Mind Hacks

Hack #37. Grab Attention

Sudden movement or light can grab your attention, thanks to a second region for visual processing.

What are you paying attention to? These words? In a minute it could switch to a friend or to making coffee or to the person on the bus who just stood up and you noticed out of the corner of your eye. We don’t pay attention to everything we see or experience. Following two conversations at the same time is hard, even though we hear both perfectly well, and, likewise, it’s simply not possible to read every word on the page of a book simultaneously, although they’re all in plain view.

While your senses work overtime to provide as much input as possible, there’s a bottleneck in the brain’s limited capacity for attention. So we consciously decide which line of text to focus on and read across and down the page, line by line. And this happens at the expense of all the other stimuli we could have attended to, such as the color of the walls or the traffic noise from the road outside.

Choosing what to give attention to is voluntary...mostly. But attention can also be captured.

In Action

Stand so that you’re facing a crowded scene. Watching a crowded theater settle down is ideal. A busy street corner is a good choice, too. A TV screen or video game will do as well, as long as there’s a lot going on in the frame.

Don’t try to direct your attention; just let it wander and feast your eyes on the full field of view.

Notice that when a person waves, or stands up, your attention ...