attentional focus

Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study:

#1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a placebo

#2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found to increase AD risk in the most com­pre­hen­sive evi­dence review to date,

#3. “The health­i­est peo­ple are the ones who grow with age and expe­ri­ence; even in times of trou­ble like these.” — Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion. On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

#4. “Accep­tance that Alzheimer’s dis­ease is a lifestyle dis­ease, lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er age-relat­ed dis­eases, that is the sum of a life­time is the most impor­tant break­through of the decade.” — George Per­ry, PhD, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

#5. “Atten­tion is a scarce resource. Think about your atten­tion­al focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it can­not be on oth­er objects at the same time with the same inten­si­ty … Although we typ­i­cal­ly have the feel­ing that mul­ti­task­ing saves us time, it is often not the case.” Sim­ple, quick brain teas­er to test the lim­its of multitasking

#6. If it appears to rotate, RT ? Fun opti­cal illu­sion to tease your mind

#7. Every cloud has a sil­ver lin­ing: How and when will the telemed­i­cine surge reach men­tal healthcare?

#8. Not a minute too soon: Mag­el­lan Health is test­ing biofeed­back videogame Might­i­er to help chil­dren bet­ter self-reg­u­late stress

#9. “In a time when emo­tions like stress, anx­i­ety, bore­dom, and anger are hard to avoid, a new study sug­gests that a par­tic­u­lar med­i­ta­tion prac­tice can help us face them.” Study: Med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, both for­mal and infor­mal, helps devel­op equa­nim­i­ty over time

#10. Ever since dis­cov­er­ing Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young’s life tra­jec­to­ry via Nor­main Doidge’s fan­tas­tic book The Brain That Changes Itself, we have been impressed by her cre­ativ­i­ty, sta­mi­na and courage. Com­ing soon: Vir­tu­al World Tour at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing difficulties

#11. “Neur­al sig­nals will be used to devel­op algo­rithms that will help researchers deter­mine the opti­mal brain state under which indi­vid­u­als can receive infor­ma­tion. From there, the team will deter­mine the most effec­tive means of enhanc­ing the sub­jects’ abil­i­ty to intake and process infor­ma­tion. This could range from non-inva­sive neuromodulation—or brain stimulation—techniques to the use of aug­ment­ed real­i­ty to alter per­ceived envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.” Air Force announces research plat­form to har­ness closed-loop neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­ate learn­ing “on the fly”

#12. Good to hear that “ensur­ing the pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty of study par­tic­i­pants’ data is a high pri­or­i­ty for both UCLA and Apple. UCLA will process and main­tain study data in a secure envi­ron­ment … UCLA and Apple will ana­lyze the data only after they are cod­ed and stripped of names and oth­er con­tact infor­ma­tion.” UCLA launch­es major men­tal health study col­lect­ing & ana­lyz­ing data from Apple wear­ables to bet­ter under­stand depres­sion and anxiety

#13. Flex­i­bil­i­ty is good except when it isn’t: Study finds how sci­en­tists can reach dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions ana­lyz­ing the same brain scans

#14. “I have so much to accom­plish today that I must med­i­tate for two hours instead of one” — Gand­hi, as quot­ed in Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy September,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team

Quick brain teaser to prove the limits of multitasking

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How often do you dis­cuss office gos­sip via chat while par­tic­i­pat­ing in a Zoom meet­ing? Or read a great arti­cle while talk­ing on the phone with a client? Or, wait, think about work prob­lems while help­ing your child with homework?

Yup, it is not easy to stay focused and be tru­ly pro­duc­tive. [Read more…] about Quick brain teas­er to prove the lim­its of multitasking

Brain teaser to test your attentional focus and multi-tasking abilities

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How often do you review and com­ment on a doc­u­ment while talk­ing on the phone with a col­league about an unre­lat­ed mat­ter? Or think about your prob­lems at work while help­ing your child with his home­work? [Read more…] about Brain teas­er to test your atten­tion­al focus and mul­ti-task­ing abilities

Your brain on puzzles: Insights come with a wider focus of attention.

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A fas­ci­nat­ing New York Time arti­cle on solv­ing puz­zles: Why you do it, how you do it, and what’s going on in your brain while you do it.

The appeal of puz­zles goes far deep­er than the dopamine-reward rush of find­ing a solu­tion. The very idea of doing a cross­word or a Sudoku puz­zle typ­i­cal­ly shifts the brain into an open, play­ful state.

There are dif­fer­ent ways to solve a puz­zle: an ana­lyt­i­cal way of tri­al and errors and an “insight” or cre­ative way.  [Read more…] about Your brain on puz­zles: Insights come with a wider focus of attention.

Test your attentional focus: is multi-tasking a good thing?

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aaHow often do you lis­ten to the office gos­sip while fill­ing in forms? Or read a doc­u­ment while talk­ing on the phone with a client? Or think about your prob­lems at work while help­ing your child with his homework?

We are con­stant­ly assault­ed by lots of infor­ma­tion and often required to per­form sev­er­al tasks at once. It is not easy to stay focused. How­ev­er being able to stay focused is cru­cial to achieve suc­cess. Indeed, if you are lis­ten­ing to the office gos­sip while fill­ing in forms, you will prob­a­bly make mis­takes. If you try to read a doc­u­ment while talk­ing on the phone with a client, you will prob­a­bly sound dis­tant and unin­ter­est­ed to your client and may not get the con­tract you expect­ed to get. If you think about your prob­lems at work while help­ing your child with his home­work, you will prob­a­bly miss oppor­tu­ni­ties to teach her something.

As you may notice all the sit­u­a­tions above involve doing more than one thing at a time. Mul­ti-task­ing is ene­my num­ber one when it comes to accu­rate and speedy performance.

Human atten­tion is lim­it­ed. Think about your atten­tion­al focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it can­not be on oth­er objects at the same time with the same inten­si­ty. Only dim light will be avail­able to light up the objects in the periph­ery. The same hap­pens in your atten­tion­al sys­tem. Divid­ing atten­tion results in less atten­tion­al pow­er devot­ed to all the dif­fer­ent tasks that you are try­ing to do at the same time. The more tasks, the less atten­tion can be devot­ed to each. The result is more errors and waste of time. Although we all have the feel­ing that mul­ti­task­ing saves us time, it is often not the case.

Try the exer­cise below to test your atten­tion­al focus. Three words have been com­bined to make this grid of let­ters. How many times does each of these words appear…? Can you com­pare your per­for­mance while search­ing for just one word vs. two of them at the same time?

How many times is the word SUN shown?
How many times is the word BUS shown?
How many times is the word NONE shown?

Solu­tions: [Read more…] about Test your atten­tion­al focus: is mul­ti-task­ing a good thing?