Concentration is centering your attention
Psychologically defined, concentration is the process of centering one’s attention over a period of time. In practical application, however, concentration is not as simple to deal successfully with as the definition may imply. For this reason, it is helpful to keep the following points in mind.
Your attention span① varies.
Even with the greatest effort, our span of attention fluctuates②. You can demonstrate for yourself this fluctuation of attention. In a quiet room, place a watch so that it can just scarcely be heard. Listen carefully and notice how the ticking increases in apparent intensity, fades to a point where it cannot be heard, and then increases again. This phenomenon reveals how our span of attention fluctuates, for the intensity of the ticking is actually constant.
You pay attention to one thing at a time.
Evidence to date indicates that you attend to one idea at a time. It is possible for your attention to shift so rapidly that it seems that you attend to several concepts at once. But apparently this is only an illusion③. In high concentration the shift from the focus of attention is of short duration and relatively infrequent.
An illustration of periods of high, moderate, and low attention.
High attention has long periods of attending and short distraction periods. In low attention the periods of attending are short and the distraction periods long. In moderate attention there is a mixture of the extremes. Thus it is easy to see that it is highly unlikely that the student who has most of his attention centered on fancying at large will be able to recall even the major points of a lecture.
Lack of concentration is a symptom④, not the cause, of difficulty. When a student says “I can’t concentrate”, what he is really saying is, “I can’t attend to the task at hand because my distracters are too strong.”
Distracters are of two sorts—psychological and physical.
A distracter is anything which causes attention to vary from a central focal point. In the study situation distracters may be thought of as either psychological or physical in nature. Both types of distracters must be understood before the student can attempt to remedy⑤ his lack of concentration.
Emotions are the most powerful distracters.
The angry man forgets the pain of injury; the fearful man finds it difficult to enjoy pleasure and the tense or anxious person may react violently to the smallest matters. In the student’s life there are many psychological pressures and tensions which block effective productivity⑥. The fears about making the grade, the doubts of the friendliness of a friend’s behavior and the pressures of limited finances—these are only a few of the emotional forces which affect the student.
Emotional reaction varies greatly from person to person. Some persons gain goal and direction from their tensions and actually do better because of them. Others fall apart under pressure, while a few people do well despite the pressure.
Physical distracters are always present and rarely understood.