Monotropism and polytropism are different strategies in distributing attention in the brain. Monotropism refers to an attention-tunnel (undivided attention or attention-tunnel), while polytropism refers to multiple divided attention in the brain.

The Monotropism hypothesis regards attention-tunnels as the central feature of autism.

For an overview, see Monotropic Vartiations and Mind as a Dynamical System: Implications for Autism for a detailed discussion.