Attention management
Encyclopedia
Attention management refers to models and tools for supporting the management of attention
at the individual or at the collective level (cf. attention economy
), and at the short-term (quasi real time) or at a longer term (over periods of weeks or months).
Supporting the management of attention objective is to bring a certain number of solutions to:
Tools can been designed for supporting attention
These tools are often adaptive hypermedia
, and often rely on profiling the user
in order determine how to better support people's 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....
at the individual or at the collective level (cf. attention economy
Attention economy
Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity, and applies economic theory to solve various information management problems....
), and at the short-term (quasi real time) or at a longer term (over periods of weeks or months).
Approaches for attention support
Different studies have been conducted in using ICT for supporting attention, and in particular, models have been elaborated for supporting attention .Supporting the management of attention objective is to bring a certain number of solutions to:
- people perception cognitive limitations, such as the limited capacity of the human short-term memoryShort-term memoryShort-term memory is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. The duration of short-term memory is believed to be in the order of seconds. A commonly cited capacity is 7 ± 2 elements...
(a maximum number of 7 items ±2The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology. It was published in 1956 by the cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University's Department of Psychology in Psychological...
can be managed at a given time), or the theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships (the Dunbar's numberDunbar's numberDunbar's number is suggested to be a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person...
of 150). - information overloadInformation overload"Information overload" is a term popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. It refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information...
- social interaction overload (that may for instance originate from the online social networking services from which people get a lot of solicitations)
- interruption
- multitaskingHuman multitaskingHuman multitasking is the best performance by an individual of appearing to handle more than one task at the same time. The term is derived from computer multitasking. An example of multitasking is taking phone calls while typing an email...
Tools can been designed for supporting attention
- at the organizational level, by supporting organization processes
- at the collective level
- at the individual level, for instance using attentive user interfaceAttentive user interfaceThe Attentive User Interfaces are User Interfaces that manage the user attention. For instance an AUI can manage notification , deciding when to interrupt the user, the kind of warnings, and the level of detail of the messages presented to the user....
s . - at the individual level by helping people to assess and analyze their attention related practices (for instance with the tool AttentionScape ).
These tools are often adaptive hypermedia
Adaptive hypermedia
In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...
, and often rely on profiling the user
Profiling practices
Profiling refers to the whole process of construction and application of profiles generated by computerized profiling technologies. What characterizes profiling technologies is the use of algorithms or other mathematical techniques that allow one to discover patterns or correlations in large...
in order determine how to better support people's attention.
Projects
A certain number of projects have been conducted to investigate how to use ICT to support attention such as:- AtGentive – Attentive Agents for Collaborative Learners.
- SAKE – Semantic-enabled Agile Knowledge-based eGovernment (IST 027128)
- SUITOR
See also
- Adaptive hypermediaAdaptive hypermediaIn contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...
- 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....
- Attention economyAttention economyAttention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity, and applies economic theory to solve various information management problems....
- Attentive user interfaceAttentive user interfaceThe Attentive User Interfaces are User Interfaces that manage the user attention. For instance an AUI can manage notification , deciding when to interrupt the user, the kind of warnings, and the level of detail of the messages presented to the user....
- Information overloadInformation overload"Information overload" is a term popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. It refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information...
- Personal information managementPersonal information managementPersonal information management refers to the practice and the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve and use information items such as documents , web pages and email messages for everyday use to complete tasks and fulfill a person’s various...
- Time managementTime managementTime management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific...
- User modelingUser modelingUser modeling is a subdivision of human–computer interaction and describes theprocess of building up and modifying a user model. The main goal of user modeling is customization and adaptation of systems to the user's specific needs. The system needs to "say the 'right' thing at the 'right' time in...