Vihang Desai

3/3/18

Blog Post 2

This article is about our ability to multitask and keep attention to what we are doing. This article is related to the topic of attention in our course. In the course lesson we discussed that we filter out what we want to pay attention to and that we only focus on certain things when we are bombarded with many things. Research in the lesson has shown that our reaction times greatly decrease when driving while using a cell phone because out attention is split between 2 tasks and our brains are not able to react to things on the road in the split second that we need to when something occurs on the road. We are only able to focus on one thing at a time. However, this study has shown that with practice and appropriate strategies we can become better at multitasking (Weems, 2018). Scott Weems says that our brain changes with training and that if we practice controlling our attention that we can become better at multitasking. Mary Courage, a professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland, says that multitasking may actually have a positive impact in children’s attentional capacity when managed properly (Weems, 2018). However, she also still cautions that certain tasks, such as driving a car, will not be safe to multitask even with practice (Weems, 2018). This may be so because of the amount of attention required when driving. Your brain uses a lot of its working memory when driving since there are so many factors to driving. It inputs so many different information from the environment when driving that your attentional capacity is used to the maximum. The lesson showed that using a cellular device while driving takes away attentional processing that could be used to attend to information in our environment. Multitasking is also considered useful because studies have shown that our brains change with training and that practicing controlling our attention makes us better. A study from the University of Madrid found that “multitasking ability shares a close relationship with both working memory capacity and intelligence, suggesting that they share common neural mechanisms” This means that our working memory effects everything we do and that our working memory allows us to multitask. However, ability to multitask hinders our ability to focus on one task when we need to. Other research has shown that some people have a less developed anterior cingula (part of the brain that responsible for managing our attention), which shows deficits in people being able to focus on one task at a time like listening to one person at a lecture hall or having a direct conversation with one person. This could be the reason that we have stopped having direct conversations with people and the newer generations are starting to use machines to communicate with each other instead of direct contact. However, I believe that we are losing the human connection that we require and our minds are actually becoming lost in this new world.