This is part 3 in a blog arc on attention and cogntion triggered by comments from two frequent readers of this blog, Brad Berens and "Frequent Reader". Part 1 started this arc by describing how my work was entering my life by...um...distracting me.
Part 2 dealt with Lapses of Consciousness. Here we go into detail about these lapses.
First, lapses in consciousness happen all the time. You're driving down the road and suddenly become aware your turn is coming up. Your consciousness wasn't on driving the car yet you were able to let your non-conscious handle the job and it was happy to do so, alerting you when necessary so you could once again "take control" of the experience. You're reading a book and totally lose track of the time until your stomach begins announcing its engagement to your backbone or you get a call from a concerned partner that you've missed dinner out.
What we learned was sometimes similar and sometimes different.
One pattern we discovered and which I observed in myself was "invalid task-switching". Invalid task-switching occurs when you're literally doing more than one thing at a time and the actions -- not the thoughts and that's important -- of one task replace the actions of another task. In my case, I was feeding our cat and putting beans in the coffee maker. The beans are kept in the freezer, the can of cat food in the refrigerator. The can of cat food ended up in the freezer. The actions of task A melded with or replaced the actions of task B.
One fellow mentioned, laughingly, leaving his house without a hat on his head. He always wore a hat, he explained. He got to his office and discovered his hat crumpled in his briefcase.
Lapses of consciousness. Invalid task-switching.
(More to follow...)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
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