Attention

From I am Right, You Are Wrong by Edward de Bono

Art is a choreography of attention.

You stand in front of a fine building. It makes sense as a whole. Then your attention flows to the pillars, the placement of the windows, perhaps the architrave, then back to one part of the whole, then to the detail of some scroll work. This is a dance of attention.

Attention is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the behaviour of perception. As you stand in front of the building you feel you can direct attention to any part you like. You can choose to look at the front door. You can choose to look at the upper left hand corner. You can choose to look at the proportions of the whole. Such choosing reinforces the notion of 'I' and free-will

So there is attention flow and attention directing. I want to look at attention directing first. Walk into a room and looking fixedly ahead repeat to yourself: 'Chair, chair, chair.' Unless you consciously resist it, you will find your attention drawn to the chair in the room (if there is one) even though you are not looking at it. This is an exactly parallel process to the self instruction to find red clothing at the sports meeting. The instruction sensitizes certain circuits and so these patterns become active and we notice or pay attention to these things.

The attention-directing instructions may be even more simple. An explorer returns from a far land and reports on an active volcano and a strange bird that does not fly. What else was there? The sponsoring committee want more than that for their money. So they send the explorer back with some simple attention-directing instructions: look north and note what you see, then east, then south, then west. Equipped with this simple attention-directing framework the explorer returns with a more professional report.

This is exactly the method we use for teaching thinking in schools with the CoRT programme. In the section designed to improve breadth in perception we have a set of simple attention directing tools. For example there is the PMI. This tool is used for deliberate scanning of the Plus, Minus and Interesting points, so that a thinker can properly evaluate a suggestion instead of just taking an initial emotional view and using thinking only to defend that view. There is the C&S (Consequence and Sequel) for paying attention to the consequences of an action. There is the OPV tool for paying attention to the other people involved and their view. The tools are practised on a variety of different subjects so that skill is built up in the use of the tool which can then be transferred to real-life situations and is indeed so transferred.

A person stands before a picture and says: 'I like it' or 'I don't like it.' After a course on art appreciation that same person stands before a picture but now has a handful of attention directing tools: look at the composition; look at the choice of colours; look at the use of light and shade; look at the brush work; look at the way the clothing is treated; look at the background; look at the background figures. After a time this richer attention scan becomes automatic. In addition there are things that will now be noticed that may indicate a period of painting or a particular painter or a particular period of a particular painting (Picasso late period, Warhol early period).

We cannot see things unless we are prepared to see them. That is why science advances by fits and starts as paradigms change and we are allowed to see things differently (I shall return to this point later). That is why the analysis of data can never produce all the ideas present in that data. That is why analysis is a limited tool, not the complete one we have always believed it to be (I shall also return to this point later). The James Gleick book on Chaos shows how the pioneers in this field went back to look at old data but to look at it with new perceptions and could now see new things.

We come back now to sensitivities in the nerve network and the readiness to go active. Contrast the directing of attention by specific self-instruction (look at the upper right-hand corner) with attention flow. We look at a scene with a mind that has been sensitized by hunger. Immediately our attention is drawn to the food. We look at a scene with a mind sensitized to pick out certain patterns, so we notice them. We look at a scene with a mind sensitized to pick up the slightest hint of insult or discrimination, so we immediately notice this (even if unintended). Sometimes we use the word 'notice' when attention seems to flow to a particular area or when we pick something out.

In reality there is very little difference between directed attention and attention flow. The directions sensitize our minds so attention flows into that area. In the sports meeting example our instruction sensitizes the mind to notice red, so our attention flows to red clothing.

Underlying all this there is one key feature which I have not yet mentioned. This is the 'unitary' nature of attention. It is in the nature of a self-organizing patterning system (at least the one I have described) to have a single area of stabilization. If there are two competing areas at any time, the large one will expand and the lesser one will disappear even if the difference is very slight. This arises directly from the wiring of the system and is not an imposed condition. It leads to one area of attention at a time. It does not exclude the possibility that there are functionally different and parallel brains within our skulls.

Connect to the knowledge system view and life design. Where does my attention need to flow next and what are the time spans? What foundations do I need?

See "It's our mental patterns" for more on attention

See Edward de Bono bio and snacks