Understanding Attention

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Better attention helps us notice relevant information before assumptions narrow what we think is possible.

Attention requires both focus and openness to information we may not expect or want to find.

We can improve our attention through practice, helping us notice more and choose more intentionally.

When you see or hear something, are you doing anything, or are you simply waiting for the world to hit your senses?

Most of us think seeing happens when we open our eyes and hearing happens when sounds reach our ears. Our senses receive information, our brains process it, and then we decide what to do.

Yet seeing something passively is not the same as actively noticing it.

We can learn to pay attention in ways that affect not only what but also how much we notice. The goal is not to take in everything. The goal is to keep ourselves from narrowing our scope before we have noticed enough to judge well and to become better at recognizing what is worth noticing.

Otherwise, we may miss things standing right in front of us. For example, in Simons’s and Chabris’s famous “gorilla” experiments, participants focusing on counting basketball passes sometimes failed to notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene. Their eyes were working perfectly well, but they could only see what they were looking for.

The Benefits of Paying Better Attention

Better attention improves judgment because it shapes what information becomes available for us to consider. Think about the last difficult conversation you had. I am sure you heard what the other person........

© Psychology Today