Distraction is an important topic for consideration in connection with sustained attention. A distraction is a stimulus that attracts attention away from the thing to which we mean to attend. There are always competing stimuli, and the various factors of advantage, especially desire or interest, determine which stimulus shall get attention at any moment. In the excited insane condition known as "mania" or the "manic state", the patient is excessively distractible. He commences to tell you something, all interest in what he has to say, but, if you pull out your watch while he is talking, he drops his story in the middle of a sentence and shifts to some remark about the watch. He seems to have no impulse persistent enough to hold his thoughts steady. There are contrary insane conditions in which it is almost impossible to distract the patient from his own inner broodings, so much is he absorbed in his own troubles. Distraction is a favorite topic for experiment in the laboratory. The subject is put to work adding or typewriting, and works for a time in quiet, after which disturbances are introduced. A bell rings, a phonograph record is played, perhaps a perfect bedlam of noise is let loose; with the curious result that the subject, only momentarily distracted, accomplishes more work rather than less. The distraction has acted as a stimulus to greater effort, and by this effort {260} is overcame. This does not always happen so in real life, but it shows the possibilities of sustained attention.