Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Mind
Think you can stay focused on this podcast for the next 60 seconds?
Well that depends on how much working memory you have, according to a new study in the journal Psychological Science (pdf).
Working memory is our ability to hold onto information for a short period of time, like keeping a phone number in mind while you search for your cell phone.
Now a study finds that your capacity for working memory is directly related to how often your mind wanders.
Scientists had subjects press a button when they saw a letter appear on a computer screen. Periodically during this task the researchers would ask the subjects whether they were actively focusing on the task or if they were thinking about something else.
The researchers also measured each subject’s working memory capacity, by testing the ability to remember a series of letters interspersed with basic math problems.
It turns out that those with a larger working memory capacity reported more distraction during the task. Indicating that our working memory strives to work at capacity. Such subjects had greater focus when tested with more complicated tasks.
Well, the minute is up. So, did you stay focused?
—Christie Nicholson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA good teacher should be able to recognize this student and give her/him a more complicated or advanced assignment, or put him or her with advanced students. Doesn't this also fall under the category of a student that is bored -- ruling out, of course, a learning disability, etc.
Funny, but I just discussed this with my husband. He was watching a woodworking video, and he would go back to what the teacher said every now and then. I didn't want to listen but being in the same room, I couldn't help it. I found it annoying. He told me he did this because his mind wandered. I told him that it was because the teacher was talking down to him, and that the teacher was telling him stuff that he already knew. I told him the teacher was saying some stuff about woodworking that I already knew -- as hard as I try not to listen and as much as I am not interested.... My husband has paid for a three, all-day workshop with this man. It is for advanced woodworkers who want to learn some very specialized techniques, and he wanted to be prepared for these classes.
Is science just just learning this -- a new study.... Or is this article for someone who has no clue....
I'm continuously amazed at how many psycho-sociological 'scientific' experiments rely on the quantification of anecdotal data...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a scale of 1 to one billion, how do I feel about this button? What motivation do I have for answering?
Working memory is but one of a number of variables to consider when it comes to staying engaged and not 'drifting' out. Another under-appreciated cause of mind wandering is the erosion of attention that accompanies skipping over things you don't understand. Attention is constantly cycling in and out of coherence if what we attending to (learning from) is too incoherent/ambiguous too long our attention span breaks down before it can renew. (see cycle of engagement: http://www.learningstewards.org/learning/cycle-of-engagement/)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet your hubby some headphones or at least some cheap ear buds and don't let him distract you so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific method: establish a falsifiable hypothesis, test said hypothesis, report results. There is no need for scientific in quotation marks, friend. Psychology is a science, and there are loads of data (not just anecdotal or survey-based) just on these questions you ask (e.g., motivation influencing performance). You have but only to google ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW this was in reply to jtdwyer, apparently it didn't register the reply :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMHO, "concentration", is partly natural and partly learned and/or enhanced by living and learning. That is, we have a certain "amount" of this ability, but it can be nurtured, expanded, trained, and focused as we grow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen my son was very young, he was diagnosed with ADD. He could not focus on anything for more than a few moments. One day he found a computer game on an old Apple 2 Plus computer of mine, no graphics at all, just text on a monochrome monitor. He would spend hours on it, the more he played, the longer he would and could focus on it at a stretch. We were so happy to find something like this to prove to us and to him that he could "pay attention" that we let him have plenty of access. We were concerned that we might be causing some other problems, but it seemed we had to take the chance.
It (plus my own experiences) proved to me that "focusing" is like so many skills: it can be enhanced with training, experience, and time.
The specific referenced 'research' report, "The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why?", seems to be more an overview of various past experiments conducted by this and other researchers using a variety of methods applied to several populations only described by the groups' ages. I couldn't determine how subjects were selected or how many there might have been.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe report concludes:
"Tests of working memory demonstrate practical limits that vary, depending on whether the test circumstances allow processes such as grouping or rehearsal, focusing of attention on just the material relevant to the task, and the use of modality- or material-specific stores to supplement a central store. Recent work suggests, nevertheless, that there is an underlying limit on a central component of working memory - typically 3 to 5 chunks in young adults. If we are careful about stimulus control, central capacity limits are useful in predicting which thought processes individuals can execute, and in understanding individual differences in cognitive maturity and intellectual aptitude. There are probably factors of biological economy limiting central capacity but, in some ways, the existing limits may be ideal, or nearly so, for humans."
I don't find any specified hypothesis being tested or useful specifications for any tests conducted. I certainly don't think any meaningful conclusions are supported by this research. Perhaps I simply don't understand these brilliant 'scientific methods', friend.
You'd be correct, that paper is a review (which is still necessary in any science--trying to compile data). The article mis-cited. This is the correct paper:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/13/0956797611431465.full.pdf+html
And my comment was meant to reply to what I thought was a more general accusation about psychological science, not necessarily this particular paper. But yes, SciAm needs to update their link. Cowan's 2010 paper is not the correct citation!
Thanks for the recommendation. I read the article on the cycle of engagement. I agree that it is an under-appreciated variable. It defined an insightful version of the cycle of agreement. As in the above article, it also didn't include other specific variables. While the clueless should be able to understand the article on mind wandering, I suggest that the clueless probably would not understand the cycle of engagement or even finish reading it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to my personification of mind wandering, if hubby had earphones, I would not have been able to help him understand its rational -- a small price to pay for me to acquire additional knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks, but I can't access the pdf you reference. From the description in this SA article of a paper on 'mind wandering' published in the journal Psychological Science their link appears to me to be the correct, final, published paper: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/19_1_inpress/Cowan_final.pdf?q=the-recall-of-information-from-working-memory
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, nisok's brief mention of your link as an "article on the cycle of engagement" and the SA link as "the article on mind wandering" seems to confirm my assessment, although I seem to be among the "clueless" in nisok's insightful mind.
My original comment criticizing the second rate analytical methods of both sociologists and psychologists reports that I casually encounter in Scientific American was intended for both the report referenced in this article and others. I stand by that original comment. Frankly, I've seen very few such reports I'd pay much attention to.
Hahaha okay!
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