Benefits of an Attention Span

Johnny Jones, 21 March 1997

I watched their eyes. When I lost them, I made every effort to get them back. Because without eye contact, I knew children were not paying attention to me, not learning what I was presenting.

In one research project teachers rated children as to the degree of attention they paid. These ratings were correlated with their IQ scores. There was a high and positive correlation: the children with higher IQs paid more attention in class. It just makes sense. When your mind is on what you do, it's easier to learn. A child who concentrates on a puzzle gets it done.

Slow progress is often the result of a wandering mind. If a child takes forever to do her homework, there could be too much work - or the child could be "piddling." We can encourage our children to do their work quickly and get it over with - sort of like swallowing bad medicine. "Do it and get it behind you" is not bad advice.

Paying attention is not just a school related task. We get so used to our world that we fail to appreciate its marvels. But some people remain unusually perceptive. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, believed these people were "...especially alive, open, aware, and mentally healthy."

Research on Zen masters indicate they are able to vividly perceive a tree even after seeing it 500 times. How can we continue to appreciate the wonder of a tree? "The deceptively simple answer is: Pay attention."

Some things are more attention-getting than others. Things that are bright, loud, or large capture attention. Even if we aren't paying attention to traffic, a bright red sports car roaring down the road causes our heads to turn. They also attract the attention of traffic cops: Without radar, they tend to get more tickets than other cars traveling at the same speeds. Sports cars look fast.

MTV takes advantage of another principle of attention: contrast, change, and something different from what's expected. Repetition can also be attention getting. Companies repeat their ads until their products become part of our consciousness. It works. Repitition sells products.

There is also the possibility of too much of a good thing. Stanley Milgram called it "attentional overload." In large cities, where there is constant noise, contact with others, and information, people can get stressed out.

Constant noise alone can be damaging. A 1980 study compared children attending schools near LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) with similar students attending schools farther from the airport. "Testing showed that children attending the noisy schools had higher blood pressure than those from the quieter schools. They were more likely to give up attempts to solve a difficult puzzle. And they were poorer at proofreading a printed paragraph - a task that requires close attention and concentration."

I find myself failing at attentiveness often. So many times after I talked with someone I thought, "Why didn't I ask her how her mother is doing?" or "I forgot to tell him what a good job he did." These attentional lags can mean we're busy thinking about what we want to get across rather than concentrating on the other person. Happiness lies in a lack of self consciousness, in losing ourselves - not in promoting ourselves.

We can lose ourselves through concentrating on what our children need. We can use our knowledge of attention to try to hold children's attention. When I was doing presentations in pre-school, I clapped my hands, maintained eye contact, and varied my voice. Catherine, Chip's mother, often wore bright clothes to teach her first graders. Children need to pay attention if they are going to succeed. So do we.


Quotes are from Introduction to Psychology by Dennis Coon.