Attention & Brain

Attention to the learning subject is very important. Many scholars include attention as one of the many mechanisms, which accounted for good memory. Attention occurs when a learner maintain an attitude of expectation, alert to information and needless of directions.

I have experienced some times like selective attention, like listening to one conversation at a party while ignoring others.

Lack of attention control and inattention observed among patients with brain’s frontal lobe damage. One of my uncle a mathematics professor, had an accident, and he had a head injury. Once he was going through the recovery, he had trouble to control his attention in one topic. He started to repeat the same subject or topic. He can count numbers, but he cannot do any arithmetic operations. I was very upset to see my uncle’s condition.

Now I understood the damage caused to frontal lobe might be the reason for the above problem. I have learned that catecholaminar, an important neurotransmitter related to keep the attention.


Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.