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5 - Attention: Awareness and Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2019

By
Michael I. Posner
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg  and
Wade E. Pickren
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Wade E. Pickren
Affiliation:
Ithaca College, New York
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Summary

Methods to control the mind go back 2,500 years, but our understanding of the brain networks used for such control has developed only in the last 30 thirty years. This chapter reviews the behavioral and cognitive tasks developed within psychology that lie behind these advances. Studies of switching, cueing attention, and resolving conflict have illuminated the mechanisms of attention. The chapter also discusses general methods in psychology which that have influenced theories of attention such as: behaviorism, introspection, information processing, and cognitive science. Attention has been applied to understanding development, consciousness, and aspects of pathology. Tthis chapter also considers these applications of the study of attention.

Keywords

alertnessawarenessattention networksdevelopmentexecutive networkorienting networkpathologyself-control
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Intellectual History of Psychology , pp. 111 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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