Attention getting

Attention getting is not a simple automatic act. It requires complex active thought processing. The types of stimuli that are attention getting depend on past experience, individual reactivity, and what a person considers to be important.

A hungry commuter may pay closer attention to the smell of food than to the surrounding sights and sounds in a traffic jam. Attention getting is of critical importance to learning. A child’s ways to get attention guide his or her learning abilities. Some children pay particular attention to visual stimuli, others to auditory stimuli, still others to tactile stimuli, etc.