Everybody knows the phenomena summarized with the term attention: concentration, focalization, limitation, selection, and intensification (see, e.g., James, 1890/1950). The explanation of these phenomena is, however, a different matter. Problems easily arise with regard to what has to be explained and with regard to the style of explanation. A problem of the first kind is the "methodology of 'bad focus'": the explanation starts with and is fixated on an intuitively striking but nonessential behavioral feature or cognitive achievement. A problem of the second kind is a "virtus dormitiva" explanation: the explanation starts with emphasizing one aspect of the observed phenomena, the emphasized aspect receives an interesting and suggestive name, and that name with its connotations is used as a concept in the explanation. At the start of contemporary, behavior-based, information processing psychology, a virtus dormitiva explanation infiltrated the functional accounts of the phenomena of attention; the empirical observation that people show performance limitations was translated into the theoretical concept of a communication channel with a limited capacity. That limited capacity notion became the core concept in what can be called the standard theory of attention. This standard theory of attention faced severe difficulties in explaining the guidance of attention by the information processor's goals and intentions. Subsequent modifications, concerned with removing these difficulties, revealed that selection, guided by goals and intentions, is the essential behavioral feature and that the observed performance limitations are a result of this selection. So, the limited capacity theorizing was not only plagued by a virtus dormitiva explanation, it also suffered from the methodology of bad focus.

Attention↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Eye movements and attention.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Attention↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The serum immunoglobulins in workers after prolonged occupational exposure to the mercury vapors.

The mercury concentration in the blood and urine as well as the IgA, IgD, IgE, IgG, and IgM serum concentration was assayed in 89 men working during varying time intervals in a chlorine production plant using a mercury electrolysis method. In none of the workers studied the blood mercury concentration exceeded 50 micrograms x 1-1 and only in two cases the mercury excretion in the urine exceeded 200 micrograms x 1-1. Low levels of IgA and IgG were observed only in workers exposed to mercury vapors for more than 20 years.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Biological consequences of occupational exposure to elementary mercury in light of hematologic tests].

Principal haematological tests in peripheral blood, non-specific phosphatases and myeloperoxidase in granulocytes were determined in a group of 89 males occupationally exposed to the elementary mercury during manufacture of chlorine. Examined males were employed for 2-26 years. Blood mercury levels did not exceed 50 micrograms per l-1. The obtained results indicate that low concentrations of the elementary mercury in the environment do not produce significant abnormalities in both quantitative and qualitative picture of peripheral blood but markedly inhibit neutrophil non-specific phosphatases activity.

Adult↗