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If attention is achieved by tuning out other stimuli, could an attention deficit also come from an overeager filter tuning out also the target of the attention?
by PeterStuer 7y ago
If attention is achieved by tuning out other stimuli, could an attention deficit also come from an overeager filter tuning out also the target of the attention?
As a child I was a voracious reader, often reading a book a day. I remember many times when the situation would allow it turning on both the television and the radio, both with sound on, to create a 'distraction field' that let me 'cocoon' in the reading.
I always thought it could have been just masking distractions like 'strange noises' in the house that would cause one to have to pay attention, like some people use white noise, but could it be in this theory's model that I was putting load on the 'filters' so as to prevent them catching the desired attention target, the text I wanted to focus on?
- loceng 7y agoI think this is a very important concept that needs to be better understood. As others have posted in this thread, I tend to work better - at least on certain tasks, when sitting in a busy cafe vs. at home where it's quiet. It's made me realize that certain people may have an optimal minimal amount of stimulus required, otherwise leading to restlessness - boredom. It would make sense that a system, body and mind, designed or optimized for a higher level of sensory input - when active and not sleeping - wouldn't just be able to "rev down" quickly, which perhaps would be more akin to a depressed state - or suppression/repression of where someone's systems naturally want to them to efficiency wise for the amount of stimulus they can process. A quiet classroom may be a terrible environment for some people to learn - yet is common practice for most school systems.