Attention

ATTENTION. - I. PHILOSOPHY. - From the Latin ad and tendere, it is the convergence or direction of consciousness (v.) upon some object of the world, whether external or internal. According to the nature of the psychic forces that cause it, a distinction is made between conscious and unconscious attention, voluntary and involuntary, sensory and spiritual. In positive psychology, attention was at the center of psychic life and its functioning was reduced to the response, of a reflex or associative character, that the subject gave to the sensory stimulus to which it corresponded exactly; in more recent psychology, attention is not explained so much in terms of the physical nature of the stimulus as in terms of both the real value of the object (biological or spiritual) and the conditions operating at a given moment in the total field of consciousness. But since there also exists an involuntary attention, and an unconscious attention is not excluded either (even if the term seems contradictory), inasmuch as, while the present consciousness directs itself to a defined object, other objects can likewise make themselves present but not be noticed until later, as memories or phenomena of "already seen," so attention takes on a broader meaning, coexistent and almost solidary with the whole of cognitive and affective life. In conscious attention, the awareness of the object's presence is conditioned by definite minimum and maximum quantities in the energy of the stimulus (threshold of attention), on this side or beyond which attention becomes impossible, as Aristotle himself had recognized (De Sensu et Sensato, 6, 445 b 2 ff.). The physiological theory of attention has recourse to the distribution and intensity of nervous energy (Titchener); the psychological theory appeals rather to the constellations of images, ideas, and feelings that can be conceived either as more or less complex associations (associationism) or as immediate and original totalities and forms (Ganzheiten, Gestalten) according to more recent psychology (Wertheimer's School of Gestalten, F. Krueger's School of Ganzheit). In reality, the nature of attention is to be understood in terms of the very nature of consciousness, of the multiplicity of its fields and the diversity of its activities, and not as a single and uniform activity.

Cornelio Fabro

II. PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY

From a descriptive and experimental point of view, the following main forms of attention can be distinguished: concentrated, when it is polarized on a single content of consciousness (as in the case of the scientist absorbed in a single object and distracted from everything else); distributed, when it applies "simultaneously" to several contents (as in the case of Julius Caesar dictating several letters at the same time); oscillating or fluctuating, when it moves with a certain rapidity from one content to another (as in the case of the driver of a fast vehicle); expectant, when it is turned toward an object not yet in its possession, but foreseen and awaited - typical is the case of one who awaits a given perception, representing it in advance (preperception) - or, in the field of mental pathology, of certain deluded persons and certain hallucinating persons who await something foreseen, something feared; certain so-called "spiritual" phenomena or phenomena of suggestion in hypnosis or in the waking state are explained as effects of this form of attention - conscious or subconscious - aroused by the experimenter in the subject on whom he operates); vigilant, when it is strained in awaiting a stimulus still absent, to which it prepares to react (as in the case of an individual lying in ambush).

Like every form of psychic activity, the attentional one too is accompanied by organic phenomena, in the circulation (congestion of the cerebral centers in action, in parallel with decongestion at the periphery), in respiration (shortening of inspirations, lengthening of expirations), in the muscular system (characteristic minimum, immediate adaptation of certain organs and mediate adaptation of the body, spontaneous inhibition of movements contrary to attention). But with this, attention cannot be reduced to a physiological mechanism, considering it a result of somatic modifications: far from being the consequence of these, it is their cause. For this reason attention reveals to us one of the most evident and significant influences of the psyche on the soma. The "why" of attention is founded on the "law of interest," which, considered biologically, is the very law of life. Objects attract attention not by their objective value (by what they are in themselves), but by their subjective value (by what they are for us). Therefore, in the final analysis, the determinism of attention is to be sought in us, not outside us; and attention is essentially a phenomenon of self-determination.

Considering attention in its positive aspect, all its instrumental importance for knowledge appears: it is in fact the convergence of the psychic person toward the object, for the purpose - conscious or subconscious - of knowing it. In the pedagogical field, therefore, the greatest importance must be given to attention, making use of its mechanisms and adapting methods to them. In intellectual education, the happy conjunction of voluntary with spontaneous attention will always be of great help, especially against distractions and intellectual digressions. But in the first place is to be placed the education of the feelings through affective attention, so rarely right and sound. As regards moral education, as also religious education, its basis is constituted by the rational formation of the habit of attending to healthy objects and of not attending to unhealthy ones; and this is achieved by polarizing the psychic energies toward a moral ideal (and hence the importance of attention in prayer, which is the easiest and most habitual expression of religious feeling). In the moral life, one of the essential aspects of the struggle of duty against passion is the struggle of voluntary attention for an ideal against spontaneous attention for lower attractions.

Gislero Flesch

III. THEOLOGY

In the theological field, attention is considered especially in relation to prayer and the Sacraments, and is divided into internal and external. The first is the mind's advertence to the action being performed, and excludes distraction or the wandering of the mind to extraneous things. The second excludes external distraction and consists in avoiding any external act that cannot coexist with internal attention.

Theologians are agreed in admitting that for the essence of prayer some attention, either internal or external, is absolutely necessary, and that mental prayer requires internal attention, since it is an act of the intellect. The controversy concerns vocal prayer. Some say that internal attention is required, and therefore affirm that whoever lacks any internal attention does not satisfy the recitation of the Divine Office. Others teach that internal attention is not necessary. The difference in practice is minimal, and the disagreement amounts rather to a simple question of words, since internal attention, according to theologians, can refer not only to the proper end of prayer, which is to honor God, but also to the literal sense of the words, indeed even to the words taken materially, insofar as they are pronounced integrally and exactly. All theologians require for vocal prayer, in particular for the recitation of the Divine Office, this at least material attention regarding the correct pronunciation of the words, which of its nature entails a certain internal attention. Voluntary distractions during prayer are always more or less sinful.

To administer the Sacraments validly, external attention suffices; therefore even a distracted minister can validly administer them. For licit administration, however, internal attention is required, which excludes voluntary distraction, both because of the reverence owed to the Sacraments and in order to avoid the danger of making mistakes. Involuntary distraction is not a sin; voluntary distraction ordinarily constitutes a venial fault. In the subject who receives the Sacrament, attention is not required ad validitatem. One who has the use of reason and voluntarily allows himself to be distracted in the act of receiving it sins, lacking the reverence owed.

Felice M. Cappello