Activation, Arousal, Alertness, and Attention

Activation, arousal, alertness, and attention are related and overlapping constructs that are difficult to separate and define. Activation and arousal are often used synonymously when speaking of physical, physiological, behavioral, and mental states and processes and their levels of excitability and complexity. Each term has a variety of meanings and implications. Similarly, alertness, vigilance , and attention are sometimes used interchangeably. However, a case can be made for their differentiation even though they may share some properties under varying physiological and behavioral conditions. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.