Researchers have found the main reason why a person can sometimes ignore others. According to a new study, a person can experience temporary deafness to environmental sounds when performing a certain visual activity causing them to ignore anyone nearby.
A new study performed by the researchers at the University College of London (UCL) suggests that concentrating on a visual task can make the person's sense of hearing dull.
This means that when a person is doing things like playing video games, reading, and watching television, there is a great probability that he or she can ignore the people around.
The study was conducted by asking 13 volunteers to undergo some testing. Each of the participants' brain were then scanned in order to look for a certain deficit called "inattentional deafness". The said case happens when a certain individual fails to notice any sound in the environment while concentration on a visual activity.
In a statement, Dr. Maria Chait of the UCL Ear Institute stated in a press release the objective of their research.
"This was an experimental lab study, which is one of the ways that we can establish cause and effect. We found that when volunteers were performing the demanding visual task, they were unable to hear sounds that they would normally hear," said Dr. Chait.
"The brain scans showed that people were not only ignoring or filtering out the sounds, they were not actually hearing them in the first place," added by the co-author of the study.
According to the researchers, "inattentional defaness" can be a more dangerous insufficiency especially for cyclists and drivers who are following complicated directions. Nilloe Lavie, a professor of psychology and brain sciences at the UCL also stated that the said deficit can offer serious warnings to those people who love to text while walking.
The small study is now published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
