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Clinical neuropsychology treats attention as a straightforward cognitive function. It is a mechanism for holding information in a conscious space so that other cognitive functions can set to work. Attention can be focussed, switched and split on select pieces of information. It is quite limited; it can hold only so much at a time, on the order of plus or minus 7 items of information. There is a limited time span in which information can be held in attention. It has been likened to a flashlight beam, which is a useful visualization.
Attention is a little boring, as cognitive functions go. It has none of the flash of intelligence, nor the prominence and strut of memory. But there is another perspective here. Because of its limitations, attention effectively restricts the flow of information from the environment to the appropriate cognitive functions. This limitation prevents sensory and cognitive overload in areas like learning and memory, organization and planning, and pattern recognition. It keeps the noise level down.
Attention is also the function in which we become aware of our thoughts and outer environment. It is where we think and feel. It is the arena in which consciousness happens. The focus of attention is, in part, under conscious control. We can usually choose what to pay attention to.
We can, with deliberate intent, move our focus of attention from one data stream to another. This allows a flow of information to be consciously inspected and considered. Once that happens, an automatic process sends the newly analyzed information onward to storage in memory.
This is one direction of travel for information. In the other direction, memory and reactions to the environment throw up a host of additional information. Every time you see a familiar face, hear an electronic beep or think of an idea, a range of other thoughts, associations and feelings emerge from the unconscious part of mind, coming along as context. In this sense, the past is always with us.
Attention has both deliberate and automatic levers. It can be consciously focussed, but also abruptly and automatically switched elsewhere. I smell smoke or, what a beautiful sunset, or, is that my child calling.
Information moves on a two way street and attention is a function that moderates the information stream from conscious to unconscious activities like memory, but also back again.
Attention can be thought of as a type of gating function, mediating information flow between conscious and unconscious mental activities. Because attention can handle only so much at any given time, the channel for information is restricted. In this scenario, attention is the gatekeeper for the channel.
How much play is there in this gate? Can it be locked down, or opened up beyond the usual limits? Basic clinical psychology tells us that yes, people are quite able to filter and reduce information flow deliberately, by focussing attention elsewhere.
It is possible to shut down a stream of emotional or physical information. These are the cases of being so absorbed in a task that one forgets to eat, or even feel hungry; working intensely on tasks as a way to not feel heartbreak or sorrow; shutting down physical pain by focussing on other things. In the other direction, strong emotion can overwhelm the capacity of the channel for other actions such as logical thought.
What we also know from psychology is that when we strive to minimize one emotion by maintaining attention elsewhere, the result is not selective. All emotion is suppressed. If attention acts as a gating device for information flow, experience says it is a crude device. It operates the gate but does not specify what will go through.
Performing certain activities to open the gate is a common theme in many kinds of work. For creatives, it is finding ways to reach the Muses. For highly skilled activities, it is getting in the flow. For spiritual practices, it is reaching a sense of connection and meaning.
Changing how one pays attention is a common thread here. Deciding to attend deeply to one thing can keep attention focussed there while content slips unattended along the channel. The task is to selectively attend to something and minimize the intrusion of extraneous distractions. Buddhists refer to meditation as quieting the chattering monkey brain. Other practices involve reducing the use of words and paying more attention to the sensory qualities of the moment. Because attention is a limited resource, distracting it with a repetitive tasks such as chanting, prayer, drumming and the like can change the parameters of attention. Listening to music achieves the same goal of distraction. A closed door and quiet environment reduces demands on attention. However it is done, we can achieve specific goals by manipulating attention.
Why go to the trouble? Because refocussing attention alters the flow of information through the channel. The concept is often used, across cultures, to encourage the outward flow of unconscious material. It is the one way people have found to access something else in their minds. It can mean finding solutions to problems, a sense of calm, or engaging complex skills and knowledge. It is a method in psi research to access non local processes: the transmission of information by no discernible means. What is sometimes called anomalous cognition.
In a previous substack (Anomalous Cognition, February 5, 2024) I wrote about a series of experiments conducted in Toronto by Freedman, Binns, Meltzer, Hashimi and Chen on mind control over an electronic device called a random event generator. It was an experiment in psi activity, specifically, micro-psychokinesis. The journal article is here. The substack is here .
Later, in my substack Physics, Neuropsychology and Consciousness (April 19, 2024) (here) I expanded on other psi research, and the challenge to disciplines such as physics to come to terms with the mental capacity to access information and affect outcomes in physical objects. Both columns address things that should not be happening, according to our standard ideas of reality and concepts of physics, yet quite evidently are happening.
In the Freedman et al. series of studies, the activity of the medial left frontal lobe was key. This region had been affected in two earlier studies by a brain lesion, and temporarily induced in the latest study. This specific brain region is part of a neural circuit involved in controlling attention.
The impact of attention shows up the studies from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab. A source for those articles is here. For example, one line of research by Jahn and Dunne was the investigation of remote viewing. In these studies, one subject, the ‘sender’, went to a remote location and made careful observations of a single location, noting time of day, buildings and other elements of the setting. Back at the lab, a second person person, the ‘receiver’, was asked to note down their impressions of the location of the ‘sender’. The studies were conducted rigorously to avoid direct or indirect communication between sender and receiver. The results were statistically compelling, demonstrating that information was being shared between the sender and receiver, and by no discernible means other than apparent mental transmission.
Changing the receiver’s focus of attention measurably altered results. The researchers asked the ‘receivers’ to provide a more detailed breakdown of the incoming information. The more the receivers tried to analyze their perceptions, the less detail they could provide (for summary see here). The conscious focus of attention on details compromised the results. Directed attention seemed to interfere with this type of information transfer.
Summarizing, attention is a cognitive function that brings other cognitive functions online to act on a restricted range of data. Attention has a very limited scope and can focus on only so much information for only so long. This effectively further narrows the information flow for specific purposes, such as learning, organizing and skill development. The information flow is bidirectional, simultaneously in and out of conscious awareness. Old memories constantly influence new perceptions and learning.
Attention can be deliberately directed, distracted or reduced. The amount and direction of information flow can be altered. When attention is quietened or focussed elsewhere, the unexpected can trickle out from non conscious recesses. It is not just inspiration, recognition or bringing skills online. This is where the puzzling non local features of mental activity also emerge. Manipulating attention allows us to game the system in the most remarkable ways.
Telepathic communication is a trope in literature that can be observed all the way from modern science fiction back to Homer with many stops along the way in religious and spiritual writing. It’s also a frequent conviction of people diagnosed as schizophrenic. Sceptics dismiss mind-to-mind communication as an illusion comparable to children having an imaginary friend. And yet the military of several nations have investigated telepathy, as did navigators in search of instant, private communication.
It’s challenging to read your review of reputable experiments, because my experience leads me both to dismiss any such claims, and to make use of telepathy in my novels.
In real life, I’m a sceptic, as I am about ghosts, god, and the afterlife. Wishful thinking and the occasional coincidence seem to me sufficient explanations. Wanting it to be possible gets in the way of improving more conventional means of communication such as words, despite all their many shortcomings.