Attention

Not all information perceived is important or needs to be attended to. Attention is a filter that allows us to select the important stimuli for the situation and to devote our resources to those while ignoring others.

Attentional resources are finite: if too much stimuli is present, crucial information will be missed. Generally, there is a single conscious focus of attention.

Splitting attention

As is often the case, multiple stimuli must be attended to at the same time - this is what's considered as multi-tasking. In that case we often perform multiplexing: rapidly switching attention between tasks.

Captured attention

We are mostly in control of what we attend to. However, sometimes external stimuli demand our attention. We reflexively focus on stimuli our brain perceives as urgently salient:

• Loud noises
• Bright lights or colors
• Unexpected movement

Implication

• Make information salient when needed
• Make important information annoyingly hard to ignore
• Use techniques to direct the user's attention: color, ordering, spacing, underlining
• Avoid too much information because that taxes our attention
• Avoid using the same modality (visual, auditory, etc.) for two different tasks