1 Attention as an Organ System

In recent years it has been possible to examine selective attention as an organ system with its own functional anatomy, circuitry and cellular structure. Although information remains incomplete on each of these levels, this view has already altered our knowledge concerning many perplexing problems in cognitive science and allowed important insights into neurological and psychiatric disorders of children and of adults. It promises to help describe the evolutionary and developmental basis of a principle brain mechanism of voluntary control, thus advancing the way toward an understanding of how genetics and culture shape control systems. While all humans have an attention system, the efficiency of its operation clearly differs between people. These differences serve as a basis for differences both in intelligence and in emotional control.