PAYING ATTENTION TO A DOT.

PAYING ATTENTION TO A DOT. I posted here about the difficulty four year olds have in not paying attention to a marshmallow. In this article Sam Anderson points out that William James argued that it was difficult for a person to focus attention. James set the challenge of focusing the attention on a dot. James contended that a human can’t focus on a dot for more than a few seconds. Our minds crave variety. Anderson took on the challenge. He tried to focus for thirty minutes and concluded that he had not been able to focus on the dot. He says: “The dot… becomes only the hub of your total dot-related distraction.”