Many Jay tasks require us to pay close attention and concentrate, and most people would like to be able to do this better. There are methods we can all use to help maintain attention on ourselves and others, although psychologists have found that there are limits to how much our minds can take in at once.
Whereas alertness is about how awake or sleepy you are, attention is your ability to focus and concentrate on something. Although attention is a familiar concept, it has in the past been surprisingly difficult to define and research. A century ago, pioneer psychologist William James described attention as ‘ taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one of what seem simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.’ Another early US psychologist, Edward Titchener, carried out experiments on attention and discovered the principle of ‘ prior entry’ – that is, when there is more than one thing impinging on our awareness, our attention tends to be taken up by whichever one occurred first.
Studying attention
In 1920, attention disappeared from academic psychology for several decades. The subject was dominated by the behaviorist approach, whereby anything not clearly observable or measurable – including the concepts of attention, consciousness, and even the mind itself – was dismissed as not open to scientific study. From the 1950s, however, psychologists moved away from behaviorism and began to regard the mind as an information-processing system. Attention and conscious thought became central topics in this ‘ cognitive’ approach. One of the most important early studies in cognitive psychology was carried out in 1953 by US psychologist Colin Cherry. He was intrigued by the so-called ‘ cocktail party effect’ and how we are able to follow just one conversation when many people are talking at once. Using experiments with headphones, Cherry found that we unconsciously use physical characteristics (for example, the gender of the speaker or the direction of their voice) to pick out one voice from the many we are hearing.
Building on the information-processing idea, psychologist and former engineer Donald Broadbent argues that attention is basically a limited-capacity information channel. The brain receives far more information than it can cope with, so incoming material is ‘ filtered’ to select only a small amount for full attention, largely depending – as C herry had found- on its physical characteristics. The rest of the information is relegated to a much-reduced level of processing but is not entirely discarded. This is why, for example, you can immediately ‘ tune in ‘ if someone says your name in a conversation that you are not actually listening to.
Divided attention
More recent theories of attention have addressed the problem of how we can apply our attention to more than one activity. In the 1990s, researchers argued that there is an important distinction between focused and divided attention. In focused attention, you try to select only one thing to attend to, even though two or more activities are going on around you – perhaps if you have to work somewhere that has distractions. Divided attention, on the other hand, is when you are trying to do two things at once – such as driving a car and carrying on a conversation with your passenger. The researchers found three main factors that affect how successfully tasks are achieved under divided attention.
OPEN TO DISTRACTION
Margaret was 39 years old when she moved from a publishing firm, where she’d had her own office for 15 years, to a dot-com business with open-plan offices. After six months of sharing a large space and the amount of attention a task demands – an experienced driver will find it easier to converse with a passenger than with a learner. The third factor is similarity: less similar tasks tend to be easier to perform because they interfere with each other less. For example, a person may be able to converse while driving but find it impossible to hold two conversations or read two things at once.
Distractions at work
Background noise and activity can be very detrimental to our ability to keep our attention focused at work. Since the early 1990s, there has been a trend toward pen plan offices. While some staff may thrive on the buzz of frequent interactions, others suffer because they find it so hard to concentrate. Recent research in the USA shows that open-plan offices can significantly reduce both job satisfaction and productivity. A six-year study involving managers and employees in major organizations such as Lockheed, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft showed that the most important factor in job satisfaction and performance is the ability to concentrate on work without distraction. But, while at least half of all professionals’ time is spent doing quiet, focused ‘work, about two-thirds of people in open offices are seriously disturbed by the conversations of other people. Mike Brill, who summarised the research, concluded that offices that have no enclosures are ‘ludicrous.’
However, not everyone agrees that open-plan offices are a bad idea. For example, Gary Horwitz, vice-president of a California–based internet company, maintains that, from his experience, ‘ the openness of the space is conducive to a free flow of communication and problem-solving. The solution to these opposing views may well lie in personality: the introverts among us are likely to work better in quieter environments. At the same time, extroverts may be better off in noisier, more stimulating places. Perhaps in the future, therefore, staff will be able to request an environment suited to their temperament – for lower stress and high productivity all around.
How To Pay Attention
Keep the following advice in mind when you are trying to pay attention to a task that demands concentration, such as studying.
- Get yourself into the right frame of mind when preparing to start the task. Remind yourself of the purpose of the task: relate it to specific short-term or long-term goals.
- Decide on a place and time, for example, one hour) when you will study. If necessary, tell people that you do not want to be disturbed. If you are working at home, perhaps unplug the phone or switch on the answer phone.
- Make sure that your environment is conducive to studying. The study area should be well-lit, and the temperature should be comfortable but slightly on the cool side. The work surface and surrounding area should be uncluttered, but everything you need should be easily accessible.
- Try to eliminate intrusive thoughts that will divert your attention. For example, if you have a lot of pressing things to do, write a list prioritizing them before you start studying. If any ideas come up while you are studying, add them to the list and tell yourself they can be dealt with after the study period.
- If you are intending to study for longer than an hour, take a break for at least ten minutes between periods. Get up for a drink or go outside for some fresh air.
- If you discover any extra concentration strategies that work for you, note them down.
How To Hold Attention
While many people need to give talks as part of their work, at some time, we are all likely to have to address a group of people – perhaps at a family event or an office party. Afterward, we would all like people to say, ‘That was interesting!’
There are no foolproof rules for being a good speaker, but keeping your audience engaged is a vital component. To do this, you will need to include some attention-grabbing elements. Bear in mind that people respond to novelty, so try to have lots of variety within your talk. For example:
- Liven up the presentation of factual material by telling a story that illustrates your point, or add some action by holding up a prop or moving around the room.
- Add visual interest – write on a flip chart or board or project a slide with bullet points, diagrams, or other pictures.
- Interact directly with the audience. Ask them questions, or encourage them to comment on what you have said.
You can also use examples to hold the attention of the audience and illustrate your points. When using examples in a talk, keep the following points in mind:
- Be clear, and make sure your examples clarify the point you are making. If the connection between your point and the example is weak or tangential, you will lose your audience.
- Be relevant. Don’t include jokes simply for the sake of getting a few laughs. Your material also has to be relevant.
- Be brief. If you are giving a ten-minute speech, don’t use an eight-minute example.
- Target the audience. Keep the specific interests of your audience in mind. For example, if making a presentation to an audience of gardeners, you might tell a story about Alan Titchmarsh. At the same time, to a group of entrepreneurs, you might use an anecdote about Richard Branson.
- Use personal experience. Using illustrations of things that happened to you helps to hold an audience’s attention. Such examples tend to be more vivid and easier to remember (for you and your audience) than abstract or impersonal ones.
