Attention And Arousal

The thinker who has a mortal fear of being wrong will give all that is valuable in himself to that little ambition. Walter Lippmann (1914) Psychology has always been plagued by passing fads and fan cies to a greater extent than is seemly in a scientific discipline. Over the past few years the Zeitgeist can be summed up by the two words 'cognitive psychology'. Indeed, a recent poll of academic psychologists in American indicated that over 80% of them regarded themselves as cognitive psychologists! Cognitive psychology is in the ascendant, but it has never been clear to me that it has addressed all of the appropriate is sues. In particular, information processing in the real world (and even in the laboratory) occurs within a motivational and emotional context, but cognitive psychologists usually main tain the convenient fiction that cognition can fruitfully be stud ied in isolation. The main reason for writing this book was to at tempt to demonstrate that there can be a useful cross-fertiliza tion between cognitive and motivational-emotional psycholo gy and that there are already tantalizing glimpses of the poten tial advantages of such inter-disciplinary research. The ideas of Donald Broadbent and his associates have exer cised a formative influence during the writing of this book. They discovered some years ago that there are intriguing simi larities (as well as differences) in the effects on performance of such apparently quite disparate factors as white noise, time of day, introversion-extraversion and incentive.

Attention, Arousal and the Orientation Reaction aims to present in a volume the works of Pavlov, an eminent Russian physiologist known for his contributions, specifically the classical conditioning. This book contains the interpretations and theories in physiological terms, and elaborates on the neurological models of significant interest. The “orientation reaction” is described, and the Sokolov's model, which is claimed to be the most comprehensive model for the orientation reaction, is then illustrated. This text also explains the phenomenon of habituation, wherein facts involved are summarized in a chapter. A discussion on the numerous neurological models of the habituation process is then given. This text notes that the models are divided into ""one-stage models"" and ""two-stage models."" Other topics presented are the effects of transforming a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus; the orientation reaction in ontogenetic and phylogenetic development; and the orientation reaction in the measurement of individual differences. This book will be beneficial to those fascinated with the works of Pavlov, especially the psychology students and practitioners.

Attention: Theory and Practice provides a balance between a readable overview of attention and an emphasis on how theories and paradigms for the study of attention have developed. The book highlights the important issues and major findings while giving sufficient details of experimental studies, models, and theories so that results and conclusions are easy to follow and evaluate. Rather than brushing over tricky technical details, the authors explain them clearly, giving readers the benefit of understanding the motivation for and techniques of the experiments in order to allow readers to think through results, models, and theories for themselves. Attention is an accessible text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, as well as an important resource for researchers and practitioners interested in gaining an overview of the field of attention.

Arousal in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases focuses on the dysregulation of arousal found in many neurological and psychiatric disorders. Chapters describe the physiology of each process, how it presents in each disorder, and the most appropriate treatment(s). The book also imparts the understanding of the RAS as a system that not only modulates waking, but also survival mechanisms, such as fight vs. flight responses and other reflexes. This book helps neuroscientists, sleep researchers, neurologists and psychiatrists understand the basic mechanisms that modulate arousal in health and disease. In addition, it promotes therapies that can alter the severity and manifestation of multiple disorders. Provides a comprehensive overview of the basic mechanisms behind dysregulation of arousal in neurological and psychiatric disorders Describes, in detail, the function of the Reticular Activating System with respect to higher functions, motor control and the intertwining of arousal and motor disorders Covers multiple neurological disorders, including epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and autism

This book brings together leading international learning and attention researchers to provide both a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the current state of knowledge of this area as well as new perspectives and directions for the future.