[Paleopsych] Discovery: Human Brain's 'Mastermind' Located

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Human Brain's 'Mastermind' Located
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050718/multitasking_print.html

    By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

    July 20, 2005 -- Humans attempt to do many things at the same time,
    such as driving and chatting on the phone, or working and listening to
    music, and now research suggests why such multitasking may be
    possible: the brain appears to have its own control center.

    Studies indicate that the physical "center" of the brain is located in
    the prefrontal cortex, on the left-hand front side, just above the
    temple. This is the first time that a "mastermind," which could
    control both visual and auditory activity, has been identified.

    Before the new research, most scientists thought the brain processed
    sight and sound in different areas. Now it is believed that sight and
    sound influence each other.

    Humans attempt to do many things at the same time, such as driving and
    chatting on the phone, or working and listening to music, and now
    research suggests why such multitasking may be possible: the brain
    appears to have its own control center.

    Studies indicate that the physical "center" of the brain is located in
    the prefrontal cortex, on the left-hand front side, just above the
    temple. This is the first time that a "mastermind," which could
    control both visual and auditory activity, has been identified.

    Before the new research, most scientists thought the brain processed
    sight and sound in different areas. Now it is believed that sight and
    sound influence each other.

    "Many others have studied how matched audio-visual events, such as
    watching lips move and hearing speech sounds, are processed in the
    brain, but we wanted to draw attention to all of the audio-visual
    events humans are exposed to that are completely unrelated, like
    driving and talking on a cell phone or cleaning your apartment and
    listening to music," said Jennifer Johnson, lead author of the study
    and a researcher in the experimental psychology program at McGill
    University.

    Johnson and colleague Robert Zatorre had test subjects listen to
    short, novel melodies and look at changing geometric shapes on a
    computer screen, both separately and at the same time. When
    multitasking, participants were asked to focus more on the music or
    the shapes at various periods.

    Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) recorded what happened in their
    brains.

    The study's results were presented at the annual meeting of the
    Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Toronto.

    When someone only listened to music, the auditory part of the brain,
    located just over the ears, activated. Visual stimulation by itself
    activated the visual area of the brain, toward the back of the head.
    Multitasking brought in the "mastermind" area that seemed to divide
    and control activity between the visual and auditory parts of the
    brain.

    The researchers, however, said one activity usually takes precedence,
    which could explain why students who forever listen to loud music do
    not study as well as those who work in silence, and why drivers who
    chat on the phone often make errors in judgment.

    "One of the events is distracting from the other," Johnson told
    Discovery News.

    "We see in our study how focusing attention on one sense causes
    increased activity in that sensory area of the brain, but we also see
    how ignoring the other sense causes decreased activity in the other
    sensory area of the brain. This is likely why listening to raucous
    music or talking on the cell phone can lead to decrements in
    performance for the other tasks of studying and driving."

    Another recent study on brain organization, authored by Michael Fox
    and colleagues at Washington University, supports the importance of
    the frontal cortex region in multitasking.

    Fox and his team also noted that whenever an activity demands more
    attention, such as when a cell phone talking driver realizes he or she
    is about to run a red light, the driver's brain will then focus more
    on the driving than on the talking.