Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
Let's take a few moments to explore this image.
Have you seen it?
It was very crowded,
there were so many objects in this image;
and clearly you will have the feeling
that you failed to catch them all.
It's normal,
because our brain, in every moment,
can only process a very limited amount of incoming signals;
and so, at all times, you need to make a selection, a choice.
Something is selected,
and therefore we can somehow process it;
and something else, on the other hand, is ignored, almost as if it never existed.
The mechanism that maneuvers this choice is attention.
Attention, therefore, is a mechanism that allows us to make order.
It makes sure that only a small part of all the incoming information,
is selected, processed,
so that we can then become aware of it.
It is attention, therefore, that allows us to establish a connection
between our inner world -
our mind, our consciousness, our awareness -
and the world out there
with its different environment, signals, recalls.
Once the attention has selected certain objects,
then our eyes can move
and bring those objects to the center of our gaze,
so we can see them well;
and then, if necessary,
we can also start a movement to go and reach these objects.
A topic that is still being studied a lot,
talking about how attention works,
is about how this choice happens,
that is, what the principles that attention uses
to decide what gets priority over what does not.
I've been working in this field for 20 years now.
but I don't need to tell you for you to realize
that among all the images that were in this set
there's one that we've probably all seen,
and this is it.
Why did we all see her?
Because it was moving.
Our brains are made in such a way
to give higher priority to moving objects,
compared to objects that are static.
Other images that we've probably noticed,
within this set,
are the red ones.
Why would I do that?
Not so much because they're red;
but because, from the moment we entered this theater,
we looked around,
we have seen so many objects of this color -
the TEDx logo is also red -
and that activated in our minds the concept of red.
And when this image appeared,
all dots with this color
earned a priority over the others,
and may have brought our attention
towards them.
Good.
Surely, however,
we would have noticed other elements within this image.
But from here on, if we were to make a list
of what one noticed and what the other noticed,
we will see that the overlap tends to decrease
for everyone will have noticed different things,
because familiarity comes into play
that each of us has
with certain contexts, certain objects,
the value we assign to those objects.
So, for example, there will be sports freak,
and they will have noticed that there was a soccer ball;
those who are passionate about music,
will have noticed the pianist, the score and the image of Monteverdi;
there will be smokers, and they may have noticed
that there was a man lighting his cigarette.
And so, our previous experience,
the familiarity we have with these objects
is one of the mechanisms that guide our attention.
They say we see things not as they are, but as we are.
This is a notion
that has been around as popular wisdom for hundreds of years:
but science took a while
to be able to study these phenomena
with its methodological, experimental rigour;
and it has been proven how previous experiences,
the knowledge we already have acquired, our habits,
do matter in guiding our attention,
and therefore also in guiding the way we explore the environment.
Before the same image,
all our brains have begun to make a selection:
but they led us to have, each one,
a slightly different perception
compared to our partner's one.
It is important to study how experience drives attention,
because on one hand it allows us to understand how our brain works;
on the other, however,
it has very interesting implications in several scenarios.
Those with some kind of addiction, for example,
know well that when, say, a smoker enters a room
he can't help himself, and immediately notices
if there is an ashtray nearby.
As he walks through the city, unintentionally,
his eyes fall on the sign of a tobacconist.
And these signals, once they've been detected,
can act as a trigger
to increase the desire, perhaps, to light your cigarette,
or ignite this craving that wasn't before.
The problem of these automatisms is,
stop smoking is not enough
to no longer be a victim.
Indeed: often, after addiction per se and suppressed, overcome,
the permanence of these automatisms that concern our attention
is one of the causes that then drive to resume.
So, understanding the genesis, based on previous experience,
of these automatisms
can lead us to understand the way to solve, eliminate them.
Knowing how attention works, in a sense,
also allows us to predict, anticipate
our and other people's behavior.
And this too, per se,
does matter from an application standpoint.
If we think about the mechanisms that drive attention,
those we discussed before,
only in a completely bare, completely natural context,
these can spontaneously take action.
Simply enter a confined, delimited environment,
to change the number and type of signals
that can come into play to guide our attention.
And in fact, this gives someone else a chance
to guide our exploration of the environment.
If you think, for example, of shop windows,
or supermarket lanes,
they are made to divert our attention
to certain objects and certain enseignes.
The picture gets clearer
when we move from 3D to 2D world,
on a computer screen:
those who designs websites, for example, or social media,
take great advantage nowadays
of this wealth of knowledge about attention hacking;
and even take advantage of previous experience:
if you think about it
each of us is now offered a series of news
and advertising, for example advertising banners,
that are customized around our profile.
There's a trace of our previous experiences,
because they take into account
everything we've looked at or clicked on before.
Then, the selection
that in theory we should do, could do, spontaneously,
is here delivered to us, already prepackaged.
And if we think about all these things as a whole,
it is therefore possible,
partly because of our natural tendency -
that’s how we are -
and a little bit for the strategies that others are using
we find ourselves exploring things, and environments,
always the same way.
We are always guided by the same signals.
And this also strengthens our habits:
schemes can be strengthened, which feed continuously.
And they're doing great.
in the sense that they allow us to be more efficient,
allow us to waste less time,
to extract the information we need from the environment
much faster;
on the other hand, though if these reinforcing behaviors
are ones we'd like to avoid,
this is certainly not desirable.
The case of smokers, for example,
if you're a person who wants to quit smoking,
finding yourself noticing, every time,
some signs that make you want to smoke
sure isn't desireable.
So how do you get out of these automatisms,
when they are not desired?
It's not easy, there's still a lot of work going on.
and therefore there is still no clear answer to this question.
A possible strategy, however, passes precisely through what is
our natural tendency to be guided
from previous experience and knowledge.
Our brain, our nervous system,
has a very strong capacity
to shape, adapt to learning.
When new information comes in, they change us forever.
Every interaction we have with the environment, or with others,
is going to create a new memory.
And this new memory can be used just as before,
a new parameter
that guides our attention and behavior in the future.
So, a possible strategy to stop these old automatisms
can be given by the fact of creating new ones, specifically,
striving to nurture new knowledge,
acquire new skills, to enrich our knowledge,
because this not only allows us to increase
our personal encyclopedia,
but will shape the lens
through which we see, and understand, the world around us.
And this power is in our hands.
I want to wrap up, therefore, by launching a small challenge:
now, in front of this image that you have already seen,
do your history and your future a favor,
and try to look at one of the aspects that you had previously neglected,
that you hadn't found so interesting,
and let this guide you to new ideas, dreams and sources of inspiration
whose meaning you will ony understand tomorrow.
(Applause)