Chapter 15

Attention and Performance Limitations

Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane

Introduction

The concept of ‘‘attention’’ was considered to be important by many philosphers
and psychologists in the late 19th century, but fell into disrepute because the
behaviourists regarded all internal processes with the utmost suspicion. Atten-
tion became fashionable again following the publication of Broadbent’s book
Perception and communicationin 1958, but more recently many have argued that
it is too vague to be of value. Moray (1969) pointed out that attention is some-
times used to refer to the ability to select part of the incoming stimulation for
further processing, but it has also been regarded as synonymous with concen-
trationormentalset.Ithasbeenappliedtosearchprocessesinwhichaspeci-
fied target is looked for, and it has also been suggested that attention co-varies
with arousal (e.g. the drowsy individual is in a state of low arousal and attends
little to his or her environment).
There is an obvious danger that a concept that is used to explain everything
will turn out to explain nothing. However, attention is most commonly used to
refer to selectivity of processing. This was the sense emphasised by William
James (1890, pp. 403–404):

Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession of the mind,
in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously
possible objects or trains of thought. Focalisation, concentration, of con-
sciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in
order to deal effectively with others.
An issue of some importance concerns the relationship between attention and
consciousness. In order to discuss this, we need first to define ‘‘consciousness.’’
According to Baars (1988, p. 15): ‘‘We will consider people to be conscious of an
event if (1) they can say immediately afterwards that they were conscious of it
and(2) we can independently verify the accuracy of their report.’’ In the context
of that definition, attention is ‘‘that which controls access to conscious experi-
ence’’ (Baars, 1988, p. 302). More specifically, by attending to certain visual or
auditory stimuli rather than others, we can determine in part the contents of
consciousness.
If we ask what makes us attend to some things rather than others, then the
usual answer is that we choose to attend to sources of information that are

From chapter 5 inCognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook, 3d ed. (East Sussex, UK: Psychology
Press, 1995), 95–122. Reprinted with permission.