Attention and Consciousness

Have you ever arrived at work or a store and realized that you have no memory of seeing, hearing, or otherwise experiencing anything along the way? This is a sufficiently common experience (or lack of experience) that it has received a nickname in the perception literature. It is referred to as having been in the zombie state. The idea is that in this state, people behave as functioning beings with the capacity to take in and respond appropriately to sights, sounds, and other stimulation but do so while being unconscious of them. Unlike horror-movie images of walking corpses, this zombie state is not necessarily bad. In athletics, it is referred to as being in the zone, and it is often a goal state. For athletes and non-athletes alike, this apparently unconscious yet functioning state is most likely to occur when executing a skilled behavior such as driving a highly familiar route.

The idea of attention is often invoked in thinking about what controls whether one enters the zombie state. For example, if nothing unusual happens on your drive to work and you are thinking intently about something, such as a project at work or a problem at home, you are likely to be unaware of your surroundings. If, however, something draws your attention, such as a pedestrian darting across the road, you are likely to become quickly aware of your surroundings. Reputedly, one can knock an athlete out of “the zone” by getting him or her to attend to details of an action—“Do you grip more tightly with your left or right hand when making a long putt?” Both intuitively and empirically, there seems to be a strong link between attention and consciousness.

The link between attention and consciousness remains a controversial issue. Some theorists assert that attention is both necessary and sufficient for [Page 113]consciousness. The idea is that you must attend to something to become conscious of it, and if you do attend to it, then you will become conscious of it. This is tantamount to arguing that attention is the same thing as consciousness, in which case, for simplicity, it might be best to jettison one or the other construct. Other theorists assert that attention is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness. The idea here is that you must attend to something to become conscious of it but that attending to it will not always make you conscious of it. This position assumes that attention serves as a gatekeeper by which the cognitive system is protected from being overwhelmed by the vast amount of information that impinges on the sensory systems. Finally, still other theorists assert that attention is neither necessary nor sufficient for consciousness. Under this view, attention and consciousness serve distinct functions, but they interact with each other. What evidence is there for these different views? This entry will discuss some of this evidence.