Now I notice it everywhere...'heightened awareness'

r3nu4l

Well recently, I discovered that someone I know is suffering from Alzhiemer's disease. Sad...but that's not what I want to talk about.

Since then...in the last week I've been confronted on the BBC news website with two stories about breakthroughs in the disease and right now Brian Keenan is on Pat Kenny, talking about his mother's demise due to the disease. It seems as though everywhere I look, I spot or hear something relating to Alzhiemer's disease.

This isn't the first time I've noticed this kind of 'heightened awareness' of topics that have suddenly confronted me.

Can anyone explain the psychology or psychobiology relevant to this? I can offer my own 'armchair' view: it's at the forefront of my mind so I'm bound to notice this but is there any academic reasoning for this?

I realise that this probably crosses over with psychiatry and indeed molecular biology but can anyone here answer from a psychology point of view.

Kooli

I don't think there's anything more to it than attentional bias - it's the same as pregnant people saying they suddenly notice how many pregnant people there are! There aren't actually suddely more of them, it's just that the rest of us don't notice!

We have selective attention because our minds cannot possibly process and store every piece of information coming at us. It just can't. How we select which information gets processed and stored depends on our own opinions, beliefs, experiences and values, and as you say what is important to us or at the forefront of our minds.

I for instance would never notice if there was a sudden increase in the numbers of a certain type of car on the road because quite frankly I don't care about cars. But I would notice when people haven't had their roots done, because this is something I am paranoid about myself! Other people would be the opposite.

I often find that when I learn the definition of a new word I wasn't familiar with before, I then hear it a couple of times in the next week or two and I wonder 'What the hell? I didn't even know what that word meant before and now it's everywhere!' It's probably not 'everywhere' any more than it was before, I just notice it more because it came to my attention in a way that was important enough for me to find out what it means, thereby giving that word more 'weight' to me.

Cinful

r3nu4l wrote: »

Alzhiemer's disease...

This isn't the first time I've noticed this kind of 'heightened awareness' of topics that have suddenly confronted me.

Can anyone explain the psychology or psychobiology relevant to this?

More than one question? The social psychology of "heightened awareness?" Epidemiology of Alzhiemer's disease? Emergent treatment modalities?

If "heightened awareness" is the focus, I am reminded of a TV news feature story that occurred earlier today. Unfortunately it was triggered as a followup to a report in the Globe, not a credible source to begin with. The feature story showed various videos of former president Bill Clinton. Shots of his hands shaking, or a tremour of his head when addressing an audience. Based only on these behavioral cues, the report took the leap that he must be suffering from early stages of Alzhiemer's.

So, without digging deeply into the scholarly literature on Alzhiemer's Disease, in terms of new breakthrough treatments, at first blush, I am tempted to think that the recent "heightened awareness" has been created and exploited by a news media tread, not the advancement of medical science. And if this "armchair" view has any merit, it will soon be replaced by a "heightened awareness" of some other problems; e.g., today we have Alzhiemer's, yesterday we exhausted our audience with pandemics.

r3nu4l

Cinful wrote: »

More than one question? The social psychology of "heightened awareness?"

No, I'm not talking about social awareness, I'm talking about personal awareness, in that, since I heard that a particular person I know has Alzhiemers, I have suddenly become acutely aware of any mention of Alzhiemers I see or hear, whereas in the past, these stories may have slipped past my conciousness without so much as troubling it.

'heightened awareness' of Epidemiology of Alzhiemer's disease? Emergent treatment modalities?

No, that's a question of medical biology, pharmacology and genome-wide studies. As a Medical Biologist myself with a wife who works in bioinformatics I can handle those questions myself. Besides, this is the psychology forum, if I wanted to ask about the epidemiology of disease I'd ask on Bio & Med

So, without digging deeply into the scholarly literature on Alzhiemer's Disease, in terms of new breakthrough treatments, at first blush,

I'm not asking you to, I really think I didn't put it across properly Perhaps my use of Alzhiemer's as the example was a poor choice because of the inherent psychology problems with that disease but I don't want to talk about Alzhiemer's at all

I am tempted to think that the recent "heightened awareness" has been created and exploited by a news media tread, not the advancement of medical science. And if this "armchair" view has any merit, it will soon be replaced by a "heightened awareness" of some other problems; e.g., today we have Alzhiemer's, yesterday we exhausted our audience with pandemics.

Well, that has always been the case with media, SARS is still out there but we hear nothing about it so is Ebola, Dengue and West Nile virus but until the next outbreak takes a few lives in the West, we won't hear about it...but that's for another forum

So, to clarify, using a hypothetical situation: On a daily basis I may never pay any attention to or notice anything in the news about a celebrity, say...Victoria Beckham...

Imagine then, one day I bump into her and end up having a conversation with her. I may find then 'all of a sudden' that every time I notice a newspaper or turn on the radio or walk into a shop. I see or hear about her everywhere I go.

Every time I turn around there's a newspaper with her photo on the front page or some guy on the bus is talking to a friend about her or when I'm in a shop they announce that her latest designs will be in-store next week.

So whereas before I met the person in question, I never noticed anything to do with that person but all of a sudden, now I do. It's almost like the mind 'fixates' on the subject and the antennae are more attuned to any mention of it.

So I'm wondering what is the psychology behind that and what biological factors play a role.

In a similar vein, is this in any way connected to the psychology of mating in humans? We may not notice a person until we get talking to them then 'bang!', they are in our minds everywhere and everything we see reminds us of that person because we are now so 'attuned' to that person?

Hope that's a bit clearer

r3nu4l

Kooli wrote: »

I don't think there's anything more to it than attentional bias

But why does the attentional bias 'switch on'?

We have selective attention because our minds cannot possibly process and store every piece of information coming at us.

This I understand, just look at videos on YouTube where you are asked to concentrate on one thing, you spend so much time concentrating on it that you don;t notice that the guy talking in the video has changed his shirt from grey to vibrant red

How we select which information gets processed and stored depends on our own opinions, beliefs, experiences and values, and as you say what is important to us or at the forefront of our minds.

So what's the psychology of this, I have lots of things at the forefront of my mind, including work, family and important household business work...but this is the one thing that has jumped out at me and my mind has 'chosen' to fixate on that...this is what I'm trying to get to the nub of, why does the mind choose one thing over another?

I for instance would never notice if there was a sudden increase in the numbers of a certain type of car on the road because quite frankly I don't care about cars. But I would notice when people haven't had their roots done, because this is something I am paranoid about myself! Other people would be the opposite.

So is it a 'fear' stimulus that prompts this focus? That would kind of make sense!

I often find that when I learn the definition of a new word I wasn't familiar with before, I then hear it a couple of times in the next week or two and I wonder 'What the hell? I didn't even know what that word meant before and now it's everywhere!'

Exactly! I've noticed in the past year that the word 'didactic' is in use everywhere (to me at least) whereas in the past 4 years I've not heard it once. Perhaps the word has just come into fashion in my line of work...or perhaps my being unaware of the word previously has forced my mind to become alert to it.