Chapter
Seven
Attention
It is common to feel that we are conscious only or primarily of the things we pay
attention to (like being engrossed in a novel I am reading). When they mentioned
consciousness at all, the early theories of attention tended to agree, saying that
the filters and bottlenecks allowed information ‘into consciousness’, treating it as
‘the sentry at the gate of consciousness’ (Zeman, 2001, p. 1274).
Today, almost all the processing-based theories of attention propose that con-
scious experience is the result of attentional mechanisms: the spotlight, filter, per-
ceptual-load, premotor, and working-memory accounts all take this view, as well
as the proposal that attention serves to ‘structure our mental life’. Some research-
ers claim that ‘What is at the focus of our attention enters our consciousness’
(Velmans, 2000, p. 255). Others suggest that ‘attention seems to play an especially
critical role in determining the contents of consciousness’ (Gray, 2004, p. 166, origi-
nal italics), or argue that ‘information that is not attended cannot reach conscious-
ness’ (Cohen et al., 2012, p. 416). Dehaene’s neuronal global workspace theory is
committed to the view that although considerable processing is possible without
attention, attention is required for information to enter consciousness: ‘top-down
attentional amplification is the mechanism by which modular processes can be
temporarily mobilized and made available to the global workspace, and therefore
to consciousness’ (Dehaene and Naccache, 2001, p. 14).
The evidence we looked at in Chapter 3 on inattentional blindness also seems to
support this view: if we don’t attend to the gorilla sauntering across the basket-
ball court, we don’t see it. Psychologists Arien Mack and Irvin Rock therefore claim
that consciousness depends on attention: ‘there is no conscious perception with-
out attention’ (1998, p. 14, original italics). There are other ways of interpreting
the findings, however: for example, that what looks like inattentional blindness
is actually inattentional agnosia, i.e. we forget having seen the gorilla before we
can report it. The most we can say with confidence is that attention seems to be
necessary for the kind of consciousness that allows participants to report, after
the fact, on the gorilla’s presence.
That consciousness is causally dependent on attention also does not mean that
attention is solely responsible for shaping consciousness. Here the distinction
between necessary and sufficient conditions comes in: attention may be neces-
sary to allow or create conscious experience, but not be on its own sufficient to
do so. This is Benjamin Libet’s view: ‘attention itself is apparently not a sufficient
mechanism for awareness’ (2004, p. 115). Christof Koch agrees: ‘selective attention
is necessary, but not sufficient, for a conscious percept to form’ (2004, p. 167).
Some experiments suggest that we can pay attention (as measured by improved
reaction times or response accuracy) to things without being able to report seeing
them (e.g. Norman, Heywood, and Kentridge, 2013). We will tackle in depth the
problem of distinguishing experimentally between conscious and unconscious
responses in Chapter 8.
CAUSAL CONNECTION II: ATTENTION DEPENDS ON CONSCIOUSNESS
Sometimes, however, all this seems backwards. We may often feel that we can
consciously direct our own spotlight to pay attention to what we choose. In this
sense, maybe consciousness precedes and can direct attention. As James put it:
‘My experience is what I agree to attend to [. . .] without selective interest, experi-
ence is an utter chaos’ (1890, i, p. 402).
‘information that is not
attended cannot reach
consciousness’(Cohen et al., 2012, p. 416)‘selective attention
is necessary, but
not sufficient, for a
conscious percept to
form’(Koch, 2004, p. 167)