The power of distracting influence

What you just had to eat or whether or not you had enough sleep the night before are just two of the things that may impede are process of selective attention. But a much more common culprit is distraction. In a recent study that’s bound to have repercussions in the debate over the use of cellular phones in cars a group of British researchers found that it’s difficult for the brain to focus on an important task when its working memory capacity is either full or overloaded with distracting stimuli.