William James (1890), on attention, “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”1. It is the kingfisher picking out the single chosen fish in an ever-flowing stream. Attention is the selective tool we use in order to filter out unnecessary stimulus.
Sohlberg and Mateer (1987) describe five levels of attention. In order, these are: Focused attention, is our response to a specific single environment stimulus. Sustained attention is more commonly known as our “attention span”, the ability to focus on a task or object without losing focus. Selective attention, the level of attention in which we can focus on a selected stimulus whilst other distracting stimuli compete for attention. Alternating attention refers to our ability to shift focus between different stimuli using different cognitive requirements. And lastly, divided attention, the highest level of attention, …show more content…
Research by Norman (1968) however argues that the process of decaying information occurs once the information is in short term memory if not attended to; this is known as a Late Selection Model (LSM). This slight variation in models leads to very different ideas as to the nature of short-term memory. ESM believe that short term memory is a small store that can only hold Miller’s 7+/-2 capacity and attention is the process to filter the information. However LSM belief that short term memory is much larger but still only has the same resources so stimulus decays much more rapid because more items are not attended to, the 7+/-2 items are the activated stimulus within the store. These criticism and contradicting theories show that we still do not have a full understanding of how attention
Sohlberg and Mateer (1987) describe five levels of attention. In order, these are: Focused attention, is our response to a specific single environment stimulus. Sustained attention is more commonly known as our “attention span”, the ability to focus on a task or object without losing focus. Selective attention, the level of attention in which we can focus on a selected stimulus whilst other distracting stimuli compete for attention. Alternating attention refers to our ability to shift focus between different stimuli using different cognitive requirements. And lastly, divided attention, the highest level of attention, …show more content…
Research by Norman (1968) however argues that the process of decaying information occurs once the information is in short term memory if not attended to; this is known as a Late Selection Model (LSM). This slight variation in models leads to very different ideas as to the nature of short-term memory. ESM believe that short term memory is a small store that can only hold Miller’s 7+/-2 capacity and attention is the process to filter the information. However LSM belief that short term memory is much larger but still only has the same resources so stimulus decays much more rapid because more items are not attended to, the 7+/-2 items are the activated stimulus within the store. These criticism and contradicting theories show that we still do not have a full understanding of how attention