Eye witness testimony, training, driving, and display design: these are just a few of the real-world domains in which depend on undivided attention. Emphasizing the link between theory and application, Applied Attention Theory provides a deep understanding of how theories of attention, developed from laboratory-based psychological research, can inform our understanding of everyday human performance in a wide number of applications and environments. The basic theories discussed concern divided, focused, and selective attention, and areas of application include mental workload measurement, multi-tasking, distracted driving, complex display design, education, and the training of attentional skills.

Includes an extensive reference list and citations to both basic and applied work

Provides intuitive descriptions of attentional phenomena in the world beyond the laboratory

Discusses applications of attention theory to diverse areas such as graph design, distracted driving, and process control

Offers an engineering orientation as well as a psychological orientation to research

Highlights the critical role of effort in single task behavior, such as decision and choice, to the extent that humans tend to be effort-conserving in their choice of activities

Examines how multiple tasks are managed in a discrete fashion