Attention
Synonyms
Definition
Attention describes a range of cognitive processes and capacities that support the ability to detect stimuli that occur rarely, unpredictably, and over longer periods of time (sustained attention), to discriminate such stimuli from non-target stimuli (or “noise”; selective attention), and to perform in situations requiring attention to multiple stimuli, multiple sources of stimuli, stimuli presented in multiple modalities, and/or the processing of multiple and competing stimulus–response rules (divided attention).
Impact of Psychoactive Drugs
Psychopharmacological research on attentional functions has intensified during recent years, fostered in part by an increasing understanding of the fundamental relevance of attentional capacities for learning and memory (Sarter and Lustig 2008), the identification of neuronal mechanisms and brain systems mediating attention (Raz and Buhle 2006), and the development and validation of tasks for the measurement of...
References
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