A DETAILED

ASSIGNMENT ON
CONCENTRATION AND
ATTENTION
 A
CONCENTRATION AND ATTENTION

INTRODUCTION:

Attention and concentration are two very important cognitive abilities of human beings.
Most of the human behavior and action is a result of what has been learnt as there is not
much besides sleeping and breathing that a man does without learning. Human learning is
a result of paying attention to what is being taught as well as making use of our senses. We
need to focus our attention to something to learn about it. This is much like focusing the
spotlight of a torch in dark to make sense of environment. There is another word or ability
labeled as concentration that confuses many as it is very similar in meaning to attention but
both the terms do have differences in them. Both of these terms have been discussed
briefly as follows.

ATTENTION:

Attention is the ability to choose and concentrate on relevant stimuli.  It refers to focusing
and processing information from our surroundings. Attention is the cognitive process that makes
it possible to position ourselves towards relevant stimuli and consequently respond to it.
This cognitive ability is very important and is an essential function in our daily lives.

TYPES OF ATTENTION:

Attention is a complex process that we use in almost all of our daily activities. Over time,
scientists and researchers have found out that attention is not a single process, but rather a
group of attention sub-processes. The most accepted model for the attention sub-
components is currently the hierarchical model from Sohlberg and Mateer (1987, 1989),
which is based on clinical cases of experimental neuropsychology. According to this model,
attention can be divided into the following parts:

 Selective Attention
  Sustained Attention
 Divided Attention
 Alternating Attention

SELECTIVE ATTENTION:

 Selective attention takes place when we block out certain features from our
environment in a strive to focus on a certain stimuli. The ability to attend to a specific
stimulus or activity in the presence of other.

EXAMPLE:

Trying to listen to the person you are with while being at a loud concert or a busy
restaurant. You usually pick most of the conversation because that is what you are trying to
focus on.

DIVIDED ATTENTION:

 The ability to attend different stimuli or attention at the same time.

EXAMPLE:

All those times where we try to focus on two things at the same time are examples of
divided attention. Such as talking on the phone while cleaning a messy room, texting on
phone while talking to someone etc.

SUSTAINED ATTENTION:

The ability to attend to a stimulus or activity over a long period of time. That means when we can
focus on a single task, event or person for a prolonged time. Sustained attention is also commonly
referred to as one's attention span. It takes place when we can continually focus on one thing
happening, rather than losing focus and having to keep bringing it back. People can get better at
sustained attention as they practice it.

EXAMPLE:
 A person trying to complete a task such as a business project, a school assignment, a
painting or any other task that requires our attention for a long time.

ALTERNATING ATTENTION:

 The ability to change focus of our attention between two or more stimuli.

EXAMPLE:

Most common example of alternating attention can be during a meeting when we have to
divert our attention steadily from one person to other.

CONCENTRATION:

Concentration has been defined as "the ability to direct one's thinking in whatever
direction one would intend”. We all have the ability to concentrate some of the time. But at
other times our thoughts are scattered, and our minds race from one thing to another. To
deal with such times, we need to learn and practice concentration skills and strategies. If
you have studied chemistry, concentration is defined as the property of a mixture where the
amount of ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total volume of the mixture.
Higher concentration means a higher amount of the ingredient while low concentration
means smaller amount of the same ingredient in the mixture. In social sciences, however,
concentration is referred to as the ability to pay selective attention to something while
ignoring other things. Controlling ones attention is the ability that we call as concentration.

Our ability to concentrate depends on

• Commitment

• Enthusiasm for the task

• Skill at doing the task

• Our emotional and physical state

• Our psychological state

• Our environment
COMMITMENT:

We need to make a personal commitment to put in the effort needed to do the task in the
way which we realistically plan to do it. If we just play at it in a half-hearted manner then it is
much more difficult to take the task and ourselves seriously.

ENTHUSIASM:

If we are interested in the task and enjoy doing it, then we find it easy to motivate ourselves
to start. Once started, our feelings of involvement in the activity keep us going - we want to
do it. Skill Knowing how to do something gives confidence that our efforts will be successful,
so we don't have to deal with anxiety about will this work or not. Anxiety tends to impair
concentration.

OUR EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL STATE:

When we are in good physical condition - i.e. feeling rested, relaxed and comfortable - and
our emotions are calm and benevolent, then we tend to be positive about things. This in turn
raises self-esteem, which makes us more able to concentrate, if only because we don't
have to worry about how awful we are or life is.

OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE:

For example, if we are in an obsessed or distracted state, our thoughts are pre-occupied,
leaving little mental space to think about anything else.

ENVIRONMENT:

It is much more difficult to concentrate if our surroundings keep intruding on our

awareness, perhaps because it is noisy, too hot or too cold, the furniture is uncomfortable or
the people around us are stressing out.

DIFFERENCE:
• Attention is an on and off activity and we can choose to pay attention to something or not.
On the other hand, concentration has levels or degrees though it is hard to measure these
levels.

• Paying attention to something or activity is like focusing the spotlight of a torch in the dark.
One can pay attention to several activities at any given time.

• When one is concentrating hard on an activity, he becomes oblivious of his surroundings

as a player in a sporting activity or a musician trying to make a new tune or melody.

• The process of paying attention for any length of time on an activity or object is referred to
as concentration.

• Concentration is an ability that can be improved with practice.