What a weird phenomenon! We are straining to find an address on an unfamiliar street, and the next thing you know we are reaching to turn down the radio! Turn down the volume to see better? Alvaro Fernandez, author of The Sharp Brains Guide to Brain Fitness, explores this question in an article published by the Huffington Post. He writes:You're driving through suburbia one evening looking for the street where you're supposed to have dinner at a friend's new house. You slow down to a crawl, turn down the radio, stop talking, and stare at every sign. Why is that? Neither the radio nor talking affects your vision.Huh? Whoda thunk? I actually like the phrase, “attentional capacity.” I began to immediately wonder if part of my struggle to hear the voice of God in my decisions is that my “attentional capacity” is on overload! Maybe in this world where multi-tasking is next to being a superhero, we just aren’t leaving enough attentional bandwidth for the voice and influence of God.
Or do they?
In a recent study about using a cell phone while driving, Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, had this to say:
"Directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited--a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to one modality--say, in this case, talking on a cell phone--it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality--in this case, the visual task of driving.
He's talking about the cognitive skill of divided attention, or the ability to multitask and pay attention to two things at once. It's generally much harder than selective, or focused, attention. The factors that come into play are your attentional capacity and the processing requirements--essentially how much of which areas of your brain are needed to process the input. Which is why professionals in some very demanding environments, such as military pilots and professional sports players, use specialized training tools to help them process all the information that otherwise would be overwhelming.
Your attentional capacity can be taken up by inhibiting (tuning out) distractions, dividing your attention across multiple things, or even sustaining your attention on one thing (vigilance). Fatigue takes a big toll on attention. If you're tired, it's harder to concentrate. Surprisingly, depression has a similar effect. In fact, many memory complaints may be actually depression- or fatigue-related reduced attentional capacity.”
Any way you can free up some attentional capacity for the voice we need to hear the most today?
- Don McLaughlin
