Thread by @anniemurphypaul

We tend to think of attention as an individual resource: MY attention, directed at MY chosen target.

But SHARED attention is an equally valuable resource. When a group of people is skillfully attending to the same thing at the same time, they work better together.

Studies of groups laboring on a shared task—from students programming a robot to surgeons performing an operation—show that the members of effective
teams tend to synchronize their gaze, looking at the same areas at the same time.

More of these “moments of joint attention” are associated with more successful outcomes.

Moreover, research suggests that the ability to coordinate such moments can be acquired with practice.

One study of physician teams performing surgery on a simulator found that the gaze of experienced surgeons overlapped at a rate of about 70 percent, while the gaze of novices overlapped only about 30 percent of the time.

Interestingly, effective collaborators aren’t ALWAYS looking at the same place at the same time; rather, they cycle between looking on their own, then looking together.

Our emphasis on attention as a purely individual resource leads us to overlook the value of shared attention.

An approach to group work that is informed by the extended mind would intentionally cultivate the skill of engaging in shared attention.

amazon.com/Thinking-Outsi…

Over on Facebook, my friend Bob Sullivan (@RedTapeChron) commented, "This seems even more important in an age when all manner of gadgets are competing for (and usually winning) our attention."

I pointed him to another interesting paper—

—an article about how team members in the workplace can be physically present but absorbed in their devices, and what that does to the sense of "co-presence" among colleagues.

sciencedirect.com/.../abs/pii/S0…