Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off. That’s the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward and co-authors conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in an attempt to measure, for the first time, how well people can complete tasks when they have their smartphones nearby even when they’re not using them.
In one experiment, the researchers asked study participants to sit at a computer and take a series of tests that required full concentration in order to score well. The tests were geared to measure participants’ available cognitive capacity — that is, the brain’s ability to hold and process data at any given time. Before beginning, participants were randomly instructed to place their smartphones either on the desk face down, in their pocket or personal bag, or in another room. All participants were instructed to turn their phones to silent.
The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag.
The findings suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity and impairs cognitive functioning, even though people feel they’re giving their full attention and focus to the task at hand.
Read the complete article from the University of Texas at Austin here: The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows
The full text journal article from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research can be found here: Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own
Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
New research questions the strong claims that have been made about the benefits of ‘brain training’ – enhanced mental skills, a boost to education, improved clinical outcomes and sharper everyday functioning. This new study found evidence that ‘brain training’ changed brain signalling but no indication of other benefits.
The study published by Dr Duncan Astle and colleagues from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in the Journal of Neuroscience tested whether it is possible to improve memory skills in childhood with training. “Given the bold claims you might think that so-called brain training has the potential to enhance almost every aspect of our daily lives. But we know surprisingly little about whether it is really effective, and much less about how it actually alters brain function.”
Read the complete article from UK's Medical Research Council here: Evidence of changes to children's brain rhythms following 'brain training'
Using eye-tracking glasses, Queen’s University professor Adam Szulewski (Emergency Medicine) has developed a new method to determine how novice medical students learn compared to more experienced medical professionals.
“Many traditional assessment strategies in medical education rely on tabulating learners' scores in order to obtain grades,” says Dr. Szulewski. “In the real world, medical learners are faced with the need to make many decisions in a short time period, which increases their cognitive load and puts a strain on working memory. We have shown that we can now measure cognitive load in an unobtrusive way during medical assessments.” Changes in pupil size correlate with changes in cognitive processing demands.
The results of the study revealed that novices expend more mental effort than experts when answering medical questions – which is true even when both the novices and the experts answer the same question correctly.
Although ICE doesn't have eye-tracking glasses, we do have a portable eye tracking device that could be used for a similar study!
Read the complete article from Queen's University here: The eyes have it
People who feel intimidated by math may be less able to understand messages about genetically modified foods and other health-related information, according to researchers.
The researchers found that math anxiety led to a decrease in comprehension for people who read statistics in a message about genetically modified foods, while an increase in skills in math and a confidence in those skills led to better comprehension.
Read the complete article from Penn State News here:
Math anxiety factors into understanding genetically modified food messages
