1. +
Is Attention One or Many? And Why Should
We Care?
Sebastian Watzl

2. +
What is Attention?

3. 3
+ Reductivism + Disunity Views
+ Anti-Reductivism +The Adverbial
View

4. +
Everyone knows what attention is
 “Every one knows what attention is. It is the taking
possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of
what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains
of thought.”
James 1890/1981, p. 403-404
 “[It is not] to the purpose to discuss the many familiar fanciful
theories concerning [attention] that are sometimes
propounded.” Munsell, 1873, p. 11

5. +
No need to theorize about
attention?
No!
Rather: to keep the following contrast in view
Feature integration, DNA, working memory, …
 theoretical terms; fixed completely by their roles in
scientific theorizing.
Pain, knowledge, desire, intention, ….
ordinary terms; not fixed completely by their roles in
scientific theorizing.

6. +
Attention belongs in group 2
 Part of folk-psychology
 Ascription
 “I was focusing my attention on the
delicate lines of the saxophone solo;
didn‟t really care much about the piano.”
 Explanation
 “She didn‟t hear the doorbell, because
her attention was completely absorbed
by her thoughts about her new project.”
 Prediction
 “You will get a better sense for the
rhythm, if you focus on the piano and
drums instead of the saxophone.”

7. +
Attention belongs in group 2
 Acquaintance through experience
 Block on consciousness (and
Armstrong on jazz): “if you got to
ask, you ain‟t never gonna get to
know”
 Consider pain (arguably also
perception or desire): if you ask
what pain (perception, desire) is, I
will point you to a certain kind of
experience.
 Same for attention: you know
what it is like to focus attention on
something

8. +
But this leaves several options
 Reductivism
 Some natural kinds (e.g. gold or water) arguably can be reductively identified.
Their nature is to be discovered scientifically.
 Eliminativism (also: Disunity views)
 There is nothing that corresponds to our ordinary discourse. At least it is no
single thing
 Anti-Reductivism
 Distinguish between personal level mental episodes, and their sub-personal
underpinnings. Consider philosophers on knowledge, belief, intention, desire,
etc.
 The Adverbial View
 Rejects that attention is “a kind of entity”. Rather, it is a manner of doing
something
 in my view, not an alternative to anti-reductivism.

9. +
Reductivism

10. +
Reductivism
Attention (the familiar mental episode)
=
a type of neuronal or information processing mechanism.
 Compare:
 water (the familiar substance) = H2O (a type of molecule)
 temperature (the familiar property) = mean kinetic energy (a type of
motion of molecules)

11. +
Is attention a filter?
 Broadbent (1958) “Perception and Communication”
Serial central
processing/Memory Storage Parallel sensory processing
p. 216, Ch. “Shifting of Attention”
Get‟s
associated
with Filter ~ a type of information
attention channel

12. +
Is attention a filter?
 This framework has been extremely influential
7000
6000
5000
4000
# citations
3000
2000
1000
0
Broadbent Chomsky

13. +
Is attention a filter?
Both from Itti, Rees, and Tsotsos (2005) “Neurobiology of Attention”

14. +
Is attention a filter?
 Research Program(s):
 Where in the processing hierarchy is the filter located?
 Early selection vs. late selection vs. flexible selection
 How does the filter work? Mathematical models of the relevant
filtering
 Information theory, complexity theory, dynamic systems, neural
networks, etc.; applications in computer vision, etc.
 Nature of stimulus/input
 Nature of response/output/storage
 Channel/Filter characteristics:
 Capacity
 What stimulus/input distribution optimizes information
transmission?

15. +
But does this serve reductivism?
1. Attention is identical to a
specific filter
Filter/Attention
1. Attention is a type of filter in
✗
(cognitive) information
processing. Attention
Filters
1. Attention achieves/is
correlated with filtering of
information (among other Attention
things)
Filters
✓

16. +
But does this serve reductivism?
 Allport 1993:
 Many assumption of the filter model about the processing
architecture are false.
 Filtering is just one of many things attention does.

17. +
But does this serve reductivism?
 Assumption: “Information processing follows a linearly
ordered, unidirectional sequence of processing stages from
sensory input to overt response, rather than (for example)
operating in multiple, parallel, and perhaps reciprocal pathways.”
(Allport, p. 187)
Yet
• There are multiple, reciprocal
pathways between vision and
action (including many feedback
loops, and vision-action
shortcuts)
• Attention modulates processing
of “simple” attributes like
color, form, size, acuity, etc. (not
just a filter) en route to higher
processing
van Essen and Gallant (1994)
Vidyasagar 2003

18. +
But does this serve reductivism?
 Assumption: “Attentional selection […] denotes one unique or
uniform computational process – represented, very often, as the
selective admission of privileged information to a stage of “further
processing” and/or the selective exclusion from this critical stage of
all other, unattended information.” (ibid.)
Yet
 attention serves many computational functions:
 spatially selective enhancement of processing
 selective tuning
 suppression of response tendencies (“central attention”)
 selection for action among competing stimulus dimensions
 temporal sequencing of cognitive operations
 …
 the mechanistic explanation of various so-called attention effects (negative
priming, temporal grouping, saccade planning, Stroop effect, task
sqitching, inhibition of return, evaluation of action consequences, etc.) look
to be divers.

19. +
But does this serve reductivism?
Attention
Specific
computational
mechanisms

20. +
The argument against reductivism
1. If reductivism is true, then there is a type of computational or
neuronal process whose operation coincides with the presence
of attention at least in most cases.
2. There is no type of computational or neuronal process whose
operation coincides with the presence of attention at least in
most cases.
a. Many mechanisms that are associated with attention some some
contexts, in other contexts operate without attention.
b. The various effects of attention get explained by distinct
mechanisms.
Thus 3. Reductivism is false.

21. +
Why is the filter model still used?
 It serves as a paradigm or “model” to understand the various
mechanisms that underlie attention.
 It can generate useful mathematical tools for understanding
information processing in human cognition and brain functioning
whether or not any specific filtering can be identified with
attention.
 In general, we can think of most “theories” or “models” of attention
in one of the following ways:
 models of what will be attended.
 models of the effects/underpinnings of attention in x (brain areas, single
cells, etc.)
 models of one important feature of attention
 ...

22. +
Other “Theories” of Attention
 The feature integration theory (Treisman and Gelade 1980)
 "The early alignment of featural detection with preattentive processing
and featural binding with attentional processing can no longer be
sustained” (Quinlan 2003)
 The pre-motor theory (Rizolatti et al. 1987)
 “The evidence is not consistent with the view that spatial attention is
functionally equivalent to motor preparation” (Smith and Schenk 2012)
 ...
 The working memory theory (Prinz 2011, 2012)

23. +
The WM theory
 “Attention can be identified with the processes that allow
information to be encoded in working memory.” (Prinz 2012, p. 93;
also Prinz 2011, p. 184 )
 Explicitly intended as reductivism:
 “I treat “attention” as a natural kind
term. (ibid., p. 90)
 [The] interactions between attention
and working memory suggest an
intimate relationship. The simplest
explanation for this relationship is an
identity claim” (ibid. p. 93)

24. +
The WM theory
 Problems:
 The link between attention and working memory is
probably not as tight as Prinz supposes.
 “there is evidence that attention is not sufficient for
encoding, but the evidence is inconclusive as to
whether attention is necessary for encoding.”
(Fougnie 2009, p. 10)
 “Perhaps the most striking conclusion supported by
this review is that, in contrast to previous theories, the
distinction between attention and WM is quite strong.”
(ibid, p. 26)
 Working memory might not have a reductive
explanation either
 “neither attention nor working memory represent a
uniform set of processes, theories of their relationship
tend to focus on only some aspects.” (ibid, p. 1, my
emphasis)

25. +
What about Biased Competition?
 Stimuli (or information carrying
items) “compete for
representation, analysis, or
control.”
 “This competition process is biased
[… ] [through top-down signals]
towards information that is currently
relevant to behavior” (Desimone
and Duncan 1995)

26. +
What about Biased Competition?
Spratling 2008

27. +
What about Biased Competition?
 Not a specific mechanism
 “[T]here is doubtless biased competition in many separate brain
systems, conducting different processing operations on many different
kinds of information. In this sense there are multiple varieties of
attention.” (Duncan 2006)
 Biased Competition (most likely) is a general feature of neural
processing.
 “[B]iased competition proposes that cortical feedback acts to enhance
stimulus-driven neural activity that is consistent with top-down predictions
in order to affect competition occurring between neural representations in
each cortical area” (Spratling 2008)
 Is best viewed not as a reductive theory of attention, but as a theory
that treats attention as an “emergent”(better: higher-order) feature
of a certain kind of neural/computational architecture. (see
Desimone and Duncan 1995, p. 1954, or Allport 2011, p. 24)

28. +
Disunity Views

29. +
Eliminativism (or Disunity)
 “The problem is that “attention” is not a single concept, but an
umbrella term for a variety of [distinct] psychological
phenomena” (Styles 2006, p. 1)
 “There is no such thing as attention” (Anderson, 2011)
 Attention is an amalgamate of distinct processes. That they are
grouped together is due to careless folk-psychology, historical
accident, etc.
 A or B or C or ...
 A and B and C and ...
 Most of A, B, C, ...
 Some contextually relevant subset of {A, B, C, ...}
 ...

30. +
Eliminativism (or Disunity)
 Compare jade. Arguably, jade is a
disjunctive kind, something is jade
iff it is either jadeite or nephrite.
These are only superficially
similar.
 Note:
 In the case of jade, it is implausible
that similarity “for us” (maybe” “how
it strikes in experience”) makes for
a genuine kind.
 In the case of attention that‟s not at
all obvious: it could be a mental
kind individuate by its role for
us, and/or its normal phenomenal
character (even if it isn‟t always
conscious)

31. +
Eliminativism (or Disunity)
“The various issues which psychologists address under the
general heading of „attention‟ [...][even though attention is not a
single process] do have something in common though. They are
all concerned with selectivity in mental life, and these days in
neural activity also.” (Driver 2001, p. 73)
Build a theory of attention
out of that (see also
James).

32. +
Anti-Reductivism

33. +
Anti-Reductivism
 Personal vs sub-personal level
 “At the personal level, we talk about persons as such – as
experiencing, thinking subjects and agents.” (Davies 2005)
 At the sub-personal level we talk about “brains and events in the
nervous system.” (Dennett, 1969, p. 93)).
 The anti-reductivist view treats attention as a personal level
phenomenon that
 Is underpinned by a variety of different mechanisms.
 Can be multiply realized.

34. +
Moderate Anti-Reductivism
 Radical Anti-Reductivism(s):
 Refuse to say anything about what attention is. It is what it is, and
we can‟t say anything more. Or,
 Refuse to draw any connections between the personal level and the
sub-personal underpinnings.
 Moderate Anti-Reductivism:
 We can say something about what all attention phenomena have in
common, though without getting rid of appeal to “attention
vocabulary”
 We can draw connections to the sub-personal level.

35. +
Marr‟s Levels
 Computational
 What is the problem to be solved by vision, ..., etc.
 Algorithmic
 Which algorithms dealing with what types of representations or
information solve this problem?
 Implementational
 Which hardware, wetware, neuronal circuits implement those
algorithms and how do they do so?

36. +
Marr‟s Levels
 Computational
 What is the problem to be solved by attention?
 Algorithmic
 Which algorithms dealing with what types of representations or
information solve this problem?
 Implementational
 Which hardware, wetware, neuronal circuits implement those
algorithms and how do they do so?

37. +
What is the purpose of attention?
To deal with limitation To organize information

38. +
What is the purpose of attention?
The need for dealing
with capacity
limitations, and the
need to manage
information often
come together
 less information tends to
be easier to manage

39. +
What is the purpose of attention?
A thought experiment
Suppose we had infinite
processing capacities.
Suppose we could be
conscious of everything
at once. Would there be
no need for attention?

40. +
What is the purpose of attention?
If the answer is yes
 Support for the capacity limitation view
If the answer is no
 Support for the information management view

41. +
What is the purpose of attention?
The answer is, I believe: no
 An agent with infinite
capacities would have have
more, rather than less need
for information
management.
 She would need
prioritization in order to do
something with all the
information.
 Without prioritization, the
information would be
unusable.

42. +
The Structuralist View
 Basic idea
 Attention prioritizes some items in our mental life over others.
 This prioritization is personal level: priority for the whole organism.
 Priority cannot be reduced.
See also:
Dicey-Jennings

43. +
The Structuralist View
 The view
Attention consists in the mental episode of structuring a subject‟s
mental life so that some of its elements are prioritized relative to
others.

44. +
The Structuralist View
 How to think of the structure of our mental lives:
 partition the personal level mental life (at a time) into parts:
perceiving a, thinking about b, etc.
 prioritize some parts over others.
Higher attentional
priority
A perception of the A perception of the
sax piano

45. +
The Structuralist View
 How to think of the structure of our mental lives:
 partition the personal level mental life (at a time) into parts:
perceiving a, thinking about b, etc.
 prioritize some parts over others.
Is attentionally prior
to (abb.: >)
A relation
between a
subject‟s
personal level
mental
episodes

46. +
The Structuralist View
 “Attentional Space”
 the space of personal level mental episodes that are attentionally
related to each other.
 Partitioning not given independent of attention.
 Attentional prioritization not to be reduced.
 Can investigate the structure of that space by investigating the
relevant attentional relations.
 The attentional structure of our mental life is a holistic feature of
it, and not a specific element in it.

47. +
The Structuralist View
 Attentional prioritizing need not have a further (specific) purpose.
What is central in your mental life might be exploited in flexible
ways.
 Sometimes the prioritizing is for bodily action, sometimes for
thought, sometimes (daydreaming) for nothing specific at all.
 Attentional prioritizing can occur in
perception, thought, deliberation, etc.
 There is probably a large degree of unity and integration between
these, but this is not an essential feature of the structuralist position:
the view provides an account of what is in common between the
variety of forms of attention, whether or not these are integrated.
 What gets de-prioritized does not get thrown away. Attention does
not primarily “filter out”, but “manages” information
 It‟s primary function, to repeat, is not to handle “capacity limitations”
but to provide the organization (that is likely necessary for human
agency; see Wu 2008; and Mole 2011)

48. +
The End