Matt Lerner in "Finding language/market" fit describes two types of attention:
One is goal-directed, top-down kind of attention. This is when we have a goal in mind and we're looking in our environment for signals that get us closer to it.
We're essentially pattern-matching information we perceive against what we have in our mind (Brain matches sensory information to existing patterns). It's called "information foraging" and it's typically pre-conscious (see also Preattentive visual property). We decide in nanoseconds if something matches what we're looking for.
Stimulus-driven attention is when our mind is more relaxed, looking for things that might catch our attention. It's a more bottoms-up approach.
Goal-directed attention is a crucial concept in finding Language-market fit.
This may roughly correspond to task-positive vs. task-negative neural networks described in Evans – Bottlenecks. It's possible it's the same thing with different names.
Tags: design psychology
ID: 2021-1130-0915
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