Attention: Theory and Practice

Attention: Theory and Practice provides a balance between a readable overview of attention and an emphasis on how theories and paradigms for the study of attention have developed. The book highlights the important issues and major findings while giving sufficient details of experimental studies, models, and theories so that results and conclusions are easy to follow and evaluate. Rather than brushing over tricky technical details, the authors explain them clearly, giving readers the benefit of understanding the motivation for and techniques of the experiments in order to allow readers to think through results, models, and theories for themselves. Attention is an accessible text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, as well as an important resource for researchers and practitioners interested in gaining an overview of the field of attention.

About the Author :
Addie Johnson is Professor of Human Performance and Ergonomics at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Purdue University in 1993 and has been teaching and conducting research in the field of attention and human performance for over 10 years. She has taught courses on attention to over 1,000 students and thus brings broad experience to bear in writing this text for a student audience. After five years as Assistant Professor in Human Factors Psychology at Rice University (with a year off as visiting scientist at the Institute of Occupational Physiology at the University of Dortmund, Germany), she moved to the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, where she remained until moving to the University of Groningen in 2002. In addition to conducting research in attention, memory, and skill acquisition, with applications in the field of ergonomics, Dr. Johnson is active in several professional societies and has served on a number of editorial boards. She is currently Secretary of the Dutch Ergonomics Society. Attention: Theory and Practice is the second book she has co-authored with Robert W. Proctor. The first, Skill Acquisition and Human Performance, was published by Sage in 1995. Together, Drs. Johnson and Proctor bring a strong theoretical orientation as well as interest and experience in ergonomic applications to their new book. Robert Proctor is Professor of Psychology at Purdue University at West Lafayette. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1975. Dr. Proctor has been teaching and conducting research in the field of attention and human performance for nearly 30 years. He conducts research on basic and applied aspects of human performance, with an emphasis on stimulus-response compatibility effects and the relation between perception and action. Dr. Proctor is member of several journal editorial boards. He has co-authored four books and co-edited two. Attention: Theory and Practice is his second book with Dr. Addie Johnson; the first, Skill Acquisition and Human Performance, was published by Sage in 1995. Together, these two authors brought an integrated perspective and broad experience to bear in crafting this book. Dr. Proctor is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and an honorary fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Review :
"A nice overview of the 'classic' work on attention, with up-to-date consideration of the literature, usefully bringing together some more applied literatures in which attention is a central construct...The scholarship seems comprehensive and up-to-date, and the authors do a nice job of presenting research in a fair and neutral manner."--Richard Carlson "My overall impression is that the authors have combined their expertise and experience in the classroom to provide a text that will clearly cover attention more completely and in a more coherent and less confusing manner than any other available text. . .this is the best available text on the psychology of attention at the advanced undergraduate level."--Mark Faust "The book is well-organized and comprehensive in covering the essential material. The inclusion of human factors material is a strength that is not covered in other books. . . . The book is a balanced survey which will be of value to graduate students or anyone wanting to enter the field and needing a broad overview."--Steven Yantis "The work highlights the important issues and major findings while giving sufficient details of experimental studies, models, and theories so that results and conclusions are easy to follow and evaluate. The collection is balanced, adaptable and pedagogical with brief chapter previews, summaries, highlighted key words etc., thus making it an interesting reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in psychology as well as important resource for researchers and practitioners."--Deccan Herald "This text represents a strong review of the empirical and theoretical developments in attention work."--Tom Busey "The chapters present the material at a level appropriate for a first course on attention. The focus on providing a comprehensive treatment of the highlights of a variety of different topics related to attention is a strength." --Art Kramer