How is ATTENTION indicated in the program?
Trying out the demo component of the program previously, I sat down and casually clicked the START BUTTON. But now in the actual program the start button had become the attention indicator, readying me to focus on the task. Close attention and focusing is fundamental to the success of the tasks, and the deep-brain processing required. The result that the program promises needs my full contribution…..
Rewards
The bottom half of the computer screen, gets filled with “rewards” for getting things right.
If I momentarily diverted my attention to examine what was happening elsewhere on the screen I found that I lost focus: it was harder then to detect the direction of the sound sequence, up or down, and activate the appropriate mouse clicks. If I started thinking of other things I had to deliberately return to the task in hand. A bit like meditation…keeping in the moment….
A FIRST MEMORY EXPERIENCE
Perhaps the most interesting thing happened when I momentarily lost a bit of focus. One hour of intense concentration is quite demanding!
To recapture the direction and sequence of two sound sweeps that I missed, I found I was able to redirect my attention INSIDE my brain, like a searchlight searching for a memory trace. Listening to a repeat of the sweep sounds inside my head it was possible to rehearse the sound sequence and respond. It’s rather like reading a telephone number and saying it over again. The sounds had clearly entered short-term (working) memory and I was able to refocus my attention and hear them again in sequence and thus make the appropriate mouse-click response. For such an apparently simple exercise there is so much going on…..(L:EAVE MARGARET A COMMENT)”
