Friday, November 19, 2010

Thoughts on importance of cognitive attention -- The Fifth Agreement




It is clear that attention is very important in cognitive functioning. As mentioned frequently at two of my blogs, I believe that controlled executive attention is one of the key cognitive dimensions in intellectual performance, particularly as it relates to working memory and executive function efficiency. I further have hypothesized that many of the current neuroscience based brain-fitness/training programs may all share a common element in their success--they all may fine-tuning controlled executive attention.

With the above in mind, I found the following quote of interest in a general self-help book I just started reading...yes, at times, I find reading such books useful and informative. As I read this one, I find that I much of the "wisdom" in the book can be understood from research in cognitive psychology. The book is the Fifth Agreement.

The attention is very important in humans because it’s the part of the mind that makes it possible for us to concentrate on a single object or thought out of a whole range of possibilities. Through the attention, information from the outside is conveyed to the inside and vice versa. The attention is the channel we use to send and receive messages from human to human. It’s like a bridge from one mind to another mind; we open the bridge with sounds, signs, symbols, touch — with any event that hooks the attention. This is how we teach, and this is how we learn. We cannot teach anything if we don’t have someone’s attention; we cannot learn anything if we don’t pay attention.


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