Attention as a Unitary Concept

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss attention in terms of selecting visual information and acting on it. Selection has been taken as a bedrock concept in attention research since James (1890). Selective attention guides action by privileging some things at the expense of others. I formalize this notion with models which capture the relationship between input and output under the control of spatial and temporal attention, by attenuating or discarding certain inputs and by weighing energetic costs, speed, and accuracy in meeting pre-chosen goals. Examples are given from everyday visually guided actions, and from modeling data obtained from visual searches through temporal and spatial arrays and related research. The relation between selection, as defined here, and other forms of attention is discussed at the end.

Keywords: goals; selection; signal detection; visual attention.

Figure 1

Attention window A(t) illustrated for a subject whose window did not change when numeral rate was slowed from 13.4 numerals/s to 4.6 numerals/s. Model time t is delayed by τ = 160 ms to account for the time to shift attention from the target letter, at t = 0, to the numeral stream.

Figure 2

The attention-gating model (AGM) as described in the text, which generates the attention window in Figure 1. A(t − τ) is denoted a(t − τ) in the figure. A full explication is provided by Reeves and Sperling (1986).