Psychology: an elementary text-book

by Hermann Ebbinghaus

§ [8]. Attention

A ship, under the influence of several forces—the screw, the wind, the current—follows all of them simultaneously, and the place which it reaches after a certain time is the same as that which it would have reached if these forces had acted, each for the same length of time, but one after the other. External things, whenever they are under the influence of several forces, are governed by the law of the resultant. The mind’s mode of response is entirely different. When there are many things to see, as a crowd of actors on the stage, many things to hear, as a chorus and orchestra, and in addition some whispered words of our neighbor, the result is by no means the same as if all these impressions acted upon our mind successively. If time enough is given, our mind will successively respond to each of these impressions of sight and hearing. But if the response must occur quickly and be done with, it is restricted to a part of the impressions made by the external objects. A few of these impressions, specially favored by circumstances, affect our consciousness at the expense of the others. The latter are not entirely lost for our mind; but they fail to call forth separate responses, they fuse into a mere background upon which the favored impressions make their appearance. They are often spoken of as the fringe of the clearly conscious mental states.

One might call this selective effect the narrowness or focalness of consciousness; in ordinary life it is called attention. We say that attention is given to certain contents, and that the others are not attended to, that they are under the influence of inattention. There is no similar phenomenon in the whole inorganic world. In our mental life nothing is more ordinary. I look up and notice many things. But many more are projected upon my retina without succeeding in becoming noticed. When reading a book I cannot accomplish everything that I wish I could. Giving attention to the meaning, I fail to become conscious of the beauty of style. Looking for typographical errors, I fail to understand the logical connection of the sentences. For each purpose a new reading is necessary. Mental work requires the exclusion of piano music and crying babies. Thinking is not so easy while we are performing a gymnastic feat or walking at a rapid gait. When we are listening to difficult music, we shut our eyes. When a momentous question, a dangerous task, presents itself, we are in danger of losing our head; that is, being occupied by ideas of the magnitude of the event, we fail to become conscious of thoughts and memories of the simplest and most ordinary kind.

The popular view of attention is that it is an independent being, separate from the contents of the mind. Attention stands at the helm, and as the mind desires these or those contents, attention changes the ship’s course. This, of course, is pure mythology. The enhancement and impairment of impressions to which we refer in speaking of attention and inattention are not a peculiar activity of mind; they are simply the effects of peculiar relations existing between the impressions themselves. A few of these relations may be briefly discussed.

Whatever situation is capable of being a source of pleasantness or unpleasantness, is also likely to become enhanced in vividness, so that one may say that the value of an impression for our life of feeling is one of the factors determining attention. Any remark of a person near by, although merely whispered and hardly perceived by others, quickly rises to a high degree of consciousness in my mind if it concerns my reputation. That which we have experienced frequently, no longer causes much pleasantness or unpleasantness; and in accordance with this, it is not likely to be attended to.

This parallelism between feeling and attention is expressed in the word interest. We are interested in those things which conform to our habits of thinking. Because of this conformity they are useful to us at the present moment of our life, and therefore pleasant. Because of this conformity with our habits they become vividly conscious—they are attended to. What is unrelated to our habits of thinking is not useful to us at the moment and is therefore indifferent; and being unrelated, it attracts no attention. Everybody knows how readily the average member of a political party assents to the assertions made by the party leader, how readily the adherent of a religious faith accepts instances proving its correctness, how he unintentionally ignores anything which he cannot accept without opposition or discomfort.

Another factor determining attention is the relation of a new impression to the thoughts occupying the mind at the moment when the impression was made. That which is conscious prepares the path over which everything related may enter. Ordinarily the ticking of a clock remains unnoticed. But let the person think of the clock, or of time, and the next tick is clearly perceived. In order to notice a weak tone in a complicated chord, or a melody in polyphonic music, it is well to hear the tone or the melody first in isolation and try to keep it in mind until the chord or the music is played. A slight difference in the color of two leaves remains unnoticed; but if we are thinking of a color difference just before the leaves are shown to us, it becomes at once vivid in our consciousness. The puzzle pictures common in certain popular magazines would never convey the intended meaning to us, if we were not invited by the text to think of various things which they might represent. If we know beforehand in what order a lecturer will present his arguments to us, we can pay attention to the lecture much more easily and understand it better.

Attention is usually accompanied by numerous instinctive muscular activities, which contribute toward the continuation and toward a greater distinctness or intensity of the impression. When our visual organs are stimulated, the head and the eyes turn so that the impression may be received at the point of keenest vision. If the ear is stimulated, the head turns so that both ears assume the most favorable position with respect to the source of sound. When images occupy the mind, the eyes are directed at an indifferent, uninteresting object, or they are closed, the lips are pressed together, the limbs assume a position of rest. All this tends to keep away avoidable stimulation of the sense organs of the body. These instinctive movements are, of course, perceived as kinesthetic sensations, as varied forms of strain, of activity. Thus they give rise to the erroneous view that attention is a peculiar activity of the mind’s own content. This view is most emphatically expressed in the phrase “voluntary attention.” It often happens that we become conscious of the muscular adaptation characteristic of attention before the mental state to which attention is given has appeared. For example, we see lightning and at once imagine the thunder and the muscular adaptions of the ear and other parts of the body which generally occur when it thunders. Or we hear our teacher’s voice telling us that he will give an explanation, and we imagine the strain, the activity of our muscles, which begins as soon as he starts giving the explanation. This foreseeing of our activities we have above called willing. The foreseeing of our attention is the will to give attention, is voluntary attention.

It is a peculiar fact that vividness of a certain thought or even a class of thoughts is never much prolonged. Other impressions or ideas take the place of those which are now focal. Under the most favorable conditions, the same ideas reappear again and again. This limited duration of attention is most conspicuous in children and is one of the greatest obstacles which the teacher has to overcome. Repeated orders to be attentive are of small value. They tend to call up a general notion of the matter which is being taught, and thus make it easier for the ideas presented by the teacher to enter consciousness. But the effect is not lasting because the very thought of being attentive cannot itself have a long duration. It is therefore preferable to take into account the nature of attending, and in accordance with it, to provide a certain change in the ideas presented—to present the matter in an interesting way.

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