ABSTRACT
P Erception, as we have seen, is a very complex process resulting in the apprehension of an object which appears external to us, and has a unity and character of its own. This apprehension in ordinary circumstances appears extremely rapid, but it really occupies an appreciable extent of time. It is possible to expose an object for so brief a moment that perception cannot take place, partly because we cannot make the necessary eye accommodation, partly because the sensations caused by the object have not time to be interpreted. For full perception, therefore, we need to hold a sense impression before our minds for a certain space of time, and this holding of a sense impression in thought is generally called attending to it, and attention is the name for the process. In ordinary, and particularly in educational use, attention is used of something much more protracted. A fraction of a second's attention will allow us to perceive an object. When we speak of attention in the usual way, we mean that the object has occupied our minds for minutes or hours. It is this prolonged attention which is the subject of this chapter.
