SUCCESSIVE-APPROXIMATIONS TO AN ADEQUATE MODEL OF ATTENTION

Everybody knows the phenomena summarized with the term attention: conc entration, focalization, limitation, selection, and intensification (s ee, e.g., James, 1890/1950). The explanation of these phenomena is, ho wever, a different matter. Problems easily arise with regard to what h as to be explained and with regard to the style of explanation. A prob lem of the first kind is the ''methodology of 'bad focus' '': the expl anation starts with and is fixated on an intuitively striking but none ssential behavioral feature or cognitive achievement. A problem of the second kind is a ''virtus dormitiva'' explanation: the explanation st arts with emphasizing one aspect of the observed phenomena, the emphas ized aspect receives an interesting and suggestive name, and that name with its connotations is used as a concept in the explanation. At the start of contemporary, behavior-based, information processing psychol ogy, a virtus dormitiva explanation infiltrated the functional account s of the phenomena of attention; the empirical observation that people show performance limitations was translated into the theoretical conc ept of a communication channel with a limited capacity. That limited c apacity notion became the core concept in what can be called the stand ard theory of attention. This standard theory of attention faced sever e difficulties in explaining the guidance of attention by the informat ion processor's goals and intentions. Subsequent modifications, concer ned with removing these difficulties, revealed that selection, guided by goals and intentions, is the essential behavioral feature and that the observed performance limitations are a result of this selection. S o, the limited capacity theorizing was not only plagued by a virtus do rmitiva explanation, it also suffered from the methodology of bad focu s. (C) 1997 Academic Press.