Attention control

Attention control, or attentional control, refers to a person’s ability to consciously or unconsciously choose to focus on one thought or action over another. The concept includes the ability to filter out factors that are less relevant to an object of attention and to concentrate only on relevant factors. Many factors contribute to an individual’s ability to concentrate in this way, including age, mental and physical health, and interest. Attention control is integral to learning, mastering physical skills, and memory.

Background

A person’s ability to concentrate is largely controlled by the area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, which is near the front of the brain. The prefrontal cortex determines how much of the brain’s attention should be given to a thought or an action and how much attention should be given to other stimuli—such as sights, sounds, and smells—when the brain is focused on that particular thought or action. For instance, when a person is reading, the prefrontal cortex determines whether the street noise from outside, the television playing nearby, and the smell of dinner in the oven should or should not be noticed.

The prefrontal cortex is sometimes referred to as the brain’s executive center because it controls many high-level brain functions. Researchers have determined, however, that an area called the parietal cortex can sometimes take over with competing information and gain control. For instance, the parietal cortex is in control when someone is concentrating on reading and is suddenly distracted by a sound, such as a dog barking. Researchers also have determined that the parietal cortex is responsible for alerting the brain to danger when concentrating on something else. For instance, when a person is engrossed in a television show and suddenly smells smoke, the parietal cortex overrules the prefrontal cortex’s control of outside stimuli.

Attention control depends on the number of tasks a person is doing at one time. Sometimes, the tasks are complementary and easy to handle simultaneously. A musician who sings while playing a guitar is performing tasks similar enough that the brain can easily process all the stimuli related to both actions. On the other hand, driving a car and talking on the phone both require a significant amount of attention. As a result, the prefrontal cortex needs to constantly adjust the amount of attention a person pays to each task. Researchers have found that a person’s ability to carry out each of these tasks is reduced when they are performed simultaneously.

The prefrontal cortex uses the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a region deep in the human brain, to determine which stimuli should receive attention and which should not. The TRN works for attentional filtering/gating and allows one type of stimulus to receive attention while filtering out others, even from the same sense. This is the reason why a person watching television might not hear someone speaking to them from another room or why someone might remember the face of an attacker but not what the attacker was wearing. This ability is essential in everyday life. It allows a person to concentrate on more essential things and prevents them from becoming overwhelmed by irrelevant stimuli.

Overview

The ability to control attention often develops throughout childhood, peaks in adulthood, and may decline as people age. Various factors influence an individual’s ability to maintain concentration. Physical health and well-being, including the amount of rest, nutrition, and security, can be a factor in allowing healthy brain function and minimizing distractions, such as fatigue, hunger, and fear. A person’s level of interest and the importance of the thought or action can also be factors.

These influences on attention control are of interest to researchers across specialized fields of psychological and neurological study. Researchers continue to try to understand the way brain function affects attention, especially in children, people with post-traumatic stress disorders, and older adults. Studies on these factors and ways to treat them could have significant effects on the lives of people in these groups.

Some research has indicated that human concentration can be improved with training. Elite athletes can learn to focus despite the noise of large crowds and the pressure to perform. They can accomplish this focus through conditioning. Athletes deliberately attempt to perform an athletic task while exposed to distracting stimuli to train their brains to develop and maintain attention control.

On the other hand, some researchers believe that people can be conditioned to have lower levels of sustained attention. Studies suggest continuous exposure to fragmented and fast-paced content—such as short video clips on short-form digital media platforms, rapid-fire social media updates, and multitasking across mobile applications—can contribute to shorter attention spans and reduced cognitive control. This constant switching between brief and stimulating content may train the brain to expect novelty and immediate reward, making it harder to engage in prolonged focus. Researchers have linked this pattern of digital media consumption to increased cognitive load, reduced working memory performance, and difficulty filtering distractions, particularly in younger users and heavy device multitaskers. However, these effects largely depend on the individual, the context, and the type of content or feature used

People can improve their attention control in several ways. Ensuring the body is properly fed and rested can help provide the mental energy and alertness essential for concentration. Minimizing distractions that the brain needs to filter, such as sitting in a quiet room, also helps. Drawing connections improves recall and increases focus. For instance, noticing how a new computer program is similar to one that a person already has mastered can help free their brain to concentrate on learning the parts that are different. Creating a format or structure for information also minimizes the information the brain needs to filter. For example, the structure is why it is easier to remember telephone numbers when they are written in the format (XXX) XXX-XXXX than when they are written as a line of ten numbers without breaks.

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