More particularly it overlooks the influence of novelty and strangeness in drawing and detaining the attention.

Attention is in truth under the sway of two opposed forces, novelty and familiarity. The new, the rare, the unexperienced exerts a powerful spell on the attention, not only of the child, but of the adult. On the other hand, in proportion as fixed interests, that is, ideational complexes bound together by a common feeling, form themselves, and, one may add, as novelty of impression diminishes, these interests tend to draw off attention from the wholly new in the direction of the familiar. Thus, as feelings settle down to steady tastes and inclinations, the child attends more and more to what connects itself with and helps to gratify these. Even here however the attractive force resides in part in the partial novelty of the impression. What is wholly familiar, as the objects of our daily environment, do not attract our attention. "Familiarity breeds contempt" in this sense also. As pointed out above, it is the presentment of the old in a new setting that really excites the attention in such cases.1

§ 10. Transition to Voluntary Attention. As the last stage in the development of attention we have its voluntary direction and control. This is marked off by a clear idea of end or purpose. We attend voluntarily when we consciously figure and strive to realise some object of desire. In the mature and trained mind attention is largely controlled by volition. The nature of this volitional process can only be understood when we come to consider the process of conation. Here it must suffice to point out that it emerges gradually out of the feelingprompted attention just considered as soon as experience and mental development render possible an anticipation of the results of our activity. Thus a child begins to attend voluntarily when he maintains a pleasurable sensation, e.g., that of a sweet tone, under the pressure of a vague impulse to go on enjoying. The transition is seen still more plainly perhaps in the genesis of the impulse of curiosity, or the desire to examine and understand new or strange objects, which curiosity, as we shall see, grows out of the mingled feeling with which we survey an object that is in part strange and foreign to us, and in part, through its affinities to known objects, familiar and so suggestive of further knowledge to be gained. In like manner attention to objects associated with our bodily and other wants leads on, with the develop

1 On Herbart's view of the relation of assimilation ("apperception ") to attention, see Mr. Stout's article on "The Herbartian Psychology," Mind, xiii. p. 484; cf. Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, pp. 199, 200; and Lotze, Metaphysic, p. 478.

TRANSITION TO VOLUNTARY ATTENTION.

165

ment of our powers of movement, to a voluntary direction of attention in practical channels, and with a view to the satisfaction of our wants.

It is important to note that this transition to voluntary attention does not mean a liberation of attention from determining influences. Interest is still the stimulus or force which impels attention, only that the interest is here less direct and of a borrowed or reflected kind. Thus, when we attend to an otherwise dry and repellent subject because we see that the knowledge of it bears on some object of desire, we are, by thus connecting it with the desired object, investing it with a derived interest.1 To this it may be added that in such cases the volitional effort at the outset is commonly soon relieved if not displaced by the inherent attractiveness of the subject that discloses itself to patient attention. The effect of this development of interest and of will-power on the attention is greatly to widen its range, and also to facilitate a more exact and more prolonged adjustment. The widening of the range is illustrated in the effect of a growth of scientific or artistic interest by which small, obscure and commonly-overlooked phenomena of the outer world become objects of close scrutiny. One important effect of this development is to render possible a much finer analysis and isolation of sensuous elements. This is illustrated in the savant's delicate observation and recognition of obscure optical and acoustical phenomena, such as flying spots, double images, partial tones. Lastly, this development of attention shows itself in increased power of steady and prolonged concentration in the face of alluring or disturbing stimuli. This increase of inhibitory power, or that of resisting distracting impressions, is indeed commonly recognised as the chief evidence and measure of the growth of will-power in the domain of attention.

In addition to the special stimuli or excitants of attention just considered, there are more general conditions of attention. These may be summed up under the general head, degree of vigour of the central organs. Attention being the greatest expenditure of psycho-physical energy, it is evident that its

1 Cf. J. S. Mill's remarks in his edition of J. Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, ii. pp. 373, 374.

efficient carrying out presupposes a normal vigorous condition of the brain-centres.1

§ 11. Effects of Attention. The effects of attention in adding to the intensity and persistence of a sensation have already been touched on. Since, however, we are here looking on attention as a fundamental factor in the process of mental development, it is desirable to indicate its effects more fully than we have yet done. The chief effects may be set forth under the following heads:

(a) As pointed out above, attention means first of all an increase of the intensity of a sensation. When we attend we render the sensation or ideal equivalent stronger and more vivid. The relation between a narrowing of consciousness and its intensification is well illustrated in the preternatural intensity or vividness of the images that arise in the greatly restricted consciousness of the dreamer, and probably also of the hypnotised subject.

This increase of intensity is readily distinguished from that due to an objective cause, as the increase in the strength of a sound itself, since it is seen to be the result of our conscious activity. It is evident, moreover, that all such increase is limited. By attending to a sound I cannot raise its intensity above a certain height. It is this height, as realised by a full normal effort of attention, which we regard as the measure of the objective force.

(b) Along with this increase in intensity, and of equal if not of greater importance, there goes increase in definition of character. It is when we attend to a sensation of colour, taste, and so forth, that this acquires distinctness of quality. Attention thus immediately subserves the definition or clear demarcation of the sensation. This it does by raising it to

1 Cf. Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, pp. 69, 70.

Stumpf has some good remarks on the intensification of sensation by attention. He appears (like Fechner) to dispute the proposition that attention raises the intensity of sensations, at least, in all cases, e.g., in attending to an object on the side of the field of vision. See Tonpsychologie, i. p. 71 ff. and ii. p. 290 ff., where the effects of attention in intensifying particular elements in a clang are carefully recorded. Compare also Fechner, Psycho-physik, ii. p. 452; and James, op. cit., i. p. 425. Ward, in his article, "Psychology," En. Brit., pp. 41, 42, seems to overestimate the difficulty of distinguishing a subjectively from an objectively occasioned increase of intensity by not allowing that attention is in itself and apart from its effects a conscious process.

EFFECTS OF ATTENTION.

167

its full intensity, and rendering it predominant and, for the moment, the exclusive content of consciousness. This effect of increased definiteness covers not only the quality of the sensation, but its intensity, its extensity, and even its duration. These several phases of attention take on definiteness or sharp definition only when the process of attention is added.1

(c) Attention secures a certain persistence in the sensation or idea. To attend means to keep before the mind for an appreciable time. Even a momentary sensation, as that of a passing sound or light, when attended to endures for a short period under the form of an after-sensation, and in the case of ideas the fixing of attention tends still more to prolong their presence in consciousness. This power of detention in consciousness will be found to be of the greatest consequence for the elaboration of psychical material.

(d) Lastly, this attention and detention through attention lead on to retention. It is, as we shall see presently, by fixing attention for an appreciable time on a presentative element that we are able to connect it with, or bring it into relation to, other elements, and so secure its subsequent reproduction.3

We thus see that attention underlies and helps to determine the whole process of mental elaboration. It secures in the full intensity, distinctness, and due persistence of the presentative elements the fundamental condition of those processes of differentiation, assimilation, etc., in which the work of elaboration properly consists.

The treatment of attention as a fundamental process at the very outset of our exposition may surprise those familiar with the customary arrangement of the parts of psychological doctrine. No doubt attention, in its higher and more important phase, is volitional, and forms indeed the crowning stage of mental development. But to postpone all account of it till that stage of the exposition is reached seems

1 The importance of this effect of attention is illustrated by the fact that Wolff introduces it into his definition: "Facultas efficiendi, ut in perceptione composita partialis una majorem claritatem ceteris habeat, dicitur Attentio". (Psychol. Empir. § 237, quoted by Stumpf, op. cit., ii. 287.)

* The reader will not overlook the verbal coincidence here, attention, detention, retention.

To this it may be added that attention to any psychical element favours, as we shall see, the reproduction of any other elements already connected with it.

fatal to clearness. Attention appears as a reflex at the very beginning of mental development, and as such serves to complicate and to condition psychical phenomena. And the whole movement of mental development is determined by the cooperation of this factor. It is plain that we have here to do with the root-difficulty of all psychological exposition, viz., the interaction of psychical phenomena. We try to expound the course of intellectual development before taking up conation, on the supposition that it is only after intelligence has reached a certain stage of development that volition properly so called begins. In truth, however, the germ of conation is present from the first crude process of intellection in the shape of an active reflex.1

REFERENCES FOR READING.

On the nature of Attention the following may be consulted: Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, vol i. lect. xiv.; Ward, article, " Psychology," Encyclop. Britannica; James, The Principles of Psychology, i. chap. xi.; also Ribot, La Psychologie de l'Attention; Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 55; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, ii. § 114; Wundt, Grundgüge der physiol. Psychologie, ii. cap. xv. and xvi.; G. E. Müller, Zur Theorie der sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit; and Münsterberg, Beiträge zur exper. Psychologie, vol. i.

1 Prof. Bain, and most German psychologists, take up the subject towards the end in connexion with volition. Prof. Wundt reaches it after the exposition of the Vorstellung, which suggests that the Vorstellung forms itself without the interposi tion of the selectively defining process of attention.