Attention Paid to Attention

“But it may be questioned whether this be a fault; it is absolutely necessary, in many processes of the mind, to suppress a number of intermediate ideas.”

-Maria Edgeworth, Practical Education

“The mind does not pay equal attention to everything it perceives. For it applies itself infinitely more to those things that affect it, that modify it, and that penetrate it, than to those that a present to it but that do not affect it and do not belong to it.”

-Johnson and Proctor quoting Malebranche, Attention: Theory and Practice

This week, I am writing my post on the third chapter of Maria Edgeworth’s Practical Education, entitled ‘On Attention”, as well as Attention: Theory and Practice by Proctor and Johnson. Edgeworth discusses how attention span works, mainly in children, and how to apply this knowledge to teaching a child. Proctor and Johnson discuss how the brain perceives the great stimuli it encounters. In the above quote by Edgeworth, she discusses how children, during the process of being tutored or learning a subject, can ask questions or give answers that do not seem to relate to what they are learning at that point in time. According to Edgeworth, this is because humans are able to pass over their intermediate thoughts to just the result of those thoughts. Malebranche is discussing the same type of idea. The quote describes that the mind pays more attention to the things that affect it than to those that do not. These two quotes raise the following question for me: what makes humans ‘overlook’ things, and is this process a good or bad thing? For instance, you are sitting in a classroom, paying full attention to the lecture, and a loud sound is heard in the hallway that pulls your full attention off of the professor and transports your thoughts to what is occurring in the hall. You are overlooking the lecture, which could be considered a bad thing, especially if the event in the hall is nothing that would affect you. However, if the sound in the hallway is truly indicative of danger, than it could possibly be more beneficial for you to be placing your full attention on that as opposed to the important lecture. In a more simplified example in which the good and bad are not as clear: you enter a room and observe everything that surrounds you. Instead of focusing on everything in the room, your attention is drawn to one specific thing. Of course, this could place you in a good or bad situation, but for this situation, we are assuming there is nothing in the room that would be of immediate danger. What exactly draws your eyes to this one object and forces you to overlook everything else in the room, even for just a moment, especially if this particular object does not necessarily have an effect on you? Also, how does your brain, in the split second of viewing the entirety of the room, decide that nothing else is worth all of your attention? What exactly makes you daydream in the middle of class? What makes your own thoughts more important to your brain than the thoughts of the professor? Obviously, all these questions connect completely to attention. I suppose that your attention is focused on the object, sound, or smell because those things are more interesting to you than the other stimulus that is effecting your brain. It is interesting to think that attention works in this way. Also, what pushes certain items or thoughts to the ‘back of your mind’ or away from your consciousness until a later time when they are more suitable for thought? It is very interesting to me that consciousness and attention can work in varying degrees. More attention can be paid to certain things, while little attention is being paid to something else. A quote by Lotze in Attention: Theory and Practice supports this: “Various stages [of attention] may thus, indeed, be distinguished in the consciousness according as simply the thing itself and its own nature is conceived; or its connection with others; or finally, its significance and importance to our personal life”. This aspect of attention is utterly fascinating. For instance, in Gulliver’s Travels, the main character comes in contact with a group of people known as Laputians. These people are so interested and consumed by their own thoughts that they are completely unaware of their surroundings. Most of the Laputians have ‘flappers’ follow them around to swat them in the mouth or ears when their attention needs to be brought back to their surroundings. Why are these people completely unconcerned with the environment around them and what allows their attention to be completely focused on thoughts and ideas? This is an especially good question because this process is actually putting them in danger (the Laputians could sometimes be so involved with their thoughts that they would walk right off the edge of a cliff). Why do our brains focus full attention on certain objects or stimuli when it could put us in danger or allow us to miss something that could affect us fully? Why do certain people pay full attention to items that other people would not glance twice at? To me, attention is very interesting, and I hope to comment on this entry when we discuss it more in class and I gain more knowledge on the subject.