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Boredom Quantified: The Science of Zoning Out |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 22 April 2008 |
Turns out they don't let physics majors into surgery class. I found this out the hard way in my undergraduates days. And they really don't appreciate forging an ID to get into the class anyway, then spending half a semester practicing neurosurgery on cadavers. I don't know everyone was so uptight; I knew what I was doing. In fact, I was on the cusp of a major breakthrough regarding the reanimation of dead tissue, but then the CIA recruited me to work out of the Berlin office.
Still, I've since maintained my interest in brain science. I was flipping
through the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences -- I like a
little light reading before bed -- when I came across an interesting
report out of Norway. Drs. Eichele and Debener, of the Universities of
Bergen and Southampton (UK), respectively, conducted a series of tests
to determine how and why we "zone out." More specifically, they
wondered whether they could observe quantifiable differences in brain
activity when subjects were performing tedious, repetitive tasks.
So they asked participants to repeatedly perform a set of tasks that
required them to respond consistently to visual cues. Then they hooked
up the old MRI. (Brain scientists just love magnetic resonance
imaging.) To their surprise, they were actually able to predict when
subjects were about to zone out and become prone to mistakes.
"Up to 30 seconds before the mistake we could detect a distinct shift
in activity," said Dr. Debener. "The brain
begins to economize, by investing less effort to complete the same
task. We see a reduction in activity in the prefrontal cortex. At the
same time, we see an increase in activity in an area which is more
active in states of rest."
The researchers suggest that it might be possible to invent a wearable
device that could alert users when their brains are starting to go on
autopilot. This might be useful for repetitive but important jobs like
airport security screening, x-ray analysis, or passport control. In
fact, a prototype of a wireless, lightweight EEG amplifier is currently
in development.
So there you go: Scientific backing to the phenomenon of zoning out. It
explains a lot about the 2004 presidential election, for one thing. I
might note that there is an invention already on the market that
counters zoning out quite well. I take mine with cream and sugar.
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