The Ecological View of Selective Attention

Abstract

Accumulating evidence is supporting the hypothesis that our selective attention is a manifestation of mechanisms that evolved early in evolution and are shared by many organisms from different taxa. This surge of new data calls for the re-examination of our notions about attention, which have been dominated mostly by human psychology. Here, we present an hypothesis that challenges, based on evolutionary grounds, a common view of attention as a means to manage limited brain resources. We begin by arguing that evolutionary considerations do not favor the basic proposition of the limited brain resources view of attention, namely, that the capacity of the sensory organs to provide information exceeds the capacity of the brain to process this information. Moreover, physiological studies in animals and humans show that mechanisms of selective attention are highly demanding of brain resources, making it paradoxical to see attention as a means to release brain resources. Next, we build on the above arguments to address the question why attention evolved in evolution. We hypothesize that, to a certain extent, limiting sensory processing is adaptive irrespective of brain capacity. We call this hypothesis the ecological view of attention (EVA) because it is centered on interactions of an animal with its environment rather than on internal brain resources. In its essence is the notion that inherently noisy and degraded sensory inputs serve the animal’s adaptive, dynamic interactions with its environment. Attention primarily functions to resolve behavioral conflicts and false distractions. Hence, we evolved to focus on a particular target at the expense of others, not because of internal limitations, but to ensure that behavior is properly oriented and committed to its goals. Here, we expand on this notion and review evidence supporting it. We show how common results in human psychophysics and physiology can be reconciled with an EVA and discuss possible implications of the notion for interpreting current results and guiding future research.

The Electrome of a Parasitic Plant in a Putative State of Attention Increases the Energy of Low Band Frequency Waves: A Comparative Study with Neural Systems

“…Attention is a dynamic process that is constantly altered as both internal and external states change. In humans, a whole taxonomy of attention types has been recognised [ 5 , 6 ], but basal forms of attention should be observed in any organism that must make trade-offs between its needs and the many possibilities of engagements (or affordances, in Gibsonian parlance) the environment offers [ 7 , 8 ]. In this case, the most basal form of attention, selective attention , is probably shared by many different taxa [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Sex-specific foraging response to interspecific interactions in carabid beetles

“…This change in interest in V. arvensis seeds can be explained as a decrease in the selectivity of females when exposed to what might be perceived as signals of risk. Given that foraging and risk assessment are both cognitively challenging tasks, they are often considered to be in conflict (Beauchamp, 2008;Milinski and Heller, 1978;Sih, 1980;Wang et al, 2013) or to be mutually exclusive behaviors, leading to a vigilance-foraging tradeoff (Lev-ari et al, 2022;Lima and Dill, 1990;Nonacs and Blumstein, 2010). Individuals are thus expected to reduce risk by spending relatively less time in the assessment of the quality of encountered food items (Higginson et al, 2012).…”

A Feedforward Convolutional Neural Network Learns from Images to Covertly Attend to Contextual Cues Like Human and Bayesian Ideal Observers

“…The findings might represent a viable architecture that might explain how simpler organisms without a neocortex learn cues and contexts in laboratory experiments and natural environments [86][87][88] .…”