This text presents a comprehensive and accessible overview of the science of attention, conveying its central findings and applications to real-world issues, including its relationship with technology, learning, and memory.
The study of attention is a core area of psychology that is particularly relevant today, given the ever-increasing demands on our mental workload. This book conveys the essential issues in attention research, showing how theory and research co-evolve. The authors use an interdisciplinary information-processing framework that draws from cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
Each chapter reviews a specific type of attention and related cognitive processes, including auditory and visual selective attention, attentional control and inhibition, divided attention and multitasking, sensory and working memory, and memory consolidation and information retrieval. Feature boxes help readers translate key research findings into real-world applications.
A special focus is the relationship between attention and modern technology, for example in processing multisensory input in virtual and online environments, and in situations such as air traffic control, piloting, and driving, where situation awareness is crucial. Various pathologies that affect attention are also reviewed, including ADHD, autism-spectrum disorders, dementia, and head injuries.
Robert W. Proctor, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University and has published over 275 articles and numerous books and chapters. His coauthored books include Attention: Theory and Practice (2004), Human Factors in Simple and Complex Systems (3rd ed., 2018), and Skill acquisition and training (2017). He is Fellow of American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He received the 2013 Franklin V. Taylor Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology and 2018 Paul M. Fitts Education Award for outstanding contributions to the education and training of human factors and ergonomics specialties.
Kim-Phuong L. Vu, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Vu has over 100 publications relating to human performance, human factors, and HCI. She co-edited the
Handbook of Human Factors in Web Design (2011), and has served as associate editor for
Behavior Research Methods and
Human Factors. Dr. Vu is a fellow of American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and recipient of the 2021 Franklin V. Taylor Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology. She specializes in developing implications of basic research findings for applied design problems.
