Attention can be defined as a learner noticing something taking place in an environment (Huitt, 2004).

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Attention is another mechanism that helps us simplify the world and helps us focus on the important information and ignore non important information. There are three views /definitions of attention:

- Selectivity: we are only aware of a subset of information at a given time. We screen out what does not matter to focus on what does

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Attention can be defined as intentionally directed perception. Its purpose lies in the allowance and maintenance of goal-directed behavior.
-N Pfeiffer-Lessmann

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Attention can be defined as the ability to focus on one stimulus or task while resisting focus on the extraneous impulses
-Encyclopedia Britannica

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Computationally, visual attention can be defined as a set of strategies that attempts to reduce the computational cost of the search processes inherent in visual perception.
-IEEE

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"Attention" is a term commonly used in education, psychiatry and psychology. The definition is often vague. Attention can be defined as an internal cognitive process by which one actively selects environmental information (ie. sensation) or actively processes information from internal sources (i.e. visceral cues or other thought processes). In more general terms, attention can be defined as an ability to focus and maintain interest in a given task or idea, including managing distractions.
-Dawson, Medler, Dictionary of Cognitive Science

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William James, a 19th century psychologist, explains attention as follows:
"Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought...It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state." (1890, p. 403)

Attention is important to psychologists because it is often considered a core cognitive process, a basis on which to study other cognitive processes; most importantly learning.

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Attention can be defined as the cognitive process of concentrating or focusing on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other distractions... Attention to the environment is a basic capacity for survival. Failure to pay attention or having impaired attention can result in poor school performance, poor work performance, strain on marriage, family and social relationships, and ultimately death through “accidents” due to inattention... For many, focusing attention comes naturally and easily. They can focus on the important matters and shift attention as needed as new factors arise... Everyone pays better attention to the things they’re most interested in than to something they find boring.
-McIntire Psychotherapy, LLC

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At each and every moment that we are awake, we are receiving sense stimuli and are experiencing perceptions, thoughts, images and emotions of many kinds but out of these only a few remain in our consciousness, this selective activity of mind has been called Attention.

Attention can be defined as a process which compels the individual to select some particular stimulus according to his interest and attitude out of the multiplicity of stimuli present in the environment
-Sharma R.N.

Attention is the concentration of consciousness upon one subject rather than upon another.
-Dumville, 1938

Attention is being keenly alive to some specific factor in our environment. It is preparatory adjustment for response.
-Morgan and Gilliland

Attention is getting an object of thought clearly before the mind.
-Ross

...Attention is selective: At any moment, there are various stimuli in the environment of an individual which try to affect him... All of these things make a bid for our attention. We do not attend to all of them at a time and also do not respond indiscriminately to each of them. Our reaction is selective. Only those stimuli which suit our interest and attitude are able to attract attention, others are ignored. The stimulus which is more important and useful than the other is attended at once whereas the less important and significant ones are attended later on. In this way attention represents a narrow field and is always selective.
-Taxila Group, Ms. Jipsy Malhotra, mentor, Learning and its Relationship with Maturation, Attention and Interest

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Attention can be defined as 'focused mental engagement on a particular item of information'... attention to one thing necessarily excludes others... awareness turns into attention when a certain threshold is reached in the brain and the potential for action is spurred... Awareness is a prerequisite for attention: to put our attention on something, we must identify it... When attention is identified as a scarce commodity, the influence of 'attention workers,' professional generators and brokers of attention rises... Attention is hence the ability to attract engagement, merely the first step in the process.
-Luoma-aho, Nordfors, Attention and Reputation in the Innovation Economy

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Attention can be defined as the process of selecting certain environmental inputs needed for cognitive processing.
-ADD and Learning Strategies

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Sustained attention can be defined as the ability to mobilize and maintain selectivity and concentration.
Age, individuality, and context as factors in sustained visual attention during the preschool years.
By Ruff, Holly A.; Capozzoli, Mary; Weissberg, Renata
Developmental Psychology. Vol 34(3), May 1998, 454-464.

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From a Cognitive Science perspective, Attention can be defined as the mechanism by which we become momentarily conscious of a set of elements (and their relations) in the world around us, though the unified employment of our cognitive resources.
-Derek Lomas, Attentional Capital and the Ecology of Online Social Networks

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Within this theoretical framework, attention can be defined as enhanced processing over a limited subset of sensory information that has been selected for monitoring or tracking over time.
-Peter U. Tse, Mapping Visual Attention with Change Blindness: New Directions for a New Method

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Attention is a term commonly used in education, psychiatry, and psychology. Attention can be defined as an internal cognitive process by which one actively selects environmental information (i.e., sensation) or actively processes information from internal sources (i.e., stored memories and thoughts; Sternberg, 1996). In more general terms, attention can be defined as an ability to focus and maintain interest in a given task or idea, including managing distractions. Attention is selective by its nature. According to Pashler (1998, p. 37), “The process of selecting from among the many potentially available stimuli is the clearest manifestation of selective attention.”
-Eyal Yaniv, David Schwartz, Organizational Attention, Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management

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Attention is the emergent property of the cognitive system that allows it to successfully process some sources of information to the exclusion of others, in the service of acieving some goals to the exclusion of others.

...This attentional effect derives from the ability of the task-demand units to guide the flow of activity along one pathway, while attenuating the flow along another. For this reason, we have come to refer to this as the guided activation theory of cognitive control (Miller & Cohen, 2001).
-Cohen, Aston-Jones, Gilzenrat, A Systems-Level Perspective on Attention and Cognition Control, In: Cognitive neuroscience of attention By Michael I. Posner