title: [The concept of attention].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Attention is a complex function which matches environment's information to the needs of the organism.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  describe the different variety of attention, the attentionnel tests and attentional disorders in the psychiatric pathology.
  
  
  METHODS
  review of literature on PUBMED.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There are several types of attention such as selective attention, sustained attention and the divided attentions. Besides these different varieties of attention, we find the pre attentive phenomena: alertness and orientation which leads to preparing the attention. The investigation of attention requires different tools of measures such as the Stroop test, the Continuous performance test or the "test de Barrage de zazzo" and a few years ago the visual detection task of Posner and the attentional network test that explores the three attentional networks independently. In psychiatric illness, the attentional disorders are not specific although certain abnormalities are more suggestive of some pathology like the disengagement deficit in schizophrenia and the attention deficit and hyperactivity of children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are several types of attention and pre attentive phenomena which investigation require specific cognitive tests.
authors.affiliation: Unité de recherche UR 02/04 sur les processus cognitifs dans la pathologie psychiatrique, hôpital Razi, Tunis.
authors.forename: Olfa
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ben Azouz
authors.forename: Lamia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dellagi
authors.forename: Oussam
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kebir
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tabbane
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests