NRSC 2110 Blog

We've all been there. You're standing across from someone animatedly relating a crucial piece of their day to you and five minutes later when you zone back in you realize you haven't heard a word they said. Do you fake it, politely nodding, and hope you won't be asked for your opinion? Do you apologize and ask them to repeat themselves? In school you might have been known as "that kid", always day dreaming and becoming preoccupied with everything other than the lesson at hand. Maybe the last time you were reading a book you couldn't get through a page without watching your neighbor water their lawn or taking an enthusiastic interest in the fly buzzing around the window. You may have been diagnosed with ADD or simply adopted the diagnosis on your own with the rest of our culture as a buzz word for excusing our collective distractibility. Laptops, smart phones, and constant stimulation could make anyone a little scattered. Now, thanks to Neuroscience, you can blame it, along with a host of other things, on your biology. Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience in May of 2011 could even be used to support blaming it on your parents.

People involved in the study were asked to score themselves on their attention spans and ability to focus on their daily tasks. They used a test that has been used to measure distractibility many times before. The density of gray matter in the left superior parietal lobe of those in the study correlated directly with their reports of distractibility. The researchers were able to disrupt activity in the implicated area of the brain using transcranial magnetic stimulation to further test their theory that there is a biological basis for distraction and the ability to ignore it. During the disruption, the people involved in the study became more susceptible to distraction as was expected. By using TMS while subjects were performing a task researchers were able to observe how susceptible the subjects were to outside stimuli while messing with this area of the brain. Researchers were pleased to make a connection between reports of low attention span, biology, and measurable laboratory tests.

Next time you zone out, offer an apology that you can't focus on the conversation at hand because your parietal lobe is giving you trouble and simply won?t filter out the pretty girl who just walked by, the construction in the street, or the smell of coffee wafting it's way through the office, or you could just spring for lunch.