Cumulative development of attentional theory.

Abstract

This article describes current work in selective attention within a framework derived from important findings extending back over a century. The contributions of Danders, Helmholtz, Pavlov, Sokolov, and Wundt, for example, are deeply embedded in current methods for studying selectivity. The cumulative nature of work on attention is not widely appreciated, in part because of a failure to recognize that the methods used in current studies arose in empirical findings of the past and also because attention is a concept that can be studied at many levels. There is evidence that findings at the level of performance, subjective experience, and neural systems can be linked, even though they are not yet reducible to a single theory. Studies to date reveal some properties of a complex neural mechanism involved in our awareness of a stimulus. The time course of operation of this mechanism can be studied objectively and shown to be related both to changes in performance and to subjective experience. This attentional mechanism is involved in the skilled performance of daily life, but many other systems are also important in determining the degree to which natural tasks can be time shared.

The CODE theory of visual attention: An integration of space-based and object-based attention.

“…The CTVA model is strong primarily because it was built from strong components; CODE and especially TVA were impressive theories to begin with. Perhaps the most important contribution of CTVA is to show that strong theories can be made even stronger by combining them with other theories and that, ultimately, psychology can progress by developing theories cumulatively (Posner, 1982 ).…”

Attention aware systems: Theories, applications, and research agenda

“…However, most researchers refer to attention as the set of processes enabling and guiding the selection of incoming perceptual information. For example, Posner (1982) stresses the fact that attention is selective, has limited capacity, is related to both reactive and deliberative processes, and it is associated with both inhibitory and facilitating effects. Driver (2001, p. 53) defines ''Research on attention [as] concerned with selective processing of incoming sensory information''.…”

Cognitive abnormalities and schizophrenic symptoms

“…It is clearly hazardous to attempt to interpret studies in a different framework from those in which they were designed. However, I have argued (Hemsley, 1987) that, in part, models such as those of Broadbent (1971), Posner (1982) and Shiffrin & Schneider (1977), illustrate the way in which the spatial and temporal regularities of past experience influence the processing and, more speculatively, awareness, of current sensory input. A review of research on schizophrenics' cognitive abnormalities employing such models suggests that 'it is a weakening of the influence of stored memories of regularities of previous input on current perception which is basic to the schizophrenic condition' (Hemsley, 1987, p. 182).…”