Abstract
Discussions of joint attention often focus on examples that involve multiple interacting thinkers who align their attention by triangulating upon an object (e.g., by pointing, gaze following, orienting, etc.). However, not all forms of attending together seem to involve this kind of interpersonal coordination. When an audience attends to a talk, they do not do so by engaging in the perspective-driven alignment of attention that is characteristic of joint attention. Nor do students learning in a digital environment (e.g., on Zoom) triangulate a perspective in the manner typical of joint attention. One might conclude that accounts of joint attention must be broader than have typically been proposed and cannot require coordinated interactions which draw upon the participant’s perspective. I argue that this argument fails because there are multiple forms of attending together, and the processes that enable collective attention in conference talks and Zoom classrooms are different from those that enable the more familiar interaction-based forms of joint attention. By distinguishing joint attention and collective attention, this essay seeks to better understand both the ways in which the digital environments demand a broader concept of joint attention, as well as the place of attending together in digital environments.
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Notes
Additional causes of Zoom fatigue include excessive amounts of close-up eye gaze, cognitive load, increased self-evaluation, and constraints on physical mobility. See Bailenson (2021) for discussion.
Peacocke (2020) offers this apt summary.
The literature on each of these topics is substantial. For example: Clark (1996) and Sabbagh and Baldwin (2005) discuss the importance of joint attention in language development, while Mundy (2014) discusses autism and joint attention, and Milward and Carpenter (2018) discuss joint attention and joint action. Tomasello (2019) develops an account of distinctively human language use and social cognition in which joint attention features prominently.
Of course, relaxing these assumptions raises the question of how broadly we should conceptualize joint attention. See Sect. 3 for further discussion.
The phrases used in my discussion of (b), like ‘the result of’ and ‘due to’, could be read as either making a causal or a constitutive claim. Drawing this distinction unambiguously can be challenging in discussions of joint attention because some of the processes involved, like attention monitoring, might play a role in both bringing about and maintaining joint attention. That said, my use of these phrases should not be read as merely making claims about the causes of joint attention.
At least not to the extent that is typically taken to be required for joint attention.
See Siposova and Carpenter (2019) for a thorough characterization of the disagreements found in the scientific literature, why it matters, and an attempt to resolve it.
Gallagher (2011) and (2020) for an enactivist account; Campbell (2005, 2011) for the primitivist account, and Tomasello (1995) and Peacocke (2005) for variations on the cognitivist account. It seems worth noting the refreshingly thin boundary between scientific and philosophical work on joint attention.
A non-exhaustive list of the relevant sciences includes psycholinguistics, cognitive and developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and the social neurosciences.
Though Seemann would, presumably, identify each as a variety of joint attention, as opposed to distinguishing joint attention from collective attention. A more thorough comparison between Seemann’s account and the one developed here outstrips the focus on this essay.
Of course, there are other factors that might contribute to the ways in which digital environments seem to challenge our ability to jointly attend. But the proponent of expanding joint attention seems forced to claim that although joint attention itself is not really challenged, other related things are. This debunking explanation seems less satisfying than capturing the real challenge that digital environments pose to joint attention.
To be clear: The worry about psychological heterogeneity is not merely about whether joint attention is multiply realized but about whether the psychological processes that realize these varieties of attending together exhibit functional differences that substantial enough to fracture them into multiple psychological kinds.
Akhtar and Gernsbacher (2008) develop this criticism. They add that non-Western cultures might rely less heavily on visual cues in establishing joint attention, thus the visual bias might result in a somewhat Western-centric understanding of joint attention.
To be clear, Battich et al. (2020) don’t develop this criticism directly. It is raised here as a plausible extension of what they do say.
See Chun et al. (2011) for further elaboration of the distinction.
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Chambliss, B. Attending Together in Digital Environments. Topoi (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-024-10012-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-024-10012-3