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Controlling Your Concentration
    Good morning, everyone. Today our topic is on how to control your concentration. First of all, we have to look at definition of concentration. Psychologically defined, concentration is the process of centering one’s attention over a period of time. In practical application, however, concentration is not as simple to deal successfully with as the definition may imply. For this reason, it is helpful to keep the following points in mind.
    The first point your attention span varies. Even with the greatest effort, our span of attention fluctuates. You can demonstrate for yourself this fluctuation of attention. In a quiet room, place a watch so that it can just scarcely be heard. Listen carefully and notice how the ticking increases in apparent intensity, fades to a point where it cannot be heard, and then increases a-gain. This phenomenon reveals how our span of attention fluctuates, for the intensity of the ticking is actually constant.
    Secondly, you pay attention to one thing at a time. Evidence to date indicates that you attend to one idea at a time. It is possible for your attention to shift so rapidly that it seems that you attend to several concepts at once. But apparently this is only an illusion. In high concentration the shift from the focus of attention is of short duration and relatively infrequent.
    Thirdly, we will talk about levels of high, moderate, and low attention. High-level attention has long periods of attending and short distraction periods. In low-level attention the periods of attending are short and the distraction periods long. In moderate-level attention, there is a mixture of the extremes. Thus it is easy to see that it is highly unlikely that the student who has most of his attention centered on fancying at large will be able to recall even the major points of a lecture. Lack of concentration is a symptom, not a cause, of difficulty. When a student says "I can’t concentrate", what he is really saying is, "I can’t attend to the task at hand because my distractors are too strong."
    Fourthly, we come to the two sorts of distractors—psychological and physical. A distractor is anything which causes attention to vary from a central focal point. In the study situation distractors may be thought of as either psychological or physical in nature. Both types of distractors must be understood before the student can attempt to remedy his lack of concentration It has been proven by scientists that emotions are the most powerful distractors. The angry man forgets the pain of injury, the fearful man finds it difficult to enjoy pleasure and the tense or anxious person may react violently to the smallest of matters. In the student’s life there are many psychological pressures and tensions which block effective productivity. The fears about making the grade, the doubts of the friendliness of a friend’s behaviour and the pressures of limited finances—these are only a few of the emotional forces which affect the student. Emotional reaction varies greatly from person to person. Some persons gain goal and direction from their tensions and actually do better because of them. Others fall apart under pressure, while a few people do well despite the pressure. Physical distractors are always present and rarely understood. Our environment is much more important to how we feel and react than we often think. Particularly is this true of the effect of physical distractors on mental tasks. One research report has shown that comprehension and retention of reading were decreased when students listened to lively music. However, rate of reading was not affected, so that many students were not aware that they were affected by the background distractor. Another study found that the ability to recall accurately was affected by distracting conditions. Most of the evidence indicates that noise affects adversely higher mental task output. Still, the effect of distractors is seldom fully appreciated by students.
    Next, we are going to talk about routine and reasoning tasks are affected differently by distractors. Many routine tasks can be performed with distraction in the background with little or no adverse effect on output. Most students have found this fact to be true from their own experience. They may have had high school homework which was drill or merely copying assignments. It was possible to do such work with the latest recordings or the television set playing in the background. In time such students began to feel certain that they could do all work—routine or problem-solving—in the same manner. The evidence indicates the contrary conclusion.
    Last but not least, we’ve got to remember that exceptions may mislead you. Typically when students are faced with the evidence on distractors the argument is given that their cousin, friend, or classmate can study in "Grand Central Station" And he makes "all A’s" too! There is evidence, of course, that motivation plays an important role in overcoming the effects of distractors and that there are considerable differences in individual spans of attention. Either of these factors could account for some individuals being able to do well using inefficient methods. The fact that some exceptional people do well under adverse conditions scarcely justifies your assuming that you are exceptional in the same manner. Your chances of success are higher if you avoid the distracters which are known to hinder the typical student.
    To sum up what we have discussed today. Generally speaking, today we mainly focused on concentrations and we have provided with you six suggestions on how to control your concentration. We hope these suggestions will be helpful.