--- title: There's a Scientific Reason Why You're Ignoring People description: Researchers call it "inattentional deafness" canonical: https://time.com/4142609/concentrating-on-visual-tasks-can-make-you-temporarily-deaf-study-says/ author: Tara John article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-09T15:39:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:46.059Z article:section: Health og:title: There's a Scientific Reason Why You're Ignoring People, Study Says og:description: It's not your fault you didn't hear your partner while watching TV og:url: https://time.com/4142609/concentrating-on-visual-tasks-can-make-you-temporarily-deaf-study-says/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5cf10971b29cb9a/6988749a3c16392caf45b1bf/deaf-video-games.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3866 og:image:height: 2175 og:image:alt: A teenager plays video games at home og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There's a Scientific Reason Why You're Ignoring People, Study Says twitter:description: It's not your fault you didn't hear your partner while watching TV twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5cf10971b29cb9a/6988749a3c16392caf45b1bf/deaf-video-games.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # There's a Scientific Reason Why You're Ignoring People, Study Says > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: A Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel [Watch (HLS stream): A Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oRQrOoA9.m3u8) (5:02)  _Published 2015-11-11. Igor Spetic, 49, lost his right hand in a work related accident five years ago. But on Oct. 9, he got to bring home an innovative prosthetic hand for the first time, one that not only has more precise gripping, but gives him back his sense of touch._ by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Dec 9, 2015 3:39 PM UTC  Teenager playing video games at home Teenager playing video games at home Getty Images by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Dec 9, 2015 3:39 PM UTC A person can become temporarily deaf to environmental sounds when engaged in a visual task, according to [new research.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12040202/Why-children-who-ignore-their-parents-while-playing-video-games-have-an-excuse.html) The very small study, published in the _Journal of Neuroscience_ and led by a group of experts at the University College of London, call this deficit “inattentional deafness,” the _Telegraph_ reports. According to the researchers, a person’s sense of vision and hearing are located in a shared region of the brain. Due to a limitation in processing capacity, the brain fails to multi-task and is forced to choose between the two senses. “For example, if you try to talk to someone who is focusing on a book, game or television programme and don’t receive a response, they aren’t necessarily ignoring you, they might simply not hear you” Professor Nilli Lavie, who co-authored the study, told the _Telegraph_. She says that ‘inattentional deafness’ can be dangerous for drivers and cyclists following complex directions. “This has more serious implications in situations such as the operating theatre, where a surgeon concentrating on their work might not hear the equipment beeping” added Lavie. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] It's, you really can't explain it. It's literally losing a body part. It's not just one finger. It's five fingers. It's losing your palm. Losing the back of your hand. Losing that ability to grasp things. Nearly 5 years ago I suffered a workplace accident which resulted in the loss of my right hand. People have tried to create a hand that looks just like the human hand. I don't think that's the ideal prosthetic. I actually think what want to do is have them forget they lost a hand. [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] A friend of mine contacted me and said that they were doing a sensory restoration project at the Cleveland VA Medical Center, and would I be interested in possibly participating? So the basic goal of this technology is to restore sensation to people that have lost their hand. You've also lost all the sensors that used to touch the world. Even though the sensor is gone the wires that communicate that information back to the brain still exist. And so what we've done is develop devices that can go onto those wires and apply electrical information that basically communicate to the wires that then send that back to the brain. Brain, and so they feel as though it's their hand in what we do. When the prosthesis touches something, the person feels as though they're touching that. If you want to sit though it, we can see- The first time that I felt sensation, the actual sense of my hand being there, was when I shook the hand of Professor Dustin Tyler. What that means to me is getting something back that I lost. And I never knew that would even be possible. To even get one sensation back. But to literally get 20 different sensations back. It's me being almost whole again. When we ask our subjects how do you feel when you're using the prosthesis. If they don't have sensation enabled they describe it as a tool. They'll say basically I'm holding a tool at the end of my arm and I'm manipulating it. As soon as we turn on sensation they say no it's my hand. I'm touching something. That's a huge change. One of the big things that distinguishes our work is that we are, to my knowledge, the first group that's been able to do this for longer than a couple weeks in the lab. And now sending them home we're the first to allow them to go home and to use this on a regular basis and see what the impact will be in their home life. [ CROSSTALK ] the real world is. That's gonna be Going to get a little emotional when I go home. Think so? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I already know it. Oh really? When you're in the lab you focus on sensation and so it's very easy. Well, relatively easy to make these things work but the real challenge is when people go home. We want to see the impact in day to day life. So, we haven't ever had the opportunity to do this before, to send him home and clean the dishes, make the salad, and make sandwiches, hold his wife's hand. And I've only had this system for two days now, so it's still been a learning curve for myself. And learning to be right handed again. But I've been using it more and more. The hardest one so far that I've found is hard boiled eggs. Cuz even though they say they're hard boiled, when the shell is off, they're really soft. And I used to crush them all the time. But now I'm able to hold it and feel them in my fingers. The brain is an amazing device. It's really a great organizer categorizer, right? And that's been great for us, because this idea of natural sensation, I think, relies on that. The view of the brain as it learns our communication So we're trying to get as close as we can to what the natural language of the body is, but that's really hard. There's 10, 000 axons, 10, 000 different signals, we're not there yet. But what's beautiful is we can get close and the brain can do the rest of the work for us. So even though it's not perfect, the person still interprets that information to be a sense of touch. And what's even better is over time the brain will learn our language better and better. [ INAUDIBLE ] I know it's still an ongoing process, so my hopes are that, that someday it can be more functional than anything that's ever been out there. 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