No one knows what attention is.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• The concept of attention is widely used but lacks a precise definition.
• Attention is often treated as a unitary construct, encompassing both phenomena and explanatory processes.
• Existing research on attention faces challenges due to its ambiguous nature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically evaluate the utility of "attention" as a singular construct or neural system.
• To propose an alternative framework for understanding selective processing.
• To advocate for a shift from an analytic to a synthetic approach in attention research.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of the term "attention" in scientific literature.
• Focus on visual selective attention as a case study.
• Examination of evolutionary and systems-level perspectives on sensory processing.

Main Results:

• "Attention" serves as both the phenomenon to be explained and the explanation itself, indicating conceptual ambiguity.
• Selective processing arises as a byproduct of complex sensorimotor systems, not necessarily a dedicated attention module.
• Evolutionary pressures have shaped multi-channel systems that inherently produce selective phenomena.

Conclusions:

• The term "attention" should be abandoned as a label for a specific functional or neural system.
• Future research should prioritize behaviorally relevant selection processes.
• Understanding the diverse systems underlying selection is more productive than searching for a unified "attention" system.