Absent-mindedness
Encyclopedia
Absent-mindedness is where a person shows inattentive or forgetful behaviour. It can have three different causes:
Absent-mindedness is a mental condition in which the subject experiences low levels of attention
and frequent distraction. Absent-mindedness is not a diagnosed condition but rather a symptom of boredom and sleepiness which people experience in their daily lives. When suffering from absent-mindedness, people tend to show signs of memory lapse and weak recollection of recently occurring events. This can usually be a result of a variety of other conditions often diagnosed by clinicians such as ADD and depression. In addition to absent-mindedness leading to an array of consequences affecting daily life, it can have as more severe, long-term problems.
. Schachter and Dodsen say, that in the context of memory, “absent-mindedness entails inattentive or shallow processing that contributes to weak memories of ongoing events or forgetting to do things in the future”.
; efficiency; personal productivity
; and quality of life. These can also occur in the lapse and recapture of awareness and attention to everyday tasks. Individuals for whom intervals between lapses are very short are typically viewed as impaired. Given the prevalence of attentional failures in everyday life, and the ubiquitous and sometimes disastrous consequences of such failures, it is rather surprising that relatively little work has been done to directly measure individual differences in everyday error
s arising from propensities for failures of attention. Absent-mindedness can also lead to bad grades at school, boredom, and depression
is a stock character
often depicted in fictional works, usually as a talented academic whose focus on academic matters leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings. The stereo-typical view can be tracedback as far as the philosopher Thales
, who it is said "walked at night with his eyes focused on the heavens and, as a result, fell down a well
". One classic example of this is in the Disney film The Absent-Minded Professor
made in 1963 and based on the short story A Situation of Gravity, by Samuel W. Taylor. Two examples of this character portrayed in more modern media include doctor Emmett Brown from Back to the Future and Professor Farnsworth of Futurama
.
In literature "The Absent-Minded Beggar
" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling
, written in 1899, and was directed at the absent–mindedness of the population of Great Britain in ignoring the plight of their troops in the Boer War. The poem illustrated the fact that soldiers who could not return to their previous jobs needed support, and the need to raise money to support the fighting troops. The poem was also set to music by Gilbert & Sullivan and a campaign raised to support the British troops, especially on their departure and return, and the sick and wounded. Franz Kafka
also wrote "Absent-minded Window-gazing", one of his short-story titles from Betrachtung
.
Other characters include:
Absent-mindedness and its related topics are often measured in scales developed in studies to survey boredom and attention levels. For instance, the Attention-Related Cognitive Errors Scale (ARCES) reflects errors in performance that result from attention lapses. Another scale, called the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) measures the ability to maintain a reasonable level of attention in everyday life. The Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS) measures the level of boredom in relation to the attention level of the subject.
Absent-mindedness can lead to automatic behaviors, or automatisms. Additionally, absent-minded actions can involve behavioral mistakes. A phenomenon called Attention-Lapse Induced Alienation occurs when a person makes a mistake whileabsent-mindedly performing a task. The person then attributes the mistake to his or her hand rather than their self, because they were not paying attention.
- a low level of attentionAttentionAttention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
("blanking" or "zoning out") - intense attention to a single object of focus (hyperfocusHyperfocusHyperfocus is an intense form of mental concentration or visualization that focuses consciousness on a narrow subject, separate from objective reality and onto subjective mental planes, daydreams, concepts, fiction, the imagination, and other objects of the mind...
) that makes a person oblivious to events around him or her; or - unwarranted distractionDistractionDistraction is the divided attention of an individual or group from the chosen object of attention onto the source of distraction. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of...
of attention from the object of focus by irrelevant thoughts or environmental events.
Absent-mindedness is a mental condition in which the subject experiences low levels of attention
Attention
Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
and frequent distraction. Absent-mindedness is not a diagnosed condition but rather a symptom of boredom and sleepiness which people experience in their daily lives. When suffering from absent-mindedness, people tend to show signs of memory lapse and weak recollection of recently occurring events. This can usually be a result of a variety of other conditions often diagnosed by clinicians such as ADD and depression. In addition to absent-mindedness leading to an array of consequences affecting daily life, it can have as more severe, long-term problems.
Conceptualization
Absent Mindedness seemingly consists of lapses of concentration or "zoning out". This can result in lapses of short or long term memory, depending on when the person in question was in a state of absent-mindedness. Absent-mindedness also relates directly to lapses in attentionAttention
Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
. Schachter and Dodsen say, that in the context of memory, “absent-mindedness entails inattentive or shallow processing that contributes to weak memories of ongoing events or forgetting to do things in the future”.
Causes
Though absent-mindedness is a frequent occurrence, there has been little progress made on what the direct causes of absent-mindedness are. However, it tends to co-occur with ill health, preoccupation, and distraction.Consequences
Lapses of attention are clearly a part of everyone’s life. Some are merely inconvenient, such as missing a familiar turn-off on the highway, while some are extremely serious, such as failures of attention that cause accidents, injury, or loss of life. Beyond the obvious costs of accidents arising from lapses in attention there are: lost timeTime
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
; efficiency; personal productivity
Productivity
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
; and quality of life. These can also occur in the lapse and recapture of awareness and attention to everyday tasks. Individuals for whom intervals between lapses are very short are typically viewed as impaired. Given the prevalence of attentional failures in everyday life, and the ubiquitous and sometimes disastrous consequences of such failures, it is rather surprising that relatively little work has been done to directly measure individual differences in everyday error
Error
The word error entails different meanings and usages relative to how it is conceptually applied. The concrete meaning of the Latin word "error" is "wandering" or "straying". Unlike an illusion, an error or a mistake can sometimes be dispelled through knowledge...
s arising from propensities for failures of attention. Absent-mindedness can also lead to bad grades at school, boredom, and depression
Absent-mindedness in popular culture
The absent-minded professorAbsent-minded professor
The absent-minded professor is a stock character of popular fiction, usually portrayed as a talented academic whose focus on academic matters leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings....
is a stock character
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
often depicted in fictional works, usually as a talented academic whose focus on academic matters leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings. The stereo-typical view can be tracedback as far as the philosopher Thales
Thales
Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition...
, who it is said "walked at night with his eyes focused on the heavens and, as a result, fell down a well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
". One classic example of this is in the Disney film The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 black-and-white Walt Disney Productions film based on the short story A Situation of Gravity, by Samuel W. Taylor....
made in 1963 and based on the short story A Situation of Gravity, by Samuel W. Taylor. Two examples of this character portrayed in more modern media include doctor Emmett Brown from Back to the Future and Professor Farnsworth of Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
.
In literature "The Absent-Minded Beggar
The Absent-Minded Beggar
"The Absent-Minded Beggar" is an 1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling, set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and often accompanied by an illustration by Richard Caton Woodville. The song was written as part of an appeal by the Daily Mail to raise money for soldiers fighting in the South African War and...
" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, written in 1899, and was directed at the absent–mindedness of the population of Great Britain in ignoring the plight of their troops in the Boer War. The poem illustrated the fact that soldiers who could not return to their previous jobs needed support, and the need to raise money to support the fighting troops. The poem was also set to music by Gilbert & Sullivan and a campaign raised to support the British troops, especially on their departure and return, and the sick and wounded. Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
also wrote "Absent-minded Window-gazing", one of his short-story titles from Betrachtung
Contemplation (Kafka)
Contemplation, or Meditation is a sequence of eighteen short stories by Franz Kafka written between 1904 and 1912. Eight of these stories were published under the same title in the bimonthly Hyperion and were Kafka's first publication. Some of the stories are also included, in whole or in part, in...
.
Other characters include:
- Amberglas from The Seven Towers by Patricia WredePatricia WredePatricia Collins Wrede is an American fantasy writer from Chicago, Illinois.The eldest of five children, she graduated from Carleton College in 1974 with a BA in Biology, married James Wrede in 1976 , and obtained an MBA from University of Minnesota in 1977.She finished her first book in 1978,...
- Alicja, a detective created by Joanna ChmielewskaJoanna ChmielewskaJoanna Chmielewska is the pen name of Irena Kühn , a Polish writer and screenplay author. Her work is often described as "ironic detective stories"...
. Alicja is described by the author as "the epitome of absent-mindedness". - Caboose, from the popular web-series Red vs. BlueRed vs. BlueRed vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD...
by RoosterTeeth. - Hay LinHay LinHay Lin is a member of W.I.T.C.H., a group of teenage girls who make up the Guardians, the people who guard Candracar, the center of the universe, from evil. Hay Lin is Chinese. Hay Lin is the "H" in W.I.T.C.H., acronym of the girls' names...
is an absent-minded character from an Italian comic book series, later made into an anime and Disney production.
Related Topics
Absent-mindedness can be avoided or fixed in several ways. Although it can be accomplished through medical procedures, it can also be accomplished through psychological treatments. Examples include: altering work schedules to make them shorter, having frequent rest periods and utilizing a drowsy-operator warning device.Absent-mindedness and its related topics are often measured in scales developed in studies to survey boredom and attention levels. For instance, the Attention-Related Cognitive Errors Scale (ARCES) reflects errors in performance that result from attention lapses. Another scale, called the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) measures the ability to maintain a reasonable level of attention in everyday life. The Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS) measures the level of boredom in relation to the attention level of the subject.
Absent-mindedness can lead to automatic behaviors, or automatisms. Additionally, absent-minded actions can involve behavioral mistakes. A phenomenon called Attention-Lapse Induced Alienation occurs when a person makes a mistake whileabsent-mindedly performing a task. The person then attributes the mistake to his or her hand rather than their self, because they were not paying attention.
See also
- ADHD predominantly inattentiveADHD predominantly inattentiveADHD predominantly inattentive is one of the three subtypes of Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder . While ADHD-PI is sometimes still called "attention deficit disorder" by the general public, these older terms were formally changed in 1994 in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of...
- Absent-minded professorAbsent-minded professorThe absent-minded professor is a stock character of popular fiction, usually portrayed as a talented academic whose focus on academic matters leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings....
- Habit (psychology)Habit (psychology)Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks...
- Human reliabilityHuman reliabilityHuman reliability is related to the field of human factors engineering and ergonomics, and refers to the reliability of humans in fields such as manufacturing, transportation, the military, or medicine...
- Mind-wanderingMind-wanderingMind-wandering is the experience of thoughts not remaining on a single topic for a long period of time, particularly when people are not engaged in an attention-demanding task...
- Attentional shift
Further reading
- Reason, J. T. (1982). Absent-minded? The Psychology of Mental Lapses and Everyday Errors. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
- Reason, J. T. (1984). Lapses of attention in everyday life. In R. Parasuraman & D. R. Davies (Eds.), Varieties of attention. New York: Academic Press.
- Reason, J. T. (1990). Human Error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Schacter, D.L. 1983. Amnesia observed: Remembering and forgetting in a natural environment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 92, 236-42.
External links
- Oops! The Absent and Wandering Mind, University of Waterloo