Train the one thing that shapes everything. What you notice.

How Attention Training Technique (ATT) works: selective attention, attention switching and divided attention, trained inside a three-dimensional sound field.

MINDWAKE builds on Adrian Wells' structured three-phase protocol and turns it into a modern training system where attention moves through a three-dimensional sound field.

MINDWAKE is an advanced digital implementation of the Attention Training Technique (ATT): Adrian Wells' structured three-phase protocol, rebuilt inside an interactive three-dimensional sound field.

Selective attention, attention switching and divided attention are trained on sounds you place yourself. Each sound becomes a separate attentional target with its own direction, height and distance inside the Sound Field.

Attention can get stuck. Train it to move.

A thought appears. Something you said. Something you fear. Something that might happen.

The thought itself may last seconds. But what follows can continue for hours, days, or become a pattern you return to for weeks, months or longer.

You replay. Analyse. Worry. Monitor. Search for certainty.

Within Metacognitive Therapy, persistent patterns of worry, rumination, threat monitoring and self-focused attention are understood as processes that can keep psychological distress going.

ATT was developed to work directly with attention inside this pattern. It leaves the content of your thoughts alone.

It trains your ability to disengage, redirect and move attention deliberately.

When attention turns inward, the world gets less of it.

Rumination pulls you back into what happened.

Worry pulls you towards what might happen.

Threat monitoring keeps searching for what could be wrong.

Different patterns. A similar cost.

More attention goes into the loop. Less goes into what is actually happening around you.

The work in front of you. The conversation you're having. The person beside you. The world outside your own head.

ATT trains the opposite movement. The ability to disengage from the internal pull and deliberately place attention somewhere else.

The thought doesn't have to disappear first.

Your attention can leave before the thought does.

Give attention something real to move through.

ATT uses sound as the training ground.

Several sounds exist at once, giving attention distinct external targets to work with.

Choose one. Stay with it while the others remain. Then leave it and find another.

This is what makes sound so useful for ATT. Nothing has to disappear for something else to become the focus.

The sounds stay. Your attention moves.

This is where attention is directed.

ATT moves through three phases, from focusing on a single sound to deliberately shifting and widening your attention across the field.

You train

STABILITY

Selective attention

One sound. Deliberately chosen.

Several sounds are present. You deliberately select one.

Your task is to keep attention there while everything else continues around it.

You are not trying to silence the other sounds. Their presence is part of the exercise.

When attention wanders, you return.

Stay with the sound.

Deliberate direction

Returning to a chosen target

FLEXIBILITY

Attention switching

Release one target. Find the next.

The target begins to change. One sound. Another. Then another.

The switches become faster, giving you less time to settle before attention has to move again.

Holding on is no longer enough.

Again and again, you practise leaving one target and deliberately finding the next.

Follow the shift. Find your sound.

Disengagement

Rapid reorientation

EXPANSION

Divided attention

From one sound to the whole field.

Instead of selecting one sound, you widen attention across the field and attempt to attend to several signals at the same time.

Different sounds. Different positions. One wider field of attention.

The same attention that first learned to stay now learns to broaden.

Take in the whole field.

Attentional breadth

Multiple simultaneous signals

Notice the moment attention leaves.

During ATT, your attention will drift. Into another sound. A thought. An internal conversation you never consciously decided to start.

Then you notice.

There is suddenly a difference between where your attention went and where you intended it to be.

That moment matters. What normally happens automatically has become something you can observe.

And once you notice it, you have a choice. ATT trains the return, repeatedly, until noticing and choosing belong together.

We usually think of focus as staying. Concentrate harder. Ignore the distraction. But holding on is only half of it. Staying with what matters also means being able to leave what doesn't.

The aim is not to become aware of every thought. It is to become less blind to where your attention goes.

Awareness comes before redirection.

Mindfulness observes. ATT directs.

ATT and mindfulness both work with attention. They don't give it the same job.

Mindfulness can involve observing thoughts and feelings, attending to the breath or adopting a non-judgemental relationship to what arises.

ATT is deliberately active. You select a sound, hold it while the others continue, switch to the next, and finally widen attention across the whole field.

The task is not to become still or relaxed.

Your attention has work to do.

An ATT session takes around twelve minutes.

Twelve minutes is enough for the exercise. It is not a stretch of time to be passive in.

For that stretch, something that normally moves largely by itself becomes deliberate. Where attention goes. How long it stays. Whether you can leave. Whether you can come back.

Attention stops being something that just happens to you.

What happens when attention is trained this way?

ATT has been studied through clinical outcomes, cognitive tasks and measurements of brain activity.

A systematic review published in 2016 found beneficial effects associated with ATT across studies involving anxiety and depressive disorders. Improvements were reported in symptoms, metacognitive beliefs and attention-related processes.

Ten years later, researchers went deeper.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW · 2026

20 studies. 1,230 participants.

Cognitive and neuropsychological correlates of the Attention Training Technique: a systematic review and evidence synthesis

Davison, Capobianco, Carter & Wells

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2026

20 studies · 1,230 participants

The 2026 systematic review brought together ATT research using cognitive tasks and neural methods including EEG, fNIRS and fMRI.

Across the included studies, researchers identified ATT-associated cognitive and neural effects involving systems related to attention and cognitive control.

Taken together, the findings were consistent with three mechanisms central to ATT:

Reduced threat monitoring

Improved executive control

Improved disengagement from self-referential processing

Researchers also identified changes involving neural networks associated with top-down attentional control and self-referential processing.

Read the study

DOI

10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1766748

The exercise stayed simple. We changed the room.

Classic ATT is commonly delivered through a fixed audio recording.

MINDWAKE keeps the fundamental structure of the training. What changes is the space around it.

Instead of existing inside a fixed recording, individual sounds become distinct targets inside an interactive three-dimensional field. Around you. At different distances. From different directions.

The task is still to find a sound, hold it, leave it and finally open across the whole field. The environment can change while the exercise stays remarkably simple.

The technology is not the exercise. It gives attention a richer place to move.

What you notice shapes what you experience.

Attention doesn't decide which thoughts appear. But it influences what gets your time.

What you keep returning to. What you notice around you.

ATT gives you a structured way to practise that relationship deliberately.

To notice when attention has been pulled inward. To leave what no longer needs it. To stay with what does. And to give the life outside the loop its share.

Not control over every thought. More choice over what gets your attention.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is Attention Training Technique?

Attention Training Technique, or ATT, is a structured attention exercise developed by Professor Adrian Wells within the metacognitive framework. Using multiple external sounds, ATT trains selective attention, attention switching and divided attention.

Why was ATT developed?

ATT was developed to address patterns of inflexible, self-focused attention associated with processes such as worry, rumination and threat monitoring. Rather than changing the content of individual thoughts, ATT works by training greater flexibility in where attention is directed.

Can ATT help with rumination and worry?

ATT was specifically developed to influence attentional processes involved in persistent worry, rumination and self-focused processing. Research has reported improvements across psychological symptoms and attention-related processes, while newer studies are also examining the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in ATT.

Does ATT improve focus?

Yes, ATT trains the actual control over your attention. You practice maintaining focus despite competing distractions, letting go of what has caught you, and directing your attention back to where you want it again. It is a crucial part of focus that is easily forgotten. Good focus isn't never losing it. It's being able to take it back.

What if my mind wanders during ATT?

Return to the instructed target and continue. ATT is not a test of perfect concentration. Noticing that attention has moved gives you the opportunity to deliberately redirect it.

Is ATT mindfulness?

No. Both involve attention, but ATT gives attention a specific and active task. You deliberately select external targets, sustain attention, switch between them and finally divide attention across several targets.

Is ATT supposed to be relaxing?

No. ATT is active attention training. The exercise deliberately places demands on attentional control.

How long does ATT take?

The classic ATT exercise lasts approximately twelve minutes and progresses through selective attention, increasingly rapid attention switching and divided attention.

Do I need headphones?

Headphones are recommended for MINDWAKE ATT because the training uses spatial positioning to create distinct attentional targets around you.

Is MINDWAKE therapy?

No. MINDWAKE is an attention-training tool and does not replace psychotherapy, medical care or other professional mental healthcare.

Keep going

field

The App

See how the MINDWAKE audio engine, sound field and training system work together.

science

The Science

Explore research related to ATT, attention and Metacognitive Therapy.

metacognitive-therapy

Metacognitive Therapy

Learn where ATT comes from.

mct-exercises

MCT Exercises

Explore ATT alongside other exercises associated with MCT.

rumination

Learn why attention can become caught in repetitive thinking.

faq

More questions about MINDWAKE and attention training.