The Breadth of Visual Attention

This Element is for researchers seeking to understand visual attentional breadth. It critically considers the conceptualisation, measurement, and manipulation of attentional breadth, and how changing breadth impacts perceptual performance. The Element reviews the current 'state of the art', and provides useful frameworks for shaping future science.

Humans can focus their attention narrowly (e.g., to read this text) or broadly (e.g., to determine which way a large crowd of people are moving). This Element comprehensively considers attentional breadth. Section 1 introduces the concept of attentional breadth, while Section 2 considers measures of attentional breadth. In particular, this section provides a critical discussion of the types of psychometric evidence which should be sought to establish the validity of measures of attentional breadth and reviews the available evidence through this lens. Section 3 considers the visual task performance consequences of attentional breadth, including prescribing several key methodological criteria that studies that manipulate attentional breadth need to meet, as well as a discussion of relevant theories and avenues for future theoretical development. Section 4 discusses the utility of the exogenous–endogenous distinction from covert shifts of attention for understanding the performance consequences of attentional breadth. Finally, Section 5 provides concluding remarks.