ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysts, of course, have their ideal of so-called "evenly hovering attention"; however, although there is well documented evidence that both the patient and the analyst can learn to pay attention to the fluctuation of their thoughts, it certainly does not appear that the result is ever "even" or "regular". Attention also bears important relationships to learning, the facilitation of which is perhaps the central subject of the monograph. Selective attention refers to the fact that whenever we choose to focus on some things we leave others out, depending, presumably, upon what is of interest to us at the time. Posner and Raichle cite evidence that supports their conclusion that consciousness as focal attention requires the activity of the anterior cingulate. In a semantic monitoring task the anterior cingulate shows stronger activation as the number of targets increases, without corresponding increase in task difficulty.
