Only in the last ten years—thanks to neuroscientists and their functional MRIs—have we been able to watch the attending human brain in action
This has yielded all kinds of fascinating insights—for instance, that when forced to multitask, the overloaded brain shifts its processing from the hippocampus (responsible for memory) to the striatum (responsible for rote tasks), making it hard to learn a task or even recall what you’ve been doing once you’re done.
