People with only one eye have no problem with going cross-eyed. Predators have two eyes on the front of their face, so they can focus on pursuit of their food, think cats or owls. Prey have one eye on each side of their head, think chicken or the compound eye of an insect.Gear300 said:People cannot visually focus on more than one thing without going cross-eyed.
Lol, I haven't determined that yet.hutchphd said:Do you have a reference? It is true for neither your eyes nor your brain.
Vision as well? I figured musicians could handle an ensemble of sounds, but also drawing artists? Sounds neat. Well thanks for the answers.Baluncore said:Your vision and your brain are parallel processors. Use them all, or lose them to a predator.
When driving, do you look ahead, at everything that is about to happen, or do you look down at the control you are about to operate inside the vehicle?Gear300 said:Vision as well?
My guess is that your answer is "yes, it is possible to multitask." Maybe I'll have the vision thing figured out one day.Baluncore said:You appear to be admitting that you are driving without full situational awareness. That is a bit like the Dunning-Kruger effect.
While reading that I also noticed my tea cup was empty and the cold morning light was coming in through the window. There were half a dozen other unimportant things present about me while I read the screen, along with an obvious "Post reply" button.DaveC426913 said:I am currently looking at the words on this screen while at the same time being cognizant of the can of pop next to me.
I once heard someone claim they can track two songs in their head at once. I used to toy with that while I was driving and I think I managed it a few times. I crashed the car but I still kept the melodies going [kidding].Gear300 said:People cannot visually focus on more than one thing without going cross-eyed. Is the same true for mentally concentrating on multiple tasks? Like reading and listening to two different things at the same time when studying? Is there a trick that choreographers or performance artists know? Or is this a stupid question?
Legend has it Rush drummer Neil Peart could keep a different time signature with each foot and each hand.Ivan Seeking said:I once heard someone claim they can track two songs in their head at once. I used to toy with that while I was driving and I think I managed it a few times. I crashed the car but I still kept the melodies going [kidding].
Cool trick that is related: If I'm worried or upset about something and can't stop thinking about it, often almost nothing seems help. I can work out, or focus on work, or clean the house, or watch a movie, but nothing helps. My thoughts keep going back to my stressor.
But it turns out that I can't stress out on something if I put on music and sing along. It seems to be impossible to sing out loud and stress over the day at the same time.
Generally, humans are not very good at focusing on more than one thing at a time. What people often refer to as "multitasking" is usually just rapid switching of attention between tasks, rather than simultaneous focus.
Multitasking can significantly reduce productivity. Studies have shown that switching between tasks can lead to a decrease in efficiency and an increase in errors. The brain requires time to reorient itself to each new task, which can slow down overall progress.
There are some rare exceptions, such as highly practiced activities that have become almost automatic, like walking and talking. However, for tasks that require active, conscious thought, true simultaneous focus is generally not possible.
Multitasking can negatively impact cognitive performance. It can lead to cognitive overload, making it harder to process information and leading to poorer memory retention. This is because the brain is constantly shifting gears, which can be mentally exhausting.
While training can improve one's ability to switch between tasks more efficiently, it does not enable true simultaneous focus. Practice can help reduce the time it takes to switch between tasks, but the fundamental limitations of the human brain in handling multiple sources of active attention remain.