1. Organizing Mind.
Attention, Unity, and Distraction
Sebastian Watzl (CSMN, IFIKK, UiO)

2. Thieves of Attention

3. Thieves of Attention
“It’s all about the choreography of people’s
attention. Attention is like water. It flows. It’s liquid.
You create channels to divert it, and you hope that it
flows the right way.[…] I use framing the way a
movie director or a cinematographer would. If I lean
my face close in to someone’s […] it’s like a
closeup. All their attention is on my face, and their
pockets, especially the ones on their lower
body, are out of the frame.”*
*
Apollo Robbins in Greene

4. Thieves of Attention

5. Thieves of Attention

6. Thieves of Attention

7. Thieves of Attention

8. Thieves of Attention

9. Thieves of Attention

10. Thieves of Attention

11. Why take attention back?

12. Because attention is
fundamental to who we
are
“[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways of
attending to things, what sort of a universe he
shall appear to himself to inhabit.”*
* James
1890, p.

13. Three Questions







14. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

15. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

16. Between Science and Acquaintance
Why attention is not just a brain mechanism

17. Attention as Brain Mechanism

18. Attention as Brain Mechanism
Serial central
processing/Memory Storage
Get’s
associated
with
attention
Parallel sensory processing
Filter ~ a type of information
channel
Broadbent 1958, p. 216

19. Attention as Brain Mechanism
Both from Itti, Rees, and Tsotsos 2005

20. Attention as Brain Mechanism

“Attention can be
identified with the
processes that allow
information to be
encoded in working
memory.”*
*
Prinz 2012, p. 93

21. Problems

Gets the neuronal and
computational
architecture wrong


Parallel
processing, feedbackloops, predictive
coding, direct vision action
links, etc.
Wrongly identifies
attention with one of its
many effects

Effects on early
vision, temporal
sequencing, etc.
Fellman and Van Essen

22. “There is no such thing as attention”*

Maybe attention is just
an amalgamate of
distinct processes? That
they are grouped
together is due to
careless folkpsychology, historical
accident, etc.
* Anderson
2011

23. “Every one knows what attention is...”*

Start with the folk-psychology of attention



What is the function of speaking and thinking in terms of
attention?
How do we experience attention?
Connect the folk-psychology with a plausible story
about the function of attention in our cognitive lives


We experience attention as organizing our subjective
perspectives.
Attention does organize our subjective perspectives (Marr’s
computational level).
* James
1890

24. “Every one knows what attention is...”




25. “Every one knows what attention is...”



Thick: attention
experiences put
serious constraints on
its nature, but do not
fully reveal it (science
can discover how
attention “works”)

26. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

27. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

28. Attention and Subjective Perspective
How attention organizes and unifies the mind

29. Attention and Appearances

William James
“[I]n listening for certain notes in
a chord, the one we attend to
sounds probably a little more
loud . . .”**

Gustav Fechner
“The pendulum-beat of a clock
[appears to us] no louder, no
matter how much we increase
the strain of our attention upon
[it]”*
* Fechner
1889, p. 452-453; ** James 1890, p.425

30. Attention and Appearances
Look to have the same contrast!
Attended lower contrast
Unattended higher contrast
Carrasco, Ling and Read 2004

31. Attention and Appearances
“[These] changes in the phenomenology of
perception manifest themselves in experience as
differences in apparent contrast, apparent color
saturation, apparent size, apparent
speed, apparent time of occurrence and other
appearances.”*
Watzl
While powerful Block’s
argument is unsuccessful.
Attention distorts
perception, sacrificing
accuracy for usability.
Block
These results show that
representationalism and
direct realism about
phenomenology are false.
*
Block 2010, p. 23; Watzl forthcoming

32. The Appearance View

Phenomenal character (at least of perceptual experience) is
exhausted by appearances (how things look, sound, feel, etc.).
The world appears some way to S.
The way the world is present(ed) to S.
The way things look (in vision).

33. The Missing Perspective
“[T]he moment one thinks of the matter, one sees
how false a notion of experience that is which
would make it tantamount to the mere presence
to the senses of an outward order. […] Without
selective interest, experience is utter chaos.
Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light
and shade, background and foreground –
intelligible perspective, in a word.*
* James
1890

34. The Missing Perspective
Attention Experience
Appearance Replica

35. What exactly is missing, though?

36. Phenomenal Structure
Auditory
experience
of the
saxophone
Conscious emotion
(anxiety about
musical skills)
Auditory experience
of the piano

37. Phenomenal Structure
Structure
E = e1 < e2 < e3 <
… = experiencing 1
more centrally than 2
...
Higher attentional
priority

38. Phenomenal Structure
Phenomenal Qualities
explained by appearances
Phenomenal Structure
not explained by appearances
A holistic feature of
conscious experience.
Characterizing you
complete perspective

39. Phenomenal Structure

Defined Notions:


… is at the center of your field of consciousness =
nothing is experienced more centrally than ….
... attention is split between a and b = neither a nor b are
experienced more centrally than the other, and both are
experienced more centrally than everything.


Sometimes there is a center of attention, and sometimes there
isn’t.
… is at the fringe of consciousness = … is not
experience more centrally than anything.

Being at the fringe or center of your field need not make a
difference to how things appear to you (things need not look
blurry)

40. Centrality Connectedness
An experiential episode E is centrality connected = for all e1 and e2: if
e1 is a part of E and e2 is a part of E, then there is a centrality path
between e1 and e2.
Centrality connected
(though with attention split symmetrically)
Not Centrality connected

41. Attention Systems
Let’s call an experiential episode that is centrality connected an
attention system.
One attention system
Two attention systems

42. Attention and the Unity of Consciousness

The Attention Account of the Unity of Consciousness


e1 … eN are phenomenally unified if and only of (and
because) e1 … eN form an attention system.
If attention systems are exactly as big as phenomenally
unified experiences, then the attention account of unity is
plausible.

43. Intuitive Considerations


Tim Bayne: a variety of experiences
are unified just if they are subsumed
by a single “phenomenal perspective”
I “get” the intuition when I think of
phenomenal perspectives in terms of
focus and periphery (as attention
systems): when I focus on the visual
world in front of me, my conscious
thoughts, emotions, action-awareness
recede into the background. When I
focus on my conscious thoughts, the
visual world recedes into the
background.
*
Bayne 2012

44. How Unified is Attention?

1.
2.
3.
Jesse Prinz
Something close to the attention
account of unity is true.
Attention systems are not unified
(most of the time); So:
Consciousness is not unified
(most of the time)
*
Prinz 2012/2013

45. How Unified is Attention?

Unified Kind Question




Is attention a unified kind? Or is “attention” rather a label for a
number of fundamentally disunified phenomena?
Do all so-called attention-paradigms in the empirical literature
study a single phenomenon?
 Structuralism as an account of the unified kind.
Unified Systems Question



Is there a single “resource” shared by all “attention-demanding”
tasks?
Is attention in X independent from attention in Y (where X and Y:
visual and auditory modality; left and right hemisphere; tasks that
rely on distinct neural architecture)?
 Prinz: No
Watzl: probably yes

46. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

47. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

48. Attention and Agency
How we are actively engaged in attending

49. Is attention voluntary?

50. It often doesn’t seem so


Sometimes attention is
automatically drawn to
something against our will.
Sometimes attention drifts
aimlessly.

51. It often doesn’t seem so


15-50 % of the time
subject’s attention is
focused on task-irrelevant
thoughts, images, and
activities (mind-wandering)*
Yes, that also applies to
reading** (philosophy) and
listening to philosophy
talks.***
*Smallwood
and Schooler 2006, ** Schooler et al 2004, *** Schwitzgebel 2010, 2014

52. Interlude
What is better: mind-wandering or concentration?

53. Killingsworth and Gilbert*

Large-scale Happiness Survey





Mind-wandering occurs in almost half of
the samples (see above)
Mind-wandering strongly correlates with
decrease
in
happiness
(topicindependent).
Mind-wandering likely a cause of
unhappiness (studied by a detailed
correlation analysis).
Mind-wandering is a major factor in
explaining between and within subject
variances in happiness.
Pessimistic Conclusion:

“A human mind is a wandering
mind, and a wandering mind is
an unhappy mind.”
*
Killingsworth and Gilbert 2010

54. Prettyman and Watzl*

Mind-wandering can be




Endorsed vs unendorsed
Acratic vs. encratic
The K&G effects might be fully
driven by unendorsed and
acratic cases
Endorsed and encratic mindwandering is important for


creative problem-solving
open-mindedness
*
Prettyman and Watzl 2011, in progress

55. End of Interlude

56. Two Types of Attention?
Voluntary Attention
Automatic Attention

57. Probably not


Attention capture, even when attention is not
controlled, is contingent on which task the subject is
performing, her prior experience, her
goals, rewards, interests, etc.*
Biased Competition

Stimuli (or information carrying items) “compete for
representation, analysis, or control […] This competition
process is biased [… ] [through top-down signals] towards
information that is currently relevant to behavior”
*
Yantis and Jonides 1990 (and many others since).; ** Desimone and Duncan 1995

58. Activity



Attention is a univocal process.
Voluntarism is true of that process (the subject can
voluntarily control it, and become aware of engaging
in it).
This process is guided from within the subject’s
perspective



Her intentions and goals.
The phenomenal salience of her experiences
These are signs that attention is an activity.

59. What are you aware of when you are aware of attending?

60. Awareness of our own perspective

61. But what is phenomenal salience?

62. Salience and Imperative Contents


The phenomenal salience of an experiential event is
a kind of content
Imperative Contents for Perception*


Perceptual experience represents contents of the form
<Attend to this!>.
These imperative contents are dynamic contents


not a set of accuracy conditions, but a rule for updating
your mental state.
The update rule, to first approximation, takes you from an
experience with the current focus of attention to an
experience with a different focus of attention (more generally:
it restructures your experience; see below)
* Siegel,
Bengson, Kelly, Cussins (and arguably: Husserl, Heidegger, and MerleauPonty) discuss similar phenomena

63. Salience and Imperative Contents
Representation
of the billboard
sign

64. “Attention is like water. It flows.”*
*
Apollo Robbins in Greene

65. Advertisement

66. Attention and the Structures of Consciousness

The Structure of Mind.


The Process of Attending.


Why some of Mentality is not Propositional
Experiencing the Attention of Others.


Why the Field of Consciousness is Unified (when it is)
Objects of Attention.


Why the Stream of Consciousness Flows Forward
Attention Systems.


Why Consciousness is Agential
Salience.


Why Consciousness is a Stream
Control of Attention.


Why Consciousness is a Field
How we solve the Problem of Other Minds
Experiencing our own Attention.

How we solve the Problem of our own Minds

67. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

68. “[E]ach of us literally chooses, by his ways
of attending to things, what sort of a
universe he shall appear to himself to
inhabit.”

69. Attention and Sociality
How the attention of others shapes our perspectives

70. Experiencing the Attention of Others

We often seem to experience the
attention of others. Indeed, we
often see it.

“The attention of others is probably
the first, simplest, and most powerful
experience that we have of
mentality” “To have someone attend
to us can
soothe, exhilarate, frighten, inspire,
embarrass, enrage, irritate, and in
so many ways touch us at our core”*
*
Vasu Reddy (2008). How Infants Know

71. Experiencing the Attention of Others

But can we really see the mental states of others?


Are mental properties among the properties represented
by perceptual experience?
Work with Jola Feix (CSMN) (drawing on work by
Susanna Siegel (Harvard))
1.
2.
3.
We sometimes have visual experiences as of the covert
attention [of the expression of a mental occurrence] others;
If (1.) , we have visual experiences of mental properties (of
others); So:
We sometimes have visual experiences of mental properties.

72. Attentional Engineering

We affect the attentional
environment of others



Gaze is a strong attention
trigger.
The same for pointing.
How are these visually
represented?



As salience gradients?
As representations of the
intentions of others (“she
intends me to attend to x”)
In between/something else

74. Joint Attention

You and I attend to this together.


In a way that is “coordinated”.
What is Joint Attention?

Picture A: Sophisticated and individualistic


Picture B: Primitivist and mind-sharing


Individual acts of attention coordinated by
perspective taking and common
knowledge,
A primitive mental activity irreducibly
engaged by a plurality of subjects.
Picture A probably incompatible with early
development. Picture B makes mysterious
why joint attention requires individual
attention.

Goal: work on a solution drawing on
resources provided above

75. Joint Attention

Requires and might be the most simple form of
Informational Cooperation

Moll, Carpenter, Tomasello:



In the presence of joint attention, agential
cooperation often seems rationally compelling
where it does not seem rationally compelling
in its absence



Unique to humans.
Central to our ability for cumulative epistemic
engineering (the ratchet of cultural evolution)
Wyman et al. 2012
Campbell 2012
Why do people in fact cooperate like that? Is
this cooperation justified or rational?

“The Social Mind: Origins of Collective
Reasoning” (workshop co-organized with
Katharine Browne (CSMN) and Jola Feix
(CSMN))

76. Thanks for listening
… and for (hopefully at least 50 %
of the time) joining our attention