Attention

Pattielli

What is it exactly ?
There are lots of people paying attention to what professor says but "they are actually not just all there sometimes", right ?(smile)
So, why sometimes do we have something in our mind that can conquer all other things at that moment? Is there any comparison on the differences between the two ? Like signal processing, analysis, etc ?

Thanks a lot,
Regards

the number 42

I like to think - in a fairly slapdash way, admittedly - that attention is the focus of consiousness, as opposed to all of the other unconscious processes that may be going on in the background at the same time. The 'working memory model' is intuitively appealing in its simplicity i.e. that we have a 'central executive' (conscious attention) that governs several sub-systems. The standard example is to think of how many windows there are in your house. Go on, try it....

...in order to do so you must visualise the various windows (with the visual sub-system), keep a count of the number of windows (with the auditory sub-system) and oversee the whole operation with the central executive system.

Of course Freud would say that at the same time as this very civilised process was going on, a whole tide of other thoughts and feelings were ebbing & flowing and leaking into this process from the regions of the mind outside this genteel area i.e. the unconsious (or 'subconsious'). Thus our being distracted from the good Professor by thoughts of what we are having for dinner, not to mention other more typically Freudian ideas