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Great question, @micronanopico. As you may imagine, understanding what draws attention is important. There are times when we might want things to grab attention (e.g., a cyclist's reflective vest at night) & times when we don't (e.g., roadside distractions).
@UNSWSciencehttps://twitter.com/micronanopico/status/1232935909080723456 …
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2/10 People often refer to "attention" as if it is one thing, but it's probably better thought of as a family of mechanisms that enable us to select bite-sized bits of information from what would otherwise be an overwhelming cacophony.
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3/10 Often we can direct attention voluntarily, but other times things grab our attention without our permission (i.e., reflexively). The latter is known as "attentional capture". Some evidence suggests that voluntary & reflexive attention recruit different brain networks.pic.twitter.com/8n3SpQm8zU
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4/10 That said, the division between voluntary and reflexive attention isn't always clear, and some have claimed that the dichotomy fails to capture fully how attention works (http://bit.ly/2vjDn3a ).pic.twitter.com/ueaHOkTOpR
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5/10 Things can "capture" attention because they're particularly salient (meaning they stand out from environment, perhaps because of their brightness, loudness, etc) or because they match our history of what we've paid attention to before (http://bit.ly/2I2CbE6 ).pic.twitter.com/g1VJ6g8pcH
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6/10 These combine with voluntary factors (e.g., goals) to guide attention. E.g., People can "tune" attention for features they want to prioritize, thus often causing features that match this "attentional set" to capture attention. http://bit.ly/2Tnh2JY http://bit.ly/2TnYJ7J pic.twitter.com/FAKLzBEbiQ
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7/10 If you're like me, you might wonder, "What about emotion? Don't things that get a strong emotional reaction from me capture attention?" It turns out that they do, and understanding how they do might help us understand some types of clinical disorders. http://bit.ly/3cbKThe pic.twitter.com/tkE70umERO
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8/10 Evidence suggests that things we find intensely negative or positive capture attention, sometimes to such a degree that they cause us to entirely miss other things in front of us. (This is something I've tried to understand in my research; eg: http://bit.ly/2YJ5aU6 )
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9/10 My
@UNSW colleagues@meeleepeeleey &@Pop_Watson do great research on how things we 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 to associate with reward/punishment grab attention (I've been excited to be part of a small subset of that work). http://bit.ly/2T5HYPu also see http://bit.ly/3afYceZ .)pic.twitter.com/Kobsh2deAT
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10/10 So the answer to your question is complex. The philosopher-psychologist William James famously said that "everyone knows what attention is". But it's really a complex dance of processes & factors that shapes what we attend to. It's exciting to try to figure it all out!pic.twitter.com/pGFLHWJc2q
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Wow that nails the main points of my attention lectures.
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