Is There a Difference Between Fiction and Novels?

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The last page of the book, wow. I mean, it was, you know, shocking to hear that final story. So my training and my y kind of professional journey really starts out as a research, as a nero scientist. And i was particularly interested in how it kind of reconfigures itself,. How our experience determines how that's going to happen. But what i learned pretty quickly is that attention is very powerful for its own sake. It does actually transform all these metaphors into something more meaningful than they first thought.

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…