ABSTRACT
Interest in attention as a field of psychological study waned during the behaviorist period in the first half of the century when attention was improperly dismissed as a mediating mental variable that could not be directly measured and was therefore outside the bounds of scientific inquiry. The study of attention has importance that is at once historical, theoretical, and applied. Selective attention can be defined either at a gross level, as selecting to devote attention to one task or another, or at a fine level, usually represented by visual scanning, as looking from one place to another. Intrinsic to the concept of selective attention is the notion of an attention switch, which describes the process of moving attention from one task, or channel, to another. If selection is aided by divided attention, then two or more channels may gain access to the filter at once. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
