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This chapter discusses the advantages and limitations of different methods and measures used in the study of attention. Methods include naturalistic observation, experiments, and marker tasks. Measures of selectivity in infants and young children include direction and duration of looking, direction of reaching, and use of habituation to study attention to particular aspects of objects. Measures of state or intensity of engagement include behavioural measures such as facial expression and motor activity; and physiological measures such as heart rate and cortical electrical responses. Performance on tasks that have been related to specific neural activity associated with attention can point to underlying processes. The measure of higher-level control also involves these measures in the context of experimental manipulation to elucidate voluntary attention and to differentiate between automatic and controlled processes.

This chapter focuses on those events or situations in which individuals need to make concerted efforts to remain attentive or focused on certain tasks or activities. Activities such as driving and other diverse kinds of professional tasks require specific attention from individuals without any distractions. Depending on the activities, individuals engaged in tasks requiring efforts or complete attention can urge complete focus on such efforts without getting distracted by attention-grabbing incidents. These attention control efforts can also have significant psychological impact on the individuals engaged in tasks requiring effortful attention. While the authors argue that attention control temporarily reduces the ability of self-control, attention control is also considered to be an important form of self-control as it contributes to regulate other attention controlling efforts.

This chapter explores the development of a first attention or orienting/investigative system and a second system that underlies goal-oriented behaviour and involves higher-level inhibitory processes. Using patterns of looking as the main measure, it identifies several transition periods in the first few years. Between 2 and 3 months, infants show less compulsory attention and more interest in novelty and exploration as the first attention system emerges. Between 9 and 12 months of age, children become more focused in their attention and more intentional in their behaviour, signalling the emergence of the second attention system. From 18 to 24 months, children become increasingly able to direct their attention voluntarily and to plan ahead — further development of the second system. This development continues and is consolidated in the pre-school years.

Comprehensive models of reasoning require models of cognitive control and vice versa. The cognitive architectures used to model the cognitive processes involved in reasoning and control are based on many different computational formalisms that are difficult to integrate with one another. This chapter describes two computational principles and five hypotheses about human cognitive architecture that (together with empirical studies of cognition) motivate a solution to this problem. These hypotheses posit an integrative focus of cognitive attention and conceive of reasoning strategies as the generalization of attention control strategies from visual perception (for example, habituation and negative priming). Further, a unifying theme among these cognitive attention control strategies is that they can each be seen as the mind's way of regulating its own activity and addressing cognitive problems (such as contradiction or uncertainty) that arise during normal cognition and perception. These principles and hypotheses enable an integrated view of cognitive architecture that explains how cognitive and perceptual processes that were previously difficult to model within one computational framework can exist and interact within the human mind.