Look and Listen: Brain Struggles to do Both

I left the title of this post exactly as it appears on the Live Science web site. It's shocking to me to think that my brain and your brain struggle to look and listen at the same time. It reminds me of the old joke about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but this story is no joke.

"Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device," said Steven Yantis, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist. "Directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain."

"By advancing our understanding of the connection between mind, brain and behavior, this research may help in the design of complex devices – such as airliner cockpits – and may help in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia," Yantis said.

I see another application of this research, which is described in the link to this post, that goes beyond driving with cell phone in hand or the design of cockpits. Think about the student sitting in a lecture hall on a college campus. The instructor reveals a complicated graph of profit maximization, and launches into a lecture on the subject at the same time. The poor student sits there trying to look and listen at the same time. What's the brain doing? Struggling to cope.

Solution to the problem? I'm not a scientist so I can't say for sure. If I wanted to be a smart aleck, I might suggest pausing for a moment of silent prayer. But since prayer is illegal in the schools, maybe I'll just suggest pausing for a moment of silence. Let the students' brains take in information through the eyes (the looking part), before I start talking and they have to start listening.

General principle: If people struggle to do more than one thing at time because the brain has difficulty coping, then stop doing more than one thing at a time. No wonder people feel so drained after a hard day of multitasking at work. One thing at a time, and first things first. Maybe that's the way to a more effective day at work and more effective learning in the classroom. At least, that's what this research suggests to me. What do you think?