Shadowing Practice: Humans and multitasking - How much can we do simultaneously? | DW Documentary - Learn English Speaking with Video
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For many of us, multitasking has become routine.
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But does performing several tasks at the same time really make sense?
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Our brain is not good at tackling two different tasks simultaneously.
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It causes stress that can be measured.
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We know that stress can damage various areas of the brain.
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So what does multitasking actually do to us?
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The magic power of multitasking is to create the subjective illusion that we are achieving a great deal.
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It’s a feeling nourished first and foremost by the digital world.
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Seductive yet demanding, it keeps us constantly on the go.
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Because we’re always in reception mode for everything, our actual attention span is reduced.
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Today, it is considered quite normal to be constantly accessible while performing some other task.
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Sometimes multitasking is also productive.
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It’s about finding the right degree and structure.
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But where is the limit?
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How does our brain react when it has to perform different tasks simultaneously?
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And what about the body? Are there also positive effects, perhaps?
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And is it true that some people handle multitasking better than others.
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We humans are quite capable of doing different things at the same time.
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But that depends on the tasks and the conditions.
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During the pandemic, many parents were forced to juggle childcare and working from home. But is this what we mean by multitasking?
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The term multitasking is not always used in one rigid sense.
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To some it really does mean doing at two things at the same time.
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Others see multitasking as co-ordinating two different life roles: Like being a parent and having a job.
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The term multitasking actually comes from computing.
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It describes the ability of an operating system to perform several tasks simultaneously.
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The human brain is also a gigantic, complex computing center.
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But, it’s no computer.
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Machines function solely along mathematical lines.
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They are characterized by their ability to process and store vast amounts of data very quickly.
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By comparison, our brain works in a selective way...
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constantly absorbing information, even when we’re not aware of it.
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Most processes, of course, take place subconsciously.
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That simply depends on how many processes are automated.
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It’s then easier for them to take place parallel to others.
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But our capacity for solving problems that involve new and, in particular, more complex mental performances is very limited.
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The constant filtering and selection of incoming information is carried out by the thalamus in the interbrain.
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The main switching center for the sensory organs, the thalamus passes relevant information on to the cerebral cortex.
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Everything that we see, hear, feel, taste, or smell is processed in the cerebral cortex which is also responsible for what we think, learn, and memorize.
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It is the anterior cingulate cortex, or the ACC, which controls our conscious focus.
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If, for instance, we have to perform three different tasks and manage to do so successfully, this is only because we focus on task number one while suppressing the challenge posed by tasks two and three. When we switch to task number two, we suppress the challenge posed by tasks one and three.
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And we need strength for this.
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It calls for great attention and, above all, self-discipline.
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In many situations we overestimate our capacities and, as a result, even put ourselves in danger.
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Driving is still a highly complex activity even for experienced motorists.
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Using your smartphone while at the wheel is illegal - for good reason.
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Tests carried out in Germany and the United States have shown that the attention of a motorist using a mobile phone is reduced by 40%.
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That is like having a blood-alcohol level of between 0.8 and 1.1 per mil.
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Our subject, an experienced motorist, wants to find out for herself and has turned up for some driver safety training.
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She has to cover a certain distance over which she will face various challenges.
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From time to time she has to read and write messages on her smartphone or make a call - just like in real life.
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Our motorist is well aware that she is in a special test situation and that her attention is being divided. Nevertheless...
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Someone losing concentration for just two seconds at 50 km/h drives blindly for nearly thirty metres.
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Here, too, it’s a case of distraction through parallel digital communication.
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In this college seminar the lecturer is constantly competing with the entire online world.
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Yet studies carried out at five German universities showed that the performance of students using smartphones during a lecture drops by about thirty per cent.
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And what about you? How do you divide your attention?
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How many platforms can you handle simultaneously without having the feeling that it’s just too much?
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I’ve noticed that, for instance, I can’t discuss something with my mother while tying my shoelaces. I admit that I just can’t do it.
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I’ve got one device for Zoom, and I usually have an I-Pad for making notes or whatever.
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I might also have Instagram on my phone. But then, when I get a message, I notice that I’m no longer concentrating on the lecture and need to re-focus. So I am not really good at multitasking.
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From time to time I listen to Spotify.
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I don’t have it on loud, just in the background.
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Following the lecture is no problem.
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Psychologists at Zurich University have been studying exactly what happens in the human brain when it is confronted simultaneously with learning material and music.
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After all, many people listen to music while they are working.
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They think it helps them concentrate better.
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Some learning theories even support this idea.
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In the Zurich experiment, subjects learn sometimes with and sometimes without music.
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Here, for example, a student is learning English vocabulary while listening to classical music. Her brain activity is being recorded.
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Matthias Kobi, the PhD student who is running the experiment keeps a close eye on the EEG curves.
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Together with the head of the study, Professor Lutz Jäncke, the young scientist is monitoring how the woman’s brain is coping with dual tasks. Although he’s actually a great lover of music, Professor Jäncke would never listen to music while working.
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And he has his reasons.
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If you are learning vocabulary, for example, while listening to music, you should really be focusing solely on learning vocabulary and suppressing whatever music triggers in your brain - fighting it, in a way.
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And that costs strength and effort. We can’t do it for very long.
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In the laboratory Professor Jäncke has shown visibly how a composition by Vivaldi triggers virtual storm waves in the brain.
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This leaves little room for coping with additional tasks and other stimuli.
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There are certain exceptions: When you work in an open-plan office and our surrounded by stimuli, you might put on headphones and listen to predictable music - like lounge music or relatively simple music which to a certain extent has a predictable structure.
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That is a lesser evil compared to constantly changing, unexpected stimuli.
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It all depends on how strongly our attention is challenged.
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We can calculate fairly accurately that eleven million bits of information impact on our senses every second.
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But we can only consciously process between eleven and sixty bits of it.
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Just think about that for a moment: Eleven million bits versus between eleven and sixty bits.
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So we have to consciously select this consciously processed information.
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But how do we do that? In a soundproof chamber at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment in Dortmund, Professor Edmund Wascher and his team are studying how our speech comprehension functions.
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This particular experiment focuses on the cocktail party effect.
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It involves a situation in which, just like at a cocktail party, we are surrounded by lots of sensory stimuli.
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Here, three people can be heard at once.
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So how does our brain sort this babble of voices?
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To a certain extent it’s like a filter, but one that is always based on mutual interference, in other words on competition between the various types of information or the neurons which process certain types of information.
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In this experiment, the research team in Dortmund want to determine the importance of additional visual information - like mouth movements — for speech comprehension.
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This research is becoming increasingly important, especially for our working lives.
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There can be no doubt that through the new technologies and also through digitization in many areas we have to process far more information than in the past.
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Many more jobs these days involve information processing.
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So a challenge exists today that cannot be compared with what we had twenty or thirty years ago.
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Job offers often stress the need for applicants to be capable of multitasking.
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So does this mean that anyone applying must be able to handle as many things as possible at once, without being deterred by interruptions?
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It seems the ideal efficient employee is now considered someone who can communicate easily with colleagues, customers, and bosses, who is always available and accessible, and who can work on several digital devices at once while keeping track of all their tasks.
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The phenomenon of multitasking is not only found in an office environment but also in the production sector.
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The change in the world of work has also changed research into the working environment.
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In the past such research tended to focus on physical demands.
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Today the emphasis is mainly on mental pressures.
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To what extent does our head play along when, for instance, it has to process information while completing a physical task?
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In this boating experiment subjects have to negotiate obstacles without losing their balance on the swaying deck: A mental but also a motory challenge.
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The ultramodern gait laboratory allows for tests in extreme situations, without the risk.
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The focus in the boating experiment is mainly on physical co-ordination, on stability and also on movement planning.
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The next experiment also calls for maximum concentration.
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This time the subject has to cross a suspension bridge.
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What is simulated here in a virtual environment provides important information for structuring our world of work.
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Just think of a roofer or, in a different context, of people working in logistics who have to process various forms of information but who have to do so while moving.
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In certain industrial contexts there is increasing use of data glasses.
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Information is presented directly in the glasses. So it is omnipresent.
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And that is a situation we know too little about in order to say for certain not only that safety is guaranteed during walking but also that all information can be processed correctly.
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Inside the modern workplace the interface between people and technology is becoming increasingly important.
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A fairly new area of research known as cognitive neuro-ergonomics focuses mainly on studying the new mental demands at the workplace.
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How do we cope with the many challenges?
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What is the advantage of working on several things at once?
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Does it really make us faster and more effective?
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Or, conversely, is multitasking counter-productive?
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Doctors, and especially nursing staff, often deal with multiple demands and work interruptions.
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Constantly switching between caring directly for patients, administrative tasks, and organizing a hospital ward is stressful.
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Scientists have been taking a closer look at the everyday routine in hospitals.
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Amongst other things we have carried out studies involving carers on an early shift who, depending on whatever task they are performing, are interrupted between 60 and 120 times. If they are preparing medication, for example, this could result in disastrous mistakes being made.
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Working in an emergency centre like the Trauma Hospital Berlin requires not only a practiced routine but also a high degree of flexibility.
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According to Dr. Johanna Ludwig, outsiders often have no idea what this entails.
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Seriously injured cases are rarely seen in a waiting room.
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They come in through a different entrance and are taken straight to a shock room.
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They require a large number of staff and a lot of time.
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And, naturally, they take priority over everything else.
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But people in the waiting room find it hard to understand why they are having to wait so long.
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With apparently nothing happening, they often think that, instead of working, doctors and nurses are sitting around drinking coffee when, in fact, they are perhaps in the shock room saving someone’s life.
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Urgency is determined on the basis of an initial medical assessment.
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The triage system lays down clear criteria.
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Colours illustrate the time windows involved.
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Red means the patient needs immediate treatment.
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Orange means that doctors have ten minutes to spare.
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Green and blue represent the less serious cases.
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But not all procedures are predictable... that’s where flexibility comes in.
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Triage is an excellent system, but in my opinion, teamwork and co-operation are at least as important.
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So if a nurse who has been working in the emergency centre for fifteen years comes to me and says: Johanna, I’m worried about a patient.
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You need to take a look. I go and check - even if the patient has been triaged green and I would actually have an hour’s time to spare.
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As a rule, seriously injured patients are announced ten minutes in advance.
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So the hospital team is already waiting.
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Despite the time pressure, here, there is no hectic activity.
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The calm and focused handover of the patient is an important point in the process.
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Second to third-degree burns covering 15% of the body sustained this morning and caused through using a fire accelerant.
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For a minute we don’t look at the patient or talk to him or her.
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We just listen to what happened. It’s a totally structured procedure.
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What took place? How did it happen?
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That’s especially important in trauma surgery.
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What sort of forces were involved?
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What kind of an accident pattern are we talking about?
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What has been done already?
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Only then is the patient transferred and treatment commenced.
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Where multitasking is concerned, optimum workflows and clear communication are of major importance.
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Scientists at Koblenz University are studying how that takes place in a totally different environment: Large commercial enterprises.
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In business management it is always said that there is too much multitasking.
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And we definitely see that in companies, too.
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Basically, the problem has been recognized. But it is hard to remedy.
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The big question is how to maintain an overall view of the diverse existing and incoming tasks?
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Here, incoming and completed tasks are represented in totally analogous fashion with stickers.
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What at first glance seems somewhat out-of-date in our digital world is, in fact, totally appropriate.
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The more abstract tasks are, the more complex and the more digital they are, the more important it is for us to break things down and depict them.
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If ten machines are half-finished in a factory, being physical entities they are much easier for someone to see than ten customer enquiries which have all been embarked on to some degree but without clients having seen any results.
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In our model factory here at Koblenz University we make the processes in a fictional truck plant visible and really comprehensible.
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It starts with purchase, with procurement.
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So here at the back we have the suppliers.
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Then we have the receiving area, then warehousing.
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This is the intralogistics sector with various production stations - and, finally, dispatch.
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So the aim, here too, is to identify uncontrolled, negative multitasking and to find ways of doing things better.
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And that is necessary in many areas.
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In a major study involving participants from both trade and industry, Professor Komus and the Vistem consultancy found that 20% of capacity is wasted and 25% of turnover is lost through permanent multitasking in project management.
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Our most important discovery was that the situation really is as bad as is always claimed.
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There is a lack of clear structures, clear objectives.
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Prioritization is not very clearly defined.
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So we have to assume that there really is too much multitasking in many areas of companies and organizations.
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Above all, there is no structure, no system, for addressing this problem.
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One of the participants in the study was Swiss company Endress & Hauser, one of the world’s leading providers of process and laboratory technology.
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The company develops highly specialized measuring devices.
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And recently, with the push for automation, digitization, and sustainability, demands on the company have risen enormously.
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Over time we have found that although our staff are working more and more and being exposed to increasing stress, in the final analysis less is being achieved.
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We wanted to make use of the latest scientific findings in order to improve this situation.
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The study involved online surveys and extensive interviews with workers and management in order to examine the work process from various angles.
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The major question - at what point in the process do multiple stresses occur?
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Indeed, the main problem was that the people doing the work, in this case the development teams, simply had to handle too many tasks from a wide range of areas - and that every task had top priority.
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This situation results in overload in a team.
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Consequently, separate work areas were created within the open-plan office.
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Now, the software developers can work with fewer disturbances and coordinate better with one another. The company restructured work loads and got rid of the fourteen-day phases known as sprints.
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Now, management, clients, and staff together determine realistic targets, individual workloads, and prioritize tasks.
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The result is a transparent and connected workplace.
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Where efficiency is concerned, I’d say that we have improved by a factor of three to four.
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Coordination within the team and being able to work undisturbed is destressing for everyone.
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In general, being completely immersed in a hobby or a task has a positive effect on our sense of success and our feeling of happiness.
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This is called the flow experience. Interruptions and disturbances - multitasking in other words — has exactly the opposite effect.
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At Lübeck University, Professor Corinna Peifer is studying the impact of multitasking on flow at the workplace.
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As part of a diary study, over a week we randomly interrupted employees twice a day and asked them about their experiences over the last half an hour.
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We asked them how much multitasking they’d had to show in the last half an hour and also how much flow they had experienced.
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Our study shows that multitasking has a negative impact on flow experience.
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Embarking on too much, leaving too much unfinished, having a guilty conscience and always being digitally accessible, leads to permanent stress.
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But what is the actual root of the problem?
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As a specialist in digital sociology Professor Dominique Boullier studies the social effects of new technologies.
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He analyses the impact digital factors have on human relations and the world of work.
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The concept of the polyvalent employee is directly linked to a management model which is now widespread: I must at all times be available and accessible for all tasks and able to handle everything simultaneously.
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I can react to everything in a micro-second, so to speak.
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That’s the sort of level we are talking about in the world of finance, for example. But if we force people to work in this way, it leads directly to the burn-out situations which are commonplace in companies today: At some point people no longer manage to react to everything in an equal way. Some people even see this as a challenge.
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They think that they can handle it, that they’ve got everything under control.
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But in reality they’re exhausting themselves, and at some point they collapse.
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Frank Richter also wanted to do too much at once for too long.
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I was so glad to get help. I actually sought help because I’d said to myself: You just can’t go on like this.
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Often, the only way out of the multitasking trap is a strict break.
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Mr. Richter came to me in a state of serious exhaustion.
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Over a long period of time a massive, stressful work load had led to depressive exhaustion.
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In his case this manifested itself first and foremost in what we call agitated depression: He was really pumped up, restless, tense.
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He couldn’t get to sleep. His concentration was poor.
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And he brooded a lot. In other words, his entire mental apparatus was churned up but at the same time seriously exhausted.
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You can compare it to hitting the brake and the accelerator simultaneously.
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Patients suffering from accumulated stress recover in specialized clinics for psychosomatic and mental disorders.
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They re-develop a normal feeling for time and their own personal needs.
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Here, at the Gezeiten Haus clinic near Magdeburg patients are helped with practices taken from traditional Chinese medicine.
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Mindfulness exercises are an antidote, so to speak, to multitasking.
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With mindfulness you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment.
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I blank out everything: Where I am, what time it is, what day.
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No extraneous thoughts: I’m totally within myself.
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I’m totally focused on myself.
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The effects of meditation on a brain stressed by multitasking can be measured.
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In the Neuroradiology Department at the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich psychologist Dr. Britta Hölzel examines subjects with an MRI scanner.
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We see how the brain can be damaged through extremely high stress levels over a long period of time, in other words when a large amount of cortisol is released.
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Cortisol has a negative impact on neurons in the hippocampus, for example.
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We also see that stress can reduce the density of the grey matter.
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On the other hand we also see that the density of the grey matter can increase again through mindfulness meditation.
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But that is not the only area of the brain that interests scientists in this context.
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A study carried out several years ago showed that people who do a lot of media multitasking have a lower density of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, the ACC.
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This area of the brain is highly interesting because it is important for mindfulness regulatory processes.
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So if we want to stay focused on something but are distracted by other stimuli, the ACC helps us concentrate on what we want to do at that moment.
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Various studies into mindfulness meditation show that both the function and the structure of this cerebral region can be strengthened through mediation.
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Building regenerative phases into the patient’s life actually means changing his lifestyle.
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But effecting a lifestyle change is not easy: Even after an average eight-week stay at the clinic, a patient is still the same person, of course.
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In fact, it takes a long time - one to two years — for things to become firmly established.
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Having to do many things at once makes some people ill, while others seem to do it with ease.
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So can some people cope better with multitasking than others?
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Young people look at their smartphone or tablet up to 150 times a day.
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But, through this constant switching from the online to the offline world, in reality they are only partially present in their own life and quickly become bored.
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Experts talk of a fragmented presence, both at work and also in leisure.
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It’s a problem many are not even aware of.
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In this seminar the lecturer is discussing the phenomenon with students who offer their own personal experiences.
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You’ll be well aware through your parents and grandparents - and through the generation younger than you — that attention spans change, that something new has to happen faster.
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Just when we start to get restless, when we need a fresh stimulus, can actually be measured.
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Sometimes I find it impossible to control.
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Occasionally I might find texting friends more interesting, or I might find a video on YouTube easier to follow than the Netflix series I’m watching.
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Sometimes I notice that I’m doing two things at once.
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I don’t really know if this is something I can influence.
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Scientists talk of a worrying trend: an increasingly impulse-driven state: A kind of addiction.
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This is attributable to the nerve cells in our forebrain, in the nucleus accumbens.
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It is here that the body’s own reward, or pleasure, centre is located.
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It is stimulated by the messenger substance dopamine and also plays a decisive role in addiction.
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When this neurotransmitter docks onto the corresponding receptors, it gives us positive feelings: Sensations we want to experience time and again.
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Situated in this area of the brain is the driving force for all our behaviour.
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If this reward system is constantly triggered by new stuff, a kind of addiction can arise.
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Push notifications, likes and constant distractions: This is the stuff which plays a central role in our multitasking everyday lives.
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That’s because our pleasure centre is greedy for newer and newer stimuli, and thus for the release of dopamine, the happiness hormone.
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The design of the interfaces in social networks favours a kind of multitasking.
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There are a number of minor stimuli and signals with a very low cognitive intensity.
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These extremely minor signals are followed by ultra-fast reactions.
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So, no matter what we are doing at any moment, in the background - in the peripheral attention sphere — we still manage to pick up what is happening on Instagram, on YouTube, and so on. And we react. But what have we reacted to?
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We see a headline, a hashtag, and say: Oh, so that’s what this is about.
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And we just press the button. Done!
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That doesn’t take a lot of cognitive energy.
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So we get the feeling that we are handling a host of things and following diverse strings of information because we no longer take the time to focus on the content.
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The way social networks are designed intensifies the illusion we get from multitasking even more.
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But in reality our attention level has been lowered to simple alarm stimuli.
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And that is what we react to.
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Digital natives... the generation which has grown up with social networks and with a hoard of information and communication possibilities on offer...
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handle various devices with ease and also seem to be better conditioned for multitasking. But appearances can be deceptive.
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I’d briefly like to mention one aspect from a neuroscience perspective.
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You mustn’t forget that the brain matures.
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And it does so in a totally typical process.
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One very specific area, the frontal cortex, takes a relatively long time to reach an adult state.
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So around puberty this cerebral structure is not yet capable of unfolding the appropriate inhibitory processes to cope with rising emotional stimuli.
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And precisely that is the problem not only in puberty but also with adolescents: They are born into a world which bombards them with many impulse challenges, and they don’t even have the hardware, the basis to counteract these challenges with the appropriate inhibitors.
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As part of a priority programme some twenty German universities are studying various aspects of multitasking.
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Their spokesman is cognitive psychologist Professor Iring Koch.
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On a personal level he’s interested in the trainability of the human brain.
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We asked him to take a look at a performance by Harry Kahne, a vaudeville artist of the 1920s who amazed his audiences with his extraordinary feats as a mental marvel.
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As an entertainer and author, Kahne advocated mental training programmes for everyone.
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Upside down and backwards.
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I am going to spell every word backwards and I’m going to try and talk to you at the same time.
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This example shows quite clearly that with an enormous amount of practice even difficult tasks can be combined really well.
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But we can also see that Kahne’s demonstration isn’t totally smooth.
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If we look closely at the motor coordination of his writing movements, in my opinion it shows that these difficult tasks are combined in such a way that they don’t actually overlap.
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The tiny pauses, and the slightly longer pauses between the words, make the whole performance a tad less than fluent.
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Young people really are more proficient at dealing with several attention flows simultaneously.
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So this certainly is an evolution in terms of cognitive capacity.
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But even young people today have to learn ways of spreading their attention in a sequential way: Some things always have to be suppressed somewhat.
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What they cannot do is handle two tasks simultaneously with the same degree of attention.
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In general, it’s thought that women are better at multitasking than men.
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An international study carried out in the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany, showed that half of those interviewed - men and women — believed that the two sexes have different multitasking capabilities.
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And 80% were of the opinion that women are better at multitasking.
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Psychologist Dr. Patricia Hirsch from Aachen University has tested this assumption in a laboratory experiment.
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So how realistic is this widespread idea? And what’s the basis for it?
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People believe that women are better at multitasking than men because in everyday life they are confronted with more multitasking situations. They have to do the housework, for example, and often have to hold down a job as well.
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For Patricia Hirsch’s study male and female subjects had to perform simple reaction tasks on a screen.
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For example, they had to determine whether a letter was a vowel or a consonant and whether a number was odd or even.
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Greater attention was called for when the exercises were presented in a mixed form - in other words when they had to be solved under multitasking conditions.
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The time needed was noted along with the number of errors they made when they had to focus on several things at once.
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The results of our study show that, where multitasking performance is concerned, there is no difference between men and women.
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So there is no convincing empirical evidence that women are more capable of multitasking than men.
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Yet even though other studies have produced similar findings, the old cliché persists - perhaps because it’s more convenient that way.
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And what about the older section of society?
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In Europe the proportion of over-fifty-year-olds in the working population continues to grow.
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There is clear evidence that our cognitive capabilities diminish as we approach old age.
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So it could be assumed, that the elderly have problems with multitasking.
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If we take a close look at the world of work and compare younger with older employees, the stereotype just isn’t true.
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Indeed, people who have built up a level of competence in their field over many years actually achieve more in their job.
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So younger employees have to compensate through their perhaps greater mental speed, while their old colleagues know short-cuts.
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We now know that even older brains change as a result of learning.
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And I would like to see fifty, sixty, and even seventy- year-olds spending one hour a day working in a calm and concentrated way.
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This would also give a huge innovation push, because in my opinion there is still a vast capacity reservoir in elderly people that is going unused.
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Yet in aging societies there is a distinct need for this capacity.
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That is also why we must structure our world of work to protect ourselves from excessive stress and premature wear-out.
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We already have laws on working hours.
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Now, with France leading the way, attempts are being made throughout Europe to define a right to be non-accessible.
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Trade unions in Germany are also involved in similar negotiations.
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And in industry the first positive examples can be seen.
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There are a certain number of large companies, like HP for example, which have limited the times when emails can be answered - because it is not only the social networks that can generate a lot of pressure. So can emails.
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Consequently, there is a period in the morning and another in the late afternoon when emails can be answered.
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And people don’t expect their own emails to be answered.
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Much research focusses on how much stress the brain can take, how we can protect ourselves from the increasing flood of information, and how we can better cope with our digital everyday lives.
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But there is no single answer.
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A few suggestions for escaping the multitasking spiral...
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ticking off completed tasks one by one, taking breaks, exercising, and resolutely stopping work at the end of the day.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Humans and multitasking - How much can we do simultaneously?”. This video has 329 sentences and 5370 words to shadow. The speech runs for 42:01. The speaker talks at a steady 128 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| simultaneously adverb | /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/ | Occurring at the same time. |
| stimulus noun | /ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/ | An external phenomenon that has an influence on a system, by triggering or modifying an internal phenomenon; for example, a spur or incentive that drives a… |
| experiment noun | /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ | A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of… |
| cognitive adjective | /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/ | Relating to the part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions. |
| involve verb | /ɪnˈvɑlv/ | To have (something) as a component or a related part; to comprise, to include. |
| accessible adjective | /əkˈsɛs.ɪ.bəl/ | Easy of access or approach. |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
| cortex noun | /ˈkɔɹtɛks/ | The outer layer of an internal organ or body structure, such as the kidney or the brain. |
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
| laboratory noun | /ˈlæb(ə)ɹəˌtɔɹi/ | A room, building or institution equipped for scientific research, experimentation or analysis. |
| eleven noun | /əˈlɛv.ən/ | A cricket team of eleven players. Hence first eleven - the team of best cricket players (at a school), second eleven - the "B" team, etc. |
| workplace noun | /ˈwɝkˌpleɪs/ | The place where someone works. |
| cerebral adjective | /səˈɹi.bɹəl/ | Of or relating to the brain, cerebrum, or cerebral cortex. |
| grey adjective | /ɡɹeɪ/ | Commonwealth standard spelling of gray. |
| extent noun | /ɪkˈstɛnt/ | A range of values or locations. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| carry out verb | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | To hold while moving it out. |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| burn out verb | To destroy by fire. | |
| hold down verb | To restrain; to check. | |
| lay down verb | To give up, surrender, or yield (e.g. a weapon), usually by placing it on the ground. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| play along verb | To take part in a charade, deception, or practical joke. | |
| sit around verb | To spend time sitting idly, not doing anything important. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How do you divide your attention?
- I admit that I just can’t do it.
- We can’t do it for very long.
- How do we cope with the many challenges?
- Does it really make us faster and more effective?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been studying · have been taking · has been working |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has become · have shown · has turned |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be measured · is reduced · is considered |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | cortex which is · student who is · one that is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 34 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thirty /ˈθɝti/, smooth /smuːð/, thalamus /ˈθæləməs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: concentration /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, addiction /əˈdɪkˌʃən/, meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, shock /ʃɔk/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/
- Long words — get the stress right: simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, accessible /əkˈsɛs.ɪ.bəl/, laboratory /ˈlæb(ə)ɹəˌtɔɹi/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like simultaneously, stimulus, experiment.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.