ADVERTISEMENTS:
In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Nature and Meaning of Attention 2. Characteristics of Attention 3. Stages in the Growth of Attention 4. Subjective Conditions of Attention 5. Objective Conditions of Attention 6. Types of Attention 7. Educational Implications 8. Types of Individuals on the Basis of Attention 9. Educational Implications of Attention.
Nature and Meaning of Attention:
Interest is, a particular object leads a person to attend to it. Therefore, it is said, interest is latent attention, and attention is interest in action. But what is this attention? Is it a faculty of the mind, like reasoning, imagination, memory etc.? A deeper thought given to the question reveals that there is nothing like ‘attention’ as a power or faculty of the mind.
We should rather substitute the noun ‘attention’ by the verb ‘attending’. We have an object before us in which we are interested. We attend to it. It is wrong to say ‘my attention is directed to the task’. For there is nothing like ‘attention’ as an entity apart from my mind and the object attended. In other word’s there is nothing apart from subject and object of attention.
Attending an object is a conative act. The purpose clearly is to apprehend the objects, to recognise it and to focus consciousness on it. Both emotional and volitional factors are responsible for it, although volitional factor is more important. The stronger the conation the more intense the attention.
Various definitions of attention has been given by psychologists, and all these mean the same thing.
Ross says, “Attention is a process of getting an object of thought clearly before the mind.”
McDougall explains. “Attention is merely conation or striving considered from the point of view of its effects on cognitive process.”
According to Dumvile. “the problem of attention centres in the fact of sensible clearness.”
Stout says, “Attention is conation determining cognition. The stronger the conation, the more intense is the attention.
Fletcher’ explains, “Attention represents a selection or singling out of certain aspects of the observable environment to the exclusion of others which may at the time be impinging upon the sense organs.”
Attention and Interest:
There is a very intimate connection between the two. In fact they are merely two ways of looking at the same thing. We attend to a thing in which we are interested. Again, in words of Mc Dougal to have an interest in any object is, then, to be ready to pay attention to it.’
These are thus two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the same mental structure. Interest is the structure itself, and attention is the experience with which that structure is always ready to determine. Thus Mc Duggal makes a right observation in “interest is latent attention is interest in action”. Stout means the same thing by saying. “Attention is interest determining cognitive process,”. All this leads us to the face that interest is the cause of attention. We attend to those objects or experiences which interest us.
Characteristics of Attention:
1. Presence of Volition:
As explained above, attention is a conative act, and so needs the presence of volition. Both physical and mental energy is consumed as a result of attending to some task. The moment we feel fatigued, our volitional power decreases, and we feel fatigued our volitional power decreases, and we begin to leave the task.
The typist after a few hours of continuous typing, stands up and stretches his limbs. Proper effort is needed in all acts of attention, and hence the teacher should ensure that the pupils are in a position to make the effort. He should see that they are sitting in the proper posture, and are in a mood to make effort.
2. Purposiveness:
Behind any act of ‘attention’ there is a motive, incentive goal, purpose or interest. ‘Interest is latent attention and attention is interest in action.’ Stronger the purpose, the more intense the attention.
3. Selection:
Attention is selective activity of the mind. It is focusing of consciousness on an idea, or object of thought. When we focus cur torch on any object, the vision becomes clearer, otherwise with diffusion of light over a vast area, the object will be presented dim. In the same manner, we focus our mind to one specific object.
Thus attention is a process of getting an object of thought clearly before the mind. In order to have the sensible clearness of any object, our mind selects only one objects a time. When the reader is readings the paragraph, he is oblivious of all that is around the paragraph, and some objects on the table may be just the margin of the focused ground. This principle of selection has been explained by Drever.
4. Basis of Selection:
What determines the selection of a specific thing as an object of attention? The first fundamental basis is the instincts. That is why the child attends to any sudden flash of light, or thunder to clouds. The instinct of wonder directs him.
Why does he attend to the sucking of breasts even when just born? The basis is food-seeking instinct. Why does he attend to play? It is to satisfy his instinctive tendencies. Secondly, he is motivated by sentiments. A sentiment impels the person to acquire knowledge about the object of interest and thus attend to it.
There is also a particular basis of selection with regard to children and adults. Children attend to objects that are concrete, but the adults can attend to abstract ideals also.
5. Shift:
According to the principle of selection, we might suppose that a person attends to only one thing at a time. But we do observe persons doing at least two things at a time. The basis of this fact is the shifting nature of attention. Experimentation has proved that attention to one object cannot last for more than a few seconds.
We can attend to a letter only for a few seconds. While reading, we attend to one word and then at once shift to another. Thus like the flowing stream of consciousness, our attention also flows and shifts from one object to another. While reading a book our attention shifts from one word to another.
If we concentrate only on one letter, it will be difficult to sustain attention. A number of ideas will crop up, one after another in an unending chain. In this case, attention is mobile but restricted to a particular field. But there are cases w here even the fields also differ.
It is said that Napoleon used to dictate notes to half a dozen reporters simultaneously. Psychologically speaking there is nothing like simultaneous attention. What happens is rapid shifting of attention from one task to another second after second and completion. Woodworth mentions a laboratory experiment about adding sums and listening to a story simultaneously.
The subject would shift his attention from story to sum and sum to story. But this caused only 60% efficiency of doing both the tasks, when the person was tested on the successful completion. Everybody cannot take up two tasks simultaneously.
But this is different from playing a harmonium, wherein the player attends to the plain of air with the left hand and to striking, of the keys with the right, both simultaneously. This is a case of motor combination or motor coordination. So shifting takes place here. Similarly shifting takes place while we peddle a bicycle and talk to a friend.
Thus the general rule of attention is limited to one thing at a time (attention to one thing is decidedly inattention to another), and it shifts from one object to another in rapid succession. We attend to tasks not continuously but in parts.
6. Attending and Motor Adjustment:
Every act of attention has a corresponding motor adjustment of the body. A candidate in the examination hall attending to the question paper sits in a particular posture. The thinking scientist contracts his forehead. The spectator at the sports stadium jumps up at an interesting situation.
Every member of an audience while attending the lecture displays a particular facial movement. A solider in the battle-front is alert. Watch the eye movements of a pick-pocket, or the posture of a hungry cat ready to pounce upon a rat when it comes out of the hole.
A teacher should have knowledge of the corresponding postures and motor adjustments, so that he can detect who is attending and who is not. A skillful teacher can find out whether a pupil is really attending to the paragraph or is merely posing to read by sitting his eye-movements.
He must be familiar with the facial contortions and the bodily postures which accompany concentration. He shall have to help to child to eliminate the unnecessary movements of the body while reading or writing.
Stages in the Growth of Attention:
There are three stages:
(i) Unconditioned,
(ii) Conditioning, and
(iii) Conditioned.
(i) In the unconditioned stage the person responds to the outward stimuli and is directed from outside to attend to something e.g., a child looking at the light thrust suddenly upon him.
(ii) In the conditioning stage, there is voluntary control, and the person is free to attend or not to attend. But some extraneous motivate him, and begin to condition him. The pupil may find the studies a drudgery, but attends to it for the sake of getting the degree or a ‘pass’ in the examination which is vital for him. Here the motive behind attention is a secondary motive. It is not from within. The motivation is from without.
(iii) The conditioned stage marks the culmination of motivation. The person attends not because of some sudden stimulus or conditioning, but because of his inner philosophy of life, his value, ideals, sense of duty etc. He is already conditioned for these values, and these direct him to only specific tasks.
A child is motivated to attend by outward stimuli like flash of light, sudden sound or a moving object. We can recall to our mind how the skillful photographer arrests the attention of the restless infant for a clear snap. The first tool of a raw teacher to call attention to the boys is thumping of the table, and crying ‘no’ noise please’, ‘keep quiet’, ‘silence’.
This may suit the younger kinds but not the older children, who are to be conditioned through a number of incentives. From this point of view the incentive of examination has no mean psychological value. Attention to even the complex and unpleasant tasks (say in an Engineering College) is captured by means of such secondary motives.
But the highest type of motivation is the third type, wherein the ideal and the sense of duty plays the part. M.Gandhi attended to nothing except the struggle for freedom. No movies or ball-room dances could entertain him. While his mind was full with the passion for liberating the Indian masses.
This is the secret of success of all great prophets, reformers, patriots discoveries and scientists-Edison was conditioned for making scientific discoveries, Newton forgot even his meals, while he attended his task in the laboratory.
All this has one great lesson for the teacher. Lead the pupils from the first stage to the second stage, and further to the third stage, wherein the pupils feel duty- bound to study, not for the sake of examination but for their own satisfaction, and fulfilling their own aspirations.
Subjective Conditions of Attention:
Even after understanding the nature and characteristics of attention, the fundamental problem remains unsolved. Why do we attend? We attend to certain objects and not to others. But what is reason for that? There are, in fact some conditions—subjective- and objective – that impel a person to attend to a particular object.
The subjective conditions are the internal conditions arising out of the inner mental dispositions. The objective conditions are the external stimuli.
The subjective conditions are:
(i) Instincts,
(ii) Emotions,
(iii) Temperament,
(iv) Sentiments,
(v) Habits, and
(vi) Aptitude and Interest.
1. Instincts:
As already said above, instincts are the inherited structural dispositions that determine the possessor to perceive and pay attention to some object. The hungry cat attends to the rat hole. The mother (with parental instinct) attends to her child. The child attends to play.
2. Emotions:
Emotions impel a person to pay attention to certain objects, remarks or acts. A candidate who gets the news of his failure, will not attend a tea party and make merry, but may go to a place of worship and weep there. In happiness many things appear to be interesting to which we attend. In anger we attend to each action of the object of our anger. Under fear of being bombed, all our attention was towards the enemy planes, during the recent Indo-Pak conflict.
3. Temperament:
People of different temperaments attend to different things. Old and retired people have a temperament of their own. Their cynic attitude may hardly allow them to attend recreational activities.
4. Sentiments:
Sentiment is not innate but an acquired object of interest. Everybody acquires a particular sentiment-sentiment for a particular type for food or dress or manners, sentiment for religion of community or country, etc. So a person attends to those tasks which are intimately connected with his sentiments. A Hindu with deep religious sentiment frequently attends to temples, pilgrimage centres, religious ceremonies, discourses devotional music and the like.
5. Habits:
Habits are our second nature. In the case of some people, it is difficult to get rid of a particular habit (say smoking), and they must attend to such tasks. Observe a chain-smoker, who attends to smoking throughout the day, whatever be the seriousness of other tasks.
6. Interest and Aptitude:
The importance and significance of attention has already been discussed above. Interest and attention go side by side. Interest provides the reinforcement, the purpose, the goal or the motive for attention.
Objective Conditions of Attention:
Even in the absence of any innate motive or subjective force that may impel a person to attend to an object, there are sometimes some objective conditions which compel the person to attend it.
These are:
(i) Intensity,
(ii) Size,
(iii) Form,
(iv) Movement,
(v) Novelty,
(vi) Contrast,
(vii) Repetition and
(viii) Change.
1. Intensity:
The intensity of light thrown on a child attracts his attention, even if he is absorbed in a different task. The same is true with regard to intensity of sound or movement. There is pin drop silence in the class. The teacher is teaching and all are attending with concentration.
Suddenly through a gust of wind the window pane strikes with the supporting wall, and the intense noise thus created diverts the attention of all. Low intensity of a stimulus weakness attention. Hence the teacher’s voice should not be so low as not to catch the attention of the pupil. Nor should it be so high as to distract their normal, attention.
2. Size:
A small size provides low stimulus but a bigger size provides stronger stimulus to attend. The teacher should write boldly on the blackboard or draw bold figures, which may catch full attention. The charts in the room should be big enough to catch attention.
The business men make full use of this principle. When they utilize one half page of newspaper with an advertisement. So do the cinema-distributors hang large posters with cinema pictures, and no passer-by can resist looking at these.
3. Form:
An object with a definite form and meaning prove to catch attention, rather than an object with vague form. Objects of bright colour are attractive. Pictures with clear form or shape of objects have a meaning for us and attract our attention. That is why bold and accurate charts and models as aids to learning are stressed.
4. Movement:
An object in motion just coming in the focusing area of the consciousness suddenly catches our attention. We are on the platform, and as soon as a train comes, we look at it. A crawling snake on the road-side catches our attention.
5. Novelty:
Every new object awakens curiosity and interest. This is with regard to all new arrivals like new coins, new stamps, new articles, new fashions, new pictures, new lesson, new activities and new programmes. The teacher should use the principle, sometimes, to catch special attention of the pupils, and bring some sort of novelty in his lesson.
6. Contrast:
Contrast is a form of novelty. Whenever an object having contrast with the background or all the adjacent objects appears, it catches our attention. We attend to a dwarf of a circus, a couple with contrasting size (one tall and one short) a fashion that is unusual, a strange piece of art, a strange colour, a cartoon, and pictures with abnormal shapes.
These bear contrast with the normal. A teacher may use this principle in introducing contrasting colours while teaching geometry or geography, in presenting contrasting events in history and introducing antonyms in language.
7. Repetition:
Repetition of the same stimuli compels to attend. It acts as a force from without. The clock strikes twelve times. For the first or two times, you may not attend to it, being absorbed in your own task. But the subsequent sound distracts our attention. Repetition helps memorisation and strengthens attention. Hence there is a great need for sectional recapitulation during the lesson and continued drill and exercise.
8. Change in stimulus:
Often we are absorbed in our work, and there is some noise going on outside continuously, e.g., the tick of a clock, sound of a table fan, the noise of the flour mill outside, the horning of the taxis on the road etc. All this does not disturb us as long as these go on continuously. Rhythmically and uniformly with the same intensity.
The moment, the fun, or the watch, or the flour mill stops, our attention is arrested by the change. Change in stimulus attracts one’s attention. This principle is observed by a skillful teacher who deliberately lowers the tone of his voice in order to catch the attention of the inattentive pupils.
Types of Attention:
Ross divides attention into two types – non volitional and volitional, depending upon the need for either an instinct or a deliberate action of will. An attention that is motivated by an instinct or sentiment and does not need any effort of will to sustain it is non-volitional attention. Attention of a hungry cat towards the rat hole is non-volitional.
An attention which has it motive power and deliberate act of will is volitional attention, like the sitting of a candidate in the examination hall. Non-volitional attention determined by an instinct is called enforced non-volitional attention, and that which is governed by acquired disposition or sentiment is described as spontaneous non-volitional instinct.
The volitional attention is also of two types — implicit and explicit. The implicit type is sustained by a single act of will and is retained for a long time. The explicit type needs many repeated acts of will.
Thus we have four types of attention:
1. Enforced non-volitional,
2. Spontaneous non-volitional,
3. Implicit volitional, and
4. Explicit volitional.
Educational Implications:
1. Non-Volitional Attention:
The earliest form of attention is the non- volitional, especially the instinctive non-volitional, or the enforced non-volitional. The child cannot resist looking at a moving object, out of curiosity. If he sees a camel for the first time; all his attention will be directed towards the camel. The teacher should make most of the instinctive attention by exploiting his instincts of curiosity and constructiveness.
But he cannot go too far in this direction. He shall have to call in the spontaneous non-volitional attention governed by the sentiments. If the teacher can aid the pupil, build sentiments round the particular subjects, activities and hobbies and then make appeal to these acquired dispositions, there is no problem of creating attention.
The pupils will attend spontaneously to the subjects and activities of their choice. But there is limit to this type of attention also. All the tasks and subjects in the school curriculum are not pleasant and soft enough to be loved by the pupils. Here volitional attention is necessary.
2. Volitional Attention:
There are good many circumstances where the pupil has to enforce his will in order to attend to certain tasks which are no longer interesting, easy and pleasant. In the examination hall, the pupils have to call forth volitional attention.
A question arises whether the pupils should be made to call forth his will to do certain odd tasks. Some progressive thinkers who make much of the doctrine of interest, would like the teacher to make everything interesting to the pupils, so that non-volitional attention is automatically procured.
Soft Pedagogies and Attention:
On the one hand, we have the dictum that learning must become purposeful and interesting, and it is the business of the teacher to create interest beginning to teach. On the other hand, there, is a sharp criticism of the soft pedagogies, that in this way teachers will be failing to prepare the pupils for serious adult life.
After all, life is not a bed of roses. The serious vocational life pre-supposes completion of both pleasant and unpleasant tasks and acquiring a hard vocational training. There is a halt to the amusement side of teaching at some stage.
The difficult sums of Algebra, the complex rules of Physics, the complicated geographical, economic and historical facts, the illogical instances of English spellings, the abstract rules of grammar — all these require a sustained will to understand and assimilate.
Ross offers a compromising formula when he says that volitional attention, too, is sustained by interest. The interest factor is not absent in volitional attention. So some amount of drudgery is to be faced in the school, it can be made interesting or concerning to the pupils.
If the pupil knows that his present hard work will be well-rewarded in form of distinction in the examinations, admission in the next higher classes (wherein there is a lot of competitions) and further starting of a good career which can make life worth-living, the present hard work really matters to him, howsoever drudgery it be.
Even the questions of saving his face at the time of announcement of results motivates him to work. Drudgery accompanied by some sort of motivation (due to sentiment, self-respect or desire to prosper in future) will be well-attended to. The teacher is advised not to strive to make everything amusing and entertaining, but to create interest by any means, and motivate the pupils to work zealously and accomplish all serious and dull tasks.
Types of Individuals on the Basis of Attention:
Experimental work has revealed that different people attend to tasks in diverse ways.
There are the following major types:
1. Fixators and Fluctuators:
The former attend to a task very carefully, go into minute detail and report with the same faithfulness.
The latter bring in their own subjective feelings and imagination. For instance while reading a paragraph, the fixator will read accurately, fixating what he actually sees. The fluctuator will make guesses at words, judge them by their appearance and associate their own ideas.
2. Static and Dynamic:
The static type make a good start in the beginning and give their attention steadily for a long duration. They attend with one act of will. But the dynamic type need to remind themselves continuously to attend. Thus these two types correspond to the implicit and the explicit volitional attention.
3. Intensive and Distributive:
The former type attends to one task at a time intensively. But there are some who spread their attention over a variety of tasks at a time. They distribute their attention to a wide range of activities. The plodding student, attending intensively his books and attending nothing besides, has an intensive type of attention.
The business manager, now signs the file, now attends a telephone call, now calls the peon, now talks to the visitor and simultaneously disposes some papers also. His profession demands an attention of this type. Both these types have their own merit.
Intensive attention is needed for deep studies, scientific discoveries, creative tasks in the field of art and literature, planning and deliberation. The complexity of business, administration and vocations with public dealing call for a distributive type of attention.
The teacher can locate the pupils with the different types of attention and assign tasks to them in the corresponding manner.
Educational Implications of Attention:
(i) Interest should be created in order to ensure attention of the pupils in any lesson.
(ii) The teacher should stimulate the subjective conditions such as instinct, emotions, sentiments etc., and exploit these for ensuring sustained interest and prolonged attention.
(iii) The teacher should exploit the objective conditions some times and awaken interest and arrest attention through intensity, size, movement, novelty, contrast repetition or change in stimulus.
(iv) The teacher should correlate the object of attention with the needed type viz. non-volitional or volitional. Where will is required he should train the pupils, employ their will and undertake the difficult task.
(v) There is no justification in making everything assuming and recreational. The pupils are to be prepared for the serious business of life.
(vi) The teacher should locate the types in attention, such as fixative, fluctuating, selective, distributive etc. He should give the corresponding type of task to be attended by the pupils.
(vii) As attention is selective, only one task should be given to the pupil at a time.
(viii) Since it is difficult to have sustained interest and attention for a long time, the duration of periods, should not be long, and must suit the stage of development of the child. Subjects of varied nature should be taught by rotation.
(ix) The teacher can detect attention and inattention through the bodily postures of the pupils.