So you weren't pay attention and blew right through that four-way stop, only to look in the rear-view mirror seconds later and go all Homer Simpson ("D'oh!").
According to UC Davis researchers, what probably happened is that brain wave patterns in regions in the back and mid-section of your noggin increased markedly during that bout of inattentiveness.
Using an electromagnetic brain imaging device -- magnetoencephalography -- UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain fellow Ali Mazaheri and researchers from the Donders Institute in the Netherlands mapped just what happens right before a mistake is made and how the brain corrects itself so that, hopefully, the mistake is not repeated.
Some 14 subjects were placed before a computer and asked to complete repetitive "attention response" exercise -- pressing a button when a number between 1 and 9 were flashed; refraining to press when the number 5 flashed. Just before the subjects made a mistake (pressing the button when 5 flashed) the alpha waves in a region near the back of the brain increased by 25 percent and increased activity also was seen in the middle portion of the brain, the sensorimotor cortex.
Mazaheri, whose results were published today in the journal Human Brain Mapping, explained that the activity is "what happen when the brain runs on idle."
What practical applications could this discovery portend?
Mazaheri says, for instance, wireless EEG devices could alert air traffic controllers to when they are losing attention. Also, children with ADHD could have their alpha waves monitored to see if certain treatments are effective.
