How come when you are driving through a neighborhood looking for an address, you turn the radio down?

Cookie On My Mind

So I can concentrate better. If the radio is going, your brain has to input more information at the same time that you're focusing on the numbers.

But BTW - I might leave the radio on if the song 'She's a Brick House' was playing and I just happend to be looking for a brick house, it would help me remember lol

Lisa

LOL! You do that too! I just realized that and never thought about it before. How funny! I guess our mind thinks we can concentrate better!

bostonianinmo

It helps me concentrate. I also do that in heavy traffic or whenever there's significant other distractions.

Chucky3680

hahaha well this is a funny question because thats the same thing I do, well I think that we turn the radio volume down because we want to try to concentrate on the number of the home and not have any noise around us.

Platobeenz

Same as using your mobile while driving- you can't concentrate.

fireblade

how true, never thought about it before,something i do automatically

<BEE>

in case you need to ask someone for directions?

julie

Cuz you can not hear yourself think if you have the radio on.

Bill S

So you can hear the house calling you. I don't know the answer to that one, and I doubt anyone else does either.

walter chaos

'cause you are constrating on the road aand trying to avoid running over the trikes and bikes while yo is lookin' fo da streak numdos ..............................

hahunter88

So you do not have to listen to your wife scream as loud - you know like you are going to the address up and as everybody knows - women are always right!!!!!!!...... Funny Question - El skygatto!!!

runnin w' scizzors

Hey, I've often wondered that, too. I always do that!

Good Deeds

To increase the sense of sight so you can spy that address, you need to decrease the focus of other senses like hearing so you naturally tun down/off the radio so as to add more awareness to your sense of sight and concentrate with that sense .

queenofsiberia

to better concentrate on what your looking for..especially if your not good with multi-tasking or about to ask someone you see the directions....I do that all the time..when I am looking for something or going to a drive thru...its an automatic reaction..turn the radio down..not saying that everyone does this..but I guess its only common sense.

Cheryl B

Lol, you know, I've never noticed if I've done this or not. I'll certainly look out for it though.

I know for sure I drive much slower when I'm looking for an address. I also know that if I sneeze when I drive I still close my eye and battle to keep them open!

That's an interesting question and I hope someone comes up with an answer for you.

Good luck.

philipscown

There are possibly two issues. The first is "attention" - being able to focus on more than one thing at a time. Turning the volume down means the radio "demands" less attention.

The other possibility is channel overload: language handling centres of the brain. So street names and house names would potentially conflict with words being heard on the radio: two sources of linguistic data going into one linguistic interpretation channel. Turn the radio down so you've only got one real input to the linguistic channel.

We could run an experiment on this...

Gypsy Girl

I don't. That seems silly to me. Why? Do you do it?

reaperohio

To prevent "Sensory Overload"----Too much simultaneous input diminishes one's ability to think/concentrate.

royandpeg@sbcglobal.net

Well here is the answer. It has to do with the Neuorology of the brain. And the fact that there is a dominant and subdomionant side. The side of the brain that handle white noise, (appliance fans), music, lyrical languages (like french et al), is called the subdominate. NO it does not mean less talented, for the musicains among you! The other side, the dominate side, handles logical thinking, math, writing, reading etc. That is why stutterers "bounce" back and forth and settle in the dominant side at last to say the word. That is why they can more easily sing the phrase withoutr a stutter. That is why you have a headache in the morning if you sleep with the TV or radio on all night, or live on the ocean.
That is why game shows play music in the backgound while contestants struggle with the final Jeopardy question or the winner circle puzzle on Wheel, etc.
So while you are reading a book, balancing checbook, merging onto the freeway, reading street signs, assimilatiing info from other passengers, etc, you are realizing there is intereferance, and do what comes naturally.
You can increase your brain ability to operate clearly and correctly by turning off any source of white noise you can while you sleep, so you do not "excersise" the subdominate side to the point of interference (headache or difficulty concentrating) Try it, bet the grades will improve!

so u can concentrate on what ur looking for.

alfiegirl

only a man would do that as they cant do 2 things at once!

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