How to Improve Attention in a Situation - Essay Example

A situation in which I would be interested in improving attention would be that which involves multitasking. 

List the factors that influence attention when performing this task and why they are of influence.

There will be several factors that will influence an individual undertaking writing and reading at the same time. The first of these is how effectively an individual can divide his conscious attention between these two demanding tasks (Spelke, Hirst & Neisser, 1976). This factor greatly influences the multitasking ability of an individual as it is central to his ability to perform. Another factor in terms of dual-task interference results because of the presence of a single-channel bottleneck which will frequently cause a delay in the response. This influences the individuals’ performance because supposing we ask them a question while they are performing will lead to a possible pause, delay, or error in their work as they strive to respond to your question (Mei-Ching, Ruthruff, and Johnston). In terms of attention, the locus of this bottleneck (asking a question) in a person’s information processing system can either translate into a perceptual limitation ( it takes them time to formulate a response) or response limitation ( it delays the time it takes for them to respond or they respond in a limited way by nodding or shaking their head).

Then, describe three things that can be done to increase attention when engaged in the situation.
The first thing that can be done to increase attention when engaged in multi-tasking is by practicing the tasks in a routine. Because the brain cannot fully focus when multitasking, people take longer to complete tasks and are predisposed to error. The essence of multi-tasking through practice hence unconsciously induces an element of becoming automatized in their behavior. That is, when people attempt to complete many tasks at one time they are rapidly going between them (Meyer 2003).

Second by extensive undertaking of the task one can bypass the central bottleneck (distracters). Studies by Spelke, Hirst, and Neisser (1976) prove that due to the formulation of a pattern in their reading while accurately transcribing spoken words subjects were able to clump the activity as if it were a single unit. Take driving for example; by the formulation of a pattern (driving the car), the individual reaches a level of automatization which enables him to multi-task (drive as well as perhaps talk on the phone). Initially for a new driver the aspect of driving itself was the combination of several processes (shifting gears, using the brakes, etc) (like a conjunctive search) until through practice he was able to see it as one unit ( kind of like a feature search). This brings us to the third aspect of the visual-search findings which aims to increase attention by suggesting that certain perceptual processes can operate in parallel after practice (Spelke et al, 1976). Implantation of this visual search aspect strives to improve our ability to multitask by utilizing the aspect of task familiarity.  Read More