An exciting book, a complicated riddle or even a dossier for work: we all experience moments in which time seems to fade away and the hours fly by. This state is often called “the zone”, or a ‘deep focus’, in which you can find yourself. Something that involved researcher Dolly Seeburger herself also recognizes very well. During her youth, she specifically loved activities that demanded her full attention. “It was during that time that I felt most satisfied, when I was in the zone”, she remembers. “Hours went by, but it felt like minutes.”
So she decided to join an interdisciplinary team from Georgia Tech to investigate what happens in our brains during these moments. Because while deep focus is incredibly useful for working effectively, researchers don’t yet know exactly how it happens.
Tapping to a Metronome
“Your brain is dynamic. Nothing is ever on or off,” Seeburger explains. “So how do we get into deep focus, and why are some people better at sustaining attention than others? Is this something that can be trained? If so, can we help whatsapp database people get better at it?”To answer this question, the researchers used fMRI to examine the brain activity of participants during periods of deep focus and during periods of mind wandering.
To measure how attentive the participants were during these tasks, they had the participants tap along to a metronome while they were in the fMRI scanner.
Brainwaves
By looking Как да подобрите процента на реализация на вашия застрахователен уебсайт at how evenly the participants tapped, the team could determine how focused the participants were. A lot of variation in the rhythm suggested that the participant was less focused, while precise tapping suggested that the participant was in a trance-like deep focus.
Meanwhile, the team measured the participants’ brainwaves. Specifically, brainwaves with low frequencies. “For a long time, brainwave deb directory esearch focused on faster and transient frequencies,” says Seeburger. “Recognizing the value of the information you can get from these very low-frequency waves is relatively new. But these low-frequency fluctuations can play a key role in regulating higher cognition, such as sustained attention.
