Workshop themes
Attention has long been a major research focus in cognitive science. While there is a wealth of empirical research on attention, some foundational questions remain unsettled. Recent philosophical work has made progress by advancing accounts of the nature of attention. Philosophers have also recently been engaged with normative questions about attention, including moral, political, epistemic, and rational norms of attention, in connection with recent concerns about the ‘attention economy’ and manipulation of attention in our digital environments.
The goal of this workshop is to contribute to a better understanding of attention by investigating another set of foundational questions, concerning the functions and natural norms of attention. Attention is involved in the operation of various other mental capacities—but how does attention contribute to the functioning of other capacities, and what is the function of attention itself? Prioritizing questions about attentions function can help in developing accounts of its nature; for to understand what a thing is, we will want to know what it does, or what it is for. In addition, identifying the function(s) of attention will enable us to say what it is for attention to function well or poorly as such, or to provide natural norms for attention. This has the potential to ground explanations of what is ‘disordered’ about attention, if anything is, in conditions such as ADHD and addiction. Moreover, considering the function of attention can contribute to an understanding of its natural origins, by identifying the effects that attentional mechanisms have had in evolutionary history for which attention may have been selected.
This workshop will bring together researchers interested in a variety of areas to discuss the functions of attention. The workshop will have a mix of invited and contribution presentations. We invite submissions of abstracts that speak to some aspect of the workshop themes, broadly understood.
Keynote speakers:
- Denis Buehler (Institut Jean Nicod)
- Alison Springle (University of Miami)
If you are interested to participate remotely, please contact d.d.johnson@ifikk.uio.no or linehth@student.sv.uio.no for a zoom link.
Program
Friday, 16 February
- 9:30-10:00 Introductions and Coffee/breakfast
- 10:00-11:00 Harriet Fagerberg (LSE), “What Would Disorders of Attention Have to Be Like?”
- 11:00-11:10 Coffee break
- 11:10-12:00 Petar Nurkić (Belgrade), “Pull Yourself Together!”
- 12:00-12:50 Aaron Glasser (University of Michigan), “Steering Salience”
- 12:50-13:50 Lunch break (catered lunch)
- 13:50-14:50 Franziska Köder and Marianna Kyriacou (UiO), “The functions of attention in communication: Investigating irony processing in adults with and without ADHD” (Invited speakers)
- 14:50-15:00 Coffee break
- 15:00-16:15 Keynote: Denis Buehler (Institut Jean Nicod, École Normale Supériure), “Attention and Inquiry”
- 16:15-17:00 Wrap-up discussion
- 17:00 Group walk/tour around city center (Oslo Opera House, Bjørvika library, waterfront area)
- 18:30 Dinner at Oslo Streetfood (Barcode district)
Saturday, 17 February
- 9:30-10:00 Coffee/breakfast
- 10:00-11:00 Drew Johnson, “The Needs-Based Account of the Function of Attention”
- 11:00-11:10 Coffee break
- 11:10-12:00 Frederik Tollerup Junker (University of Copenhagen), “Is the Wandering Mind a Planning Mind?”
- 12:00-12:50 Daniel Vespermann (Heidelberg University), “Attending to the Affective Background”
- 12:50-14:00 Lunch break (catered lunch)
- 14:00-14:50 Adrian Liu and Mia Accomando (Rutgers), “Attentional Temperament and Norms on Attention”
- 14:50-15:00 Coffee break
- 15:00-16:15 Keynote: Alison Springle
- 16:30 Eckers for drinks/coffee (at John Colletts tram stop, close to the University)
- 19:00 Workshop dinner (at Hakuna Matata)
Abstracts
Harriet Fagerberg (London School of Economics)
Title: What Disorders of Attention Would Have to be Like
Abstract: TBA
Petar Nurkić (University of Belgrade)
Title (full): Pull Yourself Together! - Or why my therapist isn't right and I am, and is this title grammatically correct and acceptable and if not, is the issue syntactic or semantic. And does that mean I shouldn't delve into philosophy, I knew I wasn't talented and that I'm not adapted to this world but the world is cruel and maybe the problem lies in it; meanwhile, I forgot to buy milk. Should I have put a question mark after the ninth word of the title, and is "I" even a word?
Abstract: The title of our presentation is not chaotically chosen by accident. It matches the task of examining the role of hyperactivity and attention deficit in alleviating severe depressive disorder. Simply put, we will try to answer the question of how the lack of structure in our everyday "worries" can be precisely what we need to overcome them. The simultaneous occurrence of hyperkinetic disorder (ADHD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) presents a complex psychopathological situation for an individual. While ADHD is characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and lack of attention, MDD is defined as a persistent feeling of sadness, lack of interest, and reduced functional activities. In this presentation, we will examine the hypothesis that certain ADHD traits can serve as unusual defense and coping mechanisms in individuals diagnosed with MDD. We will attempt to show that what is colloquially called "excess energy" and "scatterbrained" can successfully overcome the usual fatigue and various types of stagnation attributed to depression (Asherson et al., 2016; McIntosh et al., 2009). MDD is a disabling condition with symptoms like lethargy, hopelessness, and lack of motivation. On the other hand, hyperactivity and impulsivity, which are noticeably present in ADHD, represent a contrasting range of behaviors. Hyperactive behavior can temporarily bring a sense of vitality and spontaneity, sometimes even manifesting as active participation in various hobbies and activities that can counter the apathy associated with MDD (Kolar et al., 2008). Reports of individuals diagnosed simultaneously with ADHD and MDD indicate a diversity of experiences.
For some, the impulsive and proactive tendencies of ADHD serve as a catalyst for engagement in activities and exploration, which in turn can provide brief respites from depressive symptoms. Others describe a complex balance between the disorders, where hyperactivity opposes the sluggishness of depression, and intense focus (often called hyperfocus in ADHD) is a useful tool for constructively engaging in activities (Nigg et al., 2005). Recognizing the subtle interaction between ADHD and MDD is essential for mental health professionals. The integration of psychostimulant antidepressants and cognitive- behavioral therapy addresses specific challenges, as well as opportunities arising from the coexistence of these disorders (Safren et al., 2005). In the conclusion of the presentation, we will explain in more detail the complexity and adaptive elements of the simultaneous occurrence of ADHD and MDD. Recognizing the role of ADHD as a possible coping mechanism with MDD allows psychiatrists and psychotherapists to develop more nuanced and comprehensive therapeutic approaches in which neither disorder would be "targeted", but this dual diagnosis would be considered as a specific whole.
Aaron Glasser (University of Michigan)
Title: Steering Salience
Abstract: Salience pulls an agent's attention. Spontaneously occurring, salience recruits attention when content pops into focus. The crack of thunder; an overwhelming odor; a forceful memory. Attention is cued on the basis of salience, making salience a jumping off point for subsequent cognition.
Several recent accounts have argued that we can evaluate an agent on the basis of their salience, what they notice/neglect, and/or their spontaneous cognition in general. Let's call this the Evaluability Intuition. What makes this intuition particularly difficult to ground is that salience, being a spontaneous phenomenon, is seemingly passive and involuntarily issued from the agent. Let's call this the Passivity Intuition. The problem, put succinctly, is how can we be evaluated on the basis of passive process?
I believe the best way to solve this problem is by answering an adjacent, but underexplored question in action: what can we do to change what is salient to us? Put another way, what kind of agency do we have with respect to our salience? I will argue that focusing on the mechanics of how we steer our salience can help us appreciate what is true about both the Evaluability and Passivity Intuitions. Specifically, I will develop an account of attentional control that articulates why salience can be evaluated diachronically while each salient event remains synchronically passive.
My account of attentional control follows recent work on attentional action that highlights the attentional response as a locus for control. The idea is that there is a moment for agential control just after a salient event pops into my mind—a moment where one can either suppress or enhance to the automatic influence of that event. Our responses to salient events steer our salience patterns over time in the aggregate through reinforcement learning dynamics: salient objects whose influence is suppressed are de-valued and salient objects whose influence are enhanced are reinforced.
After grounding this approach in the empirical literature, I distinguish it from a nearby account from Denis Buehler that grounds one's ability to alter their salience patterns in executive control. In response, I consider how priority maps are dynamically updated that occur from sources other than goals—e.g. reward history, emotions, priming, statistical learning, expectations, etc. Responses informed by reward history, in particular, seems to be a significant contender as an agentially relevant response that bypasses executive control. For this reason, and another that highlights the sophisticated functionality of the salience network, I argue that we should refrain from a neurally reductive approach to how the attentional control we can use to steer our salience over time.
Nevertheless, my account of attentional control alleviates the tension between the Evaluability and Passivity Intuitions. Evaluability is retained because agents diachronically control their salience via the aggregation of many past attentional reactions. This provides the basis for evaluability by establishing attributability. Passivity is retained because the salient event itself is synchronically passive because it is the determination of a priority map at a given time.
Franziska Köder and Marianna Kyriacou (University of Oslo)
Title: The functions of attention in communication: Investigating irony processing in adults with and without ADHD
Abstract: Individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) tend to have difficulties in a variety of linguistic domains, especially in pragmatics, i.e., the use of language in social contexts (Carruthers et al., 2021; Green et al., 2014). Children with ADHD struggle for instance more than typically developing children in understanding non-literal utterances such as verbal irony (e.g., “Great job!” when someone has failed miserably) (Caillies et al., 2014; Ludlow et al., 2017). So far, not a lot is known about how adults with ADHD process non-literal utterances and to what extent their executive attention abilities influence their performance.
In an eye-tracking reading study with 54 adults with and 56 adults without an ADHD diagnosis, we investigated the processing of verbal irony and the potential role of executive attention abilities (fluid intelligence and working memory). The gaze results indicate that adults with ADHD are generally slower in reading, and particularly so for ironical utterances. Individual differences in working memory in adults with ADHD exhibited undifferentiated processing between ironic and literal utterances when working memory capacity was low, potentially suggesting an indiscriminatory, ‘all-in’ investment of attentional resources. Those with greater working memory capacity, however, read faster overall, but also read literal phrases significantly faster than ironic ones, indicating an ability to better allocate attentional resources according to processing demands (i.e., allocating more attention when processing irony and less attention when processing literal language). Furthermore, while readers with and without ADHD did not differ in fluid intelligence, greater fluid intelligence led to slower reading times for readers with ADHD, but to faster reading times for readers without. As fluid intelligence is linked to problem-solving skills, the slow-down observed for readers with ADHD might indicate compensatory strategies mobilised, in this case, for meaning disambiguation purposes. Interestingly, the two groups did not differ in terms of accuracy (i.e., their answers to explicit comprehension questions). This suggests that adults with ADHD possess a comparable ability to comprehend verbal irony as adults without ADHD. Nevertheless, the cognitive pathways leading to this understanding may diverge between the two groups. In the light of our findings, we will discuss what functions different aspects of attention abilities might play in the processing of pragmatically complex utterances.
Denis Buehler (Institut Jean Nicod, École Normale Supériure)
Title: Attention and Inquiry
Abstract: In this paper I argue that attention has a function in our capacity to find relevant perceptual information. I describe the capacity’s role in inquiry, as well a normative consequence of this role.
Drew Johnson (University of Oslo)
Title: The Needs-Based Account of the Function of Attention
Abstract: This paper proposes an account of the proper function of attention. Philosophical and empirical approaches to attention have much to say about the cognitive mechanisms underlying attention, and about the functional roles of attention. For the most part, this work provides models for understanding what attention does, how it tends to operate. However, there is good reason also to think about attention’s function teleologically; that is, to develop accounts of what effects attention is supposed to but might fail to have. Doing so is important, for instance, for understanding what it would mean for there to be a malfunction or dysfunction in attention. It is also important for understanding and assessing claims about the impact of emerging technologies and the attention economy on our ability to attend well (Castro and Pham 2020, Smith and Archer 2022).
I propose a Needs-Based Account according to which attention functions to organize cognitive resources in ways suited to meeting the individual’s needs in context. This account is framed using an influential etiological selected-effects account of proper function (due to Millikan 1984). What sets this account apart from other approaches in the philosophy of attention (besides the emphasis on a teleological framework for function) is the emphasis on needs as provide a telic end for attention, rather than e.g. tasks (Mole 2010) or intentions (Wu 2014). Drawing from work on the normative and political significance of needs, we can think of needs as “relations between beings and their environments” (Pölzler 2021), relations determining what would count as serious harm, or perhaps what would be required for flourishing, in a given environment.
A potential objection is that any evolved capacity would need to often enough help individuals to meet their needs, and so the Needs-Based Account fails to say anything substantive about attention. In response to this triviality worry, I argue that attention has a special role to play when it comes to meeting individual’s needs. Attention has the function of organizing cognitive resources such that they can work to help the individual meet her needs. In order to explain this role, we need to think of attention as really having a relational proper function (Millikan 1984): Attention is supposed to produce an organization of mental items that bears a specific relationship to the individuals needs, such that, were the needs to change so would the organization of mental items.
The paper concludes by considering two applications of the Needs-Based Account. First, I discuss how the Needs-Based Account might be useful in assessing the status of ADHD as a dysfunction of attention. Here, I consider some evolutionary mismatch arguments to the effect that ADHD possibly comprises an adaptive cognitive style, albeit one not facilitated by contemporary educational and work environments incentivizing prolonged focus on intrinsically monotonous tasks. Second, I consider some claims about the purported negative impacts of the attention economy on our ability to attend well, and discuss what would need to be shown for these claims to be true given the Needs-Based Account.
Frederik Tollerup Junker (University of Copenhagen)
Title: Is the Wandering Mind a Planning Mind?
Abstract:
Recent empirical work on mind-wandering suggests that it might have various functional roles, including in autobiographical planning (Baird et al., 2011; Klinger, 2013; Stawarczyk et al., 2011, 2013) and creative problem-solving (Baird et al., 2012; Fox & Beaty, 2019; Ruby et al., 2013). This has led some to suggest that mind-wandering might be an explorative process that allows agents to explore new and potentially better opportunities (Sripada, 2018) or to search for more rewarding goals when the value of current ones is expected to be low (Shepherd, 2019). I review recent work on the functions of mind-wandering and develop a novel account of its role in planning. My account will be motivated by both philosophical work on intentions and beliefs and by empirical work. I do not assume any particular definition of mind- wandering. My focus will instead be on the functions of mind-wandering.
My starting point will be the suggestion that mind-wandering has an explorative function. If mind-wandering often involves switching from exploiting existing goals to an explorative mode of thought where new goals are assessed in the mind, it might involve some process in which current intentions are evaluated and possibly discarded. Add to this the observation that mind-wandering is ubiquitous. According to some estimates, we spend up to half of our waking hours mind-wandering (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). This raises the possibility that reconsideration of one’s intentions happens regularly. Yet this conflicts with a central assumption of the influential Planning Theory of Intention (Bratman, 1987; Holton, 2009; henceforth, PTI) according to which intentions remain relatively stable over time and reconsideration should be rare. According to the PTI, future-oriented intentions are partial plans of action that play fundamental roles in deliberation and help coordinate one’s projects over time and with other agents. For this to work, the agent’s prior intentions must remain relatively stable over time, i.e., they must resist reconsideration. To obtain the benefits of being rational planning agents, we trade off flexibility for stability. The worry is that explorative mind-wandering might introduce too much flexibility.
I will discuss the proper characterization of the role of mind-wandering in planning. I begin by introducing the hypothesis that mind-wandering has an explorative function. If this implies that mind-wandering leads to regular reconsideration, it is in tension with PTI. I show that reconsideration is not the only planning-related function attributable to mind-wandering. This allows me to argue against the view that mind-wandering leads to excessive reconsideration. I then turn to another potential threat to intention stability. Mind-wandering might alter one’s stock of beliefs which might make it rational to regularly reconsider one’s intentions to check if they are still supported by one’s beliefs. I argue that under certain models of rational formation and revision of intentions and beliefs, mind-wandering is unlikely to make regular reconsideration rational. Finally, I discuss the relationship between mind-wandering and active deliberation and respond to a potential objection by showing that on my account explorative mind-wandering remains distinct from active deliberation despite serving some of the same functions.
Daniel Vespermann (Heidelberg University)
Title: Attending to the Affective Background – Diffuse Attention to Affective Scene Gist and Its Implications for Social Emotion Regulation
Abstract: While focal attention has long been at the center of attention research, so-called “distributed” or “diffuse” attention has rather remained in the background. According to a recent proposal, “diffuse attention” is directed at a global object comprising global properties, such as scene gist or the configuration of local objects. Several studies suggest that these global properties include high-level properties, for instance, that a perceptual scene is a natural or an urban scene. The few studies that address affective properties of scene gist tend to focus on local emotional expressions within a scene. Whether and to what extent diffuse attention contributes to identifying global affective properties of a scene, however, has not yet been addressed.
The link between emotions and attention, in turn, has lately been thematized in the philosophy of emotions. Importantly, it has been argued that different attentional profiles play a constitutive role in the phenomenology and function of emotions. Similarly, studies have established a firm link between positive and negative moods and attentional scope. However, the relation between attention and global affective features of a scene has remained underdeveloped.
These global affective features of a situation amount to what in ordinary language but also phenomenology of emotions has been called “affective atmospheres”. I will claim that atmospheres entail a specific mode of attention, and that diffuse attention provides a conceptually parsimonious and phenomenally appropriate explanation of how this supposedly elusive “affective background” is perceived. Precisely because these global affective features, unlike moods, are typically attributed to a situation itself, it seems more adequate to conceive of them as a global (affective) object than as a diminished form of focal attention.
Building on research suggesting that scene gist involves high-level properties, I will propose to understand diffuse attention to global affective objects as attention to normative constraints on adequate affective behavior in a given context. Considering recent work on the interaction of local and global processing in scene gist perception, diffuse modes of attention might scaffold affective capacities by helping to monitor and regulate (in)adequate feeling states as well as affective behavior. Accordingly, in social settings, diffuse affective attention provides important information for social coordination. However, whether and which global affective features are attributed to a situation also depends on individual and contextual factors, including potentially harmful framing effects that may conflict with political norms of attention.
In this talk, I will 1) introduce the idea of non-focal selective attention in terms of “diffuse attention” and outline how one thus attends to perceptual scene gist and high-level properties. I will then 2) briefly present current approaches in the philosophy of emotions to the function of attention for emotion. Pointing out the gap regarding global affective features of a scene in this debate, I will 3) argue that diffuse attention helps to understand the perceptual and functional profile of atmospheres. In particular, I will 4) emphasize the role of diffuse attention for social emotion regulation and how this, in turn, can be influenced by framing effects.
Adrian Liu and Mia Accomando (Rutgers University)
Title: Attentional Temperament and Norms on Attention
Abstract: We introduce the idea of attentional temperament and discuss its implications for understanding norms on guided and unguided attention. An attentional temperament is a way in which things come to mind or are noticed. For instance, a person who tends to notice when people around them are distressed and for whom the woes of the world tend to be salient has a different attentional temperament than a person who remains easily focused on their own goals. A person whose mind tends to wander to desert ontologies has a different attentional temperament than one whose mind tends to wander to dessert.
We take inspiration from Flores’ (2021) idea of epistemic styles, which are ways of responding to evidence that express a unified set of epistemic parameters. But directly transplanting Flores’ idea into a notion of “attentional style” would miss out on a treatment of ways in which individuals may have different patterns of unguided attention.
We follow Irving (2016) in distinguishing between guided and unguided attention. Irving writes: “A person’s attention is guided when she would feel pulled back, were she distracted from her current focus,” and unguided otherwise. The attentional analogue to an epistemic style would be a way in which one guides one’s attention. This can manifest as ways in which one consciously directs one’s attention toward or away from certain objects.
But aside from ways in which one guides one’s attention are aspects of attention like what one notices in the first place, or the directions in which one’s mind wanders when not being guided. These aspects of attention do not admit of agential control in the same sense that ways of guiding one’s attention or responding to evidence do. To the extent that one controls one’s unguided attention in a way that is not simply guiding it, the sense of control seems to require some sort of interaction with one’s character, personality, or values (here we follow Archer (2022)). Thus we should distinguish attentional temperament, the way in which things come to mind or are noticed, from the way in which one guides one’s attention, which we can call attentional style.
Attentional style vs attentional temperament thus parallels guided vs unguided attention, and serves as a useful distinction for discussing norms on attention, which have seen increased interest in recent literature (Siegel 2016, Archer 2021, Whiteley 2023, Watzl 2021). Though philosophers have focused on norms for both guided and unguided attention, they have sometimes proceeded as if a univocal set of norms can apply to both. But when evaluating attentional styles versus attentional temperaments, it becomes clear that norms on guided and unguided attention must diverge. A norm on unguided attention, or a norm that evaluates attentional temperament, cannot invoke guidance — it cannot say, “When you notice your attention wandering to X, redirect it.” Attentional temperament has to do with what one notices in the first place, so any norm that invokes guidance is already too late.
Alison Springle (University of Miami)
Title: Varieties of Attention
Abstract: I draw on my action-forward intentionality framework, and in particular my notion of “intentional action acorns” and their relation to a rich diversity of affordances, to develop a novel pluralist-agential account of attention. I argue that attention exists a) as a relation; b) as a manner of action performance; c) as a proto-rational intentional action or activity of action selection; (d) as a rational form of action selection or guidance; and (e) as a rational attitudinal form of active-passivity or receptiveness that aims at achieving something along the lines of what Iris Murdoch termed “loving attention.” Although (a)-(e) are distinct phenomena, they share an agential core, different aspects of which have been emphasized by competing accounts of attention offered by Watzl, Wu, and Mole. By positing intentional action acorns, my pluralist-agential account is able to incorporate key insights from these theories but also to go beyond them. The result, I’ll argue, is a naturalist theory of attention that makes meaningful contact with the ethics and epistemology of attention.
This workshop is funded by the GoodAttention project (ERC Consolidator Grant 2020, grant agreement no. 101003208)