Attentional tasks fail when capacity cannot meet their demands

Evidence

Reaction times had previously been demonstrated to depend on task difficulty (Kiani et al. 2014 ), and difficulty in the present paradigm correlates inversely with the availability of a greater difference in change size, i.e. statistics (Fig. 2a ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3285 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

IT’S HERE THAT I want to come back to the relationship between discipline and attention from the previous chapter. An element of effort and straining exists in the word attention itself, which comes from Latin ad + tendere, “to stretch toward.” This relationship finds one of its most compelling expressions in William James’s 1890 The Principles of Psychology. Defining attention as the ability to hold something before the mind, James observes that the inclination of attention is toward fleetingness. … Though the spontaneous drift of thought is all the other way, the attention must be kept strained on that one object until at last it grows, so as to maintain itself before the kind with ease. This strain of attention is the fundamental act of will. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 396 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

In an information-rich world, most of the cost of information is the cost incurred by the recipient. […] Human beings, like contemporary computers, are essentially serial devices. They can attend to only one thing at a time. This is just another way of saying that attention is scarce. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 137 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Attention is a scarce resource drained by information overload — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding…, 17; Human serial attention limits make attention the scarce resource — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 137; Task difficulty inversely relates to the size of a detected statistical change — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3285 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Task difficulty inversely relates to the size of a detected statistical change #exemplifies (0.78) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3285
• Human serial attention limits make attention the scarce resource #expands (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 137
• Sustained attention is a series of willed returns, not a steady state #qualifies (0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 396
• Attention is a scarce resource drained by information overload #exemplifies (0.70) — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 17