the reason being that attention is always
pressing forward in the story, looking for something very definite.
You want to know how the hero gets out of the fix he is in, and you
press forward and find out with great certainty and little loss of
time. The best readers of serious matter have a similar eagerness to
discover what the author has to say; they get the author's question,
and press on to find his answer. Such readers are both quick and
retentive. The dawdling reader, who simply spends so much time and
covers so many pages, in the vague hope that something will stick,
does not remember the point because he never got the point, and never
got it because he wasn't looking for it.

In skilled movement, or skilled action of any sort, the best rule is
to fix attention on the end-result or, if the process is long, on the
result that immediately needs to be accomplished. "Keep your eye on
the ball" when the end just now to be achieved is hitting the ball.
Attention to the details of the process, though necessary in learning
a skilled movement, is distracting and confusing after skill has been
acquired. The runner does not attend to his legs, but to the goal or,
if that is still distant, to the runner just ahead of him.

Theory of Attention

The chief facts to take account of in attempting to form a conception
of the brain action in attention are mobility, persistence in spite of
mobility, and focusing.

The mobility of attention must mean that brain activities are in
constant flux, with nerve currents continually shooting hither and
thither and arousing ever fresh groups of neurones; but sustained
attention means that a brain {269} activity (representing the desire
or interest or reaction-tendency dominant at the time) may persist and
limit the range of the mobile activities, by facilitating some of
these and inhibiting others.

The "focusing" of mental activity is more difficult to translate into
neural terms. The fact to be translated is that, while several mental
activities may go on at once, only one occupies the focus of
attention. This must mean that, while several brain activities go on
at once, one is superior in some way to the rest. The superiority
might lie in greater intensity of neurone action, or in greater
extent; that is, one brain activity is bigger in some way than any
other occurring at the same time--bigger either because the neurones
in it are working more energetically or because it includes