Attention [H]

Voluntary, conscious and deliberate attention is an act of will, and said to be a characteristic specific to man. The capacity for persistent attention, its range, distribution and arousal, are significant factors in the understanding of the psyche. According to William James, it is where one directs one's attention that determines the merit of one's life. It is the different aspects of life to which people direct their attention that determines their different experiences.

The practice of attention to present experience is used in several traditions of spiritual discipline. It focuses on full awareness of the here and now and avoids any escape into thoughts about the past or the future (considered to be rarely objects of wise reflection but rather objects of day-dreaming and vain imaginings, which waste a considerable amount of mental and emotional energy).

In the Gestalt point of view, for example, the healthy individual is constantly attending to matters of importance to his maintenance or survival. Such matters of importance are organism-environment transactions that keep or restore equilibrium or smooth functioning. Attending here refers to a behavioural focusing of parts of the organism towards relevant parts of the environment, and not to a conscious state.

Active, selective attention implying spontaneous reaction to experience is contrasted with passive acceptance of experience (empiricism); and with idealist subordination of experience to evolution of the idea.