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How does multitasking affect the human brain?
Diagram of the autonomic nervous system showing the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions. The left side illustrates sympathetic nerves branching from the spinal cord to organs and glands, while the right side shows parasympathetic nerves connecting to organs such as the eye, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, intestines, and bladder. Color-coded pathways and labeled ganglia highlight the different nerve routes and target organs in human anatomy.
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attention

psychology
Also known as: concentration, interest
Written by
W. Cheyne McCallum
Senior Research Fellow in Psychology, Burden Neurological Institute and University of Bristol, England. Coeditor of The Responsive Brain.
W. Cheyne McCallum
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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attention, in psychology, the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli. Attention is awareness of the here and now in a focal and perceptive way. For early psychologists, such as Edward Bradford Titchener, attention determined the content of consciousness and influenced the quality of conscious experience. In subsequent years less emphasis was placed on the subjective element of consciousness and more on the behaviour patterns by which attention could be...

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