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Amira .

How the brain's architecture makes our view of the world unique | PhysOrg.com Dec 5, 2010 - 1 views

www.physorg.com/...tecture-view-world-unique.html

mind & brain Neuroscience science cognition & relativity cognitive science

shared by Amira . on 15 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Amira . on 15 Jan 11
     
    Wellcome Trust scientists have shown for the first time that exactly how we see our environment depends on the size of the visual part of our brain.
Amira .

Portrait of a Multitasking Mind By Naomi Kenner & Russell Poldrack | Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

mind & brain Age of informations

shared by Amira . on 16 Dec 09 - Cached
  • new research by EyalOphir, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner at Stanford University suggests that people who multitask suffer from a problem: weaker self-control ability.
  • then recruited people who had scores that were extremely high or low and asked them perform a series of tests designed to measure the ability to control one's attention, one's responses, and the contents of one's memory. They found that the high- and low- media-multitasking groups were equally able to control their responses, but that the heavy media-multitasking group had difficulties, compared to the low media-multitasking group, when asked to ignore information that was in the environment or in their recent memory. They also had greater trouble relative to their counterparts when asked to switch rapidly between two different tasks. This last finding was surprising, because psychologists know that multitasking involves switching rapidly between tasks rather than actually performing multiple tasks simultaneously.
  • It seems that chronic media-multitaskers are more susceptible to distractions. In contrast, people who do not usually engage in media-multitasking showed a greater ability to focus on important information. According to the researchers, this reflects two fundamentally different strategies of information processing. Those who engage in media-multitasking more frequently are "breadth-biased," preferring to explore any available information rather than restrict themselves. AsLin Lin at the University of North Texas puts it in a review of the article, they develop a habit of treating all information equally. On the other extreme are those who avoid breadth in favor of information that is relevant to an immediate goal.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • While the researchers focused on a type of control known as "top-down" attention, meaning that control is initiated by higher-level mental processes such as cognition in service of a specific goal, they suggest that heavy media-multitaskers might be better at "bottom-up" attention. In this type of control, cues from the external world drive your attention through lower-level mental processes such as perception and habit. In our fast-paced and technologically advancing society, it may be that having a single goal on which to focus our efforts is a luxury. We may often be better served by a control strategy that is cued by the demands of our surroundings. Look around yourself - do you see notes and to-do lists? Piles of objects meant to remind you about tasks and goals? These sorts of reminders are a great way to take advantage of bottom-up attentional control, and this type of control might in fact be more influential in our lives than we realize.
  • Amira . on 16 Dec 09
     
    What happens when you try to do three things at once?
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