Can I Have Your Divided Attention? Attention and Sight-Reading

According to the book Cognitive Psychology by Sternberg, divided attention is the attempt to handle more than one task at once. Sounds familiar? Sight-reading music requires all musicians to handle several tasks all the time. Pianists suffer even more with the fact that they have to read two different clefs.

Example:


During performance, we attend to more than one automatized task at one time. This is supposed to be easier than attending to more than one controlled task at a time which is the case when sight-reading. While sigh-reading there is a great deal of decision making, problem solving, comprehension and muscle control. The good news is "...with practice, individuals appear to be capable of handling more than one controlled task at a time, even engaging in tasks requiring comprehension and decision making". (Sternberg)
When sight-reading piano, besides reading two distinct clefs, we also have to execute two distinct articulation, phrasing and dynamics. If you are sight-reading a fugue, for example, you can face more than that. Add pedal markings to that, and you might need a drink.

Example:


Marlos Nobre "Caboclinha"


Attention is all the information an individual manipulates. Because our working memory has limited capacity (7 +2/-2 items or chunks), attention allows us to use our cognition resources judiciously to respond fast and accurately to interesting stimuli and to remember salient information. Consciousness, on the other hand, is only the narrow range of information that the individual is aware of manipulating. It allow us to monitor our interactions with the environment to link experiences and expectations while planning future actions.(Sternberg)
One can see how both attention and consciousness play an important role in sight-reading. Attention relates to our first encounter with a musical passage and to how we select salient information to be played. While consciousness, takes this information selected and infers our previous experiences and expectations in order to plan our final output.