Attention: Theory and Practice

by Addie Johnson, Robert W. Proctor

"The book is well-organized and comprehensive in covering the essential material. The inclusion of human factors material is a strength that is not covered in other books. . . . The book is a balanced survey which will be of value to graduate students or anyone wanting to enter the field and needing a broad overview."                                                                       --Steven Yantis, The Johns Hopkins University "My overall impression is that the authors have combined their expertise and experience in the classroom to provide a text that will clearly cover attention more completely and in a more coherent and less confusing manner than any other available text. . . . this is the best available text on the psychology of attention at the advanced undergraduate level."                                                                          --Mark Faust, University of South Alabama   "This text represents a strong review of the empirical and theoretical developments in attention work."                                                                                        --Tom Busey, Indiana University "A nice overview of the ′classic′ work on attention, with up-to-date consideration of the literature, usefully bringing together some more applied literatures in which attention is a central construct…The scholarship seems comprehensive and up-to-date, and the authors do a nice job of presenting research in a fair and neutral manner."                                                                 --Richard Carlson, Pennsylvania State University "The chapters present the material at a level appropriate for a first course on attention. The focus on providing a comprehensive treatment of the highlights of a variety of different topics related to attention is a strength."                                                                                   --Art Kramer, University of Illinois   Attention is one of the fastest growing research areas in cognitive psychology.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

488 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 19, 2003

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine my horror on realizing we were going to be studying a post-graduate textbook published 12 years ago!

Turns out I need not have worried: it is very well organized and a good didactic work. Complicated topics are clearly and carefully explained and reexplained. The extra chapter in the Spanish edition means you start zoomed out, getting a nice overview of the topic, before zooming in on each individual topic in later chapters, making it much easier to understand than most UNED textbooks, which just throw you in the deep end.

There is further repetition in the footnotes and the annexes at the end of the book, meaning most concepts are explained in at least two different ways, if not more, and you can not help but revise complicated topics as you go along. It really is very good.

How fast can you react to a red light flashing on a screen? What about of it is preceded by a sound? It's not the type of book anyone would ever read unless they had to. It would have been wonderful to get more practical real life applications. More about ADHD (which is mentioned only once) and other personal accounts of problems related to these functions. Even if they were just bubbles in the margins not meant to be put on any syllabus. In any case, I gave up thinking studying psychology had anything to do with studying anything subjective quite a while ago.