OT: Multi-tasking, attention and talking on your cell while driving Options

[raynekat]

Big time off topic, but really interesting.

Was watching a show last night call "Brain Games."

The topic was how your mind works while paying attention to things....as in how we concentrate.

1) The 1st big misnomer was "multi-tasking." No such thing. Your brain just completely 100% switches from one task to another. Now maybe some are better at switching back and forth than others, but they are still breaking their attention from one task to get on with the other.

2) 95% of magic tricks work on this premise. Since your mind can only concentrate and pay attention to one thing at a time, magicians use this to distract you from what they are trying to accomplish. Pick pockets do the same. Maybe no real news here, but to see it in real time and slow motion was interesting.

3) So this leads to driving while on the cell phone. They put a guy on a small road coarse had him talking to someone on the phone, and would randomly throw stuff in front of the car. Nearly all the time he was out of control as he wasn't paying attention to his driving.

Their conclusion was that driving while talking on the cell was "equally" as dangerous as driving while under the influence. The day might be coming where you'll lose your license for a year if your caught on your cell. I for one think that would be a good thing.

Food for thought at any rate.

You are just kidding yourself if you think you can multi-task. Driving while yacking on your cell is the ultimate example of this.

[stugray]

Athletes know a lot about "muscle memory".
That is why we practice, A LOT, and the coach will chastise you for not doing it EVERY TIME CORRECTLY.

Muscle memory of a double back flip dismount on parallel bars doesn't work if you "taught" your muscles how to do it with bad form.

Driving is the same.
IF you learn to drive with good habits, and develop muscle memory with good form then when you perform the task using muscle memory, you will use good form.
Example: If you have a habit of ALWAYS using your turn signal, then you will use your turn signal even when performing the task from "muscle memory".

When we get distracted, we fall back on muscle memory for the tasks that we are performing "in parallel".
If you have poor muscle memory of the task, you will perform it poorly when on auto-pilot.

As for "there is no such thing as multi-tasking" that is false.
SOME people can do it, others cannot.

Everyone can, for instance, sign their name while looking at a computer screen and talking on the phone.
That is because the part where your hand is signing is muscle memory.
You only have to start it consciously and you hand will finish without your conscious effort.

An example: how many people have been trying to read while being distracted?
You brain can keep on reading (parsing the words) but your consciousness is not paying attention to the words flowing through the visual cortex.
Driving is like this. You can drive while not paying attention and your 'driving muscle memory' will perform all the operations automatically UNTIL something out of the ordinary occurs (deer runs out in front of you).
Some people have very good driving habits, and therefore perform well when driving under auto-pilot.
Others have horrible driving habits (not signaling or not looking over your shoulder) before changing lanes.
If you have poor habits, you will be a lousy auto-pilot driver.

This is getting worse (and will continue to get even worse) as we teach our younger generation to drive using bad habits (such as talking on the phone).