Click here to skip to main content.
Home Page
Introduction Human Factors Model Usability Visual Displays Non-Visual Displays Controls Environment Cognition Training Team Performance
Cognition Module navigation.
Module Introduction
Lesson Goals
Foundations
Models
Perception
Attention
Working Memory
Long-Term Memory
Decision Making
Workload Analysis
Summary
Take the quiz for this module
 
Cognition > Attention - 1 of 10
 
 


Resources

Our cognitive processing begins with selecting an event and maintaining it in our consciousness. The event may be internally generated (thought) or initiated by internal or external stimuli. Given the great number of stimuli impending on our sensory systems at any moment in time, we must select events or stimuli for further processing. To accomplish this, we selectively "focus on" and "attend to" specific stimuli that are most relevant to our purpose.

However, our attention resources are limited. Wickens in his model uses the analogy of a resevoir that is part of a closed system with a "set" amount of attentional resources. When attentional resources are expended on one component of the information processing system, less remains for use by the other components.*

Adapted from Wicken's Resource Resevoir Model*
Attentional Resources Available Vary with Demand

*Wickens, C.D., Engineering Psychology and Human Performance, Harper Collins, New York, 1992.

  
 

   

  
Home
Previous Page Next Page