Todd Breyver gets out of the tent. For the first time in three days he did not put on the clock. "Lost" - shrugs he said. This is nonsense, small change, that most vacationers noticed in myself, when I finally relax and stop watch the time. But for Breyvera and his associates, such cases entail the question: "What happens to our brains?»
Breyver, professor of psychology at the University of Washington St. Louis - one of five neuroscientists who dared an unusual journey. In late May, they spent a week in the foot hike along the banks of the San Juan River in a remote area in southern Utah.
It was an easy hike with a challenging goal - to understand how to use digital technology and other new influences on our thinking and behavior and can return to nature to turn the clock back.
Some scientists believe that such travel is hardly necessary to give so much attention. But the organizer of the campaign, David Streyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah, believes that the study of what happens when we leave aside computers and give the brain a rest, and how it affects memory, attention and learning ability - an important topic for research.
«Warning - some sort of Holy Grail for us, - says Streyer. - All that you realize all the things you think and remember all that you are forgetting is dependent on attention. "
Streyer argues that an understanding of how the account would help us to understand many diseases, such as attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and depression. He believes that too many digital devices with which people work every day, "harmful to mental health of people who without this would function normally. "
For Streyera this question is no less important than learning how to affect the human consumption of too much meat or alcohol.
Streyer and 40-year-old Kansas University professor Paul Atchley, who is studying pathological obsession teenage mobile phones, believe that technology can suppress the thoughts and cause anxiety, and that the approach to nature might help.
Other researchers who participated in the campaign, are skeptical. Among them, 41-year-old specialist in neuroimaging Breyver, 54-year-old head of the department of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (Maryland), Steven Yantis, who has been studying how people switch from one job to another, and 57-year-old professor University of Illinois, Art Kramer, who studies the influence of physical training on the neurologic condition.
Recent studies of attention have great importance to science. Proponents of the theory Streyera believe that too much information creates the illusion of maturity, which affects ability to concentrate on anything attention.
But Kramer disagreed with them. "As scientists, we live with computers", - he said.
Sitting around a campfire Reviewers Streyera discuss how to study the effect of constant distractions like email and other digital phenomena.
Research show that when people do several things at the same time, they make them worse. Researchers are wondering whether the suffering and the ability to focus attention on something, when people expect the emergence of new messages or other incentives. "Waiting for messages, apparently, takes part of our working memory" - said Yantis.
for the brain working memory - a precious resource.
«When you have less working memory, you have less space for storage and integration of ideas and as a consequence, for thinking about what to do "- says Kramer.
a few days the group discusses how to measure the release of brain chemicals in the blood substances. Some talk about how to apply neuroeconomics (measurement of how the brain evaluates information) in order to understand the obsession with Text messages.
Streyer said that travelers are in the process of relaxation, which he calls the "syndrome of the third day." Even the most skeptical minded scientists say that their brain is something that sets them on a scientific discussion, something that could help people survive in a world of constant electronic noise.
«If we can figure out that people are tired of walking, not realizing until the end of their own intellectual potential ... - Says Breyver and adds: - What can we do to restore itself to life? »
Even without knowing how the campaign contributed to their brain, scientists are ready to advise a holiday so who wants to bring thoughts into order. Toward the end of the trip Cramer shares personal discovery: "I have a colleague who said that to get rude computer in the middle of the meeting, and I say that this does not prevent me to listen. But maybe I'm not so good at listening. Maybe I need to work hard to listen to better ".
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