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Faculty Publication: Associate Professor of Philosophy Adrienne Prettyman

March 22, 2022

"What is Diffuse Attention?"

Author: Prettyman, Adrienne

Source: Mind & Language, DOI: 10.1111/mila.12365, February 2022

Type of Publication: Article

Abstract: This article defends a theory of diffuse attention and distinguishes it from focal attention. My view is motivated by evidence from psychology and neuroscience, which suggests that we can deploy visual selective attention in at least two ways: by focusing on a small number of items, or by diffusing attention over a group of items taken as a whole. I argue that diffuse attention is selective and can be object-based. It enables a subject to select an object to guide behavior, albeit in a different way than focusing does.

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