This chapter provides examples of how attention plays an important role in our everyday lives. Real-world examples are used to explain the motivations behind cutting-edge attention research being done in neuroscience labs. These include distracted driving, airport security screening, and radar and sonar monitoring. Vigilance and the ability to sustain attention are introduced as critical mental processes for success at certain jobs. The influence of attention on reading and memory, and the choice of whether to study in silence or with music are discussed. Lapses of attention are described, including how these can have a range of consequences, from the brief embarrassment of not knowing what someone just said to us to the potentially fatal effect of not attending to our driving. Theories of joint attention and social-gaze orienting are introduced to explain how our attention is linked to those around us. The purposeful misdirection of a person’s attention, at multiple levels, by skilled magicians is linked to core processes of attention and perception. This chapter also introduces the idea of training attention, including the effects of playing video games, and explains how proper training protocols require detailed knowledge of the mechanisms of attention.

The emphasis of this chapter is on multitasking (and why we are so terrible at it). The everyday examples carried through the chapter are “things we do while driving” - eating, listening to media, talking, and yes - texting. After a few stories about driving I describe the fascinating research on distracted driving - with the conclusion that talking on a cell phone harmed the attention we need for driving, not physically holding the phone. This research resulted in legislation against driving while using hands-free phones as well as handheld, and more importantly explained why talking on a cell phone caused accidents. A series of experiments on distraction follows, each new answer leading to another unexpected question in a science detective story. This leads into a discussion of how to predict which multitasking situations are harmful and which ones we’ll probably be good at (with accompanying graphics). The closing example is a description of NASA'S MIDAS system, which can be programmed with the different multiple tasks we expect a person to do and will run a simulation showing exactly when and how they will make us fail (prompting either regulation, a redesign of the task, or the hiring of more people so jobs can be distributed).