How many types of attention are there? Part 1

How many types of attention are there? Part 1 | Neurons

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Not all tasks require this much attentional space. There are two kinds of tasks in our life and work: habits, which we can perform without much thought and require minimal attentional space, and complex tasks, which can be done well only with dedicated focus. Many experts argue that we can’t multitask, which is often true for tasks that require foc

Chris Bailey • Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More

The ability to stay steady on one target and ignore everything else operates in the brain’s prefrontal regions. Specialized circuitry in this area boosts the strength of incoming signals we want to concentrate on (that email) and dampens down those we choose to ignore (those people chattering away at the next table).

Daniel Goleman • Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

Using brain scanning and behavioural experiments, researchers at the Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neurosciences at Vanderbilt University have identified a unified attentional bottleneck in the human brain, which impacts both perception and action. Simply put, we’re bad at dividing our attention between different tasks.

Ness Labs • Cognitive bottlenecks: the inherent limits of the thinking mind

millions of neurons are constantly monitoring the environment to select the most important things for us to focus on. These neurons are collectively the attentional filter. They work largely in the background, outside of our conscious awareness.

Daniel J. Levitin • The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

We therefore need to distinguish between two types of attention. Conscious attention is when you are in some way aware of where your attention is being directed and unconscious attention is when you are unaware of what you are attending to.

Paul Dolan • Happiness by Design

The left side of the brain is somewhat more associated with careful, focused attention.

Barbara Oakley • A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)

Here, we need to puzzle over notes and find the best fit. It is much more associative, playful and creative than the other tasks and requires a very different kind of attention as well. Reading, of course, is also different. Reading in itself can require very different kinds of attention, depending on the text. Some texts need to be read slowly and