The Distracted Mind - Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen
Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World
I. Cognition and the Essence of Control
1. Interference
[bq] "Interference - both distractions from irrelevant information and interruptions by our attempts to simultaneously pursue multiple goals."
Issue of “Distracted Mind” not caused by modern technology, but a “fundamental vulnerability of our brain”.
Even your own mind can generate interruption and distraction. E.g. thinking about a previous conversion makes you forget what you wanted to get from the fridge as you open it.
While technology has not created this issue, it’s making it much worse.
[bq] Result affects all parts of our lives, “from our perceptions, decision making, communication, emotional regulation, and our memories.”
Goal interference: You are trying to achieve a goal, but something else comes up and distracts/hinders you. Can be internal (thoughts) or external (sensory stimuli). For each, depending on how we react, can be either a distraction or interruption.
Simple exemplary scenario: Catching up with a friend and listening to their story.
Internal distraction (mind wandering): Thoughts like “can’t believe my colleague did this stupid thing”.
External distraction: A conversation at a nearby table keeps catching your attention.
Internal interruption: You consciously use part of your brain power to think about how to deal with your colleagues mistake while at the same time listening to your friend.
External interruption: The conversation at the nearby table seems interesting and you actively try to eavesdrop.
Interruptions are often a form of multitasking.
[bq] “Multitasking may be the behavior you decide to engage in, but […] the term ’task switching’ is a better description.”
The source for distractions and interruptions can be the same, but they are distinct in how you handle them, and different brain mechanisms are involved in each.
Compared to our complex goal setting ability, our cognitive control, the way we “distribute, dive, and sustain attention” is quite primitive.
[bq] “In many ways, we are ancient brains in a high-tech world.”
Have a disconnect in what we want to do and what we can do.
One reason why we might enjoy task switching so much is that novelty is linked with experience of reward.
Evolutionarily, lovely seeking was a good force to explore new environments. Have a tendency to seek new information. But now we are overloaded with information.
We are “information seeking creatures”.
Might have an inherent drive to gather information, just like hunger makes us gather food.
2. Goals and Cognitive Control
Can see the thing in our head as two things: the brain, a complex information processing structure; or the mind, the emergent higher order function which essentially defines who we are.
Most basic original function: Sense positive and negative factors in environment and guide action based on that.
Initial brains only allowed for “perception-action reflexes”, no goal setting. Still have these mechanisms today. But both perceptions and actions have become much more complex.
But what (maybe) makes us uniquely human is putting a pause into the perception-action cycle and letting executive functions take over to perform goal setting.
They allow us to choose our actions based on evaluation and decision, not just reflex.
Even our perception is not a pure flow of all incoming stimuli but a selection guided bu our goals.
Have two forces guiding us: the top down goal setting, and bottom up stimuli and novelty/saliency.
Animals much more sensitive to bottom up stimuli, and it’s one of their great advantages.
The interplay of top-down and bottom-up is extremely complex and responsible for much of our Distracted Mind.
What mediates our goal setting ability is our cognitive control, which splits into three processes:
Attention
Working Memory
Goal Management
Most fundamental feature of attention is selectivity. It allows us to directly influence the perception-action cycle.
Three aspects of attention building on selectivity:
Expectation (attentive before initial stimulus)
Directionality
Sustainability
Working memory is bridge between perception and future action.
Working memory is a short but active process. We not only retain sensory information but also process it.
Goal management allows us to pursue multiple goals in overlapping timeframes. It’s our “mental traffic controller.”
3. The Brain and Control
Prefrontal cortex has evolved most since our ancestors, and responsible for a lot of our cognitive control.
Prefrontal cortex critical for our personality, but also for ability to control, both goal setting and goal enactment.
What sets us apart from other animals is not (just) the size of our prefrontal cortex, but also how extensively it’s connected to other areas of the brain via neural networks.
Initially had two modes of brain function, a modular mode (individual regions responsible for different functions) and a network model (functions delocalized through entire cortex). Now we believe in a combination of the two.
Much of our control comes from the prefrontal cortex and is then passed on along neural networks and our nervous system to other parts of the brain and eventually turned into action.
For attention, prefrontal cortex gives higher priority to certain neural patterns than others. It enhances representation of certain signals and diminishes others.
Focusing on something and ignoring something are not just opposites of the same, but two distinct processes. Both are active and require resources from our brain.
Prefrontal cortex also temporarily keeps information in sensory cortex alive after stimulus is gone, giving us working memory.
For goal management, prefrontal cortex switches intensities/resources between different cognitive control networks as needed. Not parallel processing, but network switching.
[bq] “While the behavioral goal may have been to multitask (and thus ‘multitasking’ is an appropriate term for this behavior), the brain itself is network switching.”
[bw] “This act of switching, whether we make the decision to switch or not, diminishes our performance on a task.”
4. Control Limitations
[bq] Distracted Mind is “generated by a hands-on collision between our high-level goals and our intrinsic cognitive control limitations."
Selective attention both top-down goal oriented, but also bottom-up instinct/reflex based, e.g. if we step on street and car honks. This second selectivity, while necessary for survival, is costing us more and more goal focused attention since such “warning" triggers are more frequent.
Experiments have shown that ignoring irrelevant information more important for remembering than the focus on the thing. True for both memorization phase and recall phase.
When we have limited information, need to distribute our attention. Is the jaguar in the left bush or the right bush? The more we distribute our attention, the less benefits we gain from selective attention.
Sustaining attention also has its limitations, especially on “boring” low stimulus tasks.
Attention switching takes time, so there is a speed limit to selective attention.
[bq] “It is as if their brain had blinked and needed time to turn on again.”
Working memory has limitations too, mainly in terms of capacity and fidelity.
Good management also limited, especially if we decide to engage in multitasking/task switching. Even if we do seemingly different tasks like drive and have a conversation on the phone, our brain is constantly network switching to do both. True multitasking/parallel processing at neural level is not possible.
Results in both time-delay and reduced accuracy on both tasks.
5. Variations and Fluctuations
Our cognitive control abilities and limitations are not fixed by constantly change due to numerous influences.
On large scale, starts to bas as a child, reaches its peak in twenties, and then gradually declines again.
Also influenced by common conditions such as ADHD, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, depression, or dementia.
But even for healthy brain this changes all the timed to lack of sleep, stress, alcohol,…
Studies on healthy older people showed that they are just as good at focusing on relevant information as younger people, but worse at suppressing irrelevant information, i.e. they are more easily distracted.
Once they reach peak in early twenties, cognitive abilities don’t stay stable but start to decline almost linearly throughout adult life.
Distractibility is to some extent an inborn trait (something more or less static), but it also highly depends on our current state.
Sleep deprivation one of the worst states for cognitive control, especially sustained attention. But effect depends a lot on individual.
Stress more difficult. Many different types, and light stress can even be beneficial.
II. Behavior in a High Tech World
6. The Psychology of Technology
There have been three new technologies in our lifetime that completely change or drive our interference-inducing behavior: internet, social media, smartphones.
[bq] “75 percent of teens and young adults sleep with their phone next to their bed either with the ringer on or with the phone set to vibrate.”
A huge majority of all people reach for their phone first thing in the morning.
Our interaction with technology has become more and more multi-sensory, and as a result more attention grabbing.
[bq] “We seem to have lost the ability to single task.”
[bq] “We act as though we are no longer interested in or able to stay idle and simply do nothing. […] And perhaps more critically, we appear to have lost the ability to simply be alone with our thoughts.”
Everyday multimedia multitasking has become the norm, e.g. we often watch something on one screen which doing other stuff in another screen.
Expectation have also changed. With advent of mobile devices, “I wasn’t home” simply doesn’t work as an excuse anymore. Now expected to respond immediately.
[bq] “Even vacations do not allow us to escape from being ‘always on, always available’.”
7. The Impact of Constantly Shifting our Attention
[bq] “We have lost our awareness of what is necessary and what is simply reflexive responding as through prodded by a sharp stick.”
In education, higher technology use of almost any kind has been linked to lower academic performance.
Estimates suggest that almost a quarter of US traffic accidents are caused by lack of attention due to phone use.
Handsfree cellphone use almost as bad as hands on use.
Open offices promote distractions.
[p.134, citing study]
Some tasks might be sped up in the modern office environment, but at the cost of anxiety and stress.
Personal relationships also suffer due to divided attention.
Blue light exposure messes with our circadian rhythms, and especially teens even tend to get up several times a night to answer texts or even calls.
8. The Impact of Technology on Diverse Populations
Younger generations estimate that they are better at multitasking and engage in it more often, but the cognitive effects are just as bad for them.
Factoring out all other factors, daily media consumption is a clear predictor for ill-being in children/young adults.
Older adults have an even higher attention switching cost and are more distractible. High risk in situations like driving.
9. Why Do We Interrupt Ourselves?
In animals foraging behavior has been well studied and optimal behavior falls under marginal value theorem (MVT), which describes when an animal moves on from the current (gradually depleted) source to the next.
Our information consumption is also a form of foraging.
In animal models the optimal time is mainly influenced by external sources, e.g. how many resources remain in current source. But information foraging also influenced by internal ones: anxiety and boredom, leading to shorter time in source.
Also, expected transit time to new sources has drastically decreased, further shortening the time we remain in once source.
[q] “Boredom is anxiety about absence of meaning in a person’s activities or circumstances.”
- Erich Fromm
Rapid reward cycles of modern media might have altered our boredom profiles, leading to much quicker boredom onset.
[bq] “The impact of boredom is not just to make us switch between information patches; we also seem to have lost the ability to simply do nothing and endure boredom. This leaves little time for reflection, deep thinking, or even just simply sitting back and letting our random thoughts drive us places we might not have gone while immersed in direct thinking.”
[p. 170:] Had 20-fold increase in anxiety disorders over past 30 years. 28.8% will sufferer from anxiety in their life, and around 20% have over the last year. Even worse, 50% of those between 18 and 30 years old over the last year.
Anxiety (FOMO) from as little as 15 min without looking at text messages.
New factors leave our information foraging behavior far from optimal.
[bq] “Too much important information is being ‘left on the table’.”
Bad metacognition, us thinking we are much better at task switching than we actually are, worsens this problem.
III. Taking Control
Two approaches to combat distracted mind: Changing brain or changing behavior
10. Boosting Control
We now know that we retain neuroplasticity through our entire life.
Three ways to make use of that:
Putting ourselves in situations/environments that stimulate plasticity
Drugs
Neurofeedback and other similar treatments; even direct brain stimulation
Traditional education largely focused on “information content”, not on “information-processing abilities”.
Mounting evidence that meditation improves cognitive control.
Cognitive exercise (brain games) also show promising results, especially in older individuals.
Certain types of video games (e.g. first person shooters) lead to higher cognitive control, particularly ability to suppress distractions.
Specifically designed video game (“Neuro Racer”) showed that games can be used to get older adults cognitive abilities back to the equivalent of twenty year olds.
Exposure to nature can also boost cognitive control (as well as many other positive factors).
Exercise one of the most clear effects on boosting cognitive control. This shows that exercise can also boost the ability to take true time off, since better cognitive control means less mind wandering, e.g. to work.
[studies/data: p. 203f]
Technological ways like neurofeedback or even direct brain stimulation look extremely promising but are still in their infancy.
11. Modifying Behavior
To manage cognitive control limitations can take these steps:
Improve metacognition by becoming aware of high task switching cost
Limit accessibilità of new information sources
Decrease boredom when focussing on a single task
Reduce anxiety/FOMO that could trigger task switching
Phones, even if silenced, should be kept as far away and inaccessible as possible at all times.