Why can't I concentrate?

The CrowdScience inbox is full of questions about attention and multitasking, so in this show we’re concentrating on concentration and focusing on how we focus.

Show more

Why is it hard to concentrate, and why does it feel like such hard work? The CrowdScience inbox is full of questions like that, so for this show we’re concentrating on concentration and focusing on how we focus.

We’ll be answering questions about the extra energy the brain uses when we’re concentrating, whether mental effort can tire you out more than physical effort, why we zone out when faced with a difficult task and how the ability to multitask is governed by our overall cognitive load.

To find the answers, presenter Alex Lathbridge is paying attention to a team of experts. Psychology professor Sophie Leroy from the University of Washington in the USA studies the impact of being interrupted on our ability to perform, cognitive neuroscientist Professor Salvador Soto-Faraco from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain researches how sight, sound and touch are blended together by the brain, and psychology professor Polly Dalton runs the Attention Lab at Royal Holloway University in London, UK.

We’ll be trying to distract them with gossip about what we had for lunch, finding out why the brain is like a bike and, most importantly, discovering how you can concentrate better on shows exactly like this one.

Presenter: Alex Lathbridge

Producer: Tom Bonnett

Editor: Ben Motley

(Photo: Woman with glasses thinking and pointing upward- stock photo - Credit: ismagilov via Getty Images)

Show less