Attention

Issues of Attention

Multidimensional perspectives of attention have been addressed in various psychological disciplines since the 1950s when studies on cognitive process began to be increasingly emphasized. The foundation of attention in cognitive psychology is the capacity model, which argues that the total amount of cognitive resources for attention is limited. In the information processing model, attention is a process of information selection and filtering between the humans’ sensory registers and working memory.

Selective attention can explain how students catch the main ideas in school lectures. Effort or mental effort is a term that is often used to indicate how much attention an individual puts into a task. Mental involvement and mental engagement are terms that are sometimes used to reveal different degrees of attention paid to processing specific learning materials. From the neuroscientific perspective, attention has been regarded as an arousal that is spontaneously activated by environmental stimulations or intentionally controlled for achieving specific goals. The manifestations of arousal include eye blink, pupil dilation, skin conduction, and brain wave.

Sustained attention indicates how individuals keep focused on a task. It is an important indicator for discriminating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in clinics and special education. Divided attention refers to the divided allocations of attentional resources when an individual performs multiple [Page 133]tasks simultaneously. It is associated with the control and management of limited resources and plays an important role in the performance of multitasking. These attentional models serve as the theoretical foundations of the development of the multimedia learning theory and the cognitive load theory, the two primary guides for the contemporary design of instructional technology and digital learning.

Measurement of Attention

Generally, three primary approaches have been used for the assessment of attention: reported scales, performance-based tests, and physiological measures. Reported scales are the questionnaires or checklists to be checked by learners themselves or by others, such as teachers or parents. The attention assessed by a self-reported scale is often referred to as perceived attention. Sometimes, interviews are employed as complements of reported questionnaires. Performance-based tests are the most commonly used approach in lab-based experiments and clinical practice. For example, the continued performance test for sustained attention is commonly used for diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in young children. Dual-task performance is an approach usually used to assess the attention one pays to the primary task by measuring the response time or error rate of the secondary task, which in turn reveals the cognitive load of the primary task indirectly. Reaction time or error rates are the measures often reported by performance-based tests.

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