Sustained attention: concept and theories

Sometimes, immersed as many of our young people are in a compulsory educational system, it is not easy to follow Albert Einstein’s maxim: “Never consider studying as an obligation, but as an opportunity to penetrate the beautiful and wonderful world of knowledge.” . This phrase is perfect to introduce us to sustained attention.

Because, as much as studying can be a pleasure beyond an obligation, maintaining sustained attention is not always easy. In fact, sometimes it can be a very difficult, almost titanic job, and not just because we are not interested in a subject, there can be many more reasons, such as fatigue.

What is sustained attention?

Sustained attention comes into play in many of the activities we do. It is characteristic, especially, of those processes that have to do with surveillance or supervision. Thus, for surveillance to be effective and attention to be maintained, it is necessary maintain a certain level of activation.

Sustained attention also comes into play in many processes related to learning.. Students who go to classrooms every day have to make an effort to pay attention to what the teacher says. Sometimes sustained attention is mixed with selective attention. That is to say, sometimes we not only have to maintain attention but we also have to keep it focused on a certain location while we avoid the attraction exerted by distractors.

Therefore, sustained attention comes into play when we launch mechanisms and processes through which our body can maintain a focus of attention to remain alert to certain stimuli for relatively long periods of time.

Why do we lose attention?

Studies and our experience tell us that the level of sustained attention declines over time. This decrease in the effectiveness with which we maintain attention may be due to different reasons. The most important ones would be:

We could say that Attention is like a muscle. He becomes fatigued with exercise and needs time off to recover. Furthermore, as time goes by, the temptation of distractors, precisely due to this fatigue derived from a conscious attempt to maintain attention, increases. That is, as we accumulate hours working, the temptation to check the phone increases.

There’s also variables that can help us maintain attention. Motivation, short breaks, having positive feedback or flow would be some of them.

Theories about sustained attention

As is evident, once these factors are known, various theories have been developed that attempt to explain how our sustained attention works.

Activation theory

It is also known as the arousal theory or arousal theory. Proposed that For a monitoring task to be carried out correctly there must be some continuity in the stimuli. For example, if we take a guard as a reference. It will be less difficult for him to maintain attention if he moves and makes rounds than if he stays in one place all the time.

Signal detection theory

Also known as TDS, it defends that, When faced with a surveillance task, the number of alerts decreases. That is, in the case of sustained tired attention, the stimulus would have to be more salient to be detected. Thus, we find that, as the second hand ticks and we maintain attention, the successes decrease, but so do the false positives.

Expectancy theory

Expectancy theory tells us that the person who monitors, and therefore sustains attention, will hold it longer if you wait for an event to actually occur. For example, the guard will hold his attention longer and at a higher level if he really expects someone to break into the factory.

On the contrary, If the expectation is low, it will be more difficult to maintain attention. In this way, for that student who has no hope that the teacher will say something interesting, the job of maintaining attention will be very hard.

habituation theory

This last theory states that Habituation causes the person to lose interest in what is happening and their attention wanes.. That is, attention decreases as a result of the regular repetition of irrelevant signals.

These are not all the theories that try to explain the functioning of sustained attention in vigilance or learning tasks. However, they are the most relevant and are directly rooted in what we know about how attention works.

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