Paying attention to Mind Wide Open

I’m reading Steven Johnson’s Mind Wide Open, and just completed Chapter 3, “Your Attention Please.” In it, he discusses the many facets of attention, and I found myself having trouble keeping them all squared away. It made me wonder why there wasn’t a diagram of some sort to help express the relation between these various elements.

So I drew a diagram, if only to help me keep it together.

attention_mindwideopen_red

After drawing the diagram, I realized why there might not have been one in the book. Making a clear sketch wasn’t easy. Oh well.

5 thoughts on “Paying attention to Mind Wide Open

  1. Cool – I’m waiting for this book to arrive from Amazon.

    That’s a great sketch. The ‘sustain’ portion is called vigilance in cog psych…

  2. This an excellent chart that seems to stand on its own, but I am sure it will be more helpful I have my book in my hands and I am reading. Please feel free to share any other charts or diagrams that help make things clearer for yourself, this one has been great.

Comments are closed.