248 ■ NOTES
(1969), on the basis ofvon Uexkull’s (1957) calculations, has figured that
‘/is of a second is the threshold of discrimination. Cognitive scientists
who have treated the limitations of attention include Simon (1969,
1978), Kahneman (1973), Hasher &. Zacks (1979), Eysenck (1982), and
Hoffman, Nelson, &. Houck (1983). Attentional demands made by cog
nitive processes are discussed by Neisser (1967, 1976), Treisman &
Gelade (1980), and Treisman &. Schmidt (1982). The attentional re
quirements of storing and recalling information from memory have been
dealt with by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) and Hasher <Sl Zacks (1979).
But the importance of attention and its limitations was already well
known to William James (1890).29 Limits for processing speech. For the 40-bit-per-second requirement
see Liberman, Mattingly, & Turvey (1972) and Nusbaum & Schwab
(1986).The uses of time. The first comprehensive tabulation of how people
spend their time was the cross-national project reported in Szalai (1965).
The figures reported here are based on my studies with the Experience
Sampling Method (ESM), e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, Larson, &. Prescott
(1977), Csikszentmihalyi & Graef (1980), Csikszentmihalyi &. Larson
(1984), Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi (1988).30 Television watching. The feelings people report while watching televi
sion are compared to experiences in other activities in ESM studies by
Csikszentmihalyi, Larson, &. Prescott (1977), Csikszentmihalyi &
Kubey (1981), Larson & Kubey (1983), and Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi
(in press).Psychic energy. The processes taking place in consciousness—
thoughts, emotions, will, and memory—have been described by philoso
phers since the earliest times, and by some of the earliest psychologists
(e.g., Ach 1905). For a review, see Hilgard (1980). Energistic approaches
to consciousness include Wundt (1902), Lipps (1899), Ribot (1890),
Binet (1890), and Jung (1928 [I960]). Some contemporary approaches
are represented by Kahneman (1973), Csikszentmihalyi (1978, 1987),
and Hoffman, Nelson, &. Houck (1983).33 Attention and culture. The Melanesians’ ability to remember precise
locations by floating on the surface of the sea is described by Gladwin
(1970). Reference to the many names for snow used by Eskimos can be
found in Bourguignon (1979).The self. Psychologists have thought of innumerable ways of describing
the self, from the social-psychological approaches of George Herbert
Mead (1934 [1970]) and Sullivan (1953) to the analytic psychology of
Carl Gustav Jung (1933 [1961]). Currently, however, psychologists try
to avoid speaking of the “self’; instead they limit themselves to describ