ATTEN'TION (Lat. ad, to + tendcre, to stretch, reach out, to direct one's self, strive). The problem of attention is distinctively a prob lem of modern psychology. It is, of course. pos sible, now that the study of attention has been systematically undertaken, and its part-problems discriminated, to find the germs of a psychology of attention in the descriptive works of the Eighteenth Century, to say nothing of still older treatises: just as it is possible, after Darwin, to find the germs of an evolutionary theory of life as far hack as the old Greek philosophers: None the less, the analysis and measurement of the attentive state are an achievement of the second half of the Nineteenth Century: and if there were no other justification for the much almAed phrase 'the new psychology,' we have its sufficient warrant in the addition of this vast area of previously unexplored territory to the psychological domain. Attention. which in the psychologies of the Associationist School, down to and including, the monumental works of Bain, is either wholly neglected or passed over with a few general remarks, now forms the subject of a large monographic literature, has a chapter of its own in the text-books of the science, and holds the foremost place in many recent psycho logical systems.
We shall best understand the nature of the attentive consciousness, and of the problems which it sets for solution, if we set out from a concrete instance. Suppose that the mail brings me the latest popular novel. a book that I have for some time wished to read, and that I have heard constantly discussed by my friends. I know that I ought to work at other things, but I succumb, after a struggle, and sit down to the open book. At first I read hesitatingly and with effort: my neglect of duty still forces itself upon me from time to time, and I find the early chapters of the book difficult to follow. Pres ently, however, I become interested: later still, T become absorbed, oblivious to everything save the fortunes of the hero and heroine. I read on until the book is finished. and then wake up, almost with a start of surprise, to the business of the real world. What has happened, that is of psychological moment. during this experience? In the first place, the general state or condi tion of my whole consciousness has changed.
In the older psychologies the phrase 'state of consciousness' is used as the equivalent of what is now termed, more correctly. 'mental process': ideas and emotions and desires were referred to as 'states of consciousness.' What is here meant is something very different. We speak of the 'state' of consciousness, in strict usage, in the sense in which we speak of the state of the roads, as good or bad; or of the state of a man's affairs, as flourishing or embarrassed; or of the state of his health, as robust or chat tered. Now it is clear that the state or disposi tion of consciousness, in discursive thought or reverie, differs from its state, understood in this way, in concentrated attention. In the former case, all the ideas which constitute the consciousness are on the same level, of the same mental value; in the latter, some ideas (those held at the focus of attention) are super-emi nently 'robust' or 'flourishing.' while the ideas not attended to are depressed, relegated to the background. Here, then, is a matter that re quires accurate analysis. Secondly, there is a marked difference of mental experience, as the distracted, thwarted attention with which we begin the reading of the novel passes into the rapt and absorbed interest with which we con tinue to read. We are attentive in both cases; but if we are to judge by what we 'feel,' we can hardly give the same name, without qualification. to the two states of consciousness. In other words, there seem to be various forms or kinds of attention. Thirdly, the change of conscious state which conies with the concentration of attention brings with it a characteristic change of bodily attitude. We should all recognize a picture or statue that portrayed the scout (i.e. the attitude of visual attention), or the eaves dropper (the attitude of auditory attention). These attitudes naturally give rise to certain characteristic groups of organic sensation—of sensations from skin and muscle, tendon and joint : and we shall therefore expect to find such sensations playing a constant and important part among the sense-processes that form the back ground of the attentive consciousness.