1 00:00:06,610 --> 00:00:09,391 Thank you. It's quite a privilege to be here today. 2 00:00:10,097 --> 00:00:14,138 I'm going to start with this picture here and see if anyone in this room - 3 00:00:14,331 --> 00:00:16,138 let's start with a show of hands - 4 00:00:16,138 --> 00:00:18,186 knows what this picture is depicting. 5 00:00:19,915 --> 00:00:21,443 Does anyone know what this is? 6 00:00:21,443 --> 00:00:25,267 This is the feeling that you have after you've left the couch 7 00:00:25,267 --> 00:00:28,884 with a clear idea in mind about what you wanted to get in the kitchen. 8 00:00:28,884 --> 00:00:29,924 (Laughter) 9 00:00:29,924 --> 00:00:33,885 You arrive there, look in the refrigerator and have no idea what you're doing. 10 00:00:33,885 --> 00:00:34,903 (Laughter) 11 00:00:34,903 --> 00:00:37,109 Has anyone in this room ever experienced this? 12 00:00:37,211 --> 00:00:39,592 Don't be shy if you have. You could share with us. 13 00:00:40,221 --> 00:00:41,499 How amazing is that, 14 00:00:41,568 --> 00:00:43,934 that our magnificent brains could let us down, 15 00:00:43,934 --> 00:00:46,931 that we could know exactly what we want, one single item, 16 00:00:46,931 --> 00:00:49,343 and just seven seconds later, we don't remember it. 17 00:00:49,343 --> 00:00:53,017 Clearly, we have the ability to remember a single item for seven seconds. 18 00:00:53,019 --> 00:00:54,289 How is that possible? 19 00:00:54,401 --> 00:00:56,646 How is it possible that our brains could fail us 20 00:00:56,754 --> 00:00:59,699 in that very easy task of just holding one thing in mind? 21 00:01:00,599 --> 00:01:03,314 The brain is the most remarkable structure we're aware of. 22 00:01:03,375 --> 00:01:06,292 It's capable of incredibly rapid parallel processing, 23 00:01:06,292 --> 00:01:09,521 allowing us to interpret complex stimuli in our environment 24 00:01:09,521 --> 00:01:11,058 within a tenth of a second. 25 00:01:11,204 --> 00:01:12,262 Even computers, 26 00:01:12,494 --> 00:01:14,276 which are designed to try to do this, 27 00:01:14,276 --> 00:01:16,208 have an inability to do that. 28 00:01:16,491 --> 00:01:20,119 Plus, we store a massive amount of information over the course of our lives, 29 00:01:20,119 --> 00:01:23,250 by some estimates, a billion bits of information - 30 00:01:23,356 --> 00:01:26,785 that's 50,000 times the text stored in the library of Congress. 31 00:01:27,528 --> 00:01:31,391 Despite living in a rather small space, the brain is a massive structure, 32 00:01:31,584 --> 00:01:34,584 having approximately a hundred billion neurons - 33 00:01:34,762 --> 00:01:38,283 that's on the order of stars in the core of our Milky Way galaxy. 34 00:01:38,610 --> 00:01:40,138 What's even more impressive 35 00:01:40,138 --> 00:01:44,260 is that there are hundreds of trillions of connections between these neurons, 36 00:01:44,260 --> 00:01:50,343 creating a staggering network of very, very intricate complexity. 37 00:01:51,277 --> 00:01:54,300 But I don't have to tell you a lot of cool facts about the brain 38 00:01:54,300 --> 00:01:56,636 for you to realize how amazing it is: 39 00:01:56,636 --> 00:01:59,115 every emotion you feel, every thought you have, 40 00:01:59,115 --> 00:02:02,333 every sensation you experience, every move you make, 41 00:02:02,333 --> 00:02:04,071 your very sense of identity - 42 00:02:04,071 --> 00:02:06,923 all emerges from the function of our brains. 43 00:02:07,915 --> 00:02:10,867 Despite that, the brain has some very distinct limitations. 44 00:02:11,044 --> 00:02:12,759 I'll be talking about three of them. 45 00:02:12,909 --> 00:02:14,663 The first is attention. 46 00:02:14,963 --> 00:02:18,566 We know, just based on our experience and now an incredible amount of data, 47 00:02:18,576 --> 00:02:21,547 that we cannot distribute our attention everywhere, infinitely. 48 00:02:21,554 --> 00:02:25,159 We can selectively focus our attention, and that's what it's required to do: 49 00:02:25,159 --> 00:02:29,365 that we direct our resources to what our goals are guiding us towards. 50 00:02:29,963 --> 00:02:32,652 Another limitation is something known as working memory. 51 00:02:32,815 --> 00:02:35,732 Working memory is online memory, not long-term memory. 52 00:02:35,732 --> 00:02:37,895 It's the memory you use to guide your actions; 53 00:02:37,895 --> 00:02:41,780 it happens during a conversation to carry the thread of what's going on. 54 00:02:41,849 --> 00:02:44,163 It's also the type of the memory that you use -- 55 00:02:44,163 --> 00:02:47,744 in the past, when someone gave you a phone number instead of send it to you, 56 00:02:47,744 --> 00:02:50,507 you had to hold it in mind until you got it into the phone. 57 00:02:50,507 --> 00:02:53,647 We know that there are very strict limits on this capacity, 58 00:02:53,657 --> 00:02:56,406 and they decrease as information becomes more complex. 59 00:02:57,454 --> 00:02:59,287 Another limitation is speed. 60 00:02:59,457 --> 00:03:02,558 Although, as I described, our brains and certainly the neurons, 61 00:03:02,562 --> 00:03:06,511 if you look down at a high resolution, are capable of very rapid processing. 62 00:03:06,511 --> 00:03:09,104 Because our brain functions as this massive network, 63 00:03:09,414 --> 00:03:11,402 when you have very complex operations, 64 00:03:11,601 --> 00:03:15,647 speed of all these areas communicating with each other becomes a limitation. 65 00:03:16,456 --> 00:03:19,149 So these three limitations on our brain's abilities 66 00:03:19,194 --> 00:03:22,264 leads to a sensitivity to interference. 67 00:03:22,538 --> 00:03:24,285 I'm going to describe what that is. 68 00:03:24,285 --> 00:03:27,686 We went and we asked folks when they had this experience - 69 00:03:27,686 --> 00:03:29,440 and almost everyone describes this; 70 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,407 it increases as you get older, for those of you that had not noticed - 71 00:03:33,408 --> 00:03:34,349 What happens? 72 00:03:34,349 --> 00:03:38,648 What led you to find your way to the kitchen with a clear idea in mind 73 00:03:38,716 --> 00:03:41,645 and when you got there you didn't know what you were doing, 74 00:03:41,740 --> 00:03:44,355 and you could not remember what you were trying to get? 75 00:03:44,657 --> 00:03:48,276 And people describe in their best experience what is happening, 76 00:03:48,399 --> 00:03:50,602 and we built a conceptual framework from this. 77 00:03:50,666 --> 00:03:53,216 And then we study it in our lab, I'm a neuroscientist, 78 00:03:53,275 --> 00:03:55,728 we use tools to study how the brain functions, 79 00:03:55,891 --> 00:03:58,253 and how that leads to higher-order behaviors. 80 00:03:58,287 --> 00:04:01,601 So we built the framework based on people's anecdotes and experiences, 81 00:04:01,601 --> 00:04:05,374 and then tried to pursue it empirically and see if these were really mechanisms 82 00:04:05,375 --> 00:04:08,502 that influence behavior in the way people experience. 83 00:04:08,837 --> 00:04:10,643 So this is how the framework goes: 84 00:04:10,643 --> 00:04:13,526 we see that there's two types of interference, generally - 85 00:04:13,527 --> 00:04:16,569 internal interference and externally induced interference. 86 00:04:16,692 --> 00:04:21,394 We could split those each into different types of interference based on your goals. 87 00:04:21,613 --> 00:04:24,806 So if the information is totally irrelevant to you, 88 00:04:24,828 --> 00:04:26,506 we consider it a distraction. 89 00:04:26,697 --> 00:04:29,330 Let's say you're at a restaurant having a conversation. 90 00:04:29,330 --> 00:04:32,614 If you have any hopes of remembering the details of that conversation, 91 00:04:32,614 --> 00:04:35,526 you know you're very busy suppressing the chatter in the room, 92 00:04:35,526 --> 00:04:39,051 maybe the waiter is taking an order at the next table, 93 00:04:39,051 --> 00:04:40,834 you're just trying to block that out, 94 00:04:40,834 --> 00:04:42,182 it's irrelevant information, 95 00:04:42,182 --> 00:04:43,596 you're trying to suppress it. 96 00:04:43,596 --> 00:04:46,035 That same stimuli can serve 97 00:04:46,035 --> 00:04:48,475 as what we call interruptions, or multitasking, 98 00:04:48,475 --> 00:04:51,385 when you think maybe you can do more than one thing at a time. 99 00:04:51,385 --> 00:04:53,215 Maybe you're having that conversation, 100 00:04:53,215 --> 00:04:54,710 but now you're trying to listen 101 00:04:54,710 --> 00:04:57,658 to what the specials are being announced at the next table. 102 00:04:57,658 --> 00:05:00,471 Or you're on the way to the refrigerator and a phone rings; 103 00:05:00,471 --> 00:05:03,688 you pick it up, and now you have to reengage in your initial task. 104 00:05:03,688 --> 00:05:05,894 That's how we split external interference. 105 00:05:05,894 --> 00:05:08,255 This can all happen internally as well. 106 00:05:08,439 --> 00:05:09,982 Some of it is mind wondering: 107 00:05:10,054 --> 00:05:14,400 your thoughts leave your focus against your will, irrelevantly, 108 00:05:14,602 --> 00:05:17,438 just travel to places that you did not intend them to. 109 00:05:17,714 --> 00:05:19,989 Or you could be multitasking internally. 110 00:05:19,989 --> 00:05:21,592 Perhaps you're doing it now: 111 00:05:21,592 --> 00:05:23,363 you pay attention to what I'm saying, 112 00:05:23,363 --> 00:05:25,316 you look at the slides, listening to me, 113 00:05:25,316 --> 00:05:27,844 but you might be planning what to have for lunch later 114 00:05:27,844 --> 00:05:30,146 and who you're going to meet in the afternoon. 115 00:05:30,146 --> 00:05:35,368 So this constant interference keeps us from being present, directed on our goals. 116 00:05:36,905 --> 00:05:41,310 So, given those limitations of our brain and our susceptibility to interference, 117 00:05:41,323 --> 00:05:44,433 what happens when you take your brain and you expose it to this? 118 00:05:44,433 --> 00:05:45,528 (Laughter) 119 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:49,637 You're probably all familiar with most of these things. 120 00:05:49,838 --> 00:05:51,897 The last several decades have literally seen 121 00:05:51,897 --> 00:05:56,121 an explosion of the diversity and accessibility of electronic media, 122 00:05:56,471 --> 00:05:59,445 and the devices that deliver it, many of which are portable. 123 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:02,524 Probably most of you have a computer in your pockets right now 124 00:06:02,524 --> 00:06:05,025 that allows you to access this at any moment. 125 00:06:05,458 --> 00:06:08,311 What's even more profound, it's not the change in technology, 126 00:06:08,311 --> 00:06:11,817 but historically one media has replaced other medias. 127 00:06:11,922 --> 00:06:13,490 That's not what's happening now. 128 00:06:13,490 --> 00:06:16,060 Now, data shows, I'm sure you're all aware of it, 129 00:06:16,065 --> 00:06:18,307 that people are using medias at the same time. 130 00:06:18,508 --> 00:06:20,403 Approximately 95 percent of people 131 00:06:20,403 --> 00:06:23,128 report using more than one form of media at a time, 132 00:06:23,128 --> 00:06:26,746 and that activity takes place almost 30 percent of your days. 133 00:06:28,076 --> 00:06:30,654 Children might probably have this even more so, 134 00:06:30,654 --> 00:06:33,095 although it's just beginning to be investigated now. 135 00:06:33,095 --> 00:06:35,609 Almost an obsessive media multitasking frenzy - 136 00:06:35,609 --> 00:06:36,897 you're almost uncomfortable 137 00:06:36,897 --> 00:06:40,830 when taken away from your ability to interact with technology in this way. 138 00:06:41,022 --> 00:06:44,271 Before I move forward, I want to say that I'm a friend of technology, 139 00:06:44,271 --> 00:06:48,789 I'm not anti-technology; I use all these wonderful toys as well as you do. 140 00:06:48,905 --> 00:06:52,361 Here I am, working on this talk; I've two large computer monitors, 141 00:06:52,361 --> 00:06:55,718 email on the left side, cell phone in hand accepting texts, 142 00:06:55,718 --> 00:06:57,885 music playing in the background. 143 00:06:57,982 --> 00:07:01,219 This is how we all interact with technology, at least to some degree. 144 00:07:01,219 --> 00:07:05,160 Some people have up to six or more forms of media at any given time. 145 00:07:06,463 --> 00:07:08,694 Another thing that's changed are expectations. 146 00:07:08,930 --> 00:07:11,237 This constant access to communications, 147 00:07:11,237 --> 00:07:17,088 computers and data has really changed societal expectations. 148 00:07:17,484 --> 00:07:22,448 Now immediate responsiveness and continuous productivity are expected. 149 00:07:22,790 --> 00:07:25,739 How many of you are on vacation and check your email? 150 00:07:26,389 --> 00:07:29,517 A little dark in here, but I just see a lot of movement out there. 151 00:07:29,517 --> 00:07:32,426 So I'll take that as a resounding ''yes,'' right. 152 00:07:32,426 --> 00:07:34,997 So we know that our ability to disconnect, 153 00:07:34,997 --> 00:07:37,920 to really be present in what we're experiencing is decreasing, 154 00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:39,885 even when we're "taking vacations," 155 00:07:39,885 --> 00:07:43,402 the break from all of this constant productivity. 156 00:07:44,810 --> 00:07:48,189 So, we should ask the question: how do we function at all? 157 00:07:48,274 --> 00:07:51,148 Given those limitations and how we interact with technology, 158 00:07:51,148 --> 00:07:53,466 how are we capable of getting anything done? 159 00:07:53,553 --> 00:07:56,711 I want to tell you about the process of cognitive control. 160 00:07:56,793 --> 00:08:00,176 Cognitive control is what allows us to function at least to some degree 161 00:08:00,201 --> 00:08:01,679 under these circumstances. 162 00:08:01,884 --> 00:08:04,269 How we perceive the world is not a passive process. 163 00:08:04,269 --> 00:08:06,701 Our environment just doesn't flood into our brains. 164 00:08:06,701 --> 00:08:09,350 It's sculpted and shaped by our attention. 165 00:08:09,474 --> 00:08:11,030 Two types of attention: 166 00:08:11,030 --> 00:08:14,311 One attention is external, stimulus-driven attention, 167 00:08:14,362 --> 00:08:18,028 it is the environment imposing itself upon how you perceive the world. 168 00:08:18,267 --> 00:08:20,505 If there's a flash of light, a loud sound, 169 00:08:20,505 --> 00:08:22,893 even if someone calls your name quietly behind you, 170 00:08:22,893 --> 00:08:25,086 you pay attention, you redirect your attention. 171 00:08:25,344 --> 00:08:28,713 Anything that's very salient or novel demands your attention 172 00:08:28,740 --> 00:08:30,633 and increases your perception of it. 173 00:08:30,710 --> 00:08:32,097 The other type of attention - 174 00:08:32,097 --> 00:08:35,045 the environment coming in is also known as bottom-up attention. 175 00:08:35,045 --> 00:08:37,775 The other type is internal, goal-directed attention, 176 00:08:37,775 --> 00:08:38,851 what you're doing now. 177 00:08:38,851 --> 00:08:41,210 You're choosing to focus your cognitive resources 178 00:08:41,210 --> 00:08:43,594 on what you're hearing and what you're seeing. 179 00:08:43,794 --> 00:08:45,832 This is known as top-down attention, 180 00:08:45,832 --> 00:08:47,292 your goal-directed attention. 181 00:08:47,292 --> 00:08:50,715 All of your interactions with the environment involve this balance 182 00:08:50,715 --> 00:08:55,133 between these two forms of attention that are dictating your perception. 183 00:08:55,391 --> 00:08:59,911 And now we know from a lot of research, a lot of it from our lab also, 184 00:09:00,046 --> 00:09:05,121 is that this influence then goes on and influences what you remember, 185 00:09:05,121 --> 00:09:08,193 both in the short-term and in the long-term. 186 00:09:09,026 --> 00:09:12,984 So what happens when all this interference that we are being exposed to now 187 00:09:13,474 --> 00:09:17,038 exceeds the capabilities of our cognitive control? 188 00:09:17,610 --> 00:09:22,353 Well, what we now realize is that there is a broad and deep influence: 189 00:09:22,516 --> 00:09:27,706 safety, family, our social development, workplace, education. 190 00:09:27,931 --> 00:09:29,706 All of these things are affected. 191 00:09:29,918 --> 00:09:33,315 There's not nearly enough time in this talk to talk about these 192 00:09:33,330 --> 00:09:37,105 since each one of these can have their own lecture associated with them, 193 00:09:37,105 --> 00:09:39,894 showing you how broad this issue is. 194 00:09:40,316 --> 00:09:43,316 What I'm going to talk to you about in detail is cognition, 195 00:09:43,316 --> 00:09:46,866 because this is what we study in our lab, specifically memory. 196 00:09:47,307 --> 00:09:50,057 There's a really beautiful quote by Samuel Johnson, 197 00:09:50,521 --> 00:09:53,886 who was a British author in the 1700s. 198 00:09:54,192 --> 00:09:56,672 He wasn't a psychologist, he wasn't a neuroscientist, 199 00:09:56,672 --> 00:09:58,248 but he was incredibly insightful. 200 00:09:58,248 --> 00:10:02,438 He said something that really showed a profound awareness, 201 00:10:02,450 --> 00:10:04,629 because there was no data on this at the time. 202 00:10:04,886 --> 00:10:08,760 What he said is that "the true art of memory is the art of attention," 203 00:10:08,894 --> 00:10:11,449 that "no man will read with much advantage 204 00:10:11,463 --> 00:10:14,119 who is not able, at pleasure, to evacuate his mind," 205 00:10:14,316 --> 00:10:16,851 that "if the repositories of thought are already full, 206 00:10:16,851 --> 00:10:18,364 what can they receive?" 207 00:10:18,596 --> 00:10:21,234 And "if the mind is employed on the past or the future, 208 00:10:21,234 --> 00:10:23,830 the book will be held before the eyes in vain." 209 00:10:23,956 --> 00:10:26,351 There's a full career of research studies here. 210 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:28,600 We're slowly working our way through these 211 00:10:28,682 --> 00:10:31,846 to show what's going on in the brain that leads to this, 212 00:10:31,846 --> 00:10:34,495 and how true is this to our behavior. 213 00:10:34,782 --> 00:10:36,993 So, I figured the easiest way to do this 214 00:10:36,993 --> 00:10:40,006 is to have you perform one of our experiments right now, 215 00:10:40,371 --> 00:10:42,155 so you can get an idea of what we do. 216 00:10:42,187 --> 00:10:44,647 And while we do this, we'll record brain activities. 217 00:10:44,647 --> 00:10:46,845 You'll do a less demanding version of this, 218 00:10:46,845 --> 00:10:49,314 where you're not shoved inside one of our scanners. 219 00:10:49,873 --> 00:10:54,413 What we are going have you do now is "Remember a face," very simple experiment. 220 00:10:54,513 --> 00:10:55,737 One face will come up, 221 00:10:55,737 --> 00:10:57,940 it comes up pretty quickly, so be ready for it. 222 00:10:57,940 --> 00:11:01,214 Then around 7 seconds will pass, there will be an X on the screen, 223 00:11:01,214 --> 00:11:03,558 and you should remember the face - just one face. 224 00:11:03,558 --> 00:11:06,106 Then another face comes up, and your job is be to say, 225 00:11:06,106 --> 00:11:08,919 "Yes, that's the face I saw," or "No, that's a new face." 226 00:11:09,038 --> 00:11:11,162 O.K.? Ready to give it a shot? 227 00:11:20,642 --> 00:11:21,645 (Audience) No. 228 00:11:21,645 --> 00:11:23,154 No. The answer is no. 229 00:11:23,154 --> 00:11:24,522 If any of you thinking yes, 230 00:11:24,522 --> 00:11:25,522 do not be nervous, 231 00:11:25,522 --> 00:11:27,909 no reason to make a clinic appointment right now. 232 00:11:27,909 --> 00:11:31,768 It takes practice to get used to this, people don't always get a 100 percent. 233 00:11:32,007 --> 00:11:35,859 I'm going to have you do another version of this experiment, it's the same thing - 234 00:11:35,859 --> 00:11:37,490 see a face, after a period of time 235 00:11:37,490 --> 00:11:40,358 another face'll come up and you'll have to see if it matches. 236 00:11:40,358 --> 00:11:43,354 But in this experiment, another face will pop up in the middle, 237 00:11:43,354 --> 00:11:46,784 and for that face you'll have to make a decision: is it a male over 20? 238 00:11:46,784 --> 00:11:49,789 Then you go back to the business of remembering that first face. 239 00:11:49,799 --> 00:11:50,804 Does that make sense? 240 00:11:50,804 --> 00:11:51,834 (Laughter) 241 00:11:51,834 --> 00:11:54,510 Remember one face and make a decision on the middle face. 242 00:11:54,510 --> 00:11:56,080 Pretty simple. Give it a shot. 243 00:12:05,478 --> 00:12:06,991 (Audience) Yes. 244 00:12:07,016 --> 00:12:08,025 It was the same face. 245 00:12:08,025 --> 00:12:10,507 So, did this seem a little harder to you? 246 00:12:10,585 --> 00:12:11,600 (Audience) Yes. 247 00:12:11,625 --> 00:12:12,691 It is a little harder. 248 00:12:12,736 --> 00:12:17,383 If you study even healthy 20-30-year-olds, you see that the performance diminishes 249 00:12:17,383 --> 00:12:19,692 when you introduce that second task, 250 00:12:19,692 --> 00:12:21,564 even though it's not a hard experiment. 251 00:12:21,564 --> 00:12:24,191 Not only that, but if you introduce a face in the middle 252 00:12:24,191 --> 00:12:27,017 that's totally irrelevant, your performance also drops - 253 00:12:27,017 --> 00:12:29,050 very subtle, but consistently. 254 00:12:29,326 --> 00:12:31,494 If you happen to be older than 60, 255 00:12:31,494 --> 00:12:33,992 your performance drops even more from the distraction 256 00:12:33,992 --> 00:12:35,981 and even more so from the interruption. 257 00:12:36,166 --> 00:12:40,215 So we see that there's an exaggerated effect with age of this impact 258 00:12:40,215 --> 00:12:42,235 that's even there in 20- and 30-year-olds. 259 00:12:42,467 --> 00:12:46,198 We are now looking at how this type of distraction and interruptions 260 00:12:46,198 --> 00:12:48,147 might affect your long-term memory. 261 00:12:48,303 --> 00:12:53,036 So we did an experiment where we showed our participants a series of 168 pictures 262 00:12:53,036 --> 00:12:54,943 that had different numbers of objects. 263 00:12:55,227 --> 00:12:59,513 So what you see here are 3 crowns, 4 couches, that's 4 vacuum cleaners - 264 00:12:59,525 --> 00:13:03,341 though they look like Statues of Liberty every time I look at that slide. 265 00:13:03,341 --> 00:13:06,181 But you see all these pictures, and then, after an hour, 266 00:13:06,181 --> 00:13:07,969 you go inside our MRI scanner 267 00:13:07,969 --> 00:13:10,192 so we could see what's happening in your brain, 268 00:13:10,192 --> 00:13:11,595 and you hear these names: 269 00:13:11,595 --> 00:13:13,337 "Crown," and when you hear "Crown," 270 00:13:13,337 --> 00:13:16,203 you have to press the button on how many you remember seeing. 271 00:13:16,203 --> 00:13:19,090 Here the correct answer would be 3, or it might be new, 272 00:13:19,090 --> 00:13:20,906 maybe we never showed that one before. 273 00:13:20,931 --> 00:13:24,228 The interesting thing is that we look at what happens to your memory 274 00:13:24,228 --> 00:13:25,693 when your eyes are shut, 275 00:13:25,693 --> 00:13:27,790 when they are open looking at a grey screen, 276 00:13:27,790 --> 00:13:30,749 and when your eyes are open looking at a busy visual picture. 277 00:13:31,032 --> 00:13:33,732 And what we found is that the detailed quality, 278 00:13:33,732 --> 00:13:36,679 your recollection of those details decline 279 00:13:37,016 --> 00:13:39,563 just by having your eyes open looking at a picture, 280 00:13:39,563 --> 00:13:41,761 which is basically what you do all day long. 281 00:13:42,188 --> 00:13:44,858 Just that very simple stimulus, 282 00:13:44,858 --> 00:13:47,239 that you have nothing to do besides remember, 283 00:13:47,239 --> 00:13:49,493 declines just by having your eyes open. 284 00:13:49,916 --> 00:13:51,750 Later, you should do this experiment: 285 00:13:51,750 --> 00:13:54,770 Go up to a significant other or a friend, look them in the eyes, 286 00:13:54,770 --> 00:13:58,313 and ask them to tell you in detail what they had for dinner last night. 287 00:13:58,359 --> 00:14:01,753 Almost invariably, what you'll see is that they look away from you. 288 00:14:01,858 --> 00:14:04,503 What we think is going on from looking at the brain data 289 00:14:04,503 --> 00:14:07,726 is that people are looking for a quiet place in their environment 290 00:14:07,726 --> 00:14:08,939 to recreate this memory. 291 00:14:08,939 --> 00:14:10,876 Just looking at your face 292 00:14:10,876 --> 00:14:13,208 is too distracting to do this at a high level. 293 00:14:13,208 --> 00:14:14,436 (Laughter) 294 00:14:14,566 --> 00:14:16,024 Nothing personal. 295 00:14:17,096 --> 00:14:19,885 We did another experiment, where it was basically the same, 296 00:14:19,885 --> 00:14:22,785 but now it was done in silence, or we went into a restaurant 297 00:14:22,786 --> 00:14:26,301 and we taped the normal chatter that occurs in a restaurant, 298 00:14:26,301 --> 00:14:28,684 and we found the same decline in memory. 299 00:14:28,861 --> 00:14:29,898 The point of this 300 00:14:29,898 --> 00:14:33,214 is not that you should walk around with blindfolds on and earplugs in. 301 00:14:33,214 --> 00:14:37,337 The point is to show you how exquisitely sensitive our memory is 302 00:14:37,518 --> 00:14:40,889 even to the normal environmental stimulation that we cannot escape. 303 00:14:40,889 --> 00:14:41,905 So you can imagine 304 00:14:41,905 --> 00:14:45,909 when you layer upon all the normal complexity that exists in our environment. 305 00:14:46,082 --> 00:14:48,909 But we do this, the reason we make such simple experiments 306 00:14:48,909 --> 00:14:51,331 is we're recording brain activity with these tools: 307 00:14:51,331 --> 00:14:55,509 functional MRI that lets us look at blood flow correlates of neural activity 308 00:14:55,509 --> 00:14:58,200 and lets us see where in the brain events are occurring; 309 00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:02,519 as well as EEG, in which we're looking at electrical signatures of neural activity, 310 00:15:02,532 --> 00:15:04,696 where we can see when events are occurring. 311 00:15:04,696 --> 00:15:05,889 And we do these tools 312 00:15:05,889 --> 00:15:10,454 to understand what happens in our brain when we have interference 313 00:15:10,454 --> 00:15:12,217 and how it diminishes our abilities. 314 00:15:12,565 --> 00:15:15,393 I'm just going to summarize this with a couple of cartoons, 315 00:15:15,415 --> 00:15:17,424 data from our lab and so many labs 316 00:15:17,427 --> 00:15:20,583 to give you the latest understanding about what's going on. 317 00:15:21,593 --> 00:15:23,054 This is your brain. 318 00:15:23,281 --> 00:15:25,706 The front part is over here on this side, 319 00:15:25,731 --> 00:15:28,650 and what we see is that the prefrontal cortex - 320 00:15:28,676 --> 00:15:31,756 that's the part of our brain that makes us most human, 321 00:15:31,756 --> 00:15:35,371 the part that's evolved the most, the part that develops the latest, 322 00:15:35,372 --> 00:15:38,669 it's the part that's involved in this cognitive control. 323 00:15:38,947 --> 00:15:42,952 And when you're confronted with distraction, it acts as a bouncer. 324 00:15:43,152 --> 00:15:45,916 It's saying, "What information is on the guest list?" 325 00:15:46,014 --> 00:15:49,450 And through its connectivity in a network with visual parts of the brain, 326 00:15:49,450 --> 00:15:50,655 which are in the back, 327 00:15:50,655 --> 00:15:52,937 it controls what information gets in. 328 00:15:53,197 --> 00:15:55,217 You can see this is a very busy night club, 329 00:15:55,217 --> 00:15:59,520 but your visual cortex will only fit six things or even less at a time, 330 00:15:59,520 --> 00:16:01,476 depending on how complicated they are. 331 00:16:01,735 --> 00:16:04,597 When information gets in that's not on the guest list, 332 00:16:04,602 --> 00:16:07,211 you have a cost - your performance drops. 333 00:16:07,484 --> 00:16:09,415 This is what changes as we get older: 334 00:16:09,415 --> 00:16:12,230 our filter, our ability to block out information decreases, 335 00:16:12,230 --> 00:16:15,226 and the degree that it decreases directly correlates 336 00:16:15,226 --> 00:16:19,689 with our inability to remember the things that we're trying to remember - our goals. 337 00:16:19,962 --> 00:16:22,605 What happens in terms of multitasking? 338 00:16:22,769 --> 00:16:25,185 Once again, the prefrontal cortex is in charge. 339 00:16:25,234 --> 00:16:27,419 But here it's acting as a flight controller. 340 00:16:27,425 --> 00:16:30,981 It's determining what information is the priority right now, 341 00:16:31,337 --> 00:16:34,002 and through its connections with the back of the brain, 342 00:16:34,002 --> 00:16:35,051 it's making decisions. 343 00:16:35,051 --> 00:16:36,316 So, if you're crazy enough 344 00:16:36,316 --> 00:16:39,802 to be riding a bike through Manhattan next to a cab, texting, 345 00:16:39,918 --> 00:16:41,650 you have a lot of decisions to make. 346 00:16:41,805 --> 00:16:45,221 So, maybe, the first decision is to focus on the traffic, 347 00:16:45,364 --> 00:16:49,149 and then you think that it's safe enough to now continue your text message, 348 00:16:49,166 --> 00:16:50,731 and so you do that. 349 00:16:50,739 --> 00:16:54,912 But what you don't do is this: you don't split those decisions. 350 00:16:55,041 --> 00:16:58,089 The prefrontal cortex has what's known as a central bottleneck. 351 00:16:58,382 --> 00:17:00,540 And so what you do is switch. 352 00:17:00,641 --> 00:17:02,865 Your prefrontal cortex switches between tasks 353 00:17:02,871 --> 00:17:05,655 even though it feels like you're doing more than one thing. 354 00:17:05,655 --> 00:17:08,982 This is what's led this being referred to as the myth of multitasking - 355 00:17:08,982 --> 00:17:11,322 that you're not really doing more than one thing 356 00:17:11,322 --> 00:17:13,035 unless they become very automated, 357 00:17:13,035 --> 00:17:14,462 gum chewing, walking. 358 00:17:14,554 --> 00:17:18,268 Although even those have been found to have some interference with each other, 359 00:17:18,268 --> 00:17:19,274 believe it or not. 360 00:17:19,299 --> 00:17:20,572 (Laughter) 361 00:17:20,736 --> 00:17:24,500 With each switch, there is a time delay, and this leads to a cost - 362 00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:25,987 an impact on performance. 363 00:17:26,089 --> 00:17:29,395 You do not do two things as well as you do one thing 364 00:17:29,395 --> 00:17:33,440 if you switch back and forth between them, and this gets worse as you get older. 365 00:17:33,495 --> 00:17:37,625 We just had a paper published last week that shows that as you get older, 366 00:17:37,650 --> 00:17:39,684 this switching, the letting go, 367 00:17:39,684 --> 00:17:43,001 the disengaging and the reengaging become slower, 368 00:17:43,001 --> 00:17:45,777 and this creates the interference in your memory. 369 00:17:46,618 --> 00:17:47,831 Why do we do it? 370 00:17:47,876 --> 00:17:50,577 We get the impression, and we have lots of data now, 371 00:17:50,577 --> 00:17:53,450 that this is negative on our performance. 372 00:17:53,512 --> 00:17:56,485 There is not a lot of data for this, some of this is anecdotal, 373 00:17:56,510 --> 00:17:59,380 based on my impressions, but it's a resonable place to start. 374 00:17:59,537 --> 00:18:00,847 Multitasking. 375 00:18:01,140 --> 00:18:03,099 We have this sense it gives flexibility, 376 00:18:03,099 --> 00:18:05,265 fresh perspective, increased variety, 377 00:18:05,265 --> 00:18:07,432 it enables us to use downtime productively, 378 00:18:07,831 --> 00:18:11,346 but probably the most salient aspect is that it's just more fun. 379 00:18:11,427 --> 00:18:13,621 We are novelty seeking creatures. 380 00:18:13,692 --> 00:18:16,761 It's a very strong part of our evolution to seek out new. 381 00:18:16,977 --> 00:18:19,912 It stimulates the dopamine system, the reward system. 382 00:18:20,094 --> 00:18:24,020 There is no doubt that one chunk of time in which you're multitasking 383 00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:27,563 has more novelty than the same period of time in unitasking. 384 00:18:27,651 --> 00:18:29,203 And so we probably seek it out. 385 00:18:29,356 --> 00:18:33,379 There's even been a question that maybe it's even addicting at a certain level 386 00:18:33,523 --> 00:18:38,427 when you're constantly pressured to get back into a new task 387 00:18:38,452 --> 00:18:39,798 once you become used to it. 388 00:18:40,217 --> 00:18:42,748 How about distraction? It's a little more complicated. 389 00:18:42,773 --> 00:18:46,310 Why do people go into noisy coffee shops to read and to work? 390 00:18:46,310 --> 00:18:47,891 Does anyone do that in this room? 391 00:18:47,923 --> 00:18:49,183 Right, it's very common. 392 00:18:49,183 --> 00:18:51,336 Usually you know which type of person you are. 393 00:18:51,361 --> 00:18:55,557 So, it's something that's interesting - all this we're exploring in our lab now 394 00:18:55,565 --> 00:18:59,846 to understand the driving force of this, and are there possible benefits? 395 00:19:00,195 --> 00:19:01,758 So, what can be done about this? 396 00:19:01,783 --> 00:19:04,479 It's just too dreary to say all these negative things 397 00:19:04,479 --> 00:19:06,495 and then to walk off the stage. 398 00:19:06,546 --> 00:19:09,523 So, we don't have all the answers, 399 00:19:09,548 --> 00:19:11,839 but I can tell you it seems there are two paths, 400 00:19:11,864 --> 00:19:12,863 at least to me: 401 00:19:12,863 --> 00:19:15,867 we could change our behavior, or we could change our brains. 402 00:19:15,887 --> 00:19:16,887 (Laughter) 403 00:19:16,887 --> 00:19:19,672 Not necessarily in this scary way I'm depicting over here, 404 00:19:19,697 --> 00:19:20,915 but in a positive way. 405 00:19:21,007 --> 00:19:24,836 So, we could change our behavior because someone forces us to, right? 406 00:19:24,843 --> 00:19:29,864 They say it's too dangerous to talk on the phone or to text while driving, 407 00:19:29,864 --> 00:19:33,504 so we're not letting you do it anymore; we give you a ticket if you do that. 408 00:19:33,504 --> 00:19:35,814 But there's other ways we can change our behavior 409 00:19:35,814 --> 00:19:37,598 on things less dangerous to society. 410 00:19:37,598 --> 00:19:39,152 So we could make decisions. 411 00:19:39,331 --> 00:19:41,863 Just because we have all these wonderful technologies 412 00:19:41,888 --> 00:19:44,850 doesn't mean we have to use it all at exactly the same time. 413 00:19:44,875 --> 00:19:48,462 We get to make decisions based upon what we now understand 414 00:19:48,524 --> 00:19:51,763 about how this interaction with technology and with ourselves 415 00:19:51,787 --> 00:19:53,164 changes our behavior. 416 00:19:53,179 --> 00:19:56,762 So I'm going to tell you what I do; I will not tell you what to do. 417 00:19:56,788 --> 00:19:58,081 Since I've researched this, 418 00:19:58,081 --> 00:20:01,384 I felt that I needed to make some decisions about my own behavior, 419 00:20:01,384 --> 00:20:02,750 and this is what I decided: 420 00:20:02,775 --> 00:20:04,769 When working on something very important, 421 00:20:04,794 --> 00:20:08,420 something that demands high quality, especially something time sensitive, 422 00:20:08,452 --> 00:20:11,358 I do one thing at a time, singular attention, 423 00:20:11,358 --> 00:20:15,347 I quit my email - too distracting with messages coming in - 424 00:20:15,347 --> 00:20:16,485 I turn off my phone, 425 00:20:16,485 --> 00:20:20,800 I close my door, I do one thing, and I find it quite enjoyable. 426 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:23,513 I actually had stopped doing that for quite a while. 427 00:20:23,644 --> 00:20:25,247 But I don't do this all the time. 428 00:20:25,556 --> 00:20:28,412 There is many things in my day that are very boring, 429 00:20:28,412 --> 00:20:29,803 I know they have to get done, 430 00:20:29,828 --> 00:20:31,982 but I know if I try to do one thing at a time, 431 00:20:32,007 --> 00:20:33,214 I would never finish it. 432 00:20:33,239 --> 00:20:36,157 So I might set aside three hours of just intense multitasking; 433 00:20:36,182 --> 00:20:39,383 the more I'm switching, the better; it just keeps it moving along. 434 00:20:39,383 --> 00:20:42,245 So, it's not a message that technology is bad, don't do this. 435 00:20:42,245 --> 00:20:44,860 It's just the point that decisions need to be made 436 00:20:44,911 --> 00:20:47,051 when we interact and our environment changes. 437 00:20:47,051 --> 00:20:48,813 It's happened many times in the past, 438 00:20:48,813 --> 00:20:52,359 this is just another example that we have to learn how to deal with better. 439 00:20:52,555 --> 00:20:53,959 Changing our brains. 440 00:20:54,135 --> 00:20:57,286 Our brains are capable of a tremendous degree of plasticity. 441 00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:00,812 That means it adapts and modifies to stimuli from the environment. 442 00:21:00,863 --> 00:21:03,583 And we now know that this is not just when you're a child, 443 00:21:03,608 --> 00:21:05,279 it occurs through your entire life. 444 00:21:05,304 --> 00:21:09,847 We are looking at exercises - there's a video game that we developed in our lab 445 00:21:09,847 --> 00:21:13,536 to see if we can strengthen these abilities through practice. 446 00:21:13,709 --> 00:21:17,454 So, in this case, it's a car driving game and you're interacting with the road, 447 00:21:17,454 --> 00:21:20,780 signs come up, sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant, 448 00:21:21,061 --> 00:21:23,931 and you're pressing buttons, moving, challenging yourself 449 00:21:23,931 --> 00:21:26,081 in an adaptive way, in a way that's fun. 450 00:21:26,081 --> 00:21:30,720 What's interesting about this video game - it was designed to be played in our lab 451 00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:34,206 while recording brain activity and seeing what's going on in our brain 452 00:21:34,253 --> 00:21:37,044 while you interact with all this hype of interference. 453 00:21:37,044 --> 00:21:40,317 We have a study going on now with healthy older adults, 454 00:21:40,378 --> 00:21:42,000 they take home a laptop, 455 00:21:42,121 --> 00:21:44,761 and they play this game at home, and while they play it, 456 00:21:44,761 --> 00:21:47,702 their behavioral performance data downloads to their computer 457 00:21:47,702 --> 00:21:49,898 and straight from Dropbox right into our lab, 458 00:21:49,898 --> 00:21:52,217 almost in real time, we can get their brain data, 459 00:21:52,217 --> 00:21:53,452 their behavioral data, 460 00:21:53,452 --> 00:21:54,938 while they are playing at home. 461 00:21:54,963 --> 00:21:58,225 Then they come into the lab and we look what's changed in their brain 462 00:21:58,250 --> 00:22:00,367 to enable them to function at a higher level, 463 00:22:00,392 --> 00:22:01,741 which is what we're seeing - 464 00:22:01,766 --> 00:22:03,341 brains are capable of plasticity. 465 00:22:03,366 --> 00:22:07,092 We're now looking at wireless EEG bluetooth headsets 466 00:22:07,092 --> 00:22:10,866 that allow us to have our older participants put these on at home 467 00:22:10,866 --> 00:22:12,495 and record their brain activity, 468 00:22:12,495 --> 00:22:16,236 so we could move our lab outside of our laboratory into people's homes 469 00:22:16,236 --> 00:22:18,282 and record what are the changes in the brain 470 00:22:18,282 --> 00:22:20,505 that lead to this higher ability with practice. 471 00:22:20,505 --> 00:22:22,508 And then they can come back into the lab, 472 00:22:22,508 --> 00:22:25,197 and we can use fMRI to look at these changes in networks. 473 00:22:25,197 --> 00:22:27,765 I think it's an exciting time where we're learning more 474 00:22:27,765 --> 00:22:29,633 about how our brains can adapt to this. 475 00:22:29,664 --> 00:22:32,103 So with that, I want to thank you for your attention 476 00:22:32,103 --> 00:22:34,783 and, of course, your lack of attention to other things. 477 00:22:34,823 --> 00:22:40,101 (Applause)