THOUGHTS THINK THEMSELVES

You might have heard of the Cocktail Party Effect. It describes the ability of the mind to focus one's attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, like being able to focus on a single conversation in a noisy room. At the same time, the mind is also able to overhear and recognise our name or some other significant information coming up in another part of the room or in a conversation that one is not actively listening to. It illustrates the brain's capacity for selective attention, which it does by itself and then alerts the conscious bit of the mind to what it’s heard or seen.

Knowing about this should alert you to some of the wrong-way-round thinking on attention that is too common.

Here’s something else I’ve picked up, this time from the science/philosophy writer Robert Wright who has made some insightful connections between Buddhism and mind sciences. In Why Buddhism Is True (2017), he examines classical Buddhist teachings through the lens of evolutionary psychology and finds that they are saying a lot of the same things.

For example, both Buddhism and EvoPsych argue that much of mental activity is not the product of a coherent, singular self but rather emerges from a complex set of brain functions. In this respect, thoughts think themselves, or rather that it’s mental modules that create thoughts, and the conscious self receives them.

This phrase thoughts think themselves is a concept often discussed in mindfulness and meditation practices. It refers to the idea that thoughts arise spontaneously in the mind, without conscious effort or intention. This perspective encourages individuals to observe their thoughts as they come and go, without attaching to them or identifying with them.

From an evolutionary psychology standpoint, the concept that thoughts think themselves also describes how the brain's development over millennia has served its primary function as a problem-solving organ.

Early humans needed to react quickly to threats and opportunities in their environment to survive and reproduce. The ability to generate thoughts, ideas, and solutions without conscious effort would have been advantageous, allowing for rapid responses to complex social and environmental challenges. This automatic thought generation can be seen as an evolutionary adaptation that enhanced our ancestors' survival chances.

The brain evolved to recognise patterns, make predictions, and prepare for possible future scenarios. In modern times, this often results in a continuous stream of thoughts, many of which are not immediately relevant to the task at hand. These thoughts can be considered as the brain's default mode of operation, constantly analysing past events and planning for future ones, often without our conscious direction.

Wright's classic one-liner version of the self is the 'Press Office that thinks it's the Oval Office'. What he means with this analogy is that our conscious self is more like a spokesperson or press secretary, interpreting and rationalising decisions and actions after they have occurred, rather than being the central executive authority that actually makes those decisions.

And most of the time, it’s completely in the dark as to why those decisions have been made (despite being highly skilled at making up plausible explanations that paint the ‘self’ in a good light. This module’s principal function is reputation management. It’s the internal PR department).

This is why it also pays to be extremely sceptical of any self-reporting verbatim in market research.

Perhaps this also clarifies my cause v effect position on attention.

Thoughts arise in the mind not through a deliberate, conscious effort by an autonomous self but rather automatically and beyond our ‘conscious’ control.

Various cognitive processes and subconscious mechanisms (modules) generate thoughts, emotions, and desires, which then bubble up into our conscious ‘awareness’.

The mind is composed of a whole host of these specialised 'modules' or systems; each developed to perform specific functions that were advantageous for survival and reproduction. These modules operate both independently and interdependently, generating thoughts, feelings, and reactions to different stimuli. The 'self' experiences a lot of these generated outputs as thoughts and emotions, without being aware of the underlying modular processes.

?So what kind of things attract our attention? We need to look at this from an evolutionary standpoint and take into account the fundamental motives framework.

Attention is drawn to stimuli that are relevant to fundamental human motives, which are deeply rooted in our evolutionary past. These motives have evolved to deal with the problems that our ancestors had to regularly confront to survive and reproduce, like threats, mating opportunities, acquiring resources and indicators of social status.

Attention is not randomly distributed but is directed by these underlying evolutionary drives.

In this way, it’s better to think of the conscious self as the receiver of information communicated by mental processes that it does not originate or control.

So, because it’s mental modules that create thoughts, attention is an effect and will differ depending on which modules have control at any given moment.

So if we need any small amount of attention, we must talk to ‘modules’, not to the self. Because the self doesn't even know what the modules are giving attention to until it gets told.

Attention is an effect, not a cause.

In simple terms, this tells us that instead of 'using' attention as a tool to deliberately focus on specific things, attention is actually the result of other underlying processes in our brain.

Traditionally, and in its application in currently popular media hypotheses, attention is seen as a cause. For example, it is asserted that you might 'decide' to focus on a piece of media because of its size or prominence, implying you're actively choosing what to pay attention to. However, attention is really the outcome of various cognitive processes, such as memory, expectation, and interest, which determine what we end up focusing on.

So, according to this way of thinking, you don't focus on the ad because you decided to pay attention to it; instead, it's your interest in the ad content, your recognition of familiar brand signs, or your anticipation of important information that makes it stand out to you. In essence, what we pay attention to is not a choice we make but an effect of what our mind finds relevant based on past experiences, current context, and whatever our goals are at that moment.

Media size/prominence/quality has some influence, mostly when it acts as an economic signal, so we don’t need a new theory to explain it, but for all the reasons stated above, the content of the ad has far more importance in attracting attention than the vehicle.

It's time for creative people to step up in this debate.