How Do We Direct Attention and Control Thought?

Selecting information, maintaining goals, and explaining when control changes.

Level: Intermediate
Reading load: 9 core readings in 5 units
Prerequisites: How Can We Study the Mind? is useful preparation. No neuroscience course is required; the guides introduce the key task and brain terminology. Logan's 36-page theory paper and the final methodological review are demanding, making this a slower path than a brief introductory survey.
Last reviewed: September 2026

Introduction

The eyes may remain upon a page while thought has already left it. A practiced response may arrive before the one we intended, and a firmly held goal may make a new task harder to begin. Attention and control give these ordinary difficulties a common question: how is mental activity selected and coordinated as purposes, distractions, and experience compete?

Nine readings across five units build an explanation of these problems. We begin with orienting and the competing influences of goals, conspicuous events, and experience. We then distinguish distraction from a failure to notice, examine how practice can make a response occur with little deliberate attention, and consider how goals are maintained and tasks changed. The final pair asks whether encountering competing responses changes how we handle the next task, or whether recent experience explains the pattern in another way.

Conceptual reviews define the alternatives; experiments and models make their differences concrete. Working memory enters as a way to keep a goal available, while prior learning explains why some information or responses have priority. Throughout, ask what a performance difference measures, which explanation predicts it, and what other comparison would be needed to decide between accounts.

Unit 1 of 5

How is attention directed?

First make selection observable: vary what predicts a target and when it appears. Then ask whether goals and physical conspicuousness exhaust the sources of priority. Experience can favor an item even when the current goal says to ignore it.

Reading
1 of 9
Orienting of Attention: Then and Now
Posner, M. I. (2016). Orienting of attention: Then and now. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(10), 1864–1875. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.937446
Major synthesis · Historical turning point · Moderate · Full work: 12 pages
Use cueing to connect an everyday shift of attention with a measurable comparison. Distinguish orienting, readiness, and executive control before treating attention as one capacity.
A question to consider. A cue helps only when it appears sufficiently early. What would changing cue validity and delay reveal that the average benefit alone cannot?
Reading
2 of 9
Top-down Versus Bottom-up Attentional Control: A Failed Theoretical Dichotomy
Awh, E., Belopolsky, A. V., & Theeuwes, J. (2012). Top-down versus bottom-up attentional control: A failed theoretical dichotomy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(8), 437–443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.010
Critical reappraisal · Foundational argument · Moderate · Full work: 7 pages
Reconsider voluntary and stimulus-driven orienting in light of selection history. The aim is to separate sources of priority that may coincide in the same task.
A question to consider. After repeatedly searching for red, a person keeps selecting red despite an instruction to search for green. Which comparison would distinguish recent selection history from current goals and physical salience?

Unit 2 of 5

When does distraction become a failure to notice?

A distractor can slow a response, elicit neural activity, or later be reported. These outcomes are related but not interchangeable. Compare a theory of processing demands with a study of an unexpected event, keeping the operational definition of attention in view.

Reading
3 of 9
Distracted and Confused?: Selective Attention Under Load
Lavie, N. (2005). Distracted and confused?: Selective attention under load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 75–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.004
Foundational argument · Major synthesis · Moderate · Full work: 8 pages
Distinguish perceptual demands from demands on maintaining priorities. Use the opposing predictions to ask what a difficulty manipulation actually changes.
A question to consider. Would searching among similar letters and remembering a longer digit sequence necessarily have the same effect on distraction? Specify the measurements needed to compare them.
Reading
4 of 9
Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events
Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059–1074. https://doi.org/10.1068/p281059
Landmark empirical study · Methodological contribution · Moderate · Full work: 16 pages
Examine this study as evidence about selection and reported awareness. Compare its monitoring tasks and unexpected events with the measures of distractor interference in load theory.
A question to consider. If an observer does not report the unexpected person, what further evidence would distinguish absent conscious noticing, poor later recall, and some processing without a report?

Unit 3 of 5

What changes when a response becomes automatic?

Practice can change how a response is produced. This longer theoretical paper gives automaticity a specific mechanism: retrieval of prior instances can replace a slower procedure. Use its assumptions and experiments to question the idea that automaticity is a single package of speed, effortlessness, and lack of awareness.

Reading
5 of 9
Toward an Instance Theory of Automatization
Logan, G. D. (1988). Toward an instance theory of automatization. Psychological Review, 95(4), 492–527. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.95.4.492
Foundational argument · Methodological contribution · Challenging · Full work: 36 pages
Focus on what the instance account says about the source of a response and its dependence on attention and experience. Connect selection history to memory-based performance without treating the two theories as identical.
A question to consider. A response becomes faster for practiced items. What result involving new items or response-time variability would help distinguish retrieval of instances from a generally faster procedure?

Unit 4 of 5

How do we maintain and change a goal?

A goal can be maintained in advance or recovered when an event makes it relevant. Keeping it available helps protect performance, but changing tasks introduces another problem: what must be reconfigured, and what carries over? Link working memory with the timing and flexibility of control.

Reading
6 of 9
The Variable Nature of Cognitive Control: A Dual Mechanisms Framework
Braver, T. S. (2012). The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual mechanisms framework. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(2), 106–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.12.010
Foundational argument · Major synthesis · Moderate · Full work: 8 pages
Use proactive and reactive control to explain when goal information shapes processing. Compare their costs, benefits, and temporal predictions without ranking one as universally better.
A question to consider. Someone can remember an intention throughout a short delay or rely on a reminder at the end. How would extending the delay or making the reminder less reliable change the comparison?
Reading
7 of 9
Task Switching
Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 134–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00028-7
Major synthesis · Methodological contribution · Moderate · Full work: 7 pages
Bring the timing account to task changes. Separate preparing a new rule from interference, repeated cues, and retrieval of prior task configurations.
A question to consider. An advance cue reduces a switch cost but does not eliminate it. Give two explanations for the remaining cost and a comparison that would distinguish them.

Unit 5 of 5

How do we know when control needs to change?

A monitoring account predicts a sequence: conflict, a signal that more control is needed, and a subsequent adjustment. Examine evidence for that chain, then consider why the same behavioral pattern may also depend on repetition, learned contingencies, or expectations.

Reading
8 of 9
Anterior Cingulate Conflict Monitoring and Adjustments in Control
Kerns, J. G., Cohen, J. D., MacDonald, A. W., III, Cho, R. Y., Stenger, V. A., & Carter, C. S. (2004). Anterior cingulate conflict monitoring and adjustments in control. Science, 303(5660), 1023–1026. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089910
Landmark empirical study · Moderate · Full work: 4 pages
Follow the move from a theory of monitoring to trial-by-trial behavioral and neural predictions. Relate it to reactive control while keeping prediction separate from causal intervention.
A question to consider. Which results support a conflict-to-adjustment account, and what alternative involving a common cause would remain even if ACC activity predicted later prefrontal activity?
Reading
9 of 9
The Heterogeneous World of Congruency Sequence Effects: An Update
Duthoo, W., Abrahamse, E. L., Braem, S., Boehler, C. N., & Notebaert, W. (2014). The heterogeneous world of congruency sequence effects: An update. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 1001. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01001
Critical reappraisal · Methodological contribution · Major synthesis · Challenging · Full work: 9 pages
Reassess the preceding evidence using the review's competing explanations. Return to the opening distinction between current goals and past experience: both can shape a response sequence.
A question to consider. What design changes would make a smaller interference effect after conflict more informative about control, and why would the result still not be a pure measure of a person's general control ability?

Scope and omissions

This path treats selection, interference, automaticity, goal maintenance, switching, and performance monitoring as connected problems. It distinguishes attending from consciously noticing and distinguishes an observed task effect from a mechanism proposed to explain it. A conceptual distinction does not establish separate, independent brain systems.

Visual tasks are prominent. Auditory examples, working-memory demands, developmental evidence, and motivation broaden the discussion, but the path is not a comprehensive account of attention across senses, ages, or cultures. Sustained vigilance, mind-wandering, divided attention, response inhibition, and conscious experience receive selective treatment. Memory storage and retrieval deserve a fuller path; here they enter through instances, task goals, and recent-event effects.

The readings include older frameworks because their predictions and tensions remain useful teaching tools. They are not a complete current consensus or a guide to diagnosing attention disorders, training an all-purpose executive ability, or optimizing personal productivity. Several claims arise from constrained laboratory tasks and limited adult samples. Broader everyday conclusions require additional evidence, and the optional works extend historical, developmental, and motivational questions.

Synthesis

Attention and control concern the organization of mental activity under competing demands. Goals, conspicuous events, and prior experience all help determine what receives priority. The readings show why selecting information, keeping a goal available, noticing an event, and changing a response must be distinguished. A pattern of performance begins the inquiry; identifying the process behind it requires comparisons that separate the plausible accounts.

Consider someone following an unfamiliar recipe while a familiar kitchen routine and occasional interruptions compete for attention. Choose one specific success or failure—for example, resuming the intended step after answering a question.

Explain how current goals, conspicuous cues, and prior experience could each influence what is selected. Distinguish demands on perception from keeping the goal available, and distinguish a practiced response from a consciously reported event. Then propose two explanations for the chosen performance pattern: one involving maintenance, switching, or an adjustment in control, and one involving retrieval, repetition, or learned expectations.

Design a comparison that would help distinguish the explanations. Specify what changes, what stays comparable, and what you would measure. Explain why faster responding, a report of noticing, or activity in a brain region would not alone settle the question. End by identifying which laboratory assumptions might fail in the everyday situation.

For the development and transfer of practiced performance, continue to How Does Practice Build Skill?. To revisit the broader relationship between representations, memory, and cognitive explanation, return to How Can We Study the Mind?.

To examine what remains available after an experience, how cues shape remembering, and why memories change or become difficult to recover, continue to How Do We Remember—and Why Do We Forget?.