Separating Planning and Attention

Abstract

In this article the authors present several justifications in favor of the position that the constructs of planning and attention as described in the planning, attention, simultaneous, and successive (PASS) theory of information processing are separate but interdependent processes. There are two parts to the article. The first part comprises a discussion of issues on the need for separating planning and attention and provides evidential validity by reviewing some selected studies. The second part reexamines a factor-analytic study that has questioned the separation of planning and attention processes. The reexamination showed a negligible statistical difference between the proposed three-factor model and the previously established four-factor model. Because the evidential validity of the four-factor model seems reasonably strong, the authors conclude by suggesting that there is little reason to choose the three-factor model that combines attention with planning.