Horse wrote:Strangely Brown wrote:Similarly:
Sleights of MindA fascinating insight to how your brain processes visual information.
Looks interesting. Could you give a couple of examples from it that can be applied to driving?
The takeaway for me was confirmation or reinforcement of the notion that you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Humans do NOT multi-task. Some are able to time-slice better than others but we all can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
The biggest application of this of course is the use of telephones while driving but it extends to other things too. Even a conversation in the car can give rise to the same problems.
The problem is that when you use your visual cortex to process information by visualising a situation or recalling something visual, it is not available to process information coming in through the eyes. You absolutely *will* miss things.
Even if you momentarily find yourself having mentally wandered off or are distracted for a few moments thinking about something other than your drive, if when you snap back to reality you try to recall the last 30 seconds and are intellectually honest about it you may find that it is just not there. It's blank. You were on a subconscious auto-pilot. It happens to all of us far more often that we are prepared to admit and it is nigh on impossible to prevent. Mitigate, maybe but that's about it.