Imagine that you are entering a different place from the places you normally know while you are driving with your car. You start to put more of your focus on the road because it’s a path you haven’t taken before. During this focusing period, most people turn down the volume of the music. Well, have you ever thought why we turn down the music that has no direct connection with the road, especially when we enter a path that we do not know?
This strange action has probably happened to you before. You may not have thought about why this happened until now, but while reading these lines, you were wondering like me, right? In fact, let’s take a closer look at what causes this music muting situation, which is related to the working logic of our brain.
Why turn down the volume of the music when you get lost or take an unfamiliar road for some other reason?
Researches at this point show us that the act of turning down the volume of music is related to the brain’s effort to focus. Driving a car is an action that takes a large part of our attention and can cause life-threatening damage if not taken care of.
Maybe you don’t need that much focus for the path you always go on, but the “unknown path” brings with it many unknowns for the brain. Our brain also shifts its attention in one direction to stay alert to these unknowns. As a result, we find ourselves turning down the volume of the music for some unknown reason.
Sound that takes some of our attention is blocked by the brain when that attention is needed.
Listening to music in the car is a very enjoyable activity. But of course this comes at a cost. Listening to music takes some of the input from the visual parts of the brain. It does not have much difficulty when listening to music in ways that the brain now knows by heart and does not need to pay much attention to other things other than just moving objects. But this divided attention is needed again in moments that require extra attention, such as entering a new place, rainy or snowy roads.
It is necessary to accept that the human brain has limits.
Although the human brain is really highly developed, it also has certain limits. In fact, if you get lost while driving, it’s better to look at the map, but the first thing we do is turn the music down. As strange as it may seem, everything starts to make more sense once you understand the way the brain works.
Our brain wants to turn all its focus back to the main task by turning off secondary tasks.
Our brain collects information from our 5 basic senses throughout the day. Each sensory system has its own sensory neurons, and these neurons provide the central nervous system with information about your environment. The brain, on the other hand, decides how to proceed by taking this information. While the brain focuses on 1 main task in this process, it constantly moves around the secondary task.
The brain is constantly going back and forth between these tasks, but it may experience slight delays in doing so. Here in a scenario where you are lost, these minor delays can prevent you from seeing the street sign. Although we do not think this way, the brain is aware of this whole process and wants to focus on a single main task by suspending secondary tasks.
Today we explained to you why we turn down the music when we get lost while driving. If you want more content like this, you can write to us in the comments section.
Sources: Sharp Brains, Howstuffworks, NBC NEWS
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