance, and allowing to react only to what is of interest.
Properties:
- resilience (ability to concentrate on one for a long time);
- switchability (the ability to quickly move from one object to another, in the process of managing to achieve maximum concentration on each of them);
- distractibility (degree of susceptibility to stimuli that are not in the plane of the task);
- attention span (the number of simultaneously perceived objects / stimuli / sources of information);
- concentration (focus on the object);
- distribution (one-time implementation of several activities that do not imply a shift of attention).
There are three types of attention:
- Involuntary. This is the simplest, basic type, which in each person is laid at the genetic level. It is also called forced or passive. Involuntary attention has a biological origin and is characteristic even of animals.
- Arbitrary. This type is associated with the will of the person, as it is controlled and controlled.
Arbitrary attention is subject to conscious goals, and therefore stands out in a number of other types. It has a social background.
- Post arbitrary. Type of attention, which in its essence is a transition from voluntary to involuntary attention.
Involuntary
Involuntary attention is the most ancient and passive typewhich arises regardless of human consciousness and is maintained without the application of willpower.
Causes and conditions of occurrence
The reason for involuntary attention lies in the outside world (the environment). But it also depends on emotional and instinctive prerequisites (features) of the individual.
Any phenomenon, object or activity captures a person because of its uniqueness, entertaining, significance, etc.
The character of the stimulus plays a big role.: how much it is noticeable in environmental conditions and how strongly it stands out from the general background.
Bright colors, intense smells, excessively loud sounds and expressive tactile sensations “switch” the person’s attention to themselves.
At the same time there is no absolute indicator reflecting force of the stimulus. Indeed, in a dark room, the light of a flashlight will attract attention, while in a consecrated room, a switched on flashlight may go unnoticed.
Compliance with the internal state of a person is another significant criterion. A hungry person will react to the image and the smell of food is much more active than full.
General orientation of the person also affects involuntary attention. A person will be directed to the perception of objects and situations related to his priority activities and interests.
Attitude to the stimulus in conjunction with life experience also important. If a person has learned that watching animals is fun, he will watch kittens for a long time, being carried away by this spectacle at the level of involuntary attention.
Examples
Examples of involuntary attention:
- An individual goes on the street and concentrates on a telephone conversation. Then he senses a sharp and rough push in the back, because of what involuntarily turns around and starts looking for the culprit of the collision, involuntarily concentrating on the situation.
- While walking in a quiet park, an individual hears a loud cry of a child, after which he begins to look for the source of the sound and tries to understand how the kid found himself in the park without being accompanied by an adult.
This sound, like the question that has arisen in the head, takes the thoughts of a person involuntarily, as it is of interest.
- Waiting for his turn to the doctor, a person involuntarily watches TV in the hospital lobby. He watches the ads, as the video is the most dynamic and entertaining stimulus in the room.
- The girl communicates with the guy and at the same time maintains correspondence with her friend. She listens to her interlocutor inattentively, as she is strongly interested in discussing the latest news with a "pen-correspondent". But when a young man begins to explain himself in feelings, the girl instantly switches to such important information as recognizing a nice guy to her.
Arbitrary
The main feature of voluntary attention is binding to conscious aspirations and controllability.
This type is subject to the will and labor effort.
Also, this type is called active and deliberate.
Physiological mechanism
The basic function of voluntary attention - regulation of mental processes. The basis of the physiological mechanism is selective activation of the cerebral cortex and their functional association under the influence of controlled local activation.
Psychological feature
When a person needs to achieve a certain result, he develops a plan of action, which includes task of concentration on anything to suppress the involuntary desire to “spray” attention to more pleasant and exciting things.
The person is guided by the category of "necessary", meeting the requirements of the activity
Arbitrary attention is not due to the contrast of external influences. In the process of concentration, a person ignores intense stimuli and can concentrate even when there is no interest.
After 20 minutes of deliberate concentration, the individual gets tired, and the ability to control attention weakens.
Small children are not subject to arbitrary attention., because consciousness is not yet sufficiently developed.
Managed concentration on something is produced after two years.
Examples
Examples:
- The individual must prepare a report for the meeting. is he consciously excludes the likelihood of stimuli (TV, loud noises outside the window, messages in messengers), organizes the workplace and concentrates on the necessary documents, with an effort of will forcing itself to ignore pleasant thoughts about the upcoming weekend and meeting with friends.
- The girl crosses the road. At this moment her occupies a beautiful shop window on the other side of the street.
But she deliberately concentrates on the rules of the road and passing cars in order not to get into an emergency situation.
- Being in a noisy office, employee deliberately not listening and leads attention from an interesting conversation of colleagues, paying attention only to the current business correspondence with the client, since it is necessary to close the transaction before lunch.
- The guy set himself the task to read two chapters from the textbook on physics, after which he will be able to go into the yard and play football with friends. By will he he is distracted by an interesting TV show and plunges into readingto quickly cope with the task.
If the will is underdeveloped or the task is not important / priority, a person may experience difficulty with intentional concentration:
- The schoolgirl decided to perform the lessons for the next school week in advance. But realizing that there is no hurry, she is constantly distracted on the sound of the wind, sleeping next to a kitten and a fashion magazine on the table.
- The employee was asked to fill out statistics, which, in his opinion, would not play a significant role in the work of the department. But the need to perform a task forces him to engage intentional attention.
However, he does not feel the significance of his activities and constantly “disconnects” from the process, departs to pour himself coffee, buy a chocolate bar and replace a broken pencil.
Postvoluntary
You can talk about the post-arbitrary type when voluntary attention goes into the category of involuntary.
For example, when a child begins to study letters at the insistence of the mother, he first performs the task reluctantly and literally forces himself to join the learning process, but then the excitement and desire to successfully cope with an interesting lesson wakes up.
External stimuli fade into the background, and the student more It does not have to consciously concentrate on current activities. Those. condition for the emergence of post-voluntary attention is interest.
Principles of pedagogy are based on postvoluntary attention, since voluntary and involuntary attention among preschoolers and schoolchildren does not meet the requirements of the educational process.
With an arbitrary type, children get tired quickly, try to “tinker” and reluctantly start lessons, and the involuntary type does not imply organized and controlled concentration.
The right approach to organizing attention allows to achieve efficiency in any kind of activity. And it is not only about concentration through willpower.
It is important to understand the principle of the transition from an arbitrary to a post-involuntary type and learn how to "regulate" external stimuli in order to eliminate the unconscious transition to an involuntary type.
About the types of attention in this video:
