Introduction to Attention

As mentioned previously, attention used to be exclusively related to information intake, whereas it is now generally recognized that attentional control occurs on all processing levels: perceptual, central, and motor. When faced with overload, attention controls intake of information and guards ongoing processing from distraction (e.g., Broadbent, 1982). Without overload, attention is still involved in selecting and preparing for action. For instance, the effects of foreperiod duration and of relative stimulus frequency (chap. 3) are often discussed in terms of sustained attention (Posner, 1978). ¹ Bottom-up as well as top-down factors play a part, in that attention partly derives from exogenous factors such as involuntary capturing and partly from endogenous factors such as voluntary focusing or dividing (Eimer, Nattkemper, Schröger, & Prinz, 1996). Bottom-up processes may be more prominent at the perceptual level, whereas top-down voluntary control may dominate the central and motor levels.