In this excellent article ‘To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight‘ we are reminded that filtering is a major activity of our brain with a particular emphasis on attention management. However it obviously has some drawbacks.
“Somehow, even with massive amounts of information flooding our senses, we’re able to focus on what’s important and act on it.” By researching about this effect of focalisation researchers have actually found out that our brain uses deeply ingrained filtering mechanisms, beyond our cortex regions. “The attentional searchlight metaphor was backward: The brain wasn’t brightening the light on stimuli of interest; it was lowering the lights on everything else.”
Moreover, “[the] findings indicate that the brain casts extraneous perceptions aside earlier than expected. And filtering is starting at that very first step, before the information even reaches the visual cortex.” This shows that there is a substantial amount of information that gets filtered without even reaching any level of consciousness. This shows that we unconsciously filter much more than what we would believe!
Interesting new research paths are described, in particular how perception and movement get interlinked at a very low brain level.
In any case it becomes obvious that our filtering mechanisms are useful and dangerous at the same time, and they are so deeply ingrained in our brains that we can’t even hope to become conscious of it. Food for thought!
