full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar: What happens in your brain when you pay attention?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Paying close attention to something: Not that easy, is it? It's because our attention is pulled in so many different directions at a time, and it's in fact pretty irsmievpse if you can stay focused.

Many people think that aietotntn is all about what we are focusing on, but it's also about what information our brain is trying to filter out.

There are two ways you dceirt your attention. First, there's overt attention. In orevt attention, you move your eyes towards something in oredr to pay attention to it. Then there's covert attention. In covert attention, you pay attention to something, but without moving your eyes. Think of driving for a second. Your overt attention, your direction of the eyes, are in front, but that's your covert attention which is constantly scanning the suurnodinrg area, where you don't actually look at them.

Open Cloze


Paying close attention to something: Not that easy, is it? It's because our attention is pulled in so many different directions at a time, and it's in fact pretty __________ if you can stay focused.

Many people think that _________ is all about what we are focusing on, but it's also about what information our brain is trying to filter out.

There are two ways you ______ your attention. First, there's overt attention. In _____ attention, you move your eyes towards something in _____ to pay attention to it. Then there's covert attention. In covert attention, you pay attention to something, but without moving your eyes. Think of driving for a second. Your overt attention, your direction of the eyes, are in front, but that's your covert attention which is constantly scanning the ___________ area, where you don't actually look at them.

Solution


  1. direct
  2. order
  3. overt
  4. attention
  5. surrounding
  6. impressive

Original Text


Paying close attention to something: Not that easy, is it? It's because our attention is pulled in so many different directions at a time, and it's in fact pretty impressive if you can stay focused.

Many people think that attention is all about what we are focusing on, but it's also about what information our brain is trying to filter out.

There are two ways you direct your attention. First, there's overt attention. In overt attention, you move your eyes towards something in order to pay attention to it. Then there's covert attention. In covert attention, you pay attention to something, but without moving your eyes. Think of driving for a second. Your overt attention, your direction of the eyes, are in front, but that's your covert attention which is constantly scanning the surrounding area, where you don't actually look at them.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
pay attention 4
covert attention 4
paying attention 3
close attention 2
brain patterns 2
brainwave patterns 2
asked people 2


Important Words


  1. area
  2. attention
  3. brain
  4. close
  5. constantly
  6. covert
  7. direct
  8. direction
  9. directions
  10. driving
  11. easy
  12. eyes
  13. fact
  14. filter
  15. focused
  16. focusing
  17. front
  18. impressive
  19. information
  20. move
  21. moving
  22. order
  23. overt
  24. pay
  25. paying
  26. people
  27. pretty
  28. pulled
  29. scanning
  30. stay
  31. surrounding
  32. time
  33. ways