SteadyPractice
← All topics

Focus

Attention training, deep work, and cognitive interventions for sustained focus.

Research synthesis3 min read

What the Focus Research Actually Shows

Attention is trainable, interruptible, and highly variable between individuals. Here's what cognitive science says about actually improving it.

Attention Is a System, Not a Resource

The popular metaphor of focus as a "battery" that depletes and recharges is partially right but misleading. Attention is better understood as a system of interacting processes — sustained attention, selective attention, executive control — each with different determinants and different failure modes.

The research literature on focus is younger and noisier than the sleep or exercise literature, but some findings are consistent enough to act on.

What the Evidence Supports

Context switching has a larger cost than most people realize. The "attention residue" research by Sophie Leroy and others shows that switching away from unfinished work can leave cognitive activation from the previous task, degrading performance on the new one. Separate field studies of knowledge workers also find long return-to-task times after interruptions, though the popular "23 minutes" figure is often overgeneralized. The practical implication is still sturdy: fewer, longer work blocks usually beat many short ones for cognitively demanding work.

Working memory training has limited transfer. Despite the popularity of "brain training" apps, the research consistently shows that working memory training improves performance on trained tasks but shows weak transfer to untrained cognitive tasks or real-world outcomes. Training on N-back tasks makes you better at N-back tasks.

Exercise acutely improves attention and executive function. Single sessions of moderate aerobic exercise (20–30 minutes) produce measurable improvements on attention tasks lasting 1–3 hours post-exercise. This is one of the more reliable acute cognitive enhancement effects in the literature and requires no equipment or training.

Mindfulness meditation improves sustained attention. Multiple RCTs using standardized attention tasks show that 8-week mindfulness programs (MBSR and similar) improve sustained attention and reduce mind-wandering. Effect sizes are moderate but consistent. Shorter interventions (4 weeks, daily 10-minute practice) show smaller but detectable effects.

Sleep deprivation destroys focus more than people expect. Crucially, subjective sleepiness diverges from objective performance after multiple nights of mild restriction. People who are moderately sleep-deprived consistently underestimate their performance impairment. Cognitive performance on attention-heavy tasks degrades roughly linearly with cumulative sleep debt.

What Doesn't Hold Up

Most nootropic supplements show weak evidence in healthy, non-deficient individuals. Caffeine is the significant exception — it reliably improves sustained attention and reaction time, with well-characterized dose-response curves.

Multitasking is largely a myth for complex cognitive work. The research on dual-task performance shows that what people call multitasking is rapid task-switching, with the associated costs.

The Measurement Problem

Focus is harder to measure than sleep or exercise. Subjective ratings of "productivity" correlate poorly with objective output measures. Self-experimentation here benefits from choosing concrete output metrics — words written, problems solved, code shipped — rather than subjective focus ratings alone.

Full article →Test this on yourself →

Evidence base

Min quality:

50 papers

RCTWikiHigh evidence score

Improving Executive Function and Its Neurobiological Mechanisms Through a Mindfulness-Based Intervention: Advances Within the Field of Developmental Neuroscience

Yi‐Yuan Tang, Lizhu Yang, Leslie D. Leve +1 more · Child Development Perspectives · 2012 · 227 citations

This review of randomized controlled trials suggests that a specific mindfulness practice called Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT) can improve mental control abilities like attention and emotion regulation by influencing brain areas related to self-control and stress response, making it a promising area for self-experimentation to boost cognitive performance.

Read the breakdown →
RCTWikiHigh evidence score

Training of attentional control in mild cognitive impairment with executive deficits: Results from a double-blind randomised controlled study

Lyssa G. Gagnon, Sylvie Belleville · Neuropsychological Rehabilitation · 2012 · 79 citations

A two-week computer-based training program designed to improve the ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously (Variable Priority training) helped older adults with mild cognitive impairment and executive deficits improve their dual-task accuracy, suggesting a potential strategy for self-experimenters looking to enhance attentional control.

Read the breakdown →
ObservationalLeading journalWikiModerate

Motor Skills and Exercise Capacity Are Associated with Objective Measures of Cognitive Functions and Academic Performance in Preadolescent Children

Svend Sparre Geertsen, Richard Thomas, Malte Nejst Larsen +9 more · PLoS ONE · 2016 · 151 citations

In 423 Danish 9-year-olds, better fine and gross motor skills were strongly linked to higher scores across five cognitive domains (sustained attention, working memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, processing speed) and better academic performance in math and reading, while exercise capacity (aerobic fitness) showed weaker, domain-specific links — suggesting that motor skill development, not just fitness, may be a key lever for cognitive enhancement in children.

Read the breakdown →
RCTTop journalWikiHigh evidence score

Training on Movement Figure-Ground Discrimination Remediates Low-Level Visual Timing Deficits in the Dorsal Stream, Improving High-Level Cognitive Functioning, Including Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory

Teri Lawton, John Shelley-Tremblay · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 2017 · 43 citations

A 12-week visual training program focusing on movement discrimination improved visual timing, attention, reading fluency, and working memory in elementary school children, suggesting a new approach to cognitive enhancement and dyslexia treatment.

Read the breakdown →
StudyTop journalModerate

Music Enrichment Programs Improve the Neural Encoding of Speech in At-Risk Children

Nina Kraus, Jessica Slater, Elaine C. Thompson +4 more · Journal of Neuroscience · 2014 · 230 citations

Musicians are often reported to have enhanced neurophysiological functions, especially in the auditory system. Musical training is thought to improve nervous system function by focusing attention on meaningful acoustic cues, and these improvements in auditory processing cascade to language and cognitive skills. Correlational studies have reported musician enhancements in a variety of populations across the life span. In light of these reports, educators are considering the potential for co-curricular music programs to provide auditory-cognitive enrichment to children during critical developmental years. To date, however, no studies have evaluated biological changes following participation in existing, successful music education programs. We used a randomized control design to investigate whether community music participation induces a tangible change in auditory processing. The community music training was a longstanding and successful program that provides free music instruction to children from underserved backgrounds who stand at high risk for learning and social problems. Children who completed 2 years of music training had a stronger neurophysiological distinction of stop consonants, a neural mechanism linked to reading and language skills. One year of training was insufficient to elicit changes in nervous system function; beyond 1 year, however, greater amounts of instrumental music training were associated with larger gains in neural processing. We therefore provide the first direct evidence that community music programs enhance the neural processing of speech in at-risk children, suggesting that active and repeated engagement with sound changes neural function.

StudyModerate

Gaze training enhances laparoscopic technical skill acquisition and multi-tasking performance: a randomized, controlled study

Mark Wilson, Samuel J. Vine, Elizabeth Bright +3 more · Surgical Endoscopy · 2011 · 191 citations

BACKGROUND: The operating room environment is replete with stressors and distractions that increase the attention demands of what are already complex psychomotor procedures. Contemporary research in other fields (e.g., sport) has revealed that gaze training interventions may support the development of robust movement skills. This current study was designed to examine the utility of gaze training for technical laparoscopic skills and to test performance under multitasking conditions. METHODS: Thirty medical trainees with no laparoscopic experience were divided randomly into one of three treatment groups: gaze trained (GAZE), movement trained (MOVE), and discovery learning/control (DISCOVERY). Participants were fitted with a Mobile Eye gaze registration system, which measures eye-line of gaze at 25 Hz. Training consisted of ten repetitions of the "eye-hand coordination" task from the LAP Mentor VR laparoscopic surgical simulator while receiving instruction and video feedback (specific to each treatment condition). After training, all participants completed a control test (designed to assess learning) and a multitasking transfer test, in which they completed the procedure while performing a concurrent tone counting task. RESULTS: Not only did the GAZE group learn more quickly than the MOVE and DISCOVERY groups (faster completion times in the control test), but the performance difference was even more pronounced when multitasking. Differences in gaze control (target locking fixations), rather than tool movement measures (tool path length), underpinned this performance advantage for GAZE training. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that although the GAZE intervention focused on training gaze behavior only, there were indirect benefits for movement behaviors and performance efficiency. Additionally, focusing on a single external target when learning, rather than on complex movement patterns, may have freed-up attentional resources that could be applied to concurrent cognitive tasks.

StudyTop journalModerate

The Effects of Different Stages of Mindfulness Meditation Training on Emotion Regulation

Qin Zhang, Zheng Wang, Xinqiang Wang +3 more · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 2019 · 83 citations

This study examined mood enhancement effects from 4-week focusing attention (FA) meditation and 4-week open monitoring (OM) meditation in an 8-week mindfulness training program designed for ordinary individuals. Forty participants were randomly assigned to a training group or a control group. All participants were asked to perform cognitive tasks and subjective scale tests at three time points (pre-, mid-, and post-tests). Compared with the participants in the control group, the participants in the meditation training group showed significantly decreased anxiety, depression, and rumination scores; significantly increased mindfulness scores; and significantly reduced reaction times (RTs) in the incongruent condition for the Stroop task. The present study demonstrated that 8-week mindfulness meditation training could effectively enhance the level of mindfulness and improve emotional states. Moreover, FA meditation could partially improve individual levels of mindfulness and effectively improve mood, while OM meditation could further improve individual levels of mindfulness and maintain a positive mood.

StudyLeading journalModerate

Virtual Reality Assessment of Classroom – Related Attention: An Ecologically Relevant Approach to Evaluating the Effectiveness of Working Memory Training

Benjamin Coleman, Sarah Marion, Albert Rizzo +2 more · Frontiers in Psychology · 2019 · 75 citations

Computerized cognitive interventions to improve working memory also purport to improve ADHD-related inattention and off task behavior. Such interventions have been shown to improve working memory, executive functioning, and fluid reasoning on standardized neuropsychological measures. However, debate continues as to whether such programs lead to improvement on ecologically relevant outcomes, such as classroom behavior. This study sought to propose a novel, ecologically relevant approach to evaluate the effectiveness of working memory training on real-world attention performance. Participants included 15 children, aged 6-15, identified as having attention problems were assessed via the virtual classroom continuous performance task (VCCPT) before and after completing 5 weeks of Cogmed working memory training. The VCCPT is a validated measure of sustained and selective attention set within a virtual reality (VR) environment. Several key areas of attention performance were observed to improve, including omission errors, reaction time, reaction time variability, and hit variability. Results suggest that working memory training led to substantial improvements in sustained attention in a real-life scenario of classroom learning. Moreover, the use of psychometrically validated VR measurement provides incremental validity beyond that of teacher or parent report of behavior. Observing such improvements on ecologically relevant measures of attention adds to the discussion around how to evaluate the effectiveness of working memory training as it pertains to real-life improvements and serves to inform consumer awareness of such products and their claims.

StudyLeading journalModerate

Sustained Effect of Music Training on the Enhancement of Executive Function in Preschool Children

Yue Shen, Yishan Lin, Songhan Liu +2 more · Frontiers in Psychology · 2019 · 74 citations

Musical training is an enrichment activity involving multiple senses, including auditory, visual, somatosensorial, attention, memory, and executive function (EF), all of which are related to cognition. This study examined whether musical training enhances EF in preschool children who had not undergone previous systematic music learning. This study also explored the after-effects 12 weeks after cessation of musical training. Participants were 61 preschool children from a university-affiliated kindergarten in North China. The experimental group underwent 12 weeks of integrated musical training (i.e., music theory, singing, dancing, and role-playing), while the control group performed typical daily classroom activities. The three components (inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility) of executive functions were evaluated using the Day/Night Stroop, Dimensional Change Card Sort, Dot Matrix Test, and Backward Digit Span Task. In Experiment 1, EFs were tested twice-before (T1) and after (T2) the music training. The results showed that children's EFs could be promoted by musical training. In addition, EFs were tested again 12 weeks later after the end of the intervention (T3) in Experiment 2. We discovered that integrated musical training demonstrated a sustained promotion effect.

BookHigh evidence score

Deep Work

Cal Newport · Grand Central Publishing · 2016 · ★ 3.8 (189)

BookHigh evidence score

Your brain at work

David Rock · HarperCollins Publishers · 2009 · ★ 5.0 (1)

BookWikiHigh evidence score

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Cal Newport · Hachette UK · 2016 · ★ 5.0 (1)

This book argues that the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks ("deep work") is a rare and valuable skill that directly predicts professional output and personal fulfilment, and provides a framework of four rules to cultivate this ability—though the evidence base is largely anecdotal and self-experimental rather than from controlled trials.

Read the breakdown →
BookHigh evidence score

Thinking, fast and slow

Daniel Kahneman, Daniel Kahneman · Farrar, Straus & Giroux · 2011 · ★ 4.1 (215)

StudyModerate

The Effect of Virtual Reality Cognitive Training for Attention Enhancement

Baek Hwan Cho, Jeonghun Ku, Dong Pyo Jang +5 more · CyberPsychology & Behavior · 2002 · 149 citations

Our main goal in this research was to validate the possibility of virtual reality (VR) for attention enhancement in cognitive training program. Then, we developed some cognitive training tasks using VR technology. Thirty subjects who had little behavioral problems and social problems were randomly assigned into three groups: VR group, non-VR group, and control group. Only the VR group used the head-mounted display (HMD) and position sensor. While the VR group and non-VR group performed cognitive training, the control group received no special treatment. All participants took their eight session tasks over 2 weeks. Participants executed a continuous performance task (CPT) before and after training sessions. We found that immersive VR with cognitive training is effective for attention enhancement. Also, we confirmed that our cognitive training can improve the attention span of children and adolescents with behavioral problems and help them learn to focus on some tasks.

StudyLeading journalModerate

No Sustained Attention Differences in a Longitudinal Randomized Trial Comparing Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction versus Active Control

Donal G. MacCoon, Katherine A. MacLean, Richard J. Davidson +2 more · PLoS ONE · 2014 · 96 citations

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a secular form of meditation training. The vast majority of the extant literature investigating the health effects of mindfulness interventions relies on wait-list control comparisons. Previous studies have found that meditation training over several months is associated with improvements in cognitive control and attention. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used a visual continuous performance task (CPT) to test the effects of eight weeks of mindfulness training on sustained attention by comparing MBSR to the Health Enhancement Program (HEP), a structurally equivalent, active control condition in a randomized, longitudinal design (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01301105) focusing on a non-clinical population typical of MBSR participants. Researchers were blind to group assignment. 63 community participants were randomized to either MBSR (n = 31) or HEP (n = 32). CPT analyses were conducted on 29 MBSR participants and 25 HEP participants. We predicted that MBSR would improve visual discrimination ability and sustained attention over time on the CPT compared to HEP, with more home practice associated with greater improvements. Our hypotheses were not confirmed but we did find some evidence for improved visual discrimination similar to effects in partial replication of other research. Our study had sufficient power to demonstrate that intervention groups do not differ in their improvement over time in sustained attention performance. One of our primary predictions concerning the effects of intervention on attentional fatigue was significant but not interpretable. CONCLUSIONS: Attentional sensitivity is not affected by mindfulness practice as taught in MBSR, but it is unclear whether mindfulness might positively affect another aspect of attention, vigilance. These results also highlight the relevant procedural modifications required by future research to correctly investigate the role of sustained attention in similar samples. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01301105.

StudyLeading journalModerate

The Pattern and Loci of Training-Induced Brain Changes in Healthy Older Adults Are Predicted by the Nature of the Intervention

Sylvie Belleville, Samira Mellah, Chloé de Boysson +2 more · PLoS ONE · 2014 · 85 citations

There is enormous interest in designing training methods for reducing cognitive decline in healthy older adults. Because it is impaired with aging, multitasking has often been targeted and has been shown to be malleable with appropriate training. Investigating the effects of cognitive training on functional brain activation might provide critical indication regarding the mechanisms that underlie those positive effects, as well as provide models for selecting appropriate training methods. The few studies that have looked at brain correlates of cognitive training indicate a variable pattern and location of brain changes--a result that might relate to differences in training formats. The goal of this study was to measure the neural substrates as a function of whether divided attentional training programs induced the use of alternative processes or whether it relied on repeated practice. Forty-eight older adults were randomly allocated to one of three training programs. In the single repeated training, participants practiced an alphanumeric equation and a visual detection task, each under focused attention. In the divided fixed training, participants practiced combining verification and detection by divided attention, with equal attention allocated to both tasks. In the divided variable training, participants completed the task by divided attention, but were taught to vary the attentional priority allocated to each task. Brain activation was measured with fMRI pre- and post-training while completing each task individually and the two tasks combined. The three training programs resulted in markedly different brain changes. Practice on individual tasks in the single repeated training resulted in reduced brain activation whereas divided variable training resulted in a larger recruitment of the right superior and middle frontal gyrus, a region that has been involved in multitasking. The type of training is a critical factor in determining the pattern of brain activation.

StudyTop journalModerate

A P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface for Improving Attention

Mahnaz Arvaneh, Ian H. Robertson, Tomás Ward · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 2019 · 82 citations

A Brain-computer Interface (BCI) can be used as a neurofeedback training tool to improve cognitive performance. BCIs aim to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the conventional neurofeedback methods by focusing on the self-regulation of individualized neuromarkers rather than generic ones in a graphically appealing training environment. In this work, for the first time, we have modified a widely used P300-based speller BCI and used it as an engaging neurofeedack training game to enhance P300. According to the user's performance the game becomes more difficult in an adaptive manner, requiring the generation of a larger and stronger P300 (i.e., in terms of total energy) in response to target stimuli. Since the P300 is generated naturally without conscious effort in response to a target trial, unlike many rhythm-based neurofeedback tools, the ability to control the proposed P300-based neurofeedback training is obtained after a short calibration without undergoing tedious trial and error sessions. The performance of the proposed neurofeedback training was evaluated over a short time scale (approximately 30 min training) using 28 young adult participants who were randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control group. In summary, our results show that the proposed P300-based BCI neurofeedback training yielded a significant enhancement in the ERP components of the target trials (i.e., 150-550 ms after the onset of stimuli which includes P300) as well as attenuation in the corresponding ERP components of the non-target trials. In addition, more centro-parietal alpha suppression was observed in the experimental group during the neurofeedback training as well as a post-training spatial attention task. Interestingly, a significant improvement in the response time of a spatial attention task performed immediately after the neurofeedback training was observed in the experimental group. This paper, as a proof-of-concept study, suggests that the proposed neurofeedback training tool is a promising tool for improving attention particularly for those who are at risk of attention deficiency.

Books on this topic

Deep Work

Deep Work

Cal Newport

Amazon →

Your brain at work

Your brain at work

David Rock

Amazon →

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Cal Newport

Amazon →

Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

David Rock

Amazon →

Thinking, fast and slow

Thinking, fast and slow

Daniel Kahneman

Amazon →

Super Focus

Super Focus

Kevin Garnett

Amazon →