Paying Attention, Fast and Slow

To prepare myself for a summer internship in consumer insights, I was recommended the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. The entirety of the book focuses on two systems of thinking: System 1 and System 2. According to Kahneman:

• "System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little to no effort and no sense of voluntary control"
• "System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it"

Now this sounds very familiar to the concept that humans have two modes of attention: involuntary fascination and directed attention. I drew the conclusion that Kahneman's theory of consumer psyche must have been influenced not only by his own research, but by the early work in cognitive psychology on attention. Combining the two has lead to a deeper understanding of the subject.

System 1 i.e. involuntary fascination is our preferred mode of operating. It requires little to no skill beyond what has been programmed into our brains for survival: recognition, fear, learning our whereabouts. We are physically and mentally rested when operating in involuntary fascination mode. Kahneman brings up driving a car on an empty road as an example of when involuntary fascination is in use. 

System 2 i.e. directed attention not only mentally fatigues, it physically fatigues. When a situation requires a greater mental effort, we physically react by having our heart rate increase, muscles tense and pupils dilate. No wonder Kahneman describes this system as "lazy". We will only use it when it is demanded of us from a particular scenario. In contrast to the example for System 1, Kahneman uses the example of overtaking a truck on a narrow road. Directed attention kicks into gear because we cannot perform without it. 

I found two interesting takeaways from combining Kahneman's book with this past week's topic of attention.

First, the fact that we innately understand that there are two modes of attention, even prior to being exposed to the required reading for this past week of NRE 560 lectures. Going back to the example of driving, think of your most recent road trip as a passenger. When the drive had a hair raising moment, did you find yourself taking a pause in conversation? Did you turn the music down? This is because you knew the driver was experiencing a moment of fatiguing directed attention and did not have the mental energy to focus on anything else. 

The second requires you to watch the video below:

As discussed in lectures, directed attention enables the blocking out of distractions. The gorilla test is an example of how easily we completely abandon involuntary attention for as simple of a task as counting. It's an important observation to know that when we do engage in directed attention, the rest of our surroundings can fade to black. Going full circle back to human evolution, directed attention puts us in danger, hence why the mental fatigue it creates has evolved for our survival.