To pay attention - The brain uses filters not a spotlight.

[Marco]

An interesting light read article :

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-pay-attention-the-brain-uses-filters-not-a-spotlight-20190924/

Anyone find their attention prone to wandering?

According to his findings, the focus of the attentional spotlight seems to get relatively weaker about four times per second, presumably to prevent animals from staying overly focused on a single location or stimulus in their environment. That very brief suppression of what’s important gives other, peripheral stimuli an indirect boost, creating an opportunity for the brain to shift its attention to something else if necessary. “The brain seems to be wired to be periodically distractible,” he said.

 

[Keela Too]

I haven’t managed to read it all yet, but this looks really interesting.

Presumably applying filters to incoming information is an active process, thus this could explain the ME overwhelm in busy environments.

I’ll read in more depth later when spoons are more plentiful!

 

[Wonko]

From my point of view it's been obvious since my teens that filtering is an important mechanism, because my filtering has often 'failed', and/ior been reduced/inappropriate - even before ME.

There is a lot of 'information' out there, how else did people think they dealt with it?

Or did people just not think about it?

TBH I am surprised that this isn't 'known' by everyone.

 

[NelliePledge]

A lot of people don’t think about this stuff

 

[Marco]

From my point of view it's been obvious since my teens that filtering is an important mechanism, because my filtering has often 'failed', and/ior been reduced/inappropriate - even before ME.

There is a lot of 'information' out there, how else did people think they dealt with it?

Or did people just not think about it?

TBH I am surprised that this isn't 'known' by everyone.

It always seemed intuitively obvious to me but the details as to how it works matter. Some emphasise top down attentional processes (amenable to manipulation of course through cognitive 'therapies') whereas this model suggests a key role for prior pre-conscious processes.

 

[rvallee]

Presumably applying filters to incoming information is an active process, thus this could explain the ME overwhelm in busy environments.

Very interesting hypothesis.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

It has to be a filter because there is no mechanism for shining a searchlight on your own neural activations, or looking to see what shows up either. The searchlight idea was never a going concern back to my student days as far as I am aware. Maybe at least these researchers have cottoned on to that!

 

[JemPD]

There is a lot of 'information' out there, how else did people think they dealt with it?

Or did people just not think about it?

I think that in general, many people don't give much thought to the way that anything works, until it stops working. Unless it happens to be within an area of interest for them.

 

[JES]

We can pick out a conversation in a loud room, amid the rise and fall of other voices or the hum of an air conditioner. We can spot a set of keys in a sea of clutter, or register a raccoon darting into the path of our onrushing car. Somehow, even with massive amounts of information flooding our senses, we’re able to focus on what’s important and act on it.

Interesting, the very first paragraph highlights some of the issues I've had since a kid. When I'm in a "cocktail party" situation, my brain can't filter out other noises very well, so the whole situation ends up a bit embarrassing. I have to guess every second word that is spoken to me and form a model of the message based on that, as I can't keep asking "what" over and over again without looking like an idiot. It doesn't help that I actively try to focus on the speaker, which suggests it's almost entirely out of my control. My brain also has disproportionate problems reading people speaking with an accent, especially if spoken in a secondary language.

I wonder if this sensory processing defect seemingly "given" to me at birth would improve with a working ME/CFS treatment. I also wonder if my ME/CFS developed because of existing issues with the brain, or was it the other way around? Who knows.

 

[Mithriel]

JES, this is a genetic problem which affects some people. I always thought it was due to my ME but my healthy daughter and son both have the same.

My son was given a hearing test and told everything was normal and left to get on with it but my daughter was tested at a different hospital where there must have been someone interested in it. She was given advice and a printed leaflet about it.

Basically the advice was the same as that for anyone with hearing deficiencies, make sure people face you and get them to get your attention before saying anything. It is worse using a phone that cuts down the sound anyway.

The doctor explained there is nothing wrong with the hearing mechanism but there is a deficit in the part of the brain that interprets sound. That was about 15 years ago though so now it would probably be written of as a functional neurological disorder.

Like you, I endured profound embarrassment from it, especially the way I could not understand anyone with an accent. I was once accused of being racist because of it

Like everything else, having ME will make it worse. I always use subtitles and don't have music on if I am chatting.