Keeping (un)Focused

What brain science can teach us about attention and unattention

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We like to think of being focused as a good trait, and there are certainly many benefits. But let’s also not forget that there are many dangers to being focused also. Let’s review the brain and science of being focused and unfocused.

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Focus, focus, focus. Focus should be a good thing, and we have many expressions to urge ourselves and others to keep focus, keep on track, to focus on the right things. But, as with all things it has two sides, and paradoxically being unfocused may enable you to be more focused, not to mention that inspiration, insight, creativity, and innovation probably require less focus, but certainly not the laser focus that many assume is a good thing to have in business or as personality trait.

So, first let’s visit why we think focus is a good thing. For that we can turn to those with ADHD particularly children, who can’t focus on tasks, are inattentive, their mind wanders and so miss instructions, wrongly complete tasks, or do not complete tasks at all, may start a task but become distracted quickly, blurt out responses quickly without waiting, and can’t wat for their turn. This severely limits them in their ability to successfully complete schoolwork and we can see that these descriptors are also problematic in the workplace also. Giving those with ADHD medication, significantly improves their attention and ability to perform better at school. So just what is happening in the brain, and does this give us insights as to how much of a good thing focus is?

First off, intuitively, attention feels like a good thing, it enables us to attend to things and therefore get things done. So much is true but, as always there is a downside, or rather a trade-off. If you are focusing on one thing, you are not focusing on something else. The famous gorilla experiments showed these dramatically and unbelievably (read box at end of article if you are not familiar with these). Another aspect is something called the attentional blink - that is on memory tasks with letters, numbers, or shapes flashing up on a screen, for example, “count the circles”. When you identify a circle there is a blink, a decrease in attention, for the subsequent figure. So, focusing on circles decreases or mostly wipes out attention and memory for what immediately follows this. If in this case squares came straight after circles our awareness of squares would be massively reduced, in the worst case almost wiped out. So, attending to one thing reduces attention to another.