Review by Choice Review
"Attention" is a subject ripe for research attention. For the most part, fixing one's attention on something (controlling thought) then responding behaviorally (choosing how/when to act) requires psychological and often physical effort. But some activities--playing chess, rock climbing, running, painting, playing Tetris, writing, among many others--seem to involve "effortless attention" (an anomaly of "attention") and subsequent action. Those involved in effortless attention frequently enter the flow state identified and explored by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues over the last 30 years. For some time, psychologists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists have been exploring effortless attention and its links to subsequent action. Missing from these observations are explanations that go beyond phenomenal accounts. This volume is a fine start at rectifying that situation. Bruya (philosophy, Eastern Michigan Univ.) invited scholar-researchers to approach effortless attention from the theoretical and empirical perspectives (many hybrid or interdisciplinary) of cognitive science, neuroscience, social psychology, and philosophy. The 16 essays provide a great deal of interesting information, but this reviewer was surprised to find only scarce mention of Daniel Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will (CH, Nov'02, 40-1867), which is certainly relevant to some issues raised in the present volume. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and especially graduate students and researchers. D. S. Dunn Moravian College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
