Attentional Quotes & Sayings

But you know that any showing of such an innovation is apt to start gossip. Just why, I don't know. It, though, is a trait of Mankind only. Animals don't 'bloom' out so abruptly. You can hunt through Biology, Zoology or any similar study, and find but slow, -awfully slow, - adaptations toward any form of variation. Hurrying was not known until Man got around. — Ernest Vincent Wright

It is no coincidence that ours is a time afflicted by a widespread sense of attentional crisis, at least in the West - one captured by the phrase 'homo distractus,' a species of ever shorter attention span known for compulsively checking his devices. — Tim Wu

There are many causes for the increasing concentration of wealth in a shrinking elite, but let us throw one more into the mix: the ever more aggressive appropriations of the attentional commons that we have allowed to take place.
I think we need to sharpen the conceptually murky right to privacy by supplementing it with a right not to be addressed. This would apply not, of course, to those who address me face to face as individuals, but to those who never show their faces, and treat my mind as a resource to be harvested. — Matthew B. Crawford

The systems they (the Arts) nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning. — Eric Jensen

As our inhibition is lowered, the attentional network takes over whatever is bothering us. It ramps up, so to speak, for whatever comes next. It makes us more likely to grasp remote connections, to activate unrelated memories, thoughts, and experiences that may help in this instance, to synthesize the material that needs to be synthesized. Our unconscious processing is a powerful tool, if only we give it the space and time to work — Anonymous

mad: Maine charges lobsterman for "egregious" catch violation — Anonymous

When I said they'd scored two goals, of course I meant they'd scored one. — George Hamilton

Humans do not have enough mental capacity to do all the things that we think we can do. As attentional load increases, attentional capacity gradually diminishes. — Margaret Heffernan

The brain has an attentional mode called the "mind wandering mode" that was only recently identified. This is when thoughts move seamlessly from one to another, often to unrelated thoughts, without you controlling where they go. This brain state acts as a neural reset button, allowing us to come back to our work with a refreshed perspective. Different people find they enter this mode in different ways: reading, a walk in nature, looking at art, meditating, and napping. A 15-minute nap can produce the equivalent of a 10-point boost in IQ. — Daniel Levitin

The implementation of a set of interpersonal processes that lead to the coachee experiencing enhanced physical health (physiological), engagement in effective, purposeful actions (behavioural), the possession of sufficient attentional control to process information effectively (cognitive), an ability to encounter a wider range of emotional states with equanimity and poise (affective), and the conscious linking of personal goals and commitments to important beliefs, core values and/or developing interests (meaning)'. — Christian Van Nieuwerburgh

I'm not difficult," Violet said. "I'm simple. I like good books and clever conversation and being left alone much of the time. How does that make me difficult? I make sense? I don't talk about my feelings, of course, but then, I don't want to." She shrugged. "So that's reasonable."
Sebastian smiled despite himself, a smile that felt bitter even to him. "God, no. Not feelings. Heaven forbid that you have anything so messy."
"I have feelings." She spoke stiffly. "I just don't talk about them. What's the point? Talking never changes them. — Courtney Milan

Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment: the monotony undermines our dopamine and attentional systems crucial to our brain plasticity. — Norman Doidge

Catharine Victoria Santoro di Valleria." Cat blinked. "Why are you 'full naming' me? — Marianne Knightly

The industry does have some influence on who gets other awards. With the Mercury Prize, they don't. Jon comes from the business, but his heart is still very much in the music. Currently, we have about 12 major names that have said they want to be a part of MUDDA. — Peter Gabriel

Multitasking is the enemy of a focused attentional system. Increasingly, we demand that our attentional system try to focus on several things at once, something that it was not evolved to do. — Daniel J. Levitin

A close friend is someone with whom we can allow ourselves to enter the daydreaming attentional mode, with whom we can switch in and out of different modes of attention without feeling awkward.) — Daniel J. Levitin

What I wanna do with Methods is keep that around as sorta my freak out, creative free for all- anything goes project. — Tommy Lee

It's the central executive in your brain that notices that the floor is dirty. It forms an executive attentional set for "mop the floor" and then constructs a worker attentional set for doing the actual mopping. — Daniel J. Levitin

The Middle Ages hangs over history's belt like a beer belly. It is too late now for aerobic dancing or cottage cheese lunches to reduce the Middle Ages. History will have to wear size 48 shorts forever. — Tom Robbins

Two of the most crucial principles used by the attentional filter are change and importance — Daniel J. Levitin

As the unexpected becomes ordinary, the spotlight shifts once again to land where your brain thinks it will get more informational bang for the attentional buck. — Greg Carlson

Wilson's way of keeping in mind the dual aspects of the Furby's nature seems to me a philosophical version of multitasking, so central to our twentieth-century attentional ecology. His attitude is pragmatic. If something that seems to have a self is before him, he deals with the aspect of self he finds most relevant to the context. — Sherry Turkle

America's always had a real passion for lunatic movements. That's one of the things we're probably known for around the world, I would imagine. — Matt Taibbi

Images are ... a kind of emotional shorthand. — Erica Jong

The brain cannot multitask...The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time...This attentional ability is, to put it bluntly, not capable of multitasking. — John Medina

[We] have a tendency during meetings to let our minds run wild and cycle through a plethora of thoughts about the past and the future, destroying any aspirations for Zen-like calm and preventing us from being in the here and now: Did I turn off the stove? What will I do for lunch? When do I need to leave here in order to get to where I need to be next?
What if you could rely on others in your life to handle these things and you could narrow your attentional filter to that which is right before you, happening right now? ... A professional musician friend ... describes this state as "happily lost." He doesn't need to look at his calendar more than a day in advance, allowing each day to be filled with wonder and possibility. — Daniel J. Levitin

You're not lonely when you're teaching, you're not quiet, you're laughing most of the time, you're having a wonderful time interacting with young people. It's the best fun in the world. — Mem Fox

Capitalism has gotten hip to the fact that for all our talk of an information economy, what we really have is an attentional economy, if the term "economy" applies to what is scarce and therefore valuable. — Matthew B. Crawford

One famous Japanese haiku illustrates the state that Sid managed to discover in himself. It is one that Joseph Goldstein has long used to describe the unique attentional posture of bare attention: The old pond. A frog jumps in. Plop!2 Like so much else in Japanese art, the poem expresses the Buddhist emphasis on naked attention to the often overlooked details of everyday life. Yet, there is another level at which the poem may be read. Just as in the parable of the raft, the waters of the pond can represent the mind and the emotions. The frog jumping in becomes a thought or feeling arising in the mind or body, while "Plop!" represents the reverberations of that thought or feeling, unelaborated by the forces of reactivity. The entire poem comes to evoke the state of bare attention in its utter simplicity. — Mark Epstein

Its not that he didn't appreciate his dishwasher. There was something about washing dishes by hand that was therapeutic, as if he could wash away the regrets of the past and photos he wanted to wipe out of his memory forever. — James L. Rubart