Attention

Selection and prioritization of information for processing and action. Working memory can retain information outside the current focus of attention, so attentional priority should not be equated with all retained content.

Failure to report a contralesional visual event during simultaneous bilateral stimulation despite better detection when it appears alone. The contrast points to competition and selection, while sensory imbalance and task demands remain possible contributors.

Preferential allocation of attention toward or away from a stimulus class. A group-level effect and reliable measurement of individual differences are different requirements.

A task presenting competing stimuli followed by a probe, with responses used to investigate attention. Altering the relation between emotional stimuli and probe location can train a contingency; transfer to emotional vulnerability and clinical functioning must be tested.^[ref]

Thought disengaged from the current external task. Its content, intentionality, associated awareness and effect on task performance should be measured separately. An off-task thought can occur with or without meta-awareness.

Attention directed toward one's own sensations, performance or imagined appearance. In social anxiety disorder, internal sensations may be mistaken for reliable evidence about how an observer sees the person, while attention to the actual interaction is reduced.

Sustained monitoring of bodily sensations for signs of danger. Monitoring can change which sensations are noticed and how they are interpreted; its proposed maintaining role must be tested rather than used to dismiss the original sensation.

A theory proposing early registration of separable visual features and a role for focused attention in correctly binding their conjunctions into objects. Visual-search slopes and binding errors are complementary tests, not interchangeable proofs of one serial architecture. The original model already recognized possible top-down constraints on unattended feature combinations.^[ref]

A reported or measured binding of features into a combination not present in the display, such as assigning one item's color to another item's shape. Such errors support a distinction between feature availability and correct assignment, while their perceptual, memory and response contributions require task-specific controls.

Preferential processing of some information relative to competing information. A task can manipulate relevant location, sensory feature, object or modality; these manipulations need not all select the same underlying unit.