ABSTRACT
The most important of the distinguishing characteristics of focal attention are these: ( 1) Acts of focal attention are directional; they do not concern the total field2-that is, they are not global, as the most primitive forms of experience are, but focus attention in a particular direction. ( 2) They are directed at a particular object, which may be an external object or an internal object, such as a thought or a feeling.3 (3) They take hold of 2] By "field," I designate, in this context, both the external and internal fields in their interaction-that is, the environment as well as the thoughts, feelings, impulses, tensions, and needs of the person. 3] The object-directedness of attention has often been described. See, for example, K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1935), p. 358. Phenomenologists have discussed this problem in terms of intentionality of acts. Intentionality (lntentionalitiit) does not mean purposiveness or purpose-
Focal Attention and the Emergence of Reality 253 the object and aim at its active mental grasp. (4) Each focal act, as a rule, consists of not just one sustained approach to the object to which it is directed but several renewed approaches. These approaches explore different aspects and relations of the object. Not only are they made from different angles, as it were, but often they are made repeatedly from the same angle and directed at the same facet of the object in an attempt to assimilate it more thoroughly. They also usually-probably always-alternate or oscillate between a more passive, receptive, reactive phase and a more active, taking-hold, structuring, integrating phase. The relation of these two phases to each other and their relative predominance vary considerably both inter-and intra-individually. ( 5) Acts of focal attention exclude the rest of the field (environmental and internal) from that form of consciousness which is designated as focal awareness.
