..."When THIS is pushed, THAT changes"... which shoves crap into
   our working memory that we THEN have to work with.... I'm not
   suggesting it as a read, but I'm a "social bookmarker"; when I
   find something interesting - even if I don't fully grasp it
   myself yet - I share. I *think* Jeffrey M. Zacks is precisely
   the researcher working in precisely the direction I've been
   trying to _find_: Attention is a subject that has fascinated me
   for years; what causes us to forget things when we're suddenly
   interrupted? Why do we forget our dreams? How do we know what to
   pay attention to when everything seems to come at us at once
   sometimes?
   The traditional way to describe things, which never seemed
   "right" to me, is goal oriented. Want. We go for what we want.
   Or.. we got towards what we "notice". But... what makes us
   notice? What if we don't _want_ something but we are responding
   anyway? I figured there has to be SOMETHING that's
   semi-automatic... some kind of "When THIS is pushed, THAT
   changes"... which shoves crap into our working memory that we
   *THEN* _have_ to work with. We _have_ conscious control once
   someone has our attention, but I never thought we actually
   *control* our attention.. but rather our attention _happens_ and
   THEN we "make a story" to explain it after the fact. So, what's
   the impetus? It has to be something "just under the radar" -
   milliseconds before the images/words/etc pop into your head. I
   think... maybe.. this guy is on the right track. Fingers
   crossed. Heavy reading/comprehension ahead.
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2852534/#R100