Scientists may have new answers to why pop-ups or notifications grab our attention. Turns out our attention is on a cycle, shifting seven to ten times per second. This rhythmic occurrence may be crucial for survival, as it prevents us from becoming overly focused on one thing in our environment. It could help us to see a car backing up in a parking lot while we search for where we parked, or to duck to avoid a low-hanging tree branch on a walk while watching a kid ride a bike. But these windows that shift our attention could also make us more susceptible to distractions, especially in modern times. As we live in a world surrounded by screens, digital alerts, and other visual stimuli, these frequent and innate windows for shifting attention may make it easier to be pulled away from a task.
“For our ancestors who had to continue to monitor the environment for predators while foraging for food, this was a beneficial trait,” said Ian Fiebelkorn, PhD, assistant professor of Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and senior author of a study out in the journal PLOS Biology. “But in our modern environment, with laptops open in front of us and a smartphone nearby, rhythmically occurring windows for beneficial attentional shifts might also work against us. That is, rhythmically occurring windows for attentional shifts are also associated with increased susceptibility to distracting information.”
Uncovering What Cannot Be Seen
These shifts in attention can occur hundreds of thousands of times each day. Zach Redding, PhD ’24, a postdoctoral fellow in the Fiebelkorn lab and the first author of the study, used an electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor brain signals. The 40 participants were asked to focus on a dim grey square at the center of a computer screen, while colored dots served as distractors. Any tracked eye movements were excluded from the data, ensuring that the findings reflected internal shifts in attention rather than where participants were looking.
The EEG recordings revealed rhythmic patterns when attention was most likely to shift towards a distractor. These rhythmic shifts in attention occurred about seven to ten times per second and were linked to the participants’ alternating windows of better and worse target detection. When the participants showed worse target detection, researchers found they were more susceptible to the distractors.
This finding, if applied to other populations like people with ADHD, could provide a glimpse into what may cause someone to be hyper-focused or have increased distractibility.
“Our research shows that the typical brain rhythmically alternates between states that promote either increased processing at the present focus of attention or an increased likelihood of shifting attentional resources elsewhere,” said Fiebelkorn. “It could be that the brains of people with ADHD do not alternate between these states as often, resulting in a loss of cognitive flexibility.” This research could eventually be key to developing new strategies to improve focus.
Other authors include Yun Ding, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the Fiebelkorn lab. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Searle Scholars Program.