The Psychology of Attention

By Harold E. Pashler

Book Overview

In the past two decades, attention has been one of the most investigated areas of research in perception and cognition. However, the literature on the field contains a bewildering array of findings, and empirical progress has not been matched by consensus on major theoretical issues. The Psychology of Attention presents a systematic review of the main lines of research on attention; the topics range from perception of threshold stimuli to memory storage and decision making. The book develops empirical generalizations about the major issues and suggests possible underlying theoretical principles.

Pashler argues that widely assumed notions of processing resources and automaticity are of limited value in understanding human information processing. He proposes a central bottleneck for decision making and memory retrieval, and describes evidence that distinguishes this limitation from perceptual limitations and limited-capacity short-term memory.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 026266156X
• ISBN13: 9780262661560
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Bradford Book
• Length: 510 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A fundamental text

Attention continues to be a principle topic of cognitive psychology research, and Pashler has done well to create a seminal text on attention. The book has three main divisions: the introduction, "attention and perception," and "attention, memory, and action." Beginning with a concise introduction to the major theories of attention, Pashler proceeds to review numerous topics of attention research while carefully relating those topics to the principle theories he first describes. In the four chapters addressing research relating attention and perception, Pashler reviews topics on attentional selection in respects to attentional capacity and early versus late selection process. Later in his work, the author bridges topics relating to memory and task performance. Throughout his chapters, Pashler covers many of the classic and most fundamental studies on (or related to) attention. The procedures and results of these studies are usually presented with clarity, although occasionally readability breaks down due to the complexity of ideas or incorporation of jargon (e.g., with Pashler's discussion of Shiffrin & Gardner, 1972, and the SIM/SUCC conditions). While Pashler has accomplished a considerable overview of important work relating to the psychology of attention, his text is limited by not incorporating many recent studies. In general, Pashler's focus is on studies performed in the 1980's or earlier. Given that the text was originally published in 1998/99, it is unfortunate that more work from the 1990's was not incorporated. For example, the discussion on attention across different modalities misses many important, albeit post-1990, studies. Hopefully, Pashler will develop an updated version that incorporates more recent experimental results. A second, less significant, draw-back to Pashler's text is the sometimes dry writing style. At times, it can be a challenge to attend to Pashler's text about attention. These flaws aside, Pashler's work is one of the most important works on attention and should be required reading for any researcher who investigates topics in cognitive psychology. Indeed, Pashler's text presents so many ideas that researchers (and students) interested in topics to include cognitive and neuroscience research on attention, perception, and modality functioning will find worthwhile material within this book.