Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
The human brain can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
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Even if we agree on that (which I don't; if it were, we couldn't walk and chew gum!), that doesn't necessarily apply to audiobooks. Most notably, it's not necessary to give one's full attention to an audiobook all the time. If something happens that needs your attention on the road, that attention will snap right to where it needs to be.
Humans can, in fact, pay attention to multiple things at once. True, only one thing can be reserved for
full attention, but anyone who tries directing the kind of attention reserved for, say, a finicky bit of model work to driving is going to crash into something. The human mind can't keep up that kind of attention for long. Without variety, people zone out. Some of them fall asleep. Most of them couldn't tell you what their commute/trip/whatever was like, because they don't remember any of it. Some people go on "autopilot" and follow their customary route somewhere, even if that isn't where they're going, because their brain is just humming along in neutral.
I've been a commercial driver, and I've driven hundreds, even thousands, of miles at a time for private purposes (including diagonally across the US). As a courier, driving the exact same route, hundreds of miles every night, I became extremely aware of my alertness and how to maintain it. I wish I'd had audiobooks; they would have helped.
No, the ideal is
not a driver sealed in a little compartment isolated from all influences except the road around him, as some people seem to expect. That's a recipe for disaster. Without stimulation -- and again, we're not talking downtown in a big city here, we're talking an open motorway -- that driver turns into a zombie who has difficultly noticing, let alone reacting to, unexpected events. The eyes need to be pointed road-ward, because eyes are a single-use sense; they can only effectively look at one thing at a time (if you're reading, peripheral vision is
not enough). But the ears can hear multiple things at once, and that can include passengers, radios, and audiobooks. I can tell you from personal experience, far too much personal experience, that with none of the above, your brain begins to drone, and it doesn't take as long as you think. The more familiar the route, the more easily it happens. And that is
so not what you want.