It would be completely impossible for a productive and purposeful flow of mental processes without focusing on the perceived object or phenomenon. A person can look at an object located near him, and not notice or perceive it badly. Remember, when you are occupied with your thoughts, deeply immersed in introspection, you do not understand the essence of conversations taking place nearby, although the sounds of words reach your auditory analyzer.
There are times when a person may not feel pain if his attention is fixed on something else. The characteristics of attention in psychology occupy a significant area for research, because thanks to this cognitive process, the productive work of all others is ensured. What is the essence of this mental phenomenon?
Definition of concept
Scientists-psychologistsdefine attention as a mental process characterized by the focus and focus of human consciousness on any phenomenon, object or activity. What is meant by directionality? It is the choice of an item among many other items. Concentration means the ability of a person not to be distracted from the chosen subject by others that are not related to it. This is attention.
Characteristics of attention help a person successfully navigate in the external environment and provide a more complete and clear reflection of it in mental reality. The object to which human attention is directed occupies a central place in the mind, and a person perceives everything else indistinctly and weakly. But the main characteristics of attention indicate that a person can switch, and different objects will occupy a central place in the mind.
Attention is a dependent cognitive process, because we cannot observe it outside of other mental phenomena. A person can listen with attention or inattentively, think, do, look. In this regard, attention is only a property belonging to other cognitive processes.
Physiological preconditions of the presented process
Attention is provided by the functioning of those centers of the nervous system that are involved in the work of cognitive processes that accompany attention. There is no specialized nerve center responsible for the implementation of this process, but the appearance of visual, tactile and other sensations involves the activity of certain areas of the cortex.brain.
Studying higher nervous activity, scientists found that nerve formations located in different parts of the brain cannot have the same level of excitation or inhibition. Cognitive processes take place in the cortex and this is expressed in the activity of certain areas of one intensity or another.
Optimal excitability according to I. P. Pavlov
Psychological characteristics of attention were made by both psychologists and physiologists. I. P. Pavlov argued that if we could look through the human skull and the areas with optimal excitability on the brain glowed, we would see how fast this luminous point moves across the cerebral hemispheres, while making different broken figures.
Physiology under attention understands the nervous activity of a certain part of the brain, which at the moment has optimal excitability, while other parts have lower excitability.
The general characteristic of attention, according to IP Pavlov, is that in places of optimal excitability, new conditioned reflex connections are easily established and new differentiations are successfully formed. The clarity and distinctness of cognitive processes can be explained with the help of this particular feature.
The cortex in areas where optimal excitability manifests itself becomes a creative place in the brain. These areas are constantly changing due to the movement of optimal excitability in connection with the received irritations of variouscharacter in the process. There is also a change and constant movement of areas with a low level of excitability.
Places of the cerebral cortex, which have high and low excitability, have a connection in the form of the law of negative induction, characteristic of such a mental process as attention. The characteristics of attention are determined by the action of this physiological law, which says the following: strong excitation of some parts of the cerebral cortex, due to induction, causes inhibition processes, the completion of the nervous process in general, therefore optimal excitability occurs in some places, and inhibition in others.
A. A. Ukhtomsky's dominance principle
In addition to the studies of IP Pavlov, A. A. Ukhtomsky was involved in explaining the physiological mechanisms of attention. This scientist put forward a theory about the principle of dominance. According to this doctrine, at a certain moment in the cerebral cortex, a certain area appears, characterized by a high level of excitability, which dominates other areas, inhibiting their activity. Also, excitability can be increased due to impulses of a different nature.
Rhythmic weak sound can cause an orienting reflex in a normal situation, but in the case of a dominant associated with reading a book, this sound will increase attention, or rather its concentration. But if the nervous excitation located in the dominant focus reaches its maximum indicator, then impulses of a different nature do not lead to concentration of attention, butto parabiotic inhibition.
Properties of attention and their characteristics
This mental process has certain features that have a different expression in different people. So, the main characteristics of attention are the following properties:
- Concentration of attention or concentration. Human consciousness highlights an object and directs attention to it.
- Sustainability. This characteristic helps a person resist distractions, so that a person can focus on a specific object or action for a long time. The amount of attention is characterized by the number of elements that a person can perceive at the same time.
- Distribution. This property is responsible for the ability to observe several objects or perform several multidirectional actions at the same time.
- Switching is a psychological characteristic of attention, the essence of which is to move attention from one object to another, new one.
- Distractedness and attentiveness. In the first variant, the human consciousness is not directed to some object, but is scattered. Mindfulness is the opposite.
Characteristics of attention are all of the above properties. Now let's take a closer look at the last two features. So let's get started.
What is distraction?
Distraction is not a general characteristic of attention, but rather a specific one. Scientists distinguish two basic types of this property. The first arises as a productinstability of the mental process. This characteristic of attention and memory is characteristic of children of primary school age, but can also be manifested in adults. The causes of this phenomenon can be a weakness of the nervous system, high fatigue and lack of sleep. If a person does not have the habit of focusing his attention on work, then the first kind of absent-mindedness may develop in this case.
The second type of the phenomenon of "scattered attention" has a different character. The characteristics of attention in this case are represented by a serious concentration on one thing and a lack of attention to other surrounding objects. Such absent-mindedness is characteristic of enthusiastic people - scientists, writers, fans of their work.
Characteristic of mindfulness
Another two characteristics of attention in psychology are mindfulness and inattention. In principle, we can say that these are two aspects of one property. From childhood, a child is taught to do everything carefully, and over time, attention becomes a permanent feature of a person - mindfulness. With this feature, people present themselves in society only on the positive side. This feature is also accompanied by observation, the ability to better perceive the environment. An attentive person is distinguished by a quick reaction to ongoing events and a deeper experience, good learning abilities.
Mindfulness has a connection with the productive development of such a process as attention. Characteristics of attention (namely, volume, concentration, persistence,distribution) help to qualitatively develop the above property. Such a person has no problems with concentration or involuntary attention.
Psychologists say that interest plays a big role in work or study. It is much easier for an attentive person to mobilize his forces if there is no interest in the matter. Ch. Darwin, I. Pavlov, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov and M. Gorky differed in the described property.
Attention and its types
Scientists-psychologists have developed several classifications of the types of this mental process. The most popular criterion is the activity of the individual in the process of organizing attention. According to this, 3 types of it are distinguished: involuntary, arbitrary and post-voluntary.
Involuntary attention
The characteristic of involuntary attention lies in the fact that it is a non-purposeful process of focusing consciousness on a specific stimulus. This is the primary species that develops in ontogeny during preschool age. It proceeds without the participation of volitional regulation.
Involuntary attention is characterized by the absence of a struggle of motives, interests inherent in arbitrary, where a person can be torn apart by competing urges that have different directions and which can attract and hold the consciousness of the individual.
Arbitrary attention
The characteristic of voluntary attention shows that it is a conscious and regulated process of focusing consciousness on an object that meets the requirements of activity. This view startstheir development from primary school age, when the child begins to learn.
A person focuses not only on emotionally pleasant situations, but also on what is part of his duties and does not bring much pleasure. After 20 minutes, the nervous processes get tired - the personality begins to be distracted. This fact should be taken into account in the process of training and work.
A person makes a conscious choice in favor of this or that interest with the help of volitional efforts and directs all his attention to one object, and suppresses the rest of the impulses.
After-voluntary attention
This type of attention is considered the most productive, since a person continues to function voluntary attention, but volitional efforts are no longer needed for this. This happens when you are busy with work.
In terms of psychological characteristics, the presented type of attention is similar to involuntary. But the main difference is that post-voluntary attention is due not to the interest in the subject itself, but to the orientation of the individual. Activity becomes a need, and its product is of great importance for the individual. The duration of such attention is not limited.
Other types of attention
In addition to the above, there are also the following types:
- Natural attention. A person selectively reacts to stimuli from the external and internal environment, which carry informational novelty. In this case, the orienting reflex becomes the basic mechanism.
- Social attention is formed inas a result of educational and training measures. Volitional regulation and selective conscious response take place here.
- Immediate attention directly depends on the actual object.
- Indirect attention depends on specialized methods and means (gesture, word, pointing sign, etc.).
- Sensual attention has a connection with the emotional sphere and selective focus on the senses.
- Intellectual attention is associated with human mental activity.
Conclusion
In the presented article, such a mental phenomenon as attention was considered. It is not a separate cognitive process, but rather accompanies and serves the activities of memory, thinking, imagination and others.
