Study: Distractions Impede Learning

Followup on my post about continuous partial attention - In Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences there was a report about how distractions impede learning (Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction).  Relevant quote:

"What's new is that even if you can learn while distracted, it changes how you learn to make it less efficient and useful," said Russell A. Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.  ..."in general, distraction is almost always a bad thing."

Loverly.  Take your pick of newspaper articles discussing the report.


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