Researchers at the British Columbia's Simon Fraser University say that the brain depends on an active suppression mechanism in order to prevent being distracted by irrelevant information when a person focuses on a particular task.
For the study, researchers John McDonald and John Gaspar conducted three experiments on 47 students with an average age of 21. The participants were given an attention-demanding visual search task. The researchers analyzed the neural processes related to attention, distraction and suppression by recording electrical brain signals from sensors embedded in a cap they wore.
The study results revealed that the brain completely relies on active suppression mechanism to avoid getting distracted by unnecessary information while concentrating at a particular job.The researchers found that the environment and genetics might play a role in suppressing a brain activity that helps us from getting distracted. This could help doctors treat people with attention disorders .
"Distraction is a leading cause of injury and death in driving and other high-stakes environments," lead study author John McDonald in a press release. He explained that each person has his or her own ability to deal with distraction. "New electronic products are designed to grab attention. Suppressing such signals takes effort, and sometimes people can't seem to do it."
"This is an important discovery because most contemporary ideas of attention highlight brain processes that are involved in picking out relevant objects from the visual field. It's like finding Waldo in a Where's Waldo illustration," says Gaspar. "Our results show clearly that this is only one part of the equation and that active suppression of the irrelevant objects is another important part."
McDonald and Gaspar said that discovery could help health care professionals provide better treatment for people with distraction-related attention deficit disorders.
"Moreover, disorders associated with attention deficits, such as ADHD and schizophrenia, may turn out to be due to difficulties in suppressing irrelevant objects rather than difficulty selecting relevant ones."
The study was published in 'The Journal of Neuroscience.'
