You’re talking to someone at a crowded restaurant when their eyes unexpectedly widen. “Did you hear that?” they ask. It turns out that, while listening to you, they also caught a dramatic bit of the conversation from a couple at a nearby table. According to a new study published in PLOS Biology, we all have this ability to track multiple conversations at once, even in noisy surroundings, but some people are better at it than others.
Most previous research into how boisterous environments affect our attention has explored how people tune in, sustain their focus, and screen out the noise. This recent study, conducted by an international team of neuroscientists, investigates how we shift our attention between two competing sources. The researchers strapped EEG harnesses around participants’ heads while they listened to two simultaneous recordings of TED Talks amid background noise. The subjects were then tasked with swapping their attention between the two speakers as the researchers recorded their neural activity.
Read more: “What Searchable Speech Will Do To You”
The researchers found that people’s brains were able to engage with a new speaker before they had fully disengaged with the old speaker. In other words, there was a brief period of overlap where their attention was split between both, which showed a unique signature on the EEG readings.
“Our findings suggest that some people may naturally be better multitaskers than others, allowing them to better explore what’s happening around them without immediately losing focus on their current conversation,” study author Giovanni Di Liberto of Trinity College Dublin explained in a statement. “This could help explain why some people seem especially good at navigating busy social environments.”
It could also explain why some people seem more skilled at eavesdropping than others. It’s either that or you’re a boring conversation partner. 
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Lead image: дима селиванов / Adobe Stock
