Quotes About Attention

The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.

When you pay attention to a threat, you worry—and the decision weights reflect how much you worry. Because of the possibility effect, the worry is not proportional to the probability of the threat. Reducing or mitigating the risk is not adequate; to eliminate the worry the probability must be brought down to zero.

The often-used phrase "pay attention" is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.

Much of the discussion in this book is about biases of intuition. However, the focus on error does not denigrate human intelligence, any more than the attention to diseases in medical texts denies good health.

Maintaining one's vigilance against biases is a chore—but the chance to avoid a costly mistake is sometimes worth the effort.

Our mind has a useful capability to focus spontaneously on whatever is odd, different, or unusual.

focusing illusion, which can be described in a single sentence: Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

Words that you have seen before become easier to see again—you can identify them better than other words when they are shown very briefly or masked by noise, and you will be quicker (by a few hundredths of a second) to read them than to read other words. In short, you experience greater cognitive ease in perceiving a word you have seen earlier, and it is this sense of ease that gives you the impression of familiarity.

Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.

You would think that with ten super-famous people in one movie, it's gonna be ten times more popular or viewed, but on some level, they can cancel each other out.

Bass players are always the underdogs of the band, but I made sure that I was never viewed as one. I went out of my way to steal as much limelight as I could.

It's a blessing and a curse to have your whole life viewed by millions.

I have always wanted to make paintings that are impossible to walk past, paintings that grab and hold your attention. The more you look at them, the more satisfying they become for the viewer. The more time you give to the painting, the more you get back.

A still image attracts the viewer with an overall impact, then reveals smaller details upon further study.

The idea of having a narrative guiding the viewer through and grasping their attention is a really compelling thing.

The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.

As a viewer, the minute I start getting confused, I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I'm severed.

A viewer who skips the advertising is the moral equivalent of a shoplifter.

The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.

I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.

My theme song is always: 'Pay attention to your viewer. Follow them.'

If you don't take your clothes seriously, why should your viewers take you seriously?

In our show you have to pay attention and know what happened before. I think it's very intelligent entertainment. It makes demands of viewers that a lot of shows don't.