The cognitive ability to select and analyze specific information and ignore other information arising from a vast field of internal and external stimuli.
Attention is one of two forms of conscious awareness.
Peripheral awareness is the second
We pay attention to some things, while simultaneously being aware of, but not attending to, others.
Attention isolates some small part of the fields of conscious awareness from the rest so that it can be identified, interpreted, labeled, categorized, and its significance evaluated.
The function of attention is discernment, analysis, and discrimination.