Pay Attention!

### Cold Open

"What is attention? It's your brain's most powerful tool, to make sense of a busy world, and streamline the thousands of things a day competing for your time and energy. Scientists are finally beginning to understand what attention is, and how it takes shape in the brain. And what better place to do this than the attention-grabbing city of Las Vegas. Many of the world's leading experts on attention live in Vegas. Not scientists, but magicians."

## Games

### Cold Open: The Poker Chip

Look at 5 cards. Pick one. Then remember it.

Result: In a new set of cards, the card is gone.

Why: You were so focused on remembering your card, but we switched out all the cards.

### Game #1: The Warehouse

Pay attention to Apollo as he does things.

Result: He changed money into more money, but did you notice all the changes in the scene? We changed so many things.

So: Your brain just played a trick on you. But it's just an Illusion. Misdirection is an elegant form of attention control. We can only focus on one thing at a time. Don't feel bad if you were fooled, because your brain has to prioritize what's important.

Dr. Simons: Change Blindness is the failure to notice a large change from one moment to the next. Attention is limited. We process that thing in detail.

Your brain runs on 12 watts of power. With limited energy, your brain has shortcuts to focus in on what counts. The Prefrontal cortex and the Parietal Lobe allowing you to shift your attention.

Your attention is like a spotlight, a narrow beam providing you with a detailed image, and a broader image gives you a bigger picture, but makes it harder to keep focus.

Did you notice Dr. Simons shirt change? Of course you did. But that's the point. When the change affects what you're paying attention to, you're more likely to catch it.

### Game #2: Alter the Black Five

Count the number of changes you see.

Result: 5, right, easy.

Now try to count the number of changes with a second of black between each still.

Result: It was harder, and there were 7 different changes. So why is it easier to catch a change without the black still?

Why: You pay so little attention to what's around you, that you wouldn't notice a change.

### Game #3: OMG, It Was Him!

See how many changes you spot with our clerk.

Result: None of the people are able to catch the switch.

Why: You don't notice changes like this because you don't expect them to occur. Your brain isn't prepared to notice when these things happen. Chances are you have a 1 in 3 chance of catching the switch. You think you're going to notice change, but that's not always the case.

You miss these changes every single day, and you mix up names and other things. We see less of the world than we think we do. But what if changes happened inside your personal space.

### Game #4: Stolen!

Pay attention to what items Apollo steals.

Result: Apollo stole 4 things, but were you able to keep track?

How: By manipulating your ability to focus, he's able to steal your stuff.

Top-Down attention is decision-making attention, where you look away for something else.

Bottom-up attention is when something grabs your focus.

For Top-Down attention, the prefrontal cortex evolved for this.

Bottom-up attention relies on the Sensory Cortices, unexpected stimuli can be quickly routed to grab your focus.

Even when you know how his tricks work, he can still fool you.

### Game #5: Multitask

Count how many times David's picture or name pop up, and count the number of times you hear the word magic.

Result: This might prove your ability to multitask.

So: While you might think you can do more than one thing at a time, most of us aren't wired for it.

Stayer: We can only process and do one thing at a time. In studies, we switch from one activity to the other and change where you are focusing. Let's put someone who thinks they can multitask to the test.

Petrus Venter must talk and answer basic questions while driving a challenging course. Petrus ends up performing far worse than he expects.

Now, the second part of the test involves a driving simulator while doing cognitive tasks. He must memorize a list of words, answer math questions and drive.

### Game #6: Give It a Try

Play along with Petrus on the math and memory.

Result: This is an extremely difficult task.

So: Petrus ranks like everyone else, a bad multitasker. But what does this mean for multi-taksing in day to day life?

Talking on a cell phone while driving causes 2,500 deaths and 330,000 injuries a year.

### Game #7: The Trick

Pay attention to Apollo.

Result: What did you see, and what did you miss?

Why: Inattetional Blindness makes you miss things if you're not looking for it. We filter out things we want to see sometimes. Your brain is being bombarded most of the time.

### Game #8: Read It

Can you read this sentence?

Result: Yes.

Why: Your brains fills in the rest of the letters with your expectations.

### Game #9: Live Audience

Count the number of times the blue Jabbawakis step into the spotlights.

Result: Forget the counting. Did you see a penguin? Over 50% of the audience missed it.

Why: Your brain's filter is large enough to make you miss large features in the environment. But there are sometimes where you want more control.

### Game #10: Color Aloud

Say the color of the word aloud. The color, not the word.

Result: Easy.

Let's try it again.

Result: It might take 50% longer.

So: This is the stroop effect, and relies on interfering signals in your brain. The ventral stream and occiptal and temporal lobes control these areas. Your brain's automated functions may interrupt your skills. How can you turn off your brain's automatic thinking?

#### Experiment: Hypnosis

Amir Raz tires to hypnotize someone and make them forget or feel something else.

Result: It works. and then when hypnosis is done, she remembers again.

Why: If you don't believe him, let's try the stroop test again with a volunteer.

Now a volutneer tries to make someone forget how to read, so they can do the stroop test better.

Result: Under hypnosis, you are better at this test.

Why: They're able to degrade the quality that they're seeing under hypnosis. Research suggsests that you can rewire your brain and improve your performance at everyday tasks. But it doesn't matter if you miss anything through any of these games, it means your brain is doing what it does best, giving your full attention to what's important.

### Game #11: PAID ATTENTION!

Did you pay attention? Tell which pictures are from the show.

Result: Did you pay attention? What was the question? Did you see the brains throughout the show.

So: It's not what you look at, it's what you see.

## List of Experts

* David Copperfield(Guest)
* Dan Simons
* David Strayer
* Petrus Venter
* Amir Raz
* Apollo Robins(Deception Specialist)