How Does Attention Work?

注意不仅仅是我们关注的东西 - 它也涉及我们所设的所有事情要调整。我们知道注意都是可选择的and limited in terms of capacity, but how exactly do we filter out unnecessary information and shine the spotlight of our attention on things that actually matter?

Many theories of attention tend to concentrate on how we focus our attention but fail to address exactly how we manage to ignore all the stimuli around us competing for attentional resources. A few recent studies have focused on the neuroscience behind this process, shedding some light on the possible processes that influence how we tune out distractions.

注意at the Neural Level

One 2013 study by researchers at Newcastle University suggested that the wayneuronsrespond to outside stimuli impacts perceptual abilities.

领导作者Alex Thiele解释说：

“当你与他人沟通时，你可以让自己更好地听到更好的声音或更清楚地说话。当我们关注时，神经元似乎做了类似的东西。他们向他们的伙伴更加强烈地发送信息，这与口语更响亮。但更重要的是，他们还增加了他们的信息的保真度，这比较清楚地说话。“

Syncing Brain Regions

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that the brain appears to be capable of synchronizing activity in different regions of thebrain，允许一个人专注于任务。研究人员将基本上“调谐到相同频率”的携带大脑的流程，以创造清晰的通信线条。

"We think the brain not only puts regions that facilitate attention on alert but also makes sure those regions have open lines for calling each other," explained researcher Amy Daitch.

The study involved directly scanning certain brain regions in epilepsy patients as they watched visual targets. The participants were asked to detect targets on a screen without moving their eyes and to then press a button to indicate that they had seen the target.

What the researchers found was that as the participants directed their attention to a target, certain regions of the brain important for attention adjusted their excitability cycles so that the cycles matched up. Areas not associated with attention showed no such changes in excitability.

The authors suggested that when areas of the brain involved in stimulus detection are at a high level of excitability, people are much more likely to notice a stimulus. Conversely, when excitability levels are low in these regions, the likelihood of a signal being detected is much lower.

大脑的反牵引系统

Another recent study suggests that the brain actually actively suppresses certain signals in order to prevent avoid distraction. The researchers believe that our ability to focus on an object in only part of the attentional equation.

“我们的结果表明，这只是等式的一部分，并且对不相关物体的主动抑制是另一个重要的部分，”引领作家John Gaspar解释说。

作者还建议发现这种反牵张系统的发现可能对与关注有关的心理障碍有重要影响，包括ADHD。

为什么这些过程很重要？

为什么了解注意力背后的流程如此重要？因为我们生活在一个分心的世界里。在任何特定的时刻，成千上万的事情可能会竞争我们的关注和我们过滤疏水的能力，并专注于真正重要的重要 - 这可能意味着生死与死亡之间的差异有时意味着差异。

When you are driving a car through busy traffic, your ability to focus on the road and other drivers while ignoring distractions (the radio, your mobile phone, the chatter of a passenger in your car) can mean the difference between arriving to your destination safely or getting into a traffic accident.

随着Research John McDonald解释说，“分心是驾驶和其他高赌注环境中受伤和死亡的主要原因。处理分心的能力有个体差异。新的电子产品旨在抓住注意。抑制此类信号effort, and sometimes people can’t seem to do it."

对大脑如何处理分心的新研究，重点关注关注该过程如何运作，并为研究人员和医生提供了处理注意力问题的新方法。