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Paying more attention to
Michael Hobbiss
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL [email protected]
@mikehobbiss
The importance of attention
1. Attention is the gateway to memory… and everything else!
2. Attention directly impacts school attainment across the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end
3. Attention may mediate other key variables which contribute to school success
4. Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
The importance of attention
1. Attention is the gateway to memory… and everything else!
2. Attention directly impacts school attainment across the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end
3. Attention may mediate other key variables which contribute to school success
4. Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
Attention is the gateway to cognition (and has a limited capacity)
Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
Attention is the gateway to cognition (and has a limited capacity)
10%
Attention is the gateway to cognition (and has a limited capacity)
Forster & Lavie (2008)
90% 10%
Attention is the gateway to cognition… and has a limited capacity
Low load
90%
10%
Low load
90%
10%
High load
Mea
n di
stra
ctor
cost
(ms)
(Pre
sent
-Abs
ent)
The importance of attention
1. Attention is the gateway to cognition2. Attention directly impacts school attainment across
the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end3. Attention may mediate other key variables which
contribute to school success4. Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
Attention directly impacts school attainment across the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end
Merrell et al., 2017
Attention directly impacts school attainment across the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end
Sayal et al., 2015
The importance of attention
1. Attention is the gateway to cognition2. Attention directly impacts school attainment across
the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end3. Attention may mediate other key variables which
contribute to school success4. Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
Attention may mediate other key variables which contribute to school success…
Attention problems often co-occur with other executive deficits such as self-monitoring and working memory (Gathercole et al., 2008)
Attention may be an important mediating factor in key skills needed for school readiness, e.g. delinquency and aggressive behaviour (Barriga et al., 2002)
… including socio-economic status
Markant et al. (2016)
Using selective attention
The importance of attention
1. Attention is the gateway to cognition2. Attention directly impacts school attainment across
the whole spectrum – not just at the lowest end3. Attention may mediate other key variables which
contribute to school success4. Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
Attention skills likely impact on our happiness
Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010)
Attention skills likely impact on our happiness (including in the classroom)
R = -.318 **
Hobbiss (2019)
So we know attention is important…
…but we know very little about what that means on a day to day level
Unanswered questions…
- What distracts students in class/at home?- How does attention vary between/within
individuals over time?- Can we predict the students who are most
distractible/most affected?- Can we as teachers do anything about it?
What distracts students in class?
Hobbiss (2019)
156 Secondary school students in Ys 8-12 (excl Y11)
N = 32-38 per group (post-exclusions)
Godwin & Fisher (2011)
Lessons for the classroom…?
- Removing distractions is a start… but not everything
- ‘Training’ of attention skills has been mostly unsuccessful
So what else can we try?
Unanswered questions…
- What distracts students in class/at home?- How does attention vary between individuals/over
time?- Can we predict the students who are most
distractible/most affected?- Can we as teachers do anything about it?
Encouraging the engagement of attentional mechanisms (on the right things):
– Avoiding split attention effects
Image from Teaching How2sSweller, Ayres & Kalygula (2011)
Freud argued that unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind in the form of parapraxes, ‘Freudian slips’ of the tongue. We reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we didn't mean to.
Encouraging the engagement of attentional mechanisms (on the right things):
– ‘Track the speaker’
@MrTSci409
Encouraging the engagement of attentional mechanisms (on the right things):
– Working routines
• Habits/expertise can greatly improve attention skills
• Classroom/homework routines
Encouraging the engagement of attentional mechanisms (on the right things):
- Curriculum design?
Measuring attention ourselves
- If the research isn’t there… we can do it ourselves!
Howard-Jones (2013)
