Attention is usually accompanied by numerous instinctive muscular activities, which contribute toward the continuation and toward a greater distinctness or intensity of the impression. When our visual organs are stimulated, the head and the eyes turn so that the impression may be received at the point of keenest vision. If the ear is stimulated, the head turns so that both ears assume the most favorable position with respect to the source of sound. When images occupy the mind, the eyes are directed at an indifferent, uninteresting object, or they are closed, the lips are pressed together, the limbs assume a position of rest. All this tends to keep away avoidable stimulation of the sense organs of the body. These instinctive movements are, of course, perceived as kinesthetic sensations, as varied forms of strain, of activity. Thus they give rise to the erroneous view that attention is a peculiar activity of the mind’s own content. This view is most emphatically expressed in the phrase “voluntary attention.” It often happens that we become conscious of the muscular adaptation characteristic of attention before the mental state to which attention is given has appeared. For example, we see lightning and at once imagine the thunder and the muscular adaptions of the ear and other parts of the body which generally occur when it thunders. Or we hear our teacher’s voice telling us that he will give an explanation, and we imagine the strain, the activity of our muscles, which begins as soon as he starts giving the explanation. This foreseeing of our activities we have above called willing. _The foreseeing of our attention is the will to give attention, is voluntary attention._ It is a peculiar fact that vividness of a certain thought or even a class of thoughts is never much prolonged. Other impressions or ideas take the place of those which are now focal. Under the most favorable conditions, the same ideas reappear again and again. This limited duration of attention is most conspicuous in children and is one of the greatest obstacles which the teacher has to overcome. Repeated orders to be attentive are of small value. They tend to call up a general notion of the matter which is being taught, and thus make it easier for the ideas presented by the teacher to enter consciousness. But the effect is not lasting because the very thought of being attentive cannot itself have a long duration. It is therefore preferable to take into account the nature of attending, and in accordance with it, to provide a certain change in the ideas presented--to present the matter in an interesting way. QUESTIONS 88. What essential difference between mental function and mechanical function is referred to by the word _attention_? 89. Can you illustrate the chief facts of attention and inattention? 90. Can you illustrate the parallelism between the laws of feeling and of attention? 91. How is attention mentally prepared for?