Brain 'Superfocus' Ability Can Recognize Celebs Despite Distractions, Study

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Human brain has the ability to focus on a certain subject and ignore the distractions. A new research reveals that the "superfocus" ability of brain can recognize celebrities by their images without paying any attention to misleading information.

The research was conducted by using images of famous celebs whose names were written correctly on half of the images while other half had wrong names. But the participants were able to recognize all the celebs by their faces only without getting confused by the false names.

Image of Leonardo DiCaprio was named Pitt or cruise but the participants did not pay any attention to the names and recognized the identity of the celebs. For quite a long time the researchers though that the brain goes through a couple of phases. First, distraction and then the realization of distraction and second is an effort to re-focus, according to Long Room.

But Duke University researchers have new finding. They say that the human brain has a way to direct focus on something and ignore the distractions without needing to go through the phases.

Practice in life helps to maintain focus. Certain habits like crossing roads and acting in a certain manner in the presence of a senior can let the brain bypass the distractions.  

The study was conducted using brain scanning (MRI) with a celebrity naming game to check which part of the brain is responsible for "superfocus" job! The researchers discovered that the part of the brain called caudate nucleus is responsible for this "superfocus" which is the same part which tells the body to pull away from something hot or painful, reports Daily Mail.

The "superfocus" was first discovered in 2011 but the details of handling this focus were not yet clear, says Dr. Tobias Egner, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and Duke and the lead author of the study.

The recent study was conducted along with the use of fMRI on 28 participants. This psychological test is called "Stroop test." Participants were shown images of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, George, Matt Damon Clooney, etc. and were asked to identify the images as fast as possible. To create the distraction, some images were labeled with wrong names. But the participants recognized the celebs correctly.