Controlling Your Concentration

　　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 span variesEven with the greatest effort, our span of attention fluctuates.

　　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 timeEvidence 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 illusion. 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 symptom, 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 distractors are too strong."

　　DISTRACTORS ARE OF TWO SORTS - PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL

　　A distractor is anything which causes attention to vary from a central focal point. In the study situation distractors may be thought of as either psychological or physical in nature. Both types of distractors must be understood before the student can attempt to remedy his lack of concentration.

　　Emotions are the most powerful distractors .

　　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 of matters. In the student's life there are many psychological pressures and tensions which block effective productivity. The fears about making the grade, the doubts of the friendliness of a friend's behaviour 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 distractors are always present and rarely understood.

　　Our environment is much more important to how we feel and react than we often think. Particularly is this true of the effect of physical distractors on mental tasks. One research report has shown that comprehension and retention of reading were decreased when students listened to lively music. However, rate of reading was not affected, so that many students were not aware that they were affected by the background distractor. Another study found that the ability to recall accurately was affected by distracting conditions. Most of the evidence indicates that noise affects adversely higher mental task output. Still, the effect of distractors is seldom fully appreciated by students.

　　ROUTING AND REASONING TASKS ARE AFFECTED DIFFERENTLY BY DISTRACTORS

　　Typically when students are faced with the evidence on distractors the argument is given that their cousin, friend, or classmate can study in "Grand Central Station." And he makes "all A's" too! There is evidence, of course, that motivation plays an important role in overcoming the effects of distractors and that there are considerable differences in individual spans of attention. Either of these factors could account for some individuals being able to do well using inefficient methods. The fact that some exceptional people do well under adverse conditions scarcely justifies your assuming that you are exceptional in the same manner. Your chances of success are higher if you avoid the distractors which are known to hinder the typeical student.

　　控制你的注意力

　　聚精會神就是集中你的注意力

　　按心理學定義，專心是一段時間內(nèi)集中注意力的過程。然而，在實際應(yīng)用中，成功地對待專心這個問題并不像定義中所說的那么簡單。正因為這樣，把以下幾點記在心里是有幫助的。

　　你的注意力范圍是變化的即使付出最大努力，我們注意力的范圍還是波動的。你可以自己證明這種注意力的變化。在一個安靜的房間里，把一塊表放在剛剛能聽到它聲音的地方，仔細聽，注意到嘀嗒聲是如何明顯地提高強度，繼而，衰弱到聽不到，然后又提高了。這種現(xiàn)象揭示了我們注意力范圍是如何波動的，因為嘀噠聲的強度實際上并無變化。

　　你在同一時刻注意一件事情至今為止的資料表明，在同一時刻你只能注意到一個念頭。你的注意力可能轉(zhuǎn)移得很快，似乎能立刻注意到幾個概念。但顯然這只是一個錯覺。在注意力集中時，注意力的焦點轉(zhuǎn)移是在很短時間內(nèi)，而且比較而言是很少發(fā)生的。

　　高度、適度、低注意力的說明高度注意有較強的注意期和很短的注意力分散期。在低注意力下，注意到短期而注意力分散期長。適度注意力融合了兩種極端。因此，顯而易見，把自己的注意力集中在胡思亂想上的學生甚至不可能回想出講課的要點。

　　缺乏注意力是困難的征兆，而不是起因。當一個學生說"我無法集中注意力"時，他其實在說，"因為分散我的注意力的東西太強，我不能專心手頭的工作"

　　注意力的干擾有兩種：心理上的和物質(zhì)上的。

　　干擾物是任何可以使注意力偏離中心焦點的東西。在學習的情況下，干擾物實際上可以被認為是心理的或者是物質(zhì)的。在學生嘗試補救自己注意力缺乏之前，應(yīng)當首先了解這兩種干擾物。

　　情緒是最強大的干擾。

　　生氣的人會忘記傷害的疼痛，恐懼的人會發(fā)現(xiàn)很難享受快樂，緊張、焦慮的人可能對極小的事情反應(yīng)強烈。在學生生活里，有許多心理壓力和緊張，嚴重影響學習效率。對是否能取得好成績的擔憂，對朋友行為是否友好的懷疑和經(jīng)濟能力有限而造成的壓力――這些僅僅只是幾種影響學生的精神壓力。

　　每個人情緒的反應(yīng)大不相同。一些人從他們的緊張中獲得目標和方向，實際上卻因此做得更好�；�他人在壓力下崩潰了，而一些人盡管有壓力卻做得很好。

　　物質(zhì)干擾時常存在，卻難以理解解。

　　我們的環(huán)境對我們?nèi)绾胃惺芎头磻?yīng)比我們通常認為的重要得多。對腦力勞動的物質(zhì)干擾的效果而言，尤其如此。一項研究報告表明，在聽輕快的音樂時讀書的理解力和記憶力降低了。然而，讀書的速度未受影響。另一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)準確回憶的能力受到紛雜環(huán)境的影響。許多跡象表明噪音對較高級腦力工作成果有不利影響。干擾物的影響仍沒有得到學生們的充分重視。

　　日常的推理性的工作受到干擾的不同影響。

　　許多日常工作能夠在有干擾的背景下完成，結(jié)果受到很小影響或無任何不利影響。許多學生從自身經(jīng)歷中發(fā)現(xiàn)這是一個事實。他們中學時可能有過這樣的作業(yè)，練習或僅僅是抄寫。在放著最新的唱片或演著電視的背景下，做這些作業(yè)是可能的。經(jīng)過一段時間后，這些學生覺得自己肯定能用同樣的方式做所有的工作 ――日常工作或解決問題的工作。證據(jù)卻表明了相反的結(jié)論。

　　例外會誤導(dǎo)你，典型的情況是，當要求學生們拿出關(guān)于干擾物的證據(jù)時，他們提出自己的表兄弟、朋友或同學能在紐約的"中央火車站"學習，而且考試可以得"全優(yōu)"。當然，有證據(jù)表明動機在克服干擾物的影響方面起了重要的作用。個人的注意力范圍也有相當大的區(qū)別。這些事實中的任何一個都可以解釋一些個別人能用低效的方法做得很好。一些例外的人在不利條件下做得很好的事實不能證明在同一方式下你也是例外的假設(shè)。如果你避開那些已知的妨礙一般學生的干擾物，你的成功機會就更大些。

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