What is attention? What is needed to have a good attention span? And just how does attention work? These questions and more are explained in our lesson this week. In this lesson, you will learn how to find the focus, and will be warned about the biggest distractions to our attention.

See this week's lesson below. If you prefer, you can download and print the the lesson. If you would like, you may review the PowerPoint presentation that summarizes this week's topics. After you complete the lesson, find out how much you've learned by taking this short quiz.

Activity

Let’s start with a test on selective attention: (We suggest that you do this!)

Attention

Attention is the ability to process specific information in the environment. It is directly related to sensory input from the outside. There are four categories of attention:

• Vigilance: Maintaining attention over a length of time; can range from minutes to hours.

• Arousal and alertness: This is your physiological state of attention. When you are sleeping, your attention level is low, but at certain times of the day, it will be much higher.

• Divided attention: Performing multiple tasks at once.

• Selective attention: The ability to focus on one thought, regardless of other stimuli.

A Good Attentional System (Sylwester, 1993)

A good attentional system must:

- 1. Quickly identify and focus on the most important item in a complex environment (filter).
  2. Sustain attention while monitoring related information and ignoring other stimuli.
  3. Access non-active memories that may be relevant to the current focus.
  4. Shift attention quickly when new information arrives.

How Attention Works

Attention begins as passive: A brief, unfocused reception of sensory receptors with information about the outside world. Passive reception is important to allow brains to process as many stimuli as possible as it searches for what needs immediate attention. Our attention will then begin to shift between external events (the sensory inputs) to internal memories and interests. This shift is important for maintaining and updating long-term memories. (For example: While listening to a story by a friend, you think of a similar experience from your past). This shift may be important because it allows updating and maintaining of long term memories. It strengthens the neural networks that contain and process them.

Paying Attention: Find the Focus

Our attention requires a conscious selection of focus. In doing so, we must extract what is important and then focus on it, while we ignore other stimuli. Every day, you have examples of when you did not ignore other stimuli. For example, when you go through a stop sign, or drive down the wrong street. These are examples of shifting our attention to an unimportant stimulus.

When paying attention, the focus and intensity of active attention varies. (For example, a proof reader must have maximum focus to make sure that there are no errors, while the reader of the magazine may only skim the material.)

There is also the danger of distractions. There are two main types of distractions:

• Sensory distractions (things that are going on around you)

• Emotional distractions (your inner thoughts)

Emotional distractions are more disruptive than sensory. While you are paying attention, at some point the brain may shift between external events into your internal memories and interests. (For example: While listening to a story by a friend, you think of a similar experience from your past). This shift may be important because it allows updating and maintaining of long-term memories. It strengthens the neural networks that contain and process them. However, if your mind wanders towards negative thoughts and begins to focus on self-centered thoughts, then they can seriously impede your ability to pay attention.

Processing What You Are Paying Attention To

We are able to process information from at least two sensory stimuli, or from different dimensions within the same modality. For example, we can look at a friend, listen to them talk, and reach for our car keys. However, we cannot read a book and write a letter at the same time. With time, we become a little better at this. A young child cannot carry on a conversation and put on a coat, but an older person can.

We increase the things we can pay attention to by combining related elements into a single unit. A person's face is a unit. A new reader will see only individual letters and some words at first, but as they become more skilled, they can read phrases as a unit.

Attention Is In Your Brain

When you pay attention, researchers found that groups of neurons fire at once, organized in the inferior frontal junction of the brain. These groups of neurons allow important information to be “heard” over the “noise” of all other sensory input (Lightman, 2014).

Attention is also regulated by neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters have fluctuations in 90-minute cycles across 24 hours. As a rule, the neurotransmitters are highest in the morning, gradually declining in the afternoon, and reaching their lowest around midnight.

When You Can’t Pay Attention

ADD and ADHD are examples of a dysfunctional attention process. They may be due to brain mechanisms and/or chemical imbalance. It is probable that ADHD is a result from lower metabolic activity and neurotransmitter deficiencies in the brain that regulate motor inhibition and control and project into the frontal lobes that affect attention (Sylwester, 1993).

Improving Attention

Attention is a skill, and requires exercise to improve. It is also a great way to improve your brain power. You will be doing exercises on BrainHQ which focus on attention. Here are some other everyday ideas for increasing attention abilities based on research (Angelle, 2011) (Cooper, 2014)

• Meditation (increased activity in brain associated with selective activity)

• Caffeine (increases alertness and may improve attention)

• Actually, stop paying attention for a while (“refreshes brain”)

• Know your own limit of paying attention

• Spend some time in nature

• Lose yourself in something you enjoy

Tips on Paying Attention (Wyeth, 2012)

The following are some ways to get someone to pay attention to what you have to say (for example, if you have a presentation to deliver):

• Use a grabber (an interesting quote or suggestion, out of the blue)

• Make it about them (their goals, their anxieties)

• Keep thoughts concrete, not abstract; include stories

• Keep building on what you have said before

• Get to the point

• Arouse emotion

• Encourage give and take

• Use clear headlines if your presentation is visual

• Keep it short

• Stay calm and go from your heart

Videos

The following are some videos to help you learn more about and practice attention techniques.

Count the red cards in this fun video.

Watch this video about becoming mindful to pay attention to your own attention.

This video is about paying attention in the digital age.

Listen to this great Ted Talk called, "How to Pay Attention."

Works Cited

Angelle. (2011, July 12). Pay Attention! 5 Tips for Staying Focused. Retrieved from Live Science: http://www.livescience.com/35773-stay-focused-tips- maintain-attention.html

Cooper, B. B. (2014, February 7). the Two Brain Systems that Control Our Attention. Retrieved from BufferSocial: https://blog.bufferapp.com/the- science-of-focus-and-how-to-improve-your-attention-span

Lightman, A. (2014, October 1). Attention. Retrieved from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/anatomy-attention

Medina, J. (n.d.). Attention. Retrieved from Brain Rules 2010: http://www.brainrules.net/attention

Sylwester, R. a. (1993, January). What Brain Research Says about Paing Attention. Retrieved from Educational leadership: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational- leadership/dec92/vol50/num04/What-Brain-Research-Says-About-Paying- Attention.aspx

Wyeth, S. (2012). 10 Ways Great Speakers Capture People's Attention. Retrieved from Inc.Inc: http://www.inc.com/sims-wyeth/how-to-capture-and-hold- audience-attention.html