Synonyms
Attention; Cognitive control; Executive control; Multitasking; Spatial attention; Task switching
Definition
In everyday life, people often refer to attention as if it were a single, unitary thing, such as a vat of energy that can be spread across stimuli or tasks. Research suggests otherwise (Nobre and Kastner 2014). There appear to be many different limited mental resources associated with different brain networks and pertaining to different levels of processing (e.g., spatial vs. central) that can be utilized in multiple ways (e.g., activation, inhibition, control). For example, one can apply extra mental effort to an important task, as in the oft-heard command “pay attention,” as opposed to performing it automatically. Attention can also refer to selective processing of one thing over another (selective attention), which could be a spatial location, object, feature, thought, or entire task. Attention can also be spread among tasks (divided attention), often degrading...
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Ruthruff, E., Lien, MC. (2017). Aging and Attention. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_227
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_227
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