Attention
Focus, sustained vigilance and the ability to ignore what doesn't matter.
Payoff: read for 30 minutes without your mind drifting, catch your own typos before you hit send, and stay on one task in a noisy open office.
Train with these exercises
Schulte: AttentionFind numbers from 1 to NProofread: FocusFind specific lettersAttention ConflictSuppress automatic conflicting responseStroop: InhibitionInk colour, not the word meaningFlanker: ArrowsReact to the central arrowVisual SearchFind T among many LsPosner Cuing: AttentionReact to target; cue may misleadANT: Attention Networks3 attention networks in one testCPT: Sustained AttentionRespond to all letters except X
All 48 trainers →Read the evidence
The Stroop test, explained — and how to practice itWhy naming the ink colour is difficult, what Stroop interference measures, and how to interpret practice without inflated claims.Attention is a set of networks, not a single spotlightAlerting, orienting, and conflict control contribute differently to fast and accurate performance.Stroop: InhibitionInk colour, not the word meaningFlanker: ArrowsReact to the central arrowHow we evaluate the evidenceProven: regular practice produces clear, measurable improvement on the trained skills, and several paradigms (e.g. speed-of-processing, working memory) show transfer to related real tasks.
Research references
- Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643–662. DOI: 10.1037/h0054651
- MacLeod, C. M. (1991). Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 109(2), 163–203. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.109.2.163
- Egner, T., & Hirsch, J. (2005). Cognitive control mechanisms resolve conflict through cortical amplification of task-relevant information. Nature Neuroscience, 8(12), 1784–1790. DOI: 10.1038/nn1594
- Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16(1), 143–149. DOI: 10.3758/BF03203267
- Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Sommer, T., Raz, A., & Posner, M. I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(3), 340–347. DOI: 10.1162/089892902317361886
- Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Fossella, J., Flombaum, J. I., & Posner, M. I. (2005). The activation of attentional networks. NeuroImage, 26(2), 471–479. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.02.004
Continue with a program
📖Speed Reading PROReading courses · knowledge workers
For people who read for a living and want to read more, faster. Widens the visual span, trains faster eye movements and strengthens retention with reading-span and rapid-search drills. Expect a noticeably wider eye span, less sub-vocalizing and better recall of what you just read.