Attention as Orientation Architecture

Attention is a coherence‑allocation operator that regulates how a cognitive system orients toward competing signals. This paper develops a structural account of attention as the mechanism that distributes coherence, and salience as the landscape of pressures that determines what becomes noticeable. The analysis maps how salience landscapes form, how attention shifts in response to coherence pressure, and how embodied, environmental, and identity‑level factors shape what enters processing. By situating attention and salience within the downstream dynamics of formation, persistence, and redistribution, the paper clarifies how systems prioritize information, detect patterns, and maintain stability under changing conditions. This structural framing explains attentional rigidity, fragmentation, and overload as coherence‑regulation failures rather than psychological deficits.