There are a number of ways in which exercise may serve to reduce stress and consequently free up one's attentional resources and improve memory:

However, with sufficient practice such tasks are performed automatically, without the need for attentional resources.

As cross-modal attention requires attending to two types of sensory information simultaneously, attentional resources are divided unequally.

This increased focus of attention on central aspects takes away attentional resources from peripheral details.

Lexical processing is thus considered to be more passive, consuming less attentional resources.

Research has found that semantic selection requires a greater attentional resources than physical selection.

Spelke and others have proposed that it is possible that controlled tasks can be automatized, thus using fewer attentional resources.

This information suggests that divided attention tasks require more attentional resources than normally required by a non sleep-deprived individual.

Shifting of attention is needed to allocate attentional resources to more efficiently process information from a stimulus .

Cognitive control processes such as selective attention reduce this competition by prioritizing where attentional resources are distributed.