WEBVTT 00:00:06.610 --> 00:00:09.391 Thank you. It's quite a privilege to be here today. 00:00:10.097 --> 00:00:14.138 I'm going to start with this picture here and see if anyone in this room - 00:00:14.331 --> 00:00:16.138 let's start with a show of hands - 00:00:16.138 --> 00:00:18.186 knows what this picture is depicting. 00:00:19.915 --> 00:00:21.443 Does anyone know what this is? 00:00:21.443 --> 00:00:25.267 This is the feeling that you have after you've left the couch 00:00:25.267 --> 00:00:28.884 with a clear idea in mind about what you wanted to get in the kitchen. 00:00:28.884 --> 00:00:29.924 (Laughter) 00:00:29.924 --> 00:00:33.885 You arrive there, look in the refrigerator and have no idea what you're doing. 00:00:33.885 --> 00:00:34.903 (Laughter) 00:00:34.903 --> 00:00:37.109 Has anyone in this room ever experienced this? 00:00:37.211 --> 00:00:39.592 Don't be shy if you have. You could share with us. 00:00:40.221 --> 00:00:41.499 How amazing is that, 00:00:41.568 --> 00:00:43.934 that our magnificent brains could let us down, 00:00:43.934 --> 00:00:46.931 that we could know exactly what we want, one single item, 00:00:46.931 --> 00:00:49.343 and just seven seconds later, we don't remember it. 00:00:49.343 --> 00:00:53.017 Clearly, we have the ability to remember a single item for seven seconds. 00:00:53.019 --> 00:00:54.289 How is that possible? 00:00:54.401 --> 00:00:56.646 How is it possible that our brains could fail us 00:00:56.754 --> 00:00:59.699 in that very easy task of just holding one thing in mind? 00:01:00.599 --> 00:01:03.314 The brain is the most remarkable structure we're aware of. 00:01:03.375 --> 00:01:06.292 It's capable of incredibly rapid parallel processing, 00:01:06.292 --> 00:01:09.521 allowing us to interpret complex stimuli in our environment 00:01:09.521 --> 00:01:11.058 within a tenth of a second. 00:01:11.204 --> 00:01:12.262 Even computers, 00:01:12.494 --> 00:01:14.276 which are designed to try to do this, 00:01:14.276 --> 00:01:16.208 have an inability to do that. 00:01:16.491 --> 00:01:20.119 Plus, we store a massive amount of information over the course of our lives, 00:01:20.119 --> 00:01:23.250 by some estimates, a billion bits of information - 00:01:23.356 --> 00:01:26.785 that's 50,000 times the text stored in the library of Congress. 00:01:27.528 --> 00:01:31.391 Despite living in a rather small space, the brain is a massive structure, 00:01:31.584 --> 00:01:34.584 having approximately a hundred billion neurons - 00:01:34.762 --> 00:01:38.283 that's on the order of stars in the core of our Milky Way galaxy. 00:01:38.610 --> 00:01:40.138 What's even more impressive 00:01:40.138 --> 00:01:44.260 is that there are hundreds of trillions of connections between these neurons, 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:50.343 creating a staggering network of very, very intricate complexity. 00:01:51.277 --> 00:01:54.300 But I don't have to tell you a lot of cool facts about the brain 00:01:54.300 --> 00:01:56.636 for you to realize how amazing it is: 00:01:56.636 --> 00:01:59.115 every emotion you feel, every thought you have, 00:01:59.115 --> 00:02:02.333 every sensation you experience, every move you make, 00:02:02.333 --> 00:02:04.071 your very sense of identity - 00:02:04.071 --> 00:02:06.923 all emerges from the function of our brains. 00:02:07.915 --> 00:02:10.867 Despite that, the brain has some very distinct limitations. 00:02:11.044 --> 00:02:12.759 I'll be talking about three of them. 00:02:12.909 --> 00:02:14.663 The first is attention. 00:02:14.963 --> 00:02:18.566 We know, just based on our experience and now an incredible amount of data, 00:02:18.576 --> 00:02:21.547 that we cannot distribute our attention everywhere, infinitely. 00:02:21.554 --> 00:02:25.159 We can selectively focus our attention, and that's what it's required to do: 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:29.365 that we direct our resources to what our goals are guiding us towards. 00:02:29.963 --> 00:02:32.652 Another limitation is something known as working memory. 00:02:32.815 --> 00:02:35.732 Working memory is online memory, not long-term memory. 00:02:35.732 --> 00:02:37.895 It's the memory you use to guide your actions; 00:02:37.895 --> 00:02:41.780 it happens during a conversation to carry the thread of what's going on. 00:02:41.849 --> 00:02:44.163 It's also the type of the memory that you use -- 00:02:44.163 --> 00:02:47.744 in the past, when someone gave you a phone number instead of send it to you, 00:02:47.744 --> 00:02:50.507 you had to hold it in mind until you got it into the phone. 00:02:50.507 --> 00:02:53.647 We know that there are very strict limits on this capacity, 00:02:53.657 --> 00:02:56.406 and they decrease as information becomes more complex. 00:02:57.454 --> 00:02:59.287 Another limitation is speed. 00:02:59.457 --> 00:03:02.558 Although, as I described, our brains and certainly the neurons, 00:03:02.562 --> 00:03:06.511 if you look down at a high resolution, are capable of very rapid processing. 00:03:06.511 --> 00:03:09.104 Because our brain functions as this massive network, 00:03:09.414 --> 00:03:11.402 when you have very complex operations, 00:03:11.601 --> 00:03:15.647 speed of all these areas communicating with each other becomes a limitation. 00:03:16.456 --> 00:03:19.149 So these three limitations on our brain's abilities 00:03:19.194 --> 00:03:22.264 leads to a sensitivity to interference. 00:03:22.538 --> 00:03:24.285 I'm going to describe what that is. 00:03:24.285 --> 00:03:27.686 We went and we asked folks when they had this experience - 00:03:27.686 --> 00:03:29.440 and almost everyone describes this; 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:33.407 it increases as you get older, for those of you that had not noticed - 00:03:33.408 --> 00:03:34.349 What happens? 00:03:34.349 --> 00:03:38.648 What led you to find your way to the kitchen with a clear idea in mind 00:03:38.716 --> 00:03:41.645 and when you got there you didn't know what you were doing, 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:44.355 and you could not remember what you were trying to get? 00:03:44.657 --> 00:03:48.276 And people describe in their best experience what is happening, 00:03:48.399 --> 00:03:50.602 and we built a conceptual framework from this. 00:03:50.666 --> 00:03:53.216 And then we study it in our lab, I'm a neuroscientist, 00:03:53.275 --> 00:03:55.728 we use tools to study how the brain functions, 00:03:55.891 --> 00:03:58.253 and how that leads to higher-order behaviors. 00:03:58.287 --> 00:04:01.601 So we built the framework based on people's anecdotes and experiences, 00:04:01.601 --> 00:04:05.374 and then tried to pursue it empirically and see if these were really mechanisms 00:04:05.375 --> 00:04:08.502 that influence behavior in the way people experience. 00:04:08.837 --> 00:04:10.643 So this is how the framework goes: 00:04:10.643 --> 00:04:13.526 we see that there's two types of interference, generally - 00:04:13.527 --> 00:04:16.569 internal interference and externally induced interference. 00:04:16.692 --> 00:04:21.394 We could split those each into different types of interference based on your goals. 00:04:21.613 --> 00:04:24.806 So if the information is totally irrelevant to you, 00:04:24.828 --> 00:04:26.506 we consider it a distraction. 00:04:26.697 --> 00:04:29.330 Let's say you're at a restaurant having a conversation. 00:04:29.330 --> 00:04:32.614 If you have any hopes of remembering the details of that conversation, 00:04:32.614 --> 00:04:35.526 you know you're very busy suppressing the chatter in the room, 00:04:35.526 --> 00:04:39.051 maybe the waiter is taking an order at the next table, 00:04:39.051 --> 00:04:40.834 you're just trying to block that out, 00:04:40.834 --> 00:04:42.182 it's irrelevant information, 00:04:42.182 --> 00:04:43.596 you're trying to suppress it. 00:04:43.596 --> 00:04:46.035 That same stimuli can serve 00:04:46.035 --> 00:04:48.475 as what we call interruptions, or multitasking, 00:04:48.475 --> 00:04:51.385 when you think maybe you can do more than one thing at a time. 00:04:51.385 --> 00:04:53.215 Maybe you're having that conversation, 00:04:53.215 --> 00:04:54.710 but now you're trying to listen 00:04:54.710 --> 00:04:57.658 to what the specials are being announced at the next table. 00:04:57.658 --> 00:05:00.471 Or you're on the way to the refrigerator and a phone rings; 00:05:00.471 --> 00:05:03.688 you pick it up, and now you have to reengage in your initial task. 00:05:03.688 --> 00:05:05.894 That's how we split external interference. 00:05:05.894 --> 00:05:08.255 This can all happen internally as well. 00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:09.982 Some of it is mind wondering: 00:05:10.054 --> 00:05:14.400 your thoughts leave your focus against your will, irrelevantly, 00:05:14.602 --> 00:05:17.438 just travel to places that you did not intend them to. 00:05:17.714 --> 00:05:19.989 Or you could be multitasking internally. 00:05:19.989 --> 00:05:21.592 Perhaps you're doing it now: 00:05:21.592 --> 00:05:23.363 you pay attention to what I'm saying, 00:05:23.363 --> 00:05:25.316 you look at the slides, listening to me, 00:05:25.316 --> 00:05:27.844 but you might be planning what to have for lunch later 00:05:27.844 --> 00:05:30.146 and who you're going to meet in the afternoon. 00:05:30.146 --> 00:05:35.368 So this constant interference keeps us from being present, directed on our goals. 00:05:36.905 --> 00:05:41.310 So, given those limitations of our brain and our susceptibility to interference, 00:05:41.323 --> 00:05:44.433 what happens when you take your brain and you expose it to this? 00:05:44.433 --> 00:05:45.528 (Laughter) 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.637 You're probably all familiar with most of these things. 00:05:49.838 --> 00:05:51.897 The last several decades have literally seen 00:05:51.897 --> 00:05:56.121 an explosion of the diversity and accessibility of electronic media, 00:05:56.471 --> 00:05:59.445 and the devices that deliver it, many of which are portable. 00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:02.524 Probably most of you have a computer in your pockets right now 00:06:02.524 --> 00:06:05.025 that allows you to access this at any moment. 00:06:05.458 --> 00:06:08.311 What's even more profound, it's not the change in technology, 00:06:08.311 --> 00:06:11.817 but historically one media has replaced other medias. 00:06:11.922 --> 00:06:13.490 That's not what's happening now. 00:06:13.490 --> 00:06:16.060 Now, data shows, I'm sure you're all aware of it, 00:06:16.065 --> 00:06:18.307 that people are using medias at the same time. 00:06:18.508 --> 00:06:20.403 Approximately 95 percent of people 00:06:20.403 --> 00:06:23.128 report using more than one form of media at a time, 00:06:23.128 --> 00:06:26.746 and that activity takes place almost 30 percent of your days. 00:06:28.076 --> 00:06:30.654 Children might probably have this even more so, 00:06:30.654 --> 00:06:33.095 although it's just beginning to be investigated now. 00:06:33.095 --> 00:06:35.609 Almost an obsessive media multitasking frenzy - 00:06:35.609 --> 00:06:36.897 you're almost uncomfortable 00:06:36.897 --> 00:06:40.830 when taken away from your ability to interact with technology in this way. 00:06:41.022 --> 00:06:44.271 Before I move forward, I want to say that I'm a friend of technology, 00:06:44.271 --> 00:06:48.789 I'm not anti-technology; I use all these wonderful toys as well as you do. 00:06:48.905 --> 00:06:52.361 Here I am, working on this talk; I've two large computer monitors, 00:06:52.361 --> 00:06:55.718 email on the left side, cell phone in hand accepting texts, 00:06:55.718 --> 00:06:57.885 music playing in the background. 00:06:57.982 --> 00:07:01.219 This is how we all interact with technology, at least to some degree. 00:07:01.219 --> 00:07:05.160 Some people have up to six or more forms of media at any given time. 00:07:06.463 --> 00:07:08.694 Another thing that's changed are expectations. 00:07:08.930 --> 00:07:11.237 This constant access to communications, 00:07:11.237 --> 00:07:17.088 computers and data has really changed societal expectations. 00:07:17.484 --> 00:07:22.448 Now immediate responsiveness and continuous productivity are expected. 00:07:22.790 --> 00:07:25.739 How many of you are on vacation and check your email? 00:07:26.389 --> 00:07:29.517 A little dark in here, but I just see a lot of movement out there. 00:07:29.517 --> 00:07:32.426 So I'll take that as a resounding ''yes,'' right. 00:07:32.426 --> 00:07:34.997 So we know that our ability to disconnect, 00:07:34.997 --> 00:07:37.920 to really be present in what we're experiencing is decreasing, 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:39.885 even when we're "taking vacations," 00:07:39.885 --> 00:07:43.402 the break from all of this constant productivity. 00:07:44.810 --> 00:07:48.189 So, we should ask the question: how do we function at all? 00:07:48.274 --> 00:07:51.148 Given those limitations and how we interact with technology, 00:07:51.148 --> 00:07:53.466 how are we capable of getting anything done? 00:07:53.553 --> 00:07:56.711 I want to tell you about the process of cognitive control. 00:07:56.793 --> 00:08:00.176 Cognitive control is what allows us to function at least to some degree 00:08:00.201 --> 00:08:01.679 under these circumstances. 00:08:01.884 --> 00:08:04.269 How we perceive the world is not a passive process. 00:08:04.269 --> 00:08:06.701 Our environment just doesn't flood into our brains. 00:08:06.701 --> 00:08:09.350 It's sculpted and shaped by our attention. 00:08:09.474 --> 00:08:11.030 Two types of attention: 00:08:11.030 --> 00:08:14.311 One attention is external, stimulus-driven attention, 00:08:14.362 --> 00:08:18.028 it is the environment imposing itself upon how you perceive the world. 00:08:18.267 --> 00:08:20.505 If there's a flash of light, a loud sound, 00:08:20.505 --> 00:08:22.893 even if someone calls your name quietly behind you, 00:08:22.893 --> 00:08:25.086 you pay attention, you redirect your attention. 00:08:25.344 --> 00:08:28.713 Anything that's very salient or novel demands your attention 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:30.633 and increases your perception of it. 00:08:30.710 --> 00:08:32.097 The other type of attention - 00:08:32.097 --> 00:08:35.045 the environment coming in is also known as bottom-up attention. 00:08:35.045 --> 00:08:37.775 The other type is internal, goal-directed attention, 00:08:37.775 --> 00:08:38.851 what you're doing now. 00:08:38.851 --> 00:08:41.210 You're choosing to focus your cognitive resources 00:08:41.210 --> 00:08:43.594 on what you're hearing and what you're seeing. 00:08:43.794 --> 00:08:45.832 This is known as top-down attention, 00:08:45.832 --> 00:08:47.292 your goal-directed attention. 00:08:47.292 --> 00:08:50.715 All of your interactions with the environment involve this balance 00:08:50.715 --> 00:08:55.133 between these two forms of attention that are dictating your perception. 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, 00:09:00.046 --> 00:09:05.121 is that this influence then goes on and influences what you remember, 00:09:05.121 --> 00:09:08.193 both in the short-term and in the long-term. 00:09:09.026 --> 00:09:12.984 So what happens when all this interference that we are being exposed to now 00:09:13.474 --> 00:09:17.038 exceeds the capabilities of our cognitive control? 00:09:17.610 --> 00:09:22.353 Well, what we now realize is that there is a broad and deep influence: 00:09:22.516 --> 00:09:27.706 safety, family, our social development, workplace, education. 00:09:27.931 --> 00:09:29.706 All of these things are affected. 00:09:29.918 --> 00:09:33.315 There's not nearly enough time in this talk to talk about these 00:09:33.330 --> 00:09:37.105 since each one of these can have their own lecture associated with them, 00:09:37.105 --> 00:09:39.894 showing you how broad this issue is. 00:09:40.316 --> 00:09:43.316 What I'm going to talk to you about in detail is cognition, 00:09:43.316 --> 00:09:46.866 because this is what we study in our lab, specifically memory. 00:09:47.307 --> 00:09:50.057 There's a really beautiful quote by Samuel Johnson, 00:09:50.521 --> 00:09:53.886 who was a British author in the 1700s. 00:09:54.192 --> 00:09:56.672 He wasn't a psychologist, he wasn't a neuroscientist, 00:09:56.672 --> 00:09:58.248 but he was incredibly insightful. 00:09:58.248 --> 00:10:02.438 He said something that really showed a profound awareness, 00:10:02.450 --> 00:10:04.629 because there was no data on this at the time. 00:10:04.886 --> 00:10:08.760 What he said is that "the true art of memory is the art of attention," 00:10:08.894 --> 00:10:11.449 that "no man will read with much advantage 00:10:11.463 --> 00:10:14.119 who is not able, at pleasure, to evacuate his mind," 00:10:14.316 --> 00:10:16.851 that "if the repositories of thought are already full, 00:10:16.851 --> 00:10:18.364 what can they receive?" 00:10:18.596 --> 00:10:21.234 And "if the mind is employed on the past or the future, 00:10:21.234 --> 00:10:23.830 the book will be held before the eyes in vain." 00:10:23.956 --> 00:10:26.351 There's a full career of research studies here. 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:28.600 We're slowly working our way through these 00:10:28.682 --> 00:10:31.846 to show what's going on in the brain that leads to this, 00:10:31.846 --> 00:10:34.495 and how true is this to our behavior. 00:10:34.782 --> 00:10:36.993 So, I figured the easiest way to do this 00:10:36.993 --> 00:10:40.006 is to have you perform one of our experiments right now, 00:10:40.371 --> 00:10:42.155 so you can get an idea of what we do. 00:10:42.187 --> 00:10:44.647 And while we do this, we'll record brain activities. 00:10:44.647 --> 00:10:46.845 You'll do a less demanding version of this, 00:10:46.845 --> 00:10:49.314 where you're not shoved inside one of our scanners. 00:10:49.873 --> 00:10:54.413 What we are going have you do now is "Remember a face," very simple experiment. 00:10:54.513 --> 00:10:55.737 One face will come up, 00:10:55.737 --> 00:10:57.940 it comes up pretty quickly, so be ready for it. 00:10:57.940 --> 00:11:01.214 Then around 7 seconds will pass, there will be an X on the screen, 00:11:01.214 --> 00:11:03.558 and you should remember the face - just one face. 00:11:03.558 --> 00:11:06.106 Then another face comes up, and your job is be to say, 00:11:06.106 --> 00:11:08.919 "Yes, that's the face I saw," or "No, that's a new face." 00:11:09.038 --> 00:11:11.162 O.K.? Ready to give it a shot? 00:11:20.642 --> 00:11:21.645 (Audience) No. 00:11:21.645 --> 00:11:23.154 No. The answer is no. 00:11:23.154 --> 00:11:24.522 If any of you thinking yes, 00:11:24.522 --> 00:11:25.522 do not be nervous, 00:11:25.522 --> 00:11:27.909 no reason to make a clinic appointment right now. 00:11:27.909 --> 00:11:31.768 It takes practice to get used to this, people don't always get a 100 percent. 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 - 00:11:35.859 --> 00:11:37.490 see a face, after a period of time 00:11:37.490 --> 00:11:40.358 another face'll come up and you'll have to see if it matches. 00:11:40.358 --> 00:11:43.354 But in this experiment, another face will pop up in the middle, 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? 00:11:46.784 --> 00:11:49.789 Then you go back to the business of remembering that first face. 00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:50.804 Does that make sense? 00:11:50.804 --> 00:11:51.834 (Laughter) 00:11:51.834 --> 00:11:54.510 Remember one face and make a decision on the middle face. 00:11:54.510 --> 00:11:56.080 Pretty simple. Give it a shot. 00:12:05.478 --> 00:12:06.991 (Audience) Yes. 00:12:07.016 --> 00:12:08.025 It was the same face. 00:12:08.025 --> 00:12:10.507 So, did this seem a little harder to you? 00:12:10.585 --> 00:12:11.600 (Audience) Yes. 00:12:11.625 --> 00:12:12.691 It is a little harder. 00:12:12.736 --> 00:12:17.383 If you study even healthy 20-30-year-olds, you see that the performance diminishes 00:12:17.383 --> 00:12:19.692 when you introduce that second task, 00:12:19.692 --> 00:12:21.564 even though it's not a hard experiment. 00:12:21.564 --> 00:12:24.191 Not only that, but if you introduce a face in the middle 00:12:24.191 --> 00:12:27.017 that's totally irrelevant, your performance also drops - 00:12:27.017 --> 00:12:29.050 very subtle, but consistently. 00:12:29.326 --> 00:12:31.494 If you happen to be older than 60, 00:12:31.494 --> 00:12:33.992 your performance drops even more from the distraction 00:12:33.992 --> 00:12:35.981 and even more so from the interruption. 00:12:36.166 --> 00:12:40.215 So we see that there's an exaggerated effect with age of this impact 00:12:40.215 --> 00:12:42.235 that's even there in 20- and 30-year-olds. 00:12:42.467 --> 00:12:46.198 We are now looking at how this type of distraction and interruptions 00:12:46.198 --> 00:12:48.147 might affect your long-term memory. 00:12:48.303 --> 00:12:53.036 So we did an experiment where we showed our participants a series of 168 pictures 00:12:53.036 --> 00:12:54.943 that had different numbers of objects. 00:12:55.227 --> 00:12:59.513 So what you see here are 3 crowns, 4 couches, that's 4 vacuum cleaners - 00:12:59.525 --> 00:13:03.341 though they look like Statues of Liberty every time I look at that slide. 00:13:03.341 --> 00:13:06.181 But you see all these pictures, and then, after an hour, 00:13:06.181 --> 00:13:07.969 you go inside our MRI scanner 00:13:07.969 --> 00:13:10.192 so we could see what's happening in your brain, 00:13:10.192 --> 00:13:11.595 and you hear these names: 00:13:11.595 --> 00:13:13.337 "Crown," and when you hear "Crown," 00:13:13.337 --> 00:13:16.203 you have to press the button on how many you remember seeing. 00:13:16.203 --> 00:13:19.090 Here the correct answer would be 3, or it might be new, 00:13:19.090 --> 00:13:20.906 maybe we never showed that one before. 00:13:20.931 --> 00:13:24.228 The interesting thing is that we look at what happens to your memory 00:13:24.228 --> 00:13:25.693 when your eyes are shut, 00:13:25.693 --> 00:13:27.790 when they are open looking at a grey screen, 00:13:27.790 --> 00:13:30.749 and when your eyes are open looking at a busy visual picture. 00:13:31.032 --> 00:13:33.732 And what we found is that the detailed quality, 00:13:33.732 --> 00:13:36.679 your recollection of those details decline 00:13:37.016 --> 00:13:39.563 just by having your eyes open looking at a picture, 00:13:39.563 --> 00:13:41.761 which is basically what you do all day long. 00:13:42.188 --> 00:13:44.858 Just that very simple stimulus, 00:13:44.858 --> 00:13:47.239 that you have nothing to do besides remember, 00:13:47.239 --> 00:13:49.493 declines just by having your eyes open. 00:13:49.916 --> 00:13:51.750 Later, you should do this experiment: 00:13:51.750 --> 00:13:54.770 Go up to a significant other or a friend, look them in the eyes, 00:13:54.770 --> 00:13:58.313 and ask them to tell you in detail what they had for dinner last night. 00:13:58.359 --> 00:14:01.753 Almost invariably, what you'll see is that they look away from you. 00:14:01.858 --> 00:14:04.503 What we think is going on from looking at the brain data 00:14:04.503 --> 00:14:07.726 is that people are looking for a quiet place in their environment 00:14:07.726 --> 00:14:08.939 to recreate this memory. 00:14:08.939 --> 00:14:10.876 Just looking at your face 00:14:10.876 --> 00:14:13.208 is too distracting to do this at a high level. 00:14:13.208 --> 00:14:14.436 (Laughter) 00:14:14.566 --> 00:14:16.024 Nothing personal. 00:14:17.096 --> 00:14:19.885 We did another experiment, where it was basically the same, 00:14:19.885 --> 00:14:22.785 but now it was done in silence, or we went into a restaurant 00:14:22.786 --> 00:14:26.301 and we taped the normal chatter that occurs in a restaurant, 00:14:26.301 --> 00:14:28.684 and we found the same decline in memory. 00:14:28.861 --> 00:14:29.898 The point of this 00:14:29.898 --> 00:14:33.214 is not that you should walk around with blindfolds on and earplugs in. 00:14:33.214 --> 00:14:37.337 The point is to show you how exquisitely sensitive our memory is 00:14:37.518 --> 00:14:40.889 even to the normal environmental stimulation that we cannot escape. 00:14:40.889 --> 00:14:41.905 So you can imagine 00:14:41.905 --> 00:14:45.909 when you layer upon all the normal complexity that exists in our environment. 00:14:46.082 --> 00:14:48.909 But we do this, the reason we make such simple experiments 00:14:48.909 --> 00:14:51.331 is we're recording brain activity with these tools: 00:14:51.331 --> 00:14:55.509 functional MRI that lets us look at blood flow correlates of neural activity 00:14:55.509 --> 00:14:58.200 and lets us see where in the brain events are occurring; 00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:02.519 as well as EEG, in which we're looking at electrical signatures of neural activity, 00:15:02.532 --> 00:15:04.696 where we can see when events are occurring. 00:15:04.696 --> 00:15:05.889 And we do these tools 00:15:05.889 --> 00:15:10.454 to understand what happens in our brain when we have interference 00:15:10.454 --> 00:15:12.217 and how it diminishes our abilities. 00:15:12.565 --> 00:15:15.393 I'm just going to summarize this with a couple of cartoons, 00:15:15.415 --> 00:15:17.424 data from our lab and so many labs 00:15:17.427 --> 00:15:20.583 to give you the latest understanding about what's going on. 00:15:21.593 --> 00:15:23.054 This is your brain. 00:15:23.281 --> 00:15:25.706 The front part is over here on this side, 00:15:25.731 --> 00:15:28.650 and what we see is that the prefrontal cortex - 00:15:28.676 --> 00:15:31.756 that's the part of our brain that makes us most human, 00:15:31.756 --> 00:15:35.371 the part that's evolved the most, the part that develops the latest, 00:15:35.372 --> 00:15:38.669 it's the part that's involved in this cognitive control. 00:15:38.947 --> 00:15:42.952 And when you're confronted with distraction, it acts as a bouncer. 00:15:43.152 --> 00:15:45.916 It's saying, "What information is on the guest list?" 00:15:46.014 --> 00:15:49.450 And through its connectivity in a network with visual parts of the brain, 00:15:49.450 --> 00:15:50.655 which are in the back, 00:15:50.655 --> 00:15:52.937 it controls what information gets in. 00:15:53.197 --> 00:15:55.217 You can see this is a very busy night club, 00:15:55.217 --> 00:15:59.520 but your visual cortex will only fit six things or even less at a time, 00:15:59.520 --> 00:16:01.476 depending on how complicated they are. 00:16:01.735 --> 00:16:04.597 When information gets in that's not on the guest list, 00:16:04.602 --> 00:16:07.211 you have a cost - your performance drops. 00:16:07.484 --> 00:16:09.415 This is what changes as we get older: 00:16:09.415 --> 00:16:12.230 our filter, our ability to block out information decreases, 00:16:12.230 --> 00:16:15.226 and the degree that it decreases directly correlates 00:16:15.226 --> 00:16:19.689 with our inability to remember the things that we're trying to remember - our goals. 00:16:19.962 --> 00:16:22.605 What happens in terms of multitasking? 00:16:22.769 --> 00:16:25.185 Once again, the prefrontal cortex is in charge. 00:16:25.234 --> 00:16:27.419 But here it's acting as a flight controller. 00:16:27.425 --> 00:16:30.981 It's determining what information is the priority right now, 00:16:31.337 --> 00:16:34.002 and through its connections with the back of the brain, 00:16:34.002 --> 00:16:35.051 it's making decisions. 00:16:35.051 --> 00:16:36.316 So, if you're crazy enough 00:16:36.316 --> 00:16:39.802 to be riding a bike through Manhattan next to a cab, texting, 00:16:39.918 --> 00:16:41.650 you have a lot of decisions to make. 00:16:41.805 --> 00:16:45.221 So, maybe, the first decision is to focus on the traffic, 00:16:45.364 --> 00:16:49.149 and then you think that it's safe enough to now continue your text message, 00:16:49.166 --> 00:16:50.731 and so you do that. 00:16:50.739 --> 00:16:54.912 But what you don't do is this: you don't split those decisions. 00:16:55.041 --> 00:16:58.089 The prefrontal cortex has what's known as a central bottleneck. 00:16:58.382 --> 00:17:00.540 And so what you do is switch. 00:17:00.641 --> 00:17:02.865 Your prefrontal cortex switches between tasks 00:17:02.871 --> 00:17:05.655 even though it feels like you're doing more than one thing. 00:17:05.655 --> 00:17:08.982 This is what's led this being referred to as the myth of multitasking - 00:17:08.982 --> 00:17:11.322 that you're not really doing more than one thing 00:17:11.322 --> 00:17:13.035 unless they become very automated, 00:17:13.035 --> 00:17:14.462 gum chewing, walking. 00:17:14.554 --> 00:17:18.268 Although even those have been found to have some interference with each other, 00:17:18.268 --> 00:17:19.274 believe it or not. 00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:20.572 (Laughter) 00:17:20.736 --> 00:17:24.500 With each switch, there is a time delay, and this leads to a cost - 00:17:24.500 --> 00:17:25.987 an impact on performance. 00:17:26.089 --> 00:17:29.395 You do not do two things as well as you do one thing 00:17:29.395 --> 00:17:33.440 if you switch back and forth between them, and this gets worse as you get older. 00:17:33.495 --> 00:17:37.625 We just had a paper published last week that shows that as you get older, 00:17:37.650 --> 00:17:39.684 this switching, the letting go, 00:17:39.684 --> 00:17:43.001 the disengaging and the reengaging become slower, 00:17:43.001 --> 00:17:45.777 and this creates the interference in your memory. 00:17:46.618 --> 00:17:47.831 Why do we do it? 00:17:47.876 --> 00:17:50.577 We get the impression, and we have lots of data now, 00:17:50.577 --> 00:17:53.450 that this is negative on our performance. 00:17:53.512 --> 00:17:56.485 There is not a lot of data for this, some of this is anecdotal, 00:17:56.510 --> 00:17:59.380 based on my impressions, but it's a resonable place to start. 00:17:59.537 --> 00:18:00.847 Multitasking. 00:18:01.140 --> 00:18:03.099 We have this sense it gives flexibility, 00:18:03.099 --> 00:18:05.265 fresh perspective, increased variety, 00:18:05.265 --> 00:18:07.432 it enables us to use downtime productively, 00:18:07.831 --> 00:18:11.346 but probably the most salient aspect is that it's just more fun. 00:18:11.427 --> 00:18:13.621 We are novelty seeking creatures. 00:18:13.692 --> 00:18:16.761 It's a very strong part of our evolution to seek out new. 00:18:16.977 --> 00:18:19.912 It stimulates the dopamine system, the reward system. 00:18:20.094 --> 00:18:24.020 There is no doubt that one chunk of time in which you're multitasking 00:18:24.020 --> 00:18:27.563 has more novelty than the same period of time in unitasking. 00:18:27.651 --> 00:18:29.203 And so we probably seek it out. 00:18:29.356 --> 00:18:33.379 There's even been a question that maybe it's even addicting at a certain level 00:18:33.523 --> 00:18:38.427 when you're constantly pressured to get back into a new task 00:18:38.452 --> 00:18:39.798 once you become used to it. 00:18:40.217 --> 00:18:42.748 How about distraction? It's a little more complicated. 00:18:42.773 --> 00:18:46.310 Why do people go into noisy coffee shops to read and to work? 00:18:46.310 --> 00:18:47.891 Does anyone do that in this room? 00:18:47.923 --> 00:18:49.183 Right, it's very common. 00:18:49.183 --> 00:18:51.336 Usually you know which type of person you are. 00:18:51.361 --> 00:18:55.557 So, it's something that's interesting - all this we're exploring in our lab now 00:18:55.565 --> 00:18:59.846 to understand the driving force of this, and are there possible benefits? 00:19:00.195 --> 00:19:01.758 So, what can be done about this? 00:19:01.783 --> 00:19:04.479 It's just too dreary to say all these negative things 00:19:04.479 --> 00:19:06.495 and then to walk off the stage. 00:19:06.546 --> 00:19:09.523 So, we don't have all the answers, 00:19:09.548 --> 00:19:11.839 but I can tell you it seems there are two paths, 00:19:11.864 --> 00:19:12.863 at least to me: 00:19:12.863 --> 00:19:15.867 we could change our behavior, or we could change our brains. 00:19:15.887 --> 00:19:16.887 (Laughter) 00:19:16.887 --> 00:19:19.672 Not necessarily in this scary way I'm depicting over here, 00:19:19.697 --> 00:19:20.915 but in a positive way. 00:19:21.007 --> 00:19:24.836 So, we could change our behavior because someone forces us to, right? 00:19:24.843 --> 00:19:29.864 They say it's too dangerous to talk on the phone or to text while driving, 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. 00:19:33.504 --> 00:19:35.814 But there's other ways we can change our behavior 00:19:35.814 --> 00:19:37.598 on things less dangerous to society. 00:19:37.598 --> 00:19:39.152 So we could make decisions. 00:19:39.331 --> 00:19:41.863 Just because we have all these wonderful technologies 00:19:41.888 --> 00:19:44.850 doesn't mean we have to use it all at exactly the same time. 00:19:44.875 --> 00:19:48.462 We get to make decisions based upon what we now understand 00:19:48.524 --> 00:19:51.763 about how this interaction with technology and with ourselves 00:19:51.787 --> 00:19:53.164 changes our behavior. 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. 00:19:56.788 --> 00:19:58.081 Since I've researched this, 00:19:58.081 --> 00:20:01.384 I felt that I needed to make some decisions about my own behavior, 00:20:01.384 --> 00:20:02.750 and this is what I decided: 00:20:02.775 --> 00:20:04.769 When working on something very important, 00:20:04.794 --> 00:20:08.420 something that demands high quality, especially something time sensitive, 00:20:08.452 --> 00:20:11.358 I do one thing at a time, singular attention, 00:20:11.358 --> 00:20:15.347 I quit my email - too distracting with messages coming in - 00:20:15.347 --> 00:20:16.485 I turn off my phone, 00:20:16.485 --> 00:20:20.800 I close my door, I do one thing, and I find it quite enjoyable. 00:20:20.800 --> 00:20:23.513 I actually had stopped doing that for quite a while. 00:20:23.644 --> 00:20:25.247 But I don't do this all the time. 00:20:25.556 --> 00:20:28.412 There is many things in my day that are very boring, 00:20:28.412 --> 00:20:29.803 I know they have to get done, 00:20:29.828 --> 00:20:31.982 but I know if I try to do one thing at a time, 00:20:32.007 --> 00:20:33.214 I would never finish it. 00:20:33.239 --> 00:20:36.157 So I might set aside three hours of just intense multitasking; 00:20:36.182 --> 00:20:39.383 the more I'm switching, the better; it just keeps it moving along. 00:20:39.383 --> 00:20:42.245 So, it's not a message that technology is bad, don't do this. 00:20:42.245 --> 00:20:44.860 It's just the point that decisions need to be made 00:20:44.911 --> 00:20:47.051 when we interact and our environment changes. 00:20:47.051 --> 00:20:48.813 It's happened many times in the past, 00:20:48.813 --> 00:20:52.359 this is just another example that we have to learn how to deal with better. 00:20:52.555 --> 00:20:53.959 Changing our brains. 00:20:54.135 --> 00:20:57.286 Our brains are capable of a tremendous degree of plasticity. 00:20:57.360 --> 00:21:00.812 That means it adapts and modifies to stimuli from the environment. 00:21:00.863 --> 00:21:03.583 And we now know that this is not just when you're a child, 00:21:03.608 --> 00:21:05.279 it occurs through your entire life. 00:21:05.304 --> 00:21:09.847 We are looking at exercises - there's a video game that we developed in our lab 00:21:09.847 --> 00:21:13.536 to see if we can strengthen these abilities through practice. 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, 00:21:17.454 --> 00:21:20.780 signs come up, sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant, 00:21:21.061 --> 00:21:23.931 and you're pressing buttons, moving, challenging yourself 00:21:23.931 --> 00:21:26.081 in an adaptive way, in a way that's fun. 00:21:26.081 --> 00:21:30.720 What's interesting about this video game - it was designed to be played in our lab 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.206 while recording brain activity and seeing what's going on in our brain 00:21:34.253 --> 00:21:37.044 while you interact with all this hype of interference. 00:21:37.044 --> 00:21:40.317 We have a study going on now with healthy older adults, 00:21:40.378 --> 00:21:42.000 they take home a laptop, 00:21:42.121 --> 00:21:44.761 and they play this game at home, and while they play it, 00:21:44.761 --> 00:21:47.702 their behavioral performance data downloads to their computer 00:21:47.702 --> 00:21:49.898 and straight from Dropbox right into our lab, 00:21:49.898 --> 00:21:52.217 almost in real time, we can get their brain data, 00:21:52.217 --> 00:21:53.452 their behavioral data, 00:21:53.452 --> 00:21:54.938 while they are playing at home. 00:21:54.963 --> 00:21:58.225 Then they come into the lab and we look what's changed in their brain 00:21:58.250 --> 00:22:00.367 to enable them to function at a higher level, 00:22:00.392 --> 00:22:01.741 which is what we're seeing - 00:22:01.766 --> 00:22:03.341 brains are capable of plasticity. 00:22:03.366 --> 00:22:07.092 We're now looking at wireless EEG bluetooth headsets 00:22:07.092 --> 00:22:10.866 that allow us to have our older participants put these on at home 00:22:10.866 --> 00:22:12.495 and record their brain activity, 00:22:12.495 --> 00:22:16.236 so we could move our lab outside of our laboratory into people's homes 00:22:16.236 --> 00:22:18.282 and record what are the changes in the brain 00:22:18.282 --> 00:22:20.505 that lead to this higher ability with practice. 00:22:20.505 --> 00:22:22.508 And then they can come back into the lab, 00:22:22.508 --> 00:22:25.197 and we can use fMRI to look at these changes in networks. 00:22:25.197 --> 00:22:27.765 I think it's an exciting time where we're learning more 00:22:27.765 --> 00:22:29.633 about how our brains can adapt to this. 00:22:29.664 --> 00:22:32.103 So with that, I want to thank you for your attention 00:22:32.103 --> 00:22:34.783 and, of course, your lack of attention to other things. 00:22:34.823 --> 00:22:40.101 (Applause)