The spectator may not and ought not to be aware that the lines of the background, the hangings of the room, the curves of the furniture, the branches of the trees, the forms of the mountains, help to point toward the figure of the woman who is to hold his mind.

The shading of the lights, the patches of dark shadows, the vagueness of some parts, the sharp outlines of others, the quietness of some parts of the picture as against the vehement movement of others all play on the keyboard of our mind and secure the desired effect on our involuntary attention.
But if all is admitted, we still have not touched on the most important and most characteristic relation of the photoplay pictures to the attention of the audience; and here we reach a sphere in which any comparison with the stage of the theater would be in vain.

What is attention?
What are the essential processes in the mind when we turn our attention to one face in the crowd, to one little flower in the wide landscape?
It would be wrong to describe the process in the mind by reference to one change alone.

If we have to give an account of the act of attention, as seen by the modern psychologist, we ought to point to several cooerdinated features.

They are not independent of one another but are closely interrelated.