The term interest is used also to indicate a permanent mental disposition. Thus I may have an interest in certain subjects, though they are not an object of my present attention. However interest be defined, and whether it be described as a cause of attention, an aspect of attention, or as identical with attention, its special significance lies in its intimate connection with the mental activity of attention. Attention may be defined as cognitive or intellectual energy directed towards any object. It is essentially selective, it concentrates consciousness on part of the field of mental vision, whilst it ignores other parts.
Attention is also purposive in character.
It focuses our mental gaze in order to attain a clearer and more distinct view. It results in a deeper and more lasting impression, and therefore plays a vital part both in each cognitive act and in the growth of knowledge as a whole. The English Associationist school of psychology and most Empiricists, in treating of the genesis of knowledge, seem to look on the intensity or frequency of the stimulus as the most influential factor in the process of cognition. As a matter of fact, what the mind takes in depends almost entirely on this selective action of attention. Out of the total mass of impressions, streaming in at any moment through the various channels of sense, it is only those to which attention is directed that rise to the level of intellectual life, or take real hold of the mind.