ABSTRACT
In the first section of this chapter we briefly attempt to reveal the nature of attention through a description of some of the historical arguments surrounding this process. Defining a concept such as attention is similar challenge to defining such broad topics as intelligence. It is sometimes more helpful to describe the psychological context in which attention has been discussed and researched. In this way the reader will hopefully gain a feeling for the various ways it has been described from a theoretical viewpoint. The neuropsychology of attention is heavily influenced by a long-standing literature of studies carried out on subjects without brain damage. There is a brief review of this literature in the first part of this chapter which sets the stage for the terminology and theoretical discussion that come later in the chapter.
