This is the fifth in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced as Highly Commended in the category ‘PhD and Early Career Researcher’.

Alon Zivony

At any given moment, our senses are bombarded with vast amount of information. Our attention helps us manage this load and separate what’s important from what is not. However, attention is not perfect, and its limitations are not well understood in today’s society. This misunderstanding corresponds to adoption of poor strategies to deal with everyday tasks as well common and harsh self-judgement regarding one’s abilities.

Through a series of free, hour-long interactive lectures, designed to be accessible to a wide range of audiences, Dr Zivony, PhD student in the Department of Psychological Sciences, worked to shed light onto these issues, and dismantle misconceptions. Audiences have so far included teachers, retirees, pub-goers, students, and once even prisoners during a summer education program (Ayalon Prison), but Dr Zivony reckons that students and office workers might also gain significant benefit from his lectures, insofar as they are frequently required to juggle multiple tasks under tight deadlines: bad habits and misconceptions on these occasions lead to lower ability to concentrate as well as high anxiety. Moreover, Dr Zivony notes that volunteers engaged in charity work might be a key audience: while varied, these individuals can take easy to implement messages to improve their own work or to educate other people whom they help. Finally, Dr Zivony highlighted the need to work with underprivileged groups, whom he reckons are more likely to have negative a self-image regarding their cognitive abilities, and are less likely to have access to resources to dismantle this belief.

All engagements that constitute the basis of this projects have had the same structure: an hour-long lecture delivered by Dr Zivony, followed by 10-30 minutes discussion. During the lecture, the audience participated in a variety of tasks, added anecdotes and asked questions. The tasks (visual search, Stroop task, task-switching, etc.) exemplified the limitations of attention in an easy to understand manner. The discussion allowed participants to share their own personal experiences and personal challenges they face in everyday tasks, and get direct feedback and suggestions on ways to improve their habits.

Throughout his experience, Dr Zivony has gathered excellent feedback, and Birkbeck commends him on his impressive Public Engagement initiative. Dr Zivony was Highly Commended in this year’s Public Engagement Awards in the category ‘PhD and Early Career Researcher’.

Further information:

• Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Award winners and highly commended candidates (video)
• Birkbeck Public Engagement Awards
• Research at Birkbeck