Attentional blinks
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Attentional blinks refer to brief periods where the brain temporarily shuts off attention after identifying a target, leading to missed information. illustrates this with the example of searching for Waldo in a visual puzzle: when you find Waldo, the "celebration" in your brain causes a momentary lapse in attention, preventing you from noticing another Waldo nearby 1. This phenomenon occurs in tasks like spotting specific letters in a fast-moving stream of characters, where identifying one target makes you likely to miss the next.
This can be particularly pronounced in individuals with ADHD, who may have more frequent attentional blinks. It suggests that their distractibility might actually stem from over-focusing on certain elements while missing others 1. This insight could help refine strategies for improving focus in people with ADHD by addressing these attentional blinks.
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