What's the Default Mode Network of the Brain?

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The attention networks are all about primarily engaging with and interacting with the external environment. When it comes to internal, the internal mileu whether that is our opinions, our thoughts, our memories, that is going to be a different network. And those are also antagonistic with each other. There's a lot of benefits and costs to having this mutual antagonism. It was a big mystery figuring out what the heck this network is doing. Always said was rest. So we almost cind of, in a comical way, talk about it's not rest it's rapid, ever present, self related thinking. That's what people are doing.

Research shows we are missing 50 percent of our lives because we aren’t paying attention. Many of us often feel mentally foggy, scattered, and overwhelmed. Why is it that no matter how hard you try, you seem to find yourself somewhere else — if you’re even aware you’ve drifted off to that place.

In this conversation with the acclaimed neuroscientist Amishi Jha, she recounts what her neuroscience research revealed, and shows why whether you’re simply browsing, talking to friends, or trying to stay focused in an important meeting, you can’t seem to manage to hang on to your attention.

Shermer and Jha discuss: the neuroscience of attention; what attention evolved to do; how stress, attention bias, negativity bias, thought flooding, and active listening affect attention; multitasking; the “flashlight” metaphor; mindfulness and well-being, and more…