Losing focus for a brief moment could actually help boost learning by giving our brain a quick breather from the task at hand. According to a new study, this could allow us to absorb information that might not be directly related to the task at hand but could still be useful.
“While focus helps us narrow down our goals, some loss of focus can expand the scope of attention and help us integrate less relevant information, which could help us learn regularities in our environment or even integrate distant ideas or concepts.” explained Alexandra Decker, the cognitive neuroscientist who led the new study, on Twitter.
Making connections between widely scattered concepts or generating a motley mix of new ideas (referred to as divergent thinking). two aspects of creativity that scientists can measure. But staying focused and ignoring distractions is also key to learning new skills, generating new ideas, or find a “flow state”..
New to anyone who has fallen asleep in class, inattention has been found to affect everything from basic cognition to learning and memory. Distractions appear and our focus falters.
But no matter how hard we try, our attention naturally fluctuates. During some research suggests that inattention is a sign that our brain is overloaded, another theory postulates that loss of concentration can occur when a task becomes too monotonous.
This could lead to some unexpected benefits. Our brains could turn inward and start wandering through their own thoughts, exist in a blissful, “mindless” state, or be looking for other information to digest – which in turn could aid in learning.
This is what Decker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) wanted to find out: where our mind goes when attention lapses, and whether losing focus can sometimes be good for learning.
She had followed research that suggested people with higher impulsivity and lower cognitive control — like young adults and children — were better at learning the relationships between seemingly unrelated information that they should ignore.
In the new study, led by Decker, a group of 53 college students were tasked with categorizing letters and numbers presented on a computer screen, flanked by distracting symbols that they were told to ignore.
People’s attention swayed in and out of focus as expected. The researchers observed this with a technique that recognizes fluctuations in attention based on personal reaction times.
In moments of lack of concentration, people’s attention expanded, allowing them to absorb the symbols that actually corresponded to the appearance of a letter or number – essentially directing their brain to what was being displayed on the screen with an additional clue.
People who lost focus more often actually responded faster and more accurately, indicating better learning of the patterns encoded by the symbols.
“People who learned the most about target-flanker pairings were more likely to be in a state of reduced attention—that is, ‘out of zone’—than those who learned less,” the researchers said to write in their published work.
Additionally, when the researchers zoomed in on individual participants, they could see that learning was more evident during their attention lapses.
“Our results suggest that sometimes losing focus can even be a good thing,” Decker said tweeted. “But alternating between concentrated and less concentrated periods might be best overall.”
Of course, these lab experiments only scratch the surface of how our brain registers or prioritizes peripheral information in the real world — a far more complex environment than a computer room.
But his findings fit with a growing body of research out there shook off the negative vibes around mind wandering and daydreaming. Previous studies have found what many people can attest to: let your mind wander after a period of sustained focus help get creative juices flowing.
find the sweet point of engagement However, stimulating the brain’s creative tendencies seems important: too much stimulation and our brain pays little attention to ideation; too few stimuli and the task becomes boring.
Attention is a fickle thing. Previous studies have shown that our brain shifts the focus four times per second, as if scanning its surroundings for other stimuli it might need to register. It’s a useful skill for staying alert to potential dangers, but also an activity pattern that’s easy to pick up in a world full of distractions.
What maybe matters is our intention: whether we’re giving our brain some room to wander around, finding new connections or ideas in unusual places – like in the hot steam from a shower – or lull it into muffled fatigue with a Blur of rolling screens.
The study was published in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
