Attention

Attention – or the ability selectively focus on and prioritize relevant information while ignoring information deemed irrelevant – is a complex cognitive function which enables the individual to achieve and maintain a state of alertness, orient toward and select relevant information, and regulate thoughts in a willful manner. The fundamental purpose of attention is to direct cognitive resources toward a subset of the available information. This capacity for directing cognitive resources is critically important to one’s ability to learn and purposefully interact with his or her environment, and it is a crucial pre-requisite for higher-level cognitive functions including self-awareness and consciousness.

Attention within the Therapeutic Model

Within the therapeutic model put forth by the Cognitive Function Development Institute (CFDI), attention may be conceptualized as a bridge between sensory inputs and memory. Of course, what we observe, measure, and label as attention is an external behavior produced by internal, unseen processes. These processes, in turn, arise from electrochemical activities in the biological neural networks.

Attention as an observable function arises from a complex set of processes. We can conceive these various process sets as being “process networks” or collections of processes that necessarily work together. There is some variation within the academic and research literature as to the names and division of individual processes within these networks. However, for the purpose of cognitive function development therapy (CFDT), we use the following nomenclature:

• Alerting Network – provides the capacity to prepare and sustain vigilance for processing high priority stimuli;

• Orienting Network – provides the ability to notice and prioritize information, notability by selecting a sensory modality or stimuli location;

• Executive Network – provides the ability to resolve conflicts between potential responses, enables so-called “top-down” processes and gives rise to working memory as a cognitive function.

These “cognitive process networks” should be understood as conceptual constructs, which allow for a high-level understanding of the actual, underlying neural network activities. Realize, of course, that while we can, to some degree, map the cognitive process networks back to the activities of the underlying neural networks, the attentional networks are not themselves actual neural networks. We can, however, observe specific behaviors that arise from these process networks:

• Focused Attention – Focused attention describes the ability to respond directly to specific stimuli. It arises from the alerting network and plays a pivotal role in many desirable behaviors, such as problem-solving. An individual’s capacity for focusing is usually assessed through tasks requiring recognition of a given pattern or object. Focused attention is traditionally considered “in development” until the individual reaches young adulthood;

• Selective Attention – Selective attention describes the ability to avoid or disengage from irrelevant or distracting stimuli and to inhibit inappropriate responses. It involves the executive network and is usually measured using tasks that require conflicting dimensions of target stimuli. Selective attention typically increases from toddlerhood through the early 20s of a person’s life, with significant increases from age 2 through age 7;

• Alternating Attention – Alternating attention describes rapidly switching the object of attention. It is usually engaged automatically by the individual when his or her available cognitive resources are insufficient to process all required stimuli or information simultaneously. It depends upon the orienting network and is typically assessed using multiple-choice tasks or multiple-object tracking tasks. Alternating attention is available from infancy and develops through late childhood;

• Divided Attention – Divided attention, sometimes called “distributed attention,” concerns the ability to maintain two or more objects of attention simultaneously. It arises from the interaction of all three attentional process networks, and will usually be assessed through dual-task exercises. Divided attention increases from childhood through young adulthood.

• Sustained Attention – Sustained attending, also referred to as vigilance, is called upon when the task at hand requires maintenance over a prolonged period – especially when the task requires detection of rarely or unpredictably occurring target events. Sustained attention is an effortful process. It can be negatively impacted by fatigue, stress, long intervals between target events, random spacial appearance of target events, and infrequent cueing of target events. Sustained attention underlies and determines the efficiency of selective and divided attention. Sustained attention is bi-directional – that is, it can be a “top-down” process driven by internal or goal-activated behavior, or a “bottom-up” process such as may be initiated by sensory inputs. These are overlapping processes that will interact to optimize performance. In the absence of injury, sustained attention increases from early childhood into adulthood, and tends to show a moderate decline as individuals age.

Attention as an observable cognitive function may require the individual to engage in several attentional processes. For example, focused and selective attention are both needed for word identification and decoding the sounds of letters. Selective and alternating attention are both needed for the saccadic eye movements needed for smooth reading.

Within the CFDI therapeutic model, the intersection of attention and memory gives rise to working memory. Interestingly, the curated research literature suggests working memory does not exist as a cognitive process, per se. Nor is there any evidence of one or more neural networks or brain anatomical regions dedicated to it. Instead, the cognitive function identified as working memory seems to be the result of focus within the various attentional networks on representations drawn from memory.