No fake attentions: You will be caught

London, Jan 1 (UNI) There are instances when we wonder whether the person we are interacting with is really paying attention to our talks or has covertly shifted attention.

Scientists have now found the way of actually measuring covert attention by recording the muscle activity in the neck. ''This finding may fundamentally change how attention is measured, grounding it in an objective and straight forward technique,'' Science Daily quoted lead researcher Brian Corneil as saying.

Until now, measuring attention was based on indirect measures of changes in reaction time, or stimulus detection but the new study has discovered that neck muscles were recruited during covert orienting, even in the absence of eye movements.

Mr Corneil believes that the finding could help in assessing the effectiveness of therapies for stroke or other neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

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