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The Best Music for Productivity? Silence
The Atlantic: Like most modern “knowledge” workers, I spend my days in an open office. That means I also spend my days amid ringing phones, the inquisitive tones of co-workers conducting interviews, and—because we work
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Our growing fascination with boredom
University Affairs: A funny thing happened to Julian Haladyn while researching boredom and art. He got excited. The dull subject was conceptual artist On Kawara’s Today paintings, a series of hundreds of rectangular, solid-coloured canvases
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The Benefits of Being Distracted
The Wall Street Journal: Most people are more easily distracted as they get older. There might be a benefit to that. Research is finding that greater distractibility and a reduced ability to focus—what scientists call
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Studying Perception of Animate Versus Inanimate Objects With LEGO Blocks
Animate objects, such as animals and humans, hold a special sway over humans’ attention. For example, when presented with two scenes (one containing an animal and one not), people will preferentially orient to the one
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of new research exploring the balance between focus and breadth determined during perceptual processing and Bayesian models of perceptual differences in individuals with autism.
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Even Small Distractions Derail Productivity
Interruptions don’t only take up time and increase error rates, they also degrade the overall quality of people’s work.
