GENIUS FORUMS

While listening to youtube videos I like to play tetris simultaneously, so long as the video doesn't contain anything that I can't get from the audio alone. Playing tetris doesn't decrease my ability to comprehend what is being said in the video, and I actually think it enhances my comprehension skills because playing tetris occupies a different part of my brain that keeps the whole thing from wandering which some times happens when I watch a video without doing anything else. I also seem to be able to play tetris better when I am listening to something; it doesn't matter if it's a youtube video, television, or music. I can't do just anything and still be able to comprehend what's being said in video though. Like if I read something and listen to a youtube video at the same time, I wont be able to comprehend or remember anything that was said in the video. I think this shows just how specialized certain parts of the brain are at performing certain tasks. Based on how my mind works, it seems the part of my brain that specializes in comprehension is completely separate from the part of my brain that specializes in spacial recognition (tetris skillz). If anyone has some more insight into the details of what's going on here I'd love to hear it.

Nick Treklis wrote:While listening to youtube videos I like to play tetris simultaneously, so long as the video doesn't contain anything that I can't get from the audio alone. Playing tetris doesn't decrease my ability to comprehend what is being said in the video, and I actually think it enhances my comprehension skills because playing tetris occupies a different part of my brain that keeps the whole thing from wandering which some times happens when I watch a video without doing anything else. I also seem to be able to play tetris better when I am listening to something; it doesn't matter if it's a youtube video, television, or music. I can't do just anything and still be able to comprehend what's being said in video though. Like if I read something and listen to a youtube video at the same time, I wont be able to comprehend or remember anything that was said in the video. I think this shows just how specialized certain parts of the brain are at performing certain tasks. Based on how my mind works, it seems the part of my brain that specializes in comprehension is completely separate from the part of my brain that specializes in spacial recognition (tetris skillz). If anyone has some more insight into the details of what's going on here I'd love to hear it.

certainly, spacial comprehension probably relies more on cerebellum and pareital activations, while philosophical comprehension probably relies more on frontal lobe and temporal lobe activations. Processes are distributed through the brain, however, attentional processing is fairly linear. So, if you had to learn to play tetris simultaneously as you listened to and attempted to comprehend a philosophy video, you would need to split attention between the two and probably compromise your comprehension of one or the other. However, since you are already proficient with tetris, do not need to learn the rules or attend exclusively to the orientations of the block pieces, your cerebellum and PMC are able to carry out the behaviours reflexively with minimal attentional awareness. This same feature of the brain allows musicians to sing and play an instrument simultaneously, but only after developing a reflexive proficiency for playing the instrument.

Nick, is your youtube-comprehension affected at the higher, faster levels of Tetris? Or are you such a guru that every level is about the same amount of sweat, that is: none?

I do suspect some neurons configure themselves to the repeating patterns. There are a limited amount of recurring patterns in this game. The brain should have figured out the best strategies after while, like a decision tree, and just runs "mindlessly" through them. There a lot of other medium complex decision trees that can be done while talking or listening, like driving a car through busy traffic, even in unknown streets or towns.

How about other games? Minesweeper also has recurring tactical patterns. Solitaire probably too.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Nick, is your youtube-comprehension affected at the higher, faster levels of Tetris? Or are you such a guru that every level is about the same amount of sweat, that is: none?

The speed doesn't seem to affect my comprehension, but if I get in a bind and it looks like I'm about to go down my comprehension skills start to slip a little bit, but not completely.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:I do suspect some neurons configure themselves to the repeating patterns. There are a limited amount of recurring patterns in this game. The brain should have figured out the best strategies after while, like a decision tree, and just runs "mindlessly" through them. There a lot of other medium complex decision trees that can be done while talking or listening, like driving a car through busy traffic, even in unknown streets or towns.

That's probably true, but it still seems like whatever part of the brain that is used to play tetris is different from the part of the brain that is used in comprehension, allowing both to be done simultaneously. For instance, I used to play first person 3D shooters all the time when I was a teenager, but at no point was I ever able to focus on anything aside from the virtual environment while playing them.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:How about other games? Minesweeper also has recurring tactical patterns. Solitaire probably too.

Didn't try solitaire, but I couldn't comprehend what was being said in a youtube video and play minesweeper at the same time. It felt like reading the numbers and relating them to the surrounding numbers to locate the mines demanded too much from the same part of my brain that is used to comprehend what was being said in the video. I don't play minesweeper as much as I play tetris, but I've played it enough times to where I don't think the difference in experience can account for the disparity in comprehension ability.

Animus wrote:certainly, spacial comprehension probably relies more on cerebellum and pareital activations, while philosophical comprehension probably relies more on frontal lobe and temporal lobe activations. Processes are distributed through the brain, however, attentional processing is fairly linear. So, if you had to learn to play tetris simultaneously as you listened to and attempted to comprehend a philosophy video, you would need to split attention between the two and probably compromise your comprehension of one or the other. However, since you are already proficient with tetris, do not need to learn the rules or attend exclusively to the orientations of the block pieces, your cerebellum and PMC are able to carry out the behaviours reflexively with minimal attentional awareness. This same feature of the brain allows musicians to sing and play an instrument simultaneously, but only after developing a reflexive proficiency for playing the instrument.

Well just to be clear, the video doesn't have to be about philosophy. It can be about anything, so long as I find it interesting enough to pay attention to. Aside form that, I still think that no matter how proficient one becomes at something, there are certain things that can't be multi-tasked because they demand too much from the same areas of the brain. For instance, I don't think anyone, no matter how much they practice it, can listen to one thing and read another nothing, and be able to comprehend both.

Nick Treklis wrote:

Animus wrote:certainly, spacial comprehension probably relies more on cerebellum and pareital activations, while philosophical comprehension probably relies more on frontal lobe and temporal lobe activations. Processes are distributed through the brain, however, attentional processing is fairly linear. So, if you had to learn to play tetris simultaneously as you listened to and attempted to comprehend a philosophy video, you would need to split attention between the two and probably compromise your comprehension of one or the other. However, since you are already proficient with tetris, do not need to learn the rules or attend exclusively to the orientations of the block pieces, your cerebellum and PMC are able to carry out the behaviours reflexively with minimal attentional awareness. This same feature of the brain allows musicians to sing and play an instrument simultaneously, but only after developing a reflexive proficiency for playing the instrument.

Well just to be clear, the video doesn't have to be about philosophy. It can be about anything, so long as I find it interesting enough to pay attention to. Aside form that, I still think that no matter how proficient one becomes at something, there are certain things that can't be multi-tasked because they demand too much from the same areas of the brain. For instance, I don't think anyone, no matter how much they practice it, can listen to one thing and read another nothing, and be able to comprehend both.

I agree that if two processes involve identical brain regions then their will be conflict and time-sharing will need to be in effect. I used to work for a call centre, taking calls for Nextel customer service. The management insisted that we not use any after-call time. After-call time is just an option to spend some time after a call wrapping up the notes on the account. The company I worked for handled calls third-party for Nextel and was not paid for after-call time. They instructed us to "Talk and Type" in order to reduce after-call time to zero. What they meant was; type out the notes on the account while conversing with the customer. However, the note taking and conversing were often malaligned. Notes might be about one issue while the conversation is on another. We weren't taking a diction from the customer, just writing down pertinant notes. Ultimately most of us just asked the customer to hold on the line and then typed out our notes, because doing the talk and type thing was impossible and quite often we'd type out the content of the speech instead of what we were supposed to type out. It proved to be bording on humanly impossible.

Nick,

As Animus says, tasks that involve mental rotation of blocks activate primarily in the parietal lobe, with some other secondary areas, while higher comprehension activates primarily in the frontal/prefrontal areas, with some secondary areas activated as well.

So a bottleneck effect is unlikely unless both tasks share activation areas or share travel pathways. However, if two tasks share travel pathways, the bottleneck effect will not be as severe, as processing demands can be recruited or put into a queue that is much less limited than if an cortical area is overloaded with two tasks simultaneously.

Unrelated: an interesting neuroscience study is the accident involving a fellow named Phineas Gage who worked as a railroad supervisor, and had a rod shot up through his brain, and he survived. His brain impairment was very unique, as the rod severed the connection between the limbic system and the frontal lobe, which was devastating to his cognitive system. He was unable to filter or rationalize the emotional trite spewed by the limbic system, as one of the primary functions of the frontal lobe is to rationalize, filter and negate much of what is happening within the limbic system, which is emotional garbage. The end result is this poor fellow became the village retard, he couldn't carry on conversations with anyone, he offended everyone he spoke with because he couldn't filter anything, and he often made statements that were driven by emotion and impulse.

As tragic as this man's life was, he excelled the field of cognitive neuroscience by leaps and bounds.

Until the invention of the fMRI scanner, much of the progress in the field of brain function has been made through the study of dysfunction and brain lesions.

About the example I gave where one listens to one thing and reads another, if a person could actually comprehend both, it seems like it would only be able to be done if one had the ability to activate a dual-consciousness mode, and then be able to re-combine them so the information is accessible to the whole. Maybe it just seems this way because I can only operate within the limitations of the human brain, but perhaps this example has more to do with how consciousness works than actual brain function.

Nick,

About the example I gave where one listens to one thing and reads another, if a person could actually comprehend both, it seems like it would only be able to be done if one had the ability to activate a dual-consciousness mode, and then be able to re-combine them so the information is accessible to the whole. Maybe it just seems this way because I can only operate within the limitations of the human brain, but perhaps this example has more to do with how consciousness works than actual brain function.

Your example is a little different, but studies have shown that when it comes to the attentional system, people are horrible at paying attention to two things simultaneously, and doing both tasks well. That is why cell phone talking is being banned while driving because the brain is unable to concentrate on a phone conversation and on the road at the same time.

Now with your tetris example, I would argue that you are not actually reading or comprehending much. The game has become reflexive or automatic for you. When it comes to actual comprehension, the brain can only handle one thing at a time well. It can multi-task somewhat, but it does much poorly because vital information is lost in transit, and not fully processed.

I had a boss that seemed like he could multi-task and comprehend many things at the same time because he could have two phones, one on each ear, and talk to someone in person at the same time, but he wasn't processing all the information simultaneously, he was talking to one person, then switching, and coming back. There is a big difference there as far as brain function goes.

However, to be able to keep three conversations straight in real time requires a well developed short term memory that can hold information in transit until it is needed later, and then discard it quickly, while picking up new vital short term information. He had a very specialized brain that probably evolved over time, and recruited new brain areas for his job, because most people are horrible at that sort of thing, as they mix up the information for each conversation, or they just outright forget information, and have to ask for the person to repeat. This guy didn't have to do any of that.