Rotation of attention

Rotation of attention

Since attention is basically a passive phenomenon it is no use just hoping that attention will flow in the right direction. One has to do something about it. Even though the process is passive one can still direct attention by providing a framework which will affect it. For instance you could decide that whenever you found yourself staring at something then you would shift your gaze to a spot about two feet to the left of whatever you were staring at. After a while attention would automatically shift to that spot even though there was nothing there which attracted it. Attention follows the patterns set up in the mind not the external ones.

As with the reversal procedure one can deliberately turn away from what one would naturally pay attention to in order to see what happens if one paid attention to something else. For instance in a single-elimination tennis tournament one might have said, ‘I am trying to see how many matches there would have to be to produce one winner — instead of this let me see how many matches there would have to be to produce 110 losers.’ This reversal procedure can work very well if there is a definite natural focus of attention in the situation.

Another method is to list the different features of the situation and then to proceed methodically through this list paying attention to each feature in turn. The important point here is not to feel that some features are so trivial that they do not merit any attention. The difficulty is that in any situation one can pick out as many features as one likes since the features reside not in the situation but in the way it is looked at. Suppose one was considering the problem of homework. One might list the following features for attention in rotation:

• Necessity for doing it (optional or required).
• Time in which to do it.
• Essential to course or reinforcing.
• Travel time to get home.
• Place to do it at home.
• What else might be done instead.
• Competing television programmes.
• Routine or occasional.
• Ability of father or mother to help.
• Fast workers and slow workers.
• Is one interested in what is done or the amount of time spent doing it?
• Frustration and annoyance of homework.
• Homework as lessening the content or impact of schoolwork.

Suppose the problem was one of getting rid of weeds. The natural attention focus is the growth of weeds which leads to methods for getting rid of them. But no attention is paid to what happens after the weeds are gone or to what would happen if the weeds were to stay. Attention is on the weeds and getting rid of them. In an experiment cited by de Bono, some strips in a field were sprayed with the usual weedkiller and others left to grow weeds. It was found that the yield of crops from the unsprayed strips was in fact higher.

In a foot and mouth epidemic it is customary to burn the corpses of infected animals if the soil is not deep enough to bury them. But in the burning, currents of hot air rise and spread particles from the fire over a very wide area. It is possible that such particles might be infected with virus that has escaped the full heat of the fire and so the disease might tend to spread. Here the attention is on getting rid of the infected animals not on the effect of the method used for getting rid of them.

A very useful drug in medicine was discovered when someone noticed that when the drug was being used for something quite different the patients always passed a lot of urine. Since this was not the purpose of the treatment no one paid any attention to it until someone suddenly realized that here was a useful drug which could make patients pass urine when this was the purpose of treatment.