Attention Density
The self-referencing process serves one other important function in the creation and maintenance of a self-organizing system. When we have gained a clear sense of both personal and collective purpose, then we have a better sense of what we should focus on in our often-complex environment. In appraising the probably shifts in our immediate environment when determining what to anticipate, it is clear that we can’t focus on everything. We have to be selective in our attention to this environment. This focused attention, in turn, not only influences how we manage our baseline and adjust our anticipations, it also alters the fundamental operations of our brain from moment to moment.
We return to Peter Sterling’s basic description of the allostatic process (Sterling, 2020) from which I derived the polystatic process. As Sterling notes, our brain impacts our body and our body, in turn, influences our brain. Rock and Page take it one step further. They propose that our brain assembles information from multiple sources in varying ways when it is specifically attending to one aspect of the environment rather than another aspect. Specifically, selective attention alters the composition of neurological operations in our brain in ways that are congruent with that to which we attend (Rock and Page, 2009, p. 181:
“Attention density is the quantity and quality of attention paid to a particular circuit consisting of connections among neurons in the brain. . . . Our brains structure information as mental maps, or circuits, for every word, picture, experience or concept for which we have any associations. One word or idea may trigger responses in visual, emotional, kinesthetic, auditory, or, memory, and language centers.”
If we could somehow record the attention density process at any one moment and play it back in slow motion, we would find that information from the environment is being assessed to determine if this environment has shifted in some way from what it was a moment before. If a shift has occurred then the “new” environment is compared to internal information (words, pictures, experiences, concepts) that is organized and presented in part as the psychosocial template and as the self-referencing polystatic baseline.
A quick appraisal is made regarding the extent to which anticipation of what is to occur next in the environment needs to be altered. This very quick process, as Rock and Page note, occurs in a specific neural circuit or tight cluster of neurons in our brain. As they also noted, this circuit may involve centers throughout our neural system. The speed as well as density of this attentive process is exceptional. It is repeated many times at each stage of feedback-based Polystasis. Multiple adjustments and actions follow the initial appraisal.
As a professional coach, we can assist our client in determining where they want to focus their attention. Attention density impacts the way in which we are integrating and “making sense of” those aspects of the environment to which we are attending. We see the world differently depending on the density and varied internal and external properties incorporated in our attention.
What we attend to influences (and often determines) our anticipation of what is about to happen in our world. That to which we attend also influences (and often determines) what action, if any, that we take in this world. We attend, anticipate, feel and act into our immediate future. This is what it means to “lean into our immediate future.” And what it means to “learn into our near future.” This concept of attention density also holds major implications for how we lead into the more distant future.
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