It is also known that patients with prefrontal lesions confined to BA areas 9 and 46 are impaired in their ability not only to focus attention on task-relevant stimuli [ 36] but also to suppress task-irrelevant information [ 37].
Although turning a "deaf ear" to the outside world when preoccupied with a visually loaded task may be advantageous at times (since it helps to focus attention on the task), there are of course situations in which this deafness is undesirable.
Researchers have long known that children from families with higher socioeconomic status do better on a number of cognitive measures, including IQ scores, reading and language batteries, and tests of so-called executive function the ability to focus attention on a task.
Modulation of activity of these 'default mode' areas in this study might indicate that increased neural resources are directed toward emotion processing (i.e. the processing of salient external stimuli) as pre-manifest Huntington's disease subjects approach disease onset and inhibit day-dreaming to focus attention on the task.
Qualitative research can help focus attention on user tasks and goals and identify patterns of care that can be visualized through task modeling exercises.
We use the idea of cognitive apprenticeships here to focus attention on the tasks students are asked to engage with, and the kinds of activity that potentially emerge from these tasks.
Nurses also reported a task-focused approach where intravenous administrations were rushed, particularly before lunch breaks, shift changes or between ward rounds, in order to focus attention on other tasks (eg, very sick patients, other ward round duties) or reduce workload for others (eg, on the next shift).
Because dual-task performance can be modified by focusing attention on one task or another, the effect of dual-task training may be influenced by the instructions provided.
Polich [ 16] proposed that the P3b component is related to the neuro-inhibition needed to focus attention on the relevant task, facilitating the interference-free action of memory systems [ 16].
For example, auditing systems enacted for 'transparency' may focus attention on more measurable tasks at the detriment of others (e.g. publishing lots of papers instead of taking time to find new audiences for their work).
The study, in people with depression, found the default mode network to be "hot-wired" to brain regions that process emotions or help focus attention on demanding mental tasks and that connections over-fire or fire unreliably.
