Shifting and drifting attention while reading: A case study of nonlinear-dynamical attention allocation in the OpenCog cognitive architecture

For instance, we find that in this particular example, if the parameters are set appropriately, ECAN indeed causes the system to assign particular importance to nodes and links related to the “insecticide” concept, when it is reading sentences about poisons in a situation where it has been primed by sentences about insects. This is an example of what we call “drifting” attention - the system's attention moves to something suggested by its perceptions, even if not directly presented in them.