3.9.3 Type of Attention

Attention denotes a focusing of mental energy on a particular idea or object; interest, subjectively considered, is an attitude of mind. Perhaps we can get a clearer idea of the two terms if we consider the various types of attention.

First of all there is what is called Involuntary attention. This is the type over which the mind has little or no control. A person sits reading—his attention fixed on the page in front of him—when suddenly a rock crashes through the window immediately behind him. He jumps to see what is wrong.

His attention to his book is shifted to the window, not because he wills it so, but because of the suddenness and force of the stimulus. The excitation of the auditory nerve centers compels attention. The attendant feeling may be one of pleasure or of pain—there may be an interest developed or there may not. Involuntary attention clearly does not rest upon interest.

Then there is what is called Nonvoluntary attention. I go to a theatre and some particular musical number is featured. It grips my interest and I follow it with rapt attention, wholly without conscious effort.

Unlike the case of a sudden noise, in this experience my attention is not physiologically automatic—I could control it if I chose—but I choose now to give it. Interest clearly is the motor power behind such attention.

Then, finally, there is Voluntary attention. I sit at a table working out a problem in arithmetic.

Outside there is being played a most exciting ball game. My interests are almost wholly centered in the outcome of the game, but duty bids me work out my problem. I make myself attend to it in spite of the pull of my natural interests.

And so attention is seen to be purely the result of physiological stimulus; it is seen to accompany—fairly to be born out of it—interest. It is seen to be the result of an operation of the will against the natural force of interest. This three-fold classification is of particular significance to the teacher.

He may be sure that if he resorts to the use of unusual stimuli he can arrest attention, though by so doing he has no guarantee of holding it; he may feel certain of attention if he can bring before pupils objects and ideas which to them are interesting; he may so win them to the purposes of his recitation that they will give attention even though they are not interested in what may be going on for the time being. It is evident, however, that resorting to violent stimuli is dangerous, that forced attention is ultimately disagreeable and certainly not a modern commonplace in experience, that attention which attends genuine interest is the attention most generally to be sought.

One question still remains: “How shall we proceed to secure and to hold attention?”

In the first place we should remind ourselves that it is a difficult matter to give sustained attention to a single object or idea, unless the object or idea changes.

The difficulty is greater with children than with adults. In the second place we should be mindful that it is poor policy either to demand attention or to beg for it.

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