Attention
Research suggests a close link between the working memory capacities of a person and their ability to control the information from the environment that they can selectively enhance or ignore. Such attention allows for example for the voluntarily shifting in regard to goals of a person's information processing to spatial locations or objects rather than ones that capture their attention due to their sensory saliency (such as an ambulance siren). The goal directing of attention is driven by "top-down" signals from the PFC that bias processing in posterior cortical areas and saliency capture by "bottom-up" control from subcortical structures and the primary sensory cortices. The ability to override sensory capture of attention differs greatly between individuals and this difference closely links to their working memory capacity. The greater a person's working memory capacity, the greater their ability to resist sensory capture. The limited ability to override attentional capture is likely to result in the unnecessary storage of information in working memory, suggesting not only that having a poor working memory affects attention but that it can also limit the capacity of working memory even further. (low attention <=> low working memory).
Read more about this topic: Working Memory
Famous quotes containing the word attention:
“I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment—like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life—this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)