Abstract
In this paper, I discuss attention in terms of selecting visual information and acting on it. Selection has been taken as a bedrock concept in attention research since James (1890). Selective attention guides action by privileging some things at the expense of others. I formalize this notion with models which capture the relationship between input and output under the control of spatial and temporal attention, by attenuating or discarding certain inputs and by weighing energetic costs, speed, and accuracy in meeting pre-chosen goals. Examples are given from everyday visually guided actions, and from modeling data obtained from visual searches through temporal and spatial arrays and related research. The relation between selection, as defined here, and other forms of attention is discussed at the end.
Highlights
In everyday life, as laymen, we tend to think of attention as a unitary concept, similar to memory or perception: we recall paying attention to something we saw or heard
Transpositions occurred despite feedback of the correct order after every trial and extensive practice by the subjects. It is the order of items in visual short-term memory (VSTM), not just the item information, which lends confidence to the model equations detailed in Reeves and Sperling [24]
The valid–invalid difference has recently been employed to great effect by Denison et al [11]. They showed that the attention effect on sensitivity (d’ for valid minus d’ for invalid) for identifying the orientations of two successive gratings separated by a variable inter-stimulus interval (ISI) grows towards an ISI of 300 ms and falls off by ISIs from 600 to 800 ms
Summary
As laymen, we tend to think of attention as a unitary concept, similar to memory or perception: we recall paying attention to something we saw or heard. Attention can be studied as a neurological construct (a change in single cell responses or in gross recordings like the EEG, VEP, or BOLD response) and as exemplifying underlying neural processes such as gain control and normalization (Desimone and Duncan [10]; Denison, Carrasco, and Heeger [11]). All of these usages can be found to apply in studies of vision, visual perception, and visual memory. Attention to internal sensations such as pain and pleasure should be included in a comprehensive treatment, but is excluded here
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