Individual differences and attentional varieties.

Abstract

With its own functional anatomy, circuitry and cellular structure, attention can be viewed as an organ system. This conceptualization reframes many problems in cognitive science and permits important insights into neurological and psychiatric disorders of both children and adults. Specifically, construing attention as an organ system helps to describe the evolutionary and developmental aspects of volitional control, thus paving the road towards a better appreciation of how such factors as genetics and culture influence control systems. The efficiency of the attention networks differs between people. However, these individual differences may elucidate variation in intelligence as well as the ability to regulate affect.