Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-04-03
"THE DURATION
OF ATTENTION"
Its Relation to Drama, Vaudeville,
Moving Pictures, Novels, Short
Stories, the Schools and Life.
"Scatter-brains."
BY WALTER PR1CHARD EATON

| TiHERE is a phrase in the textbooks on
psychology, "the duration of attention"
which Mr. q. NJ Cohan probably never
| heard but 1t stands fer fact which he very
| we'll nderstands-namey that people can
! give their attention to one thing just so long
and then, no matter how interested they may
! be, they have simply got to relax. 1t may be
| possible that Richard Wagner understood
! this law also, but he made very different
estimate Of the time limit of attention. If
! you will go to a Cohan play and watch il
carefully. you will observe that no scene is
prolonged much beyond FIVE minutes: some
body then goes out or comes in, there is a
change of mood, connie relief" anything to
break the suspense. In "Parsifal," on the
| other hand, or Tristan" a scene Is often
prolonged till only the muslcally strongest
listeners are able TO keep their attention
from wandering, to keep from feeling fatigue
and even restessness How often we have
been to a concert where we felt there
one number too many! It may have been
charming number, but we were muslcally
full, we had reached the limit of the duration
of attention. How often, in reading diff
cult book, no matter how absorbing we have
reached n point where our minds refused to
grasp the IDEAS and we found ourselves re-
reading a paragraph second and third time,
blankly.
Sandow's 50-pound Dumb-bell
Now, as there pubcs for Cohan and
publlcs for Wagner, it Is evident that this
limit of the duration of attention is different
in different people. There is limit to the
time that I can hold 5O-pound dumb-be
out at arms length-a decided limit! sandow
could hold 1t out considerable time But IL
/ should practice various muscle building
ercises long enough I, too, might be able to
stand the strain moment or two. The mind
is not a muscle, and it is not so easily culti-
waited, but it is capable of cultivation, of
course.
The whole process of our education, in fact,
may be said in a sense to be directed toward
increasing the duration of our attention. The
small boy cannot get his lessons because he
cannot concentrate" His teacher works to
give him that power. The genius who finally
energies from the technical college and in
vents some valuable electrical appliance does
so because his mind has been trained to CEN
tire on the one problem-because his duration
of attention is practically unlimited.
Conversely, it is certain that if we fail to
exercise our muscles they lose their power OF
endurance, and if we fail to exercise our
minds they lose the power of concentration.
Which brings us, by a perfectly natural
lures, and to the question, 'Is the American
public in the theatre losing its power Of sus-
tanned attention? Is the duration of atten-
tion becoming more and more contracted"
Rapid-fire Entertainment.
One of our leading paywrights declares
emphatically that 1t is, and he attributes the
fact largely to vaudeville and the movies
Undoubtedly both these forms of entertain
ment are logically calculated to please the
people who by nature are incapable of sus-
talned periods of attention at any rate In
vaudeville no act lasts much over 20 minutes
some a less time. On comes one per-
former-bing! he is in the middle of his act,
at breakneck pace Off he goes-bing! On
comes another-and so through the evening.
Similarly, in the movies the pictures come in
reels. Very often whole drama is on one
reel. Each 20 minutes, then, the drama is
changed. There are consecutive dramas run
ming into five, six, even nine reels, but they
are not, as a rule. so popular the shorter
plays. And even with them there is con-
stant motion, change, shifting of the atten-
tion. A people fed constantly on such amuse
ment fare surely can hardly be expected to
find it ideal training for an appreciation Of
Ibsor let us say. with his demands on long
sustained attention!
If we look at the popular reading matter
of the day. too. we find the short story reign
ing in every magazine, and all the novels,
except De Morgan's. not more than a third
or even a quarter the length of such old