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This dissertation is focused on a particular event at the heart of educational inquiry: the composition of attention — its catalogue of shapes and movements, and the manner in which it gathers and disperses. There are two major foci for my project: The first part, The Composition of Attention, is a historical survey that seeks to identify the circumstances comprising the Copernican revolution, what is arguably the most significant instance of inquiry in human history. This extraordinary set of events put in question not only the structure of the universe, but also the structure of inquiry. There were a host of methodological considerations at stake, not simply a set of new astronomical facts. Given the fact that this movement from a geocentric orientation to a heliocentric one has been subject caricature, distortion, and omission, my study seeks to trace how these unfortunate themes have, not only permeated the inception of compulsory education, but how many have come to remain permanent features, however implicit. The second focus, The Attention of Composition, explores the constituent elements of attention in their capacity to organize the scene of inquiry, be it a semester long research project, a writing assignment bound by the scope of one class period, or even more pedestrian moments of perception: i.e., the thought-feelings that occur while descending the stairs to exit the apartment. In each of these scenes the components of attention are activated, and as such can alert one to the particular habits of attention operative in other educational events. Although there has been a substantial increase in, shall we say, our attention to attention, given the difficulties of student achievement across a variety of contexts, there exists little consideration of it in the moments of its emergence, and under the auspices of language. This project designates five elements in the structure of inquiry—subject, language, object, aim, and method—that are studied according to four respective disciplines. Each discipline, or type of attention, addresses a pair of elements: Pedagogy – method and aim; Economy – aim and object; Poetics – object and language; Psychoanalysis – language and subject. The doubling of these elements for each style of attention is reflective of the Keplerian revelation of the function of planetary orbits.

Although attention is distributed across time as well as in space, the temporal allocation of attention has been less well studied than its spatial counterpart, especially in the auditory modality. However, temporal information is crucial to processing in audition and it is expected that attention to time may play a more important role in the auditory modality than in the visual modality. In the present thesis, I pursued three studies to gain more understanding of auditory temporal attention. In study 1, the basic temporal attention orienting was studies in the auditory modality. The results showed a cue effect indicating that it is possible to orient attention based on temporal information in the auditory modality, and that the temporal attention modulates perceptual and subsequent processing stages. In study 2, auditory attention in the temporal and spatial modalities was directly compared in one paradigm. The results showed that the temporal attention interacts with spatial attention, and temporal information is more dominant in guiding attention in the auditory modality. Temporal attention and spatial attention have some overlap in their neural correlates, such as the N1 and P2 components, but differ in the late P300 component. Finally, I extended current studies to another aspect of attention concerning attentional selection, to examine how auditory attention selects target items and suppresses or inhibits distractor items purely based on temporal information. Using the analog of a spatial flanker task, study 3 investigated the efficiency of attentional selection, and the results showed an interference effect and magnitude of temporal segregation were the primary factors that determine temporal attentional selection. In summary, the studies provide the first set of empirical evidence probing the nature of temporal attention in auditory modality. / Jin, Mingxuan. / Adviser: John X. Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-01, Section: B, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-77). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of simple versus complex music on joint attention of children with ASD. Thirty children with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in this study, 15 with a diagnosis of Severe ASD and 15 with a diagnosis of Mild/Moderate ASD. Each participant took part in six, 10-minute individual music conditions over a three-week period, each designed to elicit responses to joint attention. The two music conditions, Simple Music versus Complex Music, were differentiated by the level of complexity in the melody, harmony, rhythm, and accompaniment. One half of the participants received three sessions of the Simple Music Condition the first week followed by a week of no treatment, followed by three sessions of the Complex Music Condition the next week. One half of the participants received three sessions of the Complex music condition the first week, followed by a week of no treatment, followed by three sessions of the Simple Music Condition the next week. The dependent variable of responding to a bid for joint attention (RJA) was analyzed in a mixed design ANOVA. Results indicated no statistically significant difference between functioning groups, controlling for music modality, F (1, 28) = 2.135, p = 0.155. Therefore, no main effect emerged for functioning level on RJA scores. Results also indicated no statistically significant difference between the simple and complex RJA scores, controlling for functioning level, F (1, 28) = 0.330, p = 0.570. Therefore, no main effect emerged for music modality on RJA scores. Results indicated a statistically significant interaction between music modality and functioning level, F (1, 28) = 20.089, p < 0.01. Therefore, the effect of simple versus complex music was dependent on functioning level. Specifically, the Simple Music Condition was more effective in eliciting RJA for children diagnosed with Severe ASD, whereas the Complex Music Condition was more effective in eliciting RJA for children diagnosed with Mild/Moderate ASD. The results of this study will inform the development of specific and effective therapeutic protocols for increasing joint attention behaviors in both children diagnosed with Severe ASD and children diagnosed with Mild/Moderate ASD.

The effect on two sessions of mindfulness training on attentional efficiency was examined. 150 novice meditators were randomly assigned to mindfulness training, relaxation training, or a neutral task and were tested before and after participation. They were evaluated with performance measures of attentional efficiency and short-term memory as well as self-report measures of mindfulness and affect. Results indicated that mindfulness training was not related to better performance on any attention measure or a verbal memory measure as compared to relaxation and control groups. Possible reasons for the failure to find attentional benefits are explored and directions for future research are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-163).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1926. / Cover title. "Offprinted from the American journal of psychology, January 1929, vol. XLI."

There are two ways that attentional resources can be aligned in visual space. They can be "pulled" automatically by stimulus cues, or "pushed" in a more strategic manner by the observer in response to information cues. The present study was designed to determine if the ability to align attention in these two ways changes throughout the course of the lifespan. Subjects (6, 8, 10, 23, and 73 years) were tested in two conditions. In the first, subjects were presented with a stimulus cue (a dot that appears briefly at a target location) prior to the presentation of a target. Attention was automatically aligned to a possible target location in response to the stimulus cue. In the second, an arrow was presented prior to the target, allowing the subject to align attention strategically in response to the cue. Cues were either valid or invalid predictors of target location, cue-target SOA was varied so the time course for the effective use of both types of cues was measured and compared. Eye movements were monitored to control for confounding developmental differences in vision. In a second experiment, lifespan changes in the interaction between the two forms of orienting were assessed by presenting subjects with both cues on each trial. The location information provided by each cue could be either compatible or incompatible with each other. The results of both experiments suggest that the ability to align attention automatically changes very little from early childhood through old age. Strategic attention alignment becomes more efficient in early adulthood. Children have difficulty sustaining attention at locations specified by information cues and seniors have difficulty using the information rapidly. Both children and seniors are less able to use information cues when stimulus cues are also available where as young adults can use both. These findings suggest that separate mechanisms are required to implement attention alignments to automatic and strategic cues.

Two recent studies suggest that Inhibition of Return (IOR) varies in magnitude as a function of target location for overt orienting tasks but not covert orienting tasks. Unfortunately, methodological differences between these studies prevent a direct comparison of their results. Thus the aim of the current study was to replicate and extend the results of these two studies within a single experiment while controlling for methodological differences. Participants (N=37) were assigned to a cue-target or a target-target group and were required to make manual (covert orienting block) or saccadic responses (overt orienting block) to peripheral stimuli occupying one of four peripheral locations. An analysis of target reaction times indicated that while IOR was present under all circumstances, it did not vary as a function of target location. A careful examination of our methods points to the importance of controlling set size (the number of possible target locations) in IOR studies.