Cathy N. Davidson however has published a book entitled " Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn". In this book she puts forward an alternative slant on the concept of multi-tasking.
In her book she argues that the human brain is perfectly well-suited to the digital world, if only we are willing to rethink the classroom, the workplace, and how we measure success. In an article reviewing this book, she expands on the points made.
One of the areas she expands on is the "gorilla experiment". This study of how we pay attention sets up an experiment where people have to focus to complete the task. During the experiment a woman in a gorilla suit wanders into view. Many of the participants are so busy paying attention to their task that they fail to see the gorilla. This inability to see the gorilla is known as "attention blindness" and has implications that "the more focused, concentrated or specialized (i.e., expert) we are, the more we miss".
In specifically addressing multi-tasking she says
"we now know there is no such thing as monotasking on a neurological level. Neurons are always firing and the brain is constantly chattering to itself, calling upon different areas at once to respond in ways we are only now beginning to understand. .... When we say “multitasking is bad,” what we are really saying is that certain things are stressing us out and they are making us suddenly aware of behaviors that used to be so reflexive we didn’t even pay attention to them. We see the gorilla, as it were."
This alternative viewpoint gives educators and workplaces a lot to work with in terms of designing systems that allow for maximum productivity. Have you worked in an organisation that has attempted to utilise these insights?
