By Steven Johnson

One of the other personal insights that comes out of thinking about yourself through the lens of neuroscience is an increased awareness of the different mental states you cycle through in a given day. The general categories -- sleepy, alert, energetic, thoughtful -- break into more precise sub-categories, like the folkloric tales of Eskimos and their rich vocabulary for snow. Subtle shifts of attention and awareness seem more vivid, because you know something about the neurological changes behind them.

One way to appreciate these different states is to take any number of attention tests, designed to pinpoint your particular skills at the various subsystems that make up the macro category of attention. You have systems that specialize in "sustain": remaining focused on a single item for extended stretches of time; and systems dedicated to "encoding": transferring that incoming data to your working memory.  Each of the sensory inputs has its own channels as well: so you can be very skilled at visual encoding, but weak at auditory sustain. You can take tests to evaluate your skills at these and other attention tasks. Learning your strengths and weaknesses can help you compensate in the appropriate situations, at least until the neuroceuticals arrive to improve our weak links directly.