Can we Really Pay Attention?

Our ability to pay attention is directly linked to our memory.  We use our experiences, learnings and memories to predict where we should pay attention.  We can only pay attention if we recognise vital ‘cues’. Weick’s seven criteria for Sensemaking are important here.  How can someone pay attention if their sensemaking is limited by memory?

On the opposite end of the spectrum: how can someone pay attention if they are fatigued, overexposed, desensitised, flooded with memories and complacent?

The reality is, most of the time humans operate in ‘automatic’.   This is what Slovic and others call ‘automaticity’.  We need to do most things on automatic so we can multi-task.  We watch TV and eat at the same time, we don’t pay attention to each mouth movement of chewing, so much so, sometimes we bite out own tongue.

We learn to pay attention to things that are important to our culture.  Our memory and learning are foundational to what we call ‘intelligence’.  When Europeans first came to Australia they assumed the Aborigines we unintelligent because they didn’t pay attention to the things which mattered to Europeans.  They later had tests such as the Binet IQ test to prove that Aboriginals were neither human nor intelligent.  This IQ test helped fuel hundreds of years of prejudice in many countries.  The whole idea of what comprises intelligence is exposed in the history books when the same Europeans died in the bush and outback for the lack of a different kind of intelligence.  Europeans who were adept at paying attention to texts, farming and navigation died in the bush because they had no ability to pay attention to nature, environment and bush tucker.  However, what an amazing contradiction, they used this intelligence when they wanted to track Ned Kelly and any other form of searching outback.

The wonderful work by Howard Gardner on Learning Intelligences shows that our intelligence is formed by what we pay attention to.  For example: Musical Intelligence is observed when one experiences the beauty and style of professional musicians.  One of my best friends Judy Clingan has received an AM for her contributions to Music in Australia but Judy couldn’t change a car tyre, neither does she want to.  She doesn’t need to pay attention to such things. 

We pay attention to the things we recognise and to things that are important to us.  So what does this mean for the way we talk to others about paying attention to risk?

So often we use expressions such as ‘pay attention’ and ‘be careful’ and they really have little meaning other than to make us feel better.  Such expressions are neither instructive nor specific and are therefore rarely helpful.  If we are concerned about the ability of someone to embrace risk we should be far more instructive and specific in our language addressed to them concerning what memory or experience they lack.  If we really want to help others better embrace and manage risk we need to be more constructive in our discourse.