The Attention System of the Human Brain

It is important to understand how the human brain functions in the area attention, at the cognitive and neuronal levels, so we can attempt to replicate these functions in any decision support and business analytics system. The concepts in this article cover the fundamentals that every person in the analytics field should understand. Among the interesting areas for practical application:

1. Data processing and analytics are separate functions that interact – A practical application is that we should not be processing and analyzing data in the same server.
   Orienting – Practical applications include: visualization tools, human-computer interaction (HCI), and the need for size, color and depth (right and left hemispheres) representation of the data. See, Business Case for Analytics: Explaining Cluster Analysis; Explaining the Value of Business Analytics: Clarifying driving factors in a decision support system ; and Three-Dimensional Business Analytics: How Deep is the Ocean?
2. Pattern Recognition – Practical applications include: utilization of colors in the analytics visualization tools; utilization of forecasting vectors to determine complex patterns; and data does not need to be 100% clean since the brain will fill the missing parts.
3. Detection – Practical applications include: the ability to visually represent data in its totality, while having the functionality to dynamically select specific areas of the data for further study; interactivity for further study depends n alertness and this depends on robust and fast system of analytics (i.e., the fastest the report creation the higher our alertness and detection); and speed in the system is directly correlated to lower quality of data and produces a higher error rate.

Knowing the anatomical reasons for decision support and analytics in brain function gives a higher importance to create decision support systems (which include predictive modeling) and make it available to everyone within a company or organization. See, Kaizen and Analytics: The Power of Each Employee to See Data; and Business Analytics: Unleashing the Power from Within .