Sustained attention

By age

Measuring humans' estimated attention span depends on what the attention is being used for. The terms "transient attention" and "selective sustained attention" are used to separate short term and focused attention. Transient attention is a short-term response to a stimulus that temporarily attracts or distracts attention. Researchers disagree on the exact amount of the human transient attention span, whereas selective sustained attention, also known as focused attention, is the level of attention that produces consistent results on a task over time. Common estimates of the attention span of healthy teenagers and adults range 5 hours. This is possible because people can choose repeatedly to re-focus on the same thing. This ability to renew attention permits people to 'pay attention' to things that last for more than a few minutes, such as lengthy films.