« Because the brain isn’t actually capable of multitasking, it has to “juggle” different thoughts as our working memory darts around to different ideas. That requires conscious effort and attention, which are overseen by the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a region involved with complex learning, decision making and reasoning. If attention becomes focused on only one of those thoughts or is diverted somewhere new, the brain loses track of the earlier thoughts. »
fchung on
Reference: Cowan, N. (2010). The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 51-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721409359277
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« Because the brain isn’t actually capable of multitasking, it has to “juggle” different thoughts as our working memory darts around to different ideas. That requires conscious effort and attention, which are overseen by the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a region involved with complex learning, decision making and reasoning. If attention becomes focused on only one of those thoughts or is diverted somewhere new, the brain loses track of the earlier thoughts. »
Reference: Cowan, N. (2010). The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 51-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721409359277
>but psychologists estimate that people can hold only about [four](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2864034/) to %5Bseven%5D(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13310704/) “chunks” of information — such as letters, digits, words or phrases — in their working memory at a time.
Interesting