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It all started with a fairly simple thought - how is attention organized (whatever it is)? If a person has such a thing as ATTENTION, then it naturally must have a certain structure and method of organization. For example, if ATTENTION for some reason jumps from one object to another, then something happens inside. Most likely it will be some kind of submodal shift.
NLP Vocabulary: What is Submodality
Modalities in NLP (and psychology) are the channels for obtaining information: vision - visual modality, hearing - auditory, sensation - modality, speech - digital. Submodalities are then differences within modality. Brightness, size, position, colors, focus of the image - these are the submodalities of the visual channel. Likewise, there are submodalities of the audio channel: volume, timbre, stereo / mono. The kinesthetic channel has its own submodalities: sensations have size, intensity, quality (vibration, compression, cold, bursting) and location.
Due to the fact that I had a certain opportunity to check all this - I lead the groups - simply and set the following task to the group: - "What critical submodality determines your focus of attention?" At the same time, I used the expression figure / background (see the explanatory picture), meaning by the figure what attention is paid to, and this also applies to the auditory and kinesthetic channels. And how does a person organize and control this figure / background selection? Moreover, it is not yet entirely clear to me whether attention works only with the Figure, or is capable of addressing the Background too.
The latter means the following. Can attention turn to the background so that it remains the background and does not turn into a figure? I will try to come up with some ideas on this and suggest a set of exercises for developing and managing attention.
FIGURE / BACKGROUND
Let's first try to figure out how a person generally distinguishes that this is the Background, and this is the Figure. There must be some submodal distinction between the two, it must be organized somehow.
For me personally, it looks like a trick. Internally, what I pay attention to (or attention is drawn to) is sharper, brighter, there are colors and there is movement (if there is any). It looks a bit bumpy against a flatter background. That is, as if the Figure has volume, and the background is flat. The background is grayer, much more blurred, has no volume, and if there is movement, then it is blurry and almost imperceptible.
The figure is much clearer and sharper, and what is related to the background is perceived as grayer, blurred and stationary. By the way, movement in the background leads to a shift of attention there, at least for a short time. There are some considerations about movement that are not entirely NLPersky. It is quite possible that the movement is one of the critical submodalities "genetically" - our distant ancestors absolutely needed to react not an incomprehensible movement, in order to notice the danger in time. Although, on the other hand, this strategy can simply be read regularly, and if the “teacher” does not have it for some reason, then it may not work for the student either.
I would have plucked up the courage and made the assumption that zone 1 (Area of the Figure) is the zone of the First Attention (Attention of Consciousness), and zone 2 (Area of the Background), respectively, is the zone of Second Attention (Attention of the Unconscious). I, with your permission, will use these terms further, realizing all the controversy of their use. It is quite possible that this could be a good metaphor for the distinction between consciousness and subconsciousness. Consciousness is a Figure, something bright, contrasting, clear and small in relation to the whole, and subconsciousness is more blurred, gray and large.
When working in a group, it was noticed that most of them have approximately the same way of selecting a Shape. It is like a spot on a more inconspicuous background. At the same time, the critical submodalities for the visual channel were most often called:
- sharpness
- brightness
- contrast
These three submodalities accounted for about 3/4 of the total. There were such critical submodalities as:
- direction
- volume
- size (distortion of real size)
- distance
One girl had a very interesting way. She had a frame that bounds the area of focus of attention, and everything else was filled with black. That is, she saw practically what was in the zone of the First Attention. Apparently, this method of organization allows you to have a very high degree of concentration, but at the same time the unconscious does not work at all, at least in the processing of the visual image. And really, what to work with if there is no information?
For the audio channel, the distribution was somewhat different. Almost 80% of the critical submodality was loudness, among the rest there was:
- the sharpness of the sound
- direction
- stereo - mono
- variability (the background is monotonous)
True, only the perception of voices was investigated, but I think for other types of sounds there will be something similar.
EXERCISES: FIGURE / BACKGROUND
You can work with attention control like this.
Take a familiar picture, in which you can see either two profiles or a white vase. And try to determine what happens when you see two profiles, and when you see a white vase. If you do nothing, then after a while the figure will begin to "blink" - you can see either a vase or profiles. Moreover, this blinking will occur with a certain frequency.
For me, in order for the profiles to be visible, they must become sharper, and the background, as it were, recedes back. In this case, the white part becomes, as it were, more gray and blurred. In order to see the vase, you need to make the white part of the picture brighter and sharper.
After you determine the critical submodality of your attention, you can practice on its conscious management (let it be, for example, brightness). Try to learn how to make the desired thing brighter. Over time, this will become more automated and automatic. Anything can work for the training object: a pencil on a table, a photo in a newspaper, an advertisement on the wall in the subway, or a company label on this advertisement.
It also seems worth working with the following things:
- Focus Size
Try to practice focus size - attention spot size. Very often, its size can be unmanageable. It is quite possible that the size of the focus is quite strongly related to the "volume of awareness." Secondly, it can be quite useful in order to develop your reading speed.
One of the things that people work with when practicing speed reading is precisely the ability to increase the area of attention. Very often, when reading, you can grab three or four letters at a time, although it is much more convenient to perceive at least a whole word.
This is a bit like the development of computer processors - each new generation increases the amount of data "captured" at a time: everything started with 8 bits, and now 64-bit ones have already appeared. You can work like this: write, and then mentally imagine this word. You start with monosyllables (2-3 letters), and then move on to two or more syllables.
- Audio channel.
Before that, the talk was mainly about the visual channel. Naturally, there is hearing and sensation. You can work with hearing in the same way (moreover, if you have a skill in working with vision, then working with the rest of the channels of perception will be much easier).
Take a recording of some music with a constant instrument (that is, throughout the whole melody there are, for example, drums or bass guitar) and try to select this instrument, then all the music as a whole, then another instrument, then the voice (if any).
Determine the critical submodalities (most likely there will be loudness, but not a tape recorder, but "internal", how do you perceive it inside). And start training these submodalities on a wide variety of sound sources. Until you can freely select the desired object (make it a shape).
NLP Vocabulary: What is Submodality
Modalities in NLP (and psychology) are the channels for obtaining information: vision - visual modality, hearing - auditory, sensation - modality, speech - digital. Submodalities are then differences within modality. Brightness, size, position, colors, focus of the image - these are the submodalities of the visual channel. Likewise, there are submodalities of the audio channel: volume, timbre, stereo / mono. The kinesthetic channel has its own submodalities: sensations have size, intensity, quality (vibration, compression, cold, bursting) and location.
Due to the fact that I had a certain opportunity to check all this - I lead the groups - simply and set the following task to the group: - "What critical submodality determines your focus of attention?" At the same time, I used the expression figure / background (see the explanatory picture), meaning by the figure what attention is paid to, and this also applies to the auditory and kinesthetic channels. And how does a person organize and control this figure / background selection? Moreover, it is not yet entirely clear to me whether attention works only with the Figure, or is capable of addressing the Background too.
The latter means the following. Can attention turn to the background so that it remains the background and does not turn into a figure? I will try to come up with some ideas on this and suggest a set of exercises for developing and managing attention.
FIGURE / BACKGROUND
Let's first try to figure out how a person generally distinguishes that this is the Background, and this is the Figure. There must be some submodal distinction between the two, it must be organized somehow.
For me personally, it looks like a trick. Internally, what I pay attention to (or attention is drawn to) is sharper, brighter, there are colors and there is movement (if there is any). It looks a bit bumpy against a flatter background. That is, as if the Figure has volume, and the background is flat. The background is grayer, much more blurred, has no volume, and if there is movement, then it is blurry and almost imperceptible.
The figure is much clearer and sharper, and what is related to the background is perceived as grayer, blurred and stationary. By the way, movement in the background leads to a shift of attention there, at least for a short time. There are some considerations about movement that are not entirely NLPersky. It is quite possible that the movement is one of the critical submodalities "genetically" - our distant ancestors absolutely needed to react not an incomprehensible movement, in order to notice the danger in time. Although, on the other hand, this strategy can simply be read regularly, and if the “teacher” does not have it for some reason, then it may not work for the student either.
I would have plucked up the courage and made the assumption that zone 1 (Area of the Figure) is the zone of the First Attention (Attention of Consciousness), and zone 2 (Area of the Background), respectively, is the zone of Second Attention (Attention of the Unconscious). I, with your permission, will use these terms further, realizing all the controversy of their use. It is quite possible that this could be a good metaphor for the distinction between consciousness and subconsciousness. Consciousness is a Figure, something bright, contrasting, clear and small in relation to the whole, and subconsciousness is more blurred, gray and large.
When working in a group, it was noticed that most of them have approximately the same way of selecting a Shape. It is like a spot on a more inconspicuous background. At the same time, the critical submodalities for the visual channel were most often called:
- sharpness
- brightness
- contrast
These three submodalities accounted for about 3/4 of the total. There were such critical submodalities as:
- direction
- volume
- size (distortion of real size)
- distance
One girl had a very interesting way. She had a frame that bounds the area of focus of attention, and everything else was filled with black. That is, she saw practically what was in the zone of the First Attention. Apparently, this method of organization allows you to have a very high degree of concentration, but at the same time the unconscious does not work at all, at least in the processing of the visual image. And really, what to work with if there is no information?
For the audio channel, the distribution was somewhat different. Almost 80% of the critical submodality was loudness, among the rest there was:
- the sharpness of the sound
- direction
- stereo - mono
- variability (the background is monotonous)
True, only the perception of voices was investigated, but I think for other types of sounds there will be something similar.
EXERCISES: FIGURE / BACKGROUND
You can work with attention control like this.
Take a familiar picture, in which you can see either two profiles or a white vase. And try to determine what happens when you see two profiles, and when you see a white vase. If you do nothing, then after a while the figure will begin to "blink" - you can see either a vase or profiles. Moreover, this blinking will occur with a certain frequency.
For me, in order for the profiles to be visible, they must become sharper, and the background, as it were, recedes back. In this case, the white part becomes, as it were, more gray and blurred. In order to see the vase, you need to make the white part of the picture brighter and sharper.
After you determine the critical submodality of your attention, you can practice on its conscious management (let it be, for example, brightness). Try to learn how to make the desired thing brighter. Over time, this will become more automated and automatic. Anything can work for the training object: a pencil on a table, a photo in a newspaper, an advertisement on the wall in the subway, or a company label on this advertisement.
It also seems worth working with the following things:
- Focus Size
Try to practice focus size - attention spot size. Very often, its size can be unmanageable. It is quite possible that the size of the focus is quite strongly related to the "volume of awareness." Secondly, it can be quite useful in order to develop your reading speed.
One of the things that people work with when practicing speed reading is precisely the ability to increase the area of attention. Very often, when reading, you can grab three or four letters at a time, although it is much more convenient to perceive at least a whole word.
This is a bit like the development of computer processors - each new generation increases the amount of data "captured" at a time: everything started with 8 bits, and now 64-bit ones have already appeared. You can work like this: write, and then mentally imagine this word. You start with monosyllables (2-3 letters), and then move on to two or more syllables.
- Audio channel.
Before that, the talk was mainly about the visual channel. Naturally, there is hearing and sensation. You can work with hearing in the same way (moreover, if you have a skill in working with vision, then working with the rest of the channels of perception will be much easier).
Take a recording of some music with a constant instrument (that is, throughout the whole melody there are, for example, drums or bass guitar) and try to select this instrument, then all the music as a whole, then another instrument, then the voice (if any).
Determine the critical submodalities (most likely there will be loudness, but not a tape recorder, but "internal", how do you perceive it inside). And start training these submodalities on a wide variety of sound sources. Until you can freely select the desired object (make it a shape).
