Attention disorders

Attention is an essential process in our daily lives, which we use for practically everything.. But what happens when attention disorders appear? These consist of a series of deficits that occur in said cognitive function and that can seriously affect our functioning. They are included within the psychopathology of attention and can be of two types: quantitative alterations and qualitative alterations.

Attention is one of the cognitive functions of the human being, along with memory and planning, among others. Consists in voluntarily applying our mental activity or our senses to a certain object or stimulus. James (1890) was the first to talk about the multiple nature of attention. After him, other authors began to describe this mental process.

Other authors, such as Luria, describe it as an active, non-static process, “that depends on the interests, expectations and previous experiences of the subject, which is why it requires a high behavioral and emotional involvement on the part of the individual.”». More modern authors, such as Ríos-Lago et al. (2007), suggest that Attention has the function of selecting relevant stimuli from the environment to carry out an action and achieve objectives..

As we have seen, When attention is altered or exacerbated, so-called attention disorders appear.. These can present very varied characteristics, and usually appear in certain psychopathological disorders.

As we have introduced, attention alterations can be divided into quantitative and qualitative alterations.. What does each of them consist of and in what psychological disorders do they usually appear? Let’s see it through the explanations and definitions extracted from Belloch et al. (2019) and de Higueras et al. (1996; in Santos, 2010):

Quantitative changes

Quantitative attention disorders are those in which the level of attention is excessive or deficient, and are the following:

Aprosexia

Aprosexia consists of the maximum reduction in attentional capacity; That is, the subject does not present any degree of attention and is unable to pay attention to any stimulus.

As we see, the prefix a- (of Greek origin) is indicating to us «denial, deprivation or absence of. Approximation usually appears in psychopathological disorders such as agitation or stupor.

Hypoprosexia

Within the group of hypoprosexias, another of the attention disorders, we find five types of disorders:

Distractibility: Also called hypo or hyperproxesia, it consists of a sudden change in attention and a marked instability of it. It usually appears in disorders such as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), the twilight state (altered consciousness) or manic states.emotional attention lability: consists of the inconstancy and oscillation of attention, which affects its performance. It is associated with high levels of stress and/or anxiety.Inhibition of attention (inattention): it is the inability to mobilize attention; That is, there is attention, but it is insufficient. It is common in disorders such as schizophrenia or depression.attentional negligence: Also called hemineglect syndrome (due to focal lesions in the brain), it involves the following characteristics; hemiinattention, extinction, hemiakinesia and hemispatial neglect.Fatigue of attention: easy exhaustion of it, secondary to factors that affect the functioning of the brain, such as tumors, dementia, etc.Apathy: consists of the difficulty in maintaining attention on certain stimuli, and is typical of depression, serious personality disorders or an asthenic-apathetic state.

Pseudoaprosexy

The next attention disorder is pseudoaprosexia. This alteration encompasses those situations that appear to be aprosexia (absence of attention).but in which, however, attention is preserved, which in this case is especially directed at the reactions of the environment.

That is to say, The individual with pseudoaprosexia seeks the reactions of family or friends through his or her behavior. Pseudoaproxesia appears in cases of malingering, in Ganser syndrome (a type of dissociative disorder), in hysterical behavior, etc.

Paraprosexy

Paraprosexy consists of an abnormal direction of attention, and typically appears in different disorders, such as hypochondria. That is, attention becomes a kind of “magnifying glass” through which the individual pays attention only to what interests or obsesses them.

Hyperprosexia

Hyperprosexias are attention disorders that involve excessive or temporary focusing of attention on certain stimuli in the environment. That is to say, it is an exacerbation of attentionwhere the individual, who is hypervigilant and hyperlucid, has a very marked interest in sensory stimulation.

Besides, Another characteristic of hyperproxesia is distractibility. It appears in disorders such as hyperlucid states and trance states.

Qualitative alterations

Qualitative alterations in care are those where the quality or typology of care is altered. Among them we find only one: attentional perplexity. Attentional perplexity is a very particular state of attention (in fact, there is no agreement among authors regarding its classification).

A person with attentional perplexity is not able to understand their actions and the circumstances around them.; Furthermore, he does not understand the concrete meanings of the phenomena that happen around him or their relationships. As some authors have explained, subjects with this alteration “they do not achieve the synthesis of the content of attention.”

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