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Hyperfocus describes an intense form of mental concentration or visualization that focuses consciousness on a narrow subject, or beyond objective reality and onto subjective mental planes, daydreams, concepts, fiction, the imagination, and other objects of the mind.
Interpretations
From a neurodiversity perspective, hyperfocus is a mental ability that is a natural expression of personality. However, hyperfocus can also be regarded as a psychiatric diagnosis, as a distraction from reality and a symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD), or autism. Counter to this view, the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for ADHD (for example) do not include anything resembling hyperfocus and instead emphasise opposite behaviors such as "often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks".
Some people say that hyperfocus is an important element of meditation, but Osho emphasized that meditation is not concentration. In common parlance, hyperfocus is sometimes referred to as "zoning out." In sports, it is sometimes referred to as "being in the zone."
Treatment
Many people use hyperfocus to accomplish specific goals, such as painting a picture, memorizing facts for a test, solving a Rubik's Cube, performing thought experiments, or learning to juggle.
On the other hand, people in a state of hyperfocus are often regarded by others as absentminded, inattentive, or impulsive. The intensity of hyperfocus can sometimes lead to the subjective loss of time, or a disregard for social norms.
Sometimes, a person who frequently enters a state of hyperfocus will develop a bad reputation. Abuse and social stigma may follow. When hyperfocus is interpreted as a symptom of a mental disorder, Ritalin and other drugs may be prescribed.
In the context of school, children who hyperfocus are sometimes punished for a perceived disrespect to authority. In response, some children may cease to hyperfocus, whereas other children may disguise it. Antisocial behavior, social anxiety, loneliness, or love-shyness may follow.
Debate
The term hyperfocus is not in common use among academics, and does not appear in any peer-reviewed articles. The concept can also be described using the terms concentration, absorption and focused attention.
On one hand, hyperfocus may represent a healthy detachment from ordinary mentality. It may be useful for innovating new approaches to familiar situations. It may improve learning speed and comprehension.
On the other hand, it may present a challenge to common teaching and parenting techniques. Schools and parents generally expect, and reward children for obeying authority, but hyperfocused children do not always cooperate under these circumstances. But, if the time and effort is available to accommodate the interests of the child, he or she may be readily cooperative.
Psychiatric views
Formally, psychiatry describes only the distraction aspect of hyperfocus, referring to ADHD as 'inattentiveness and impulsiveness'. Hyperfocus is not recognised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), and no article using the term appears in PubMed.
Besides hyperfocus, various special abilities have been suggested to occur in ADHD, including vigilance, response-readiness, enthusiasm, and flexibility. But current ADHD research does not recognize these characteristics. Greater creativity has also been suggested, but formal measures of this are no higher in children with ADHD than in control groups.
Nevertheless, psychiatric research suggests that there are several reasons for the persistence of the notion that people with ADHD have the ability to hyperfocus. For example, a well-recognised comorbidity of ADHD with autistic spectrum disorders, of which excess focus is a part. Special abilities do occur in some ADHD people, so it is easy to generalize from this minority to the whole ADHD group. ADHD is a remarkably common, but primarily genetically determined disorder (affecting 4-8% of school age children)
Professional psychiatry does not completely discount the existence of hyperfocus, as many adults with ADHD attribute accomplishments in their lives to this mental ability. As ADHD in adults is a relatively new area of learning in comparison with the condition in children, many clinicians feel that hyperfocus is an aspect of adult ADHD which is not well understood and merits more thorough research.
References
- Hartmann, Thom. (1998) Healing ADD: Simple Exercises That Will Change Your Daily Life. Underwood-Miller (1st ed.) ISBN 1887424377.
- Hartmann, Thom. (1993) ADD: A Different Perception.
- Goldstein and Barkley (1998) ADHD Report 6, 5.
- Jensen & Mrazek, (1997). Evolution and Revolution in Child Psychiatry: ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 36 (12), pp. 1672-1679.
- Shelley-Tremblay and Rosen (1996)
- Funk et al. (1993). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, creativity, and the effects of methylphenidate, Pediatrics, 91 (4), pp. 816-819.
See also
- hunter vs. farmer theory
- Flow (psychology)
- The science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky explores a society in which artificially-hyperfocused individuals are used as biological appliances
"Hyperfocus"