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Selective Attention and ADHD
Pick And Choose
We have five senses and stimulation is received by them. We feel, see, smell, hear, and taste our environment. The processing of this incoming sensory information is known as attention. To some extent, what we are aware of depends on what we choose to attend, not merely on the stimulation entering our five senses. Choosing to attend to something is known as selective attention.
A common and confusing scenario arises when AD/HD children and adults can pay attention to off the-shelf commercial video games yet cannot pay attention to simple tasks like homework or balancing a checkbook. While this may appear to be selective attention, it may be directly related to stimulation levels. AD/HD seems to necessitate high level stimulation before the AD/HD person can attend to it unless they are quite interested in the incoming stimuli. Thus, interest is directly related to attention and selective attention. Selective attention may be partly under personal control, and partly determined by stimulus salience (interest in the stimulus, significance of the stimulus, etc.). Training can be performed to teach attention to all levels of stimuli regardless of salience thus minimizing the effect at school and the office while increasing performance.
Blessing In Disguise
While selective attention may be a drawback, especially at school and at work, selective attention sometimes allows people to process some stimuli more thoroughly than others. This can be an asset under certain circumstances.
The field of attention and selective attention has been researched considerably in the past in the field of psychology. Current brain imaging methods such as PET, SPECT, and other imaging methods have revealed new information. Research has demonstrated that the processing of sensory input is, at times, spread throughout and controlled differently in perceptual networks. While research on selective attention has allowed insight into the brain and its associated networks, the field is considered nascent and will likely advance significantly in the upcoming years.