Please count me in (contact details)

I did some notes on these programmes when first broadcast, which may help people decide whether to commit the time to view them all, or look for particular bits.

Am I the only one who, prompted initially by Hu's prefacing all his colleagues' names with "comrade", sees something slightly sinister and Orwellian in the whole culture analysing behaviour so as to know learners better than they know themselves? It's like Googlezon coming true.

I watched this when you posted it a couple of weeks ago... and completely missed the bit where he announces the cancellation of the Glow Futures procurement at 2 mins 20 sec (only alerted to it by this article). He cleverly skipped over that bombshell, didn't he?

I've just used the Royal Opera House ticket booking system for the first time (to see the new Tarik O'Regan/Tom Phillips opera of Heart of Darkness, since you didn't ask), and I'm afraid their 133 titles knocks yours into a three-cornered cocked hat in terms of comprehensiveness. Princessin? Me neither. Along with all the HRHs, I was surprised not to find a WTF in there too: Mr Mrs Ms Miss Advocate Ambassador Baron Baroness Brigadier Canon Captain Chancellor Chief Col Comdr Commodore Councillor Count Countess Dame Dr Duke of Earl Earl of Father General Group Captain H R H the Duchess of H R H the Duke of H R H The Princess HE Mr HE Senora HE The French Ambassador M His Highness His Hon His Hon Judge Hon Hon Ambassador Hon Dr Hon Lady Hon Mrs HRH HRH Sultan Shah HRH The HRH The Prince HRH The Princess HSH Princess HSH The Prince Judge King Lady Lord Lord and Lady Lord Justice Lt Cdr Lt Col Madam Madame Maj Maj Gen Major Marchesa Marchese Marchioness Marchioness of Marquess Marquess of Marquis Marquise Master Mr and Mrs Mr and The Hon Mrs President Prince Princess Princessin Prof Prof Emeritus Prof Dame Professor Queen Rabbi Representative Rev Canon Rev Dr Rev Mgr Rev Preb Reverend Reverend Father Right Rev Rt Hon Rt Hon Baroness Rt Hon Lord Rt Hon Sir Rt Hon The Earl Rt Hon Viscount Senator Sir Sister Sultan The Baroness The Countess The Countess of The Dowager Marchioness of The Duchess The Duchess of The Duke of The Earl of The Hon The Hon Mr The Hon Mrs The Hon Ms The Hon Sir The Lady The Lord The Marchioness of The Princess The Reverend The Rt Hon The Rt Hon Lord The Rt Hon Sir The Rt Hon The Lord The Rt Hon the Viscount The Rt Hon Viscount The Venerable The Very Rev Dr Very Reverend Viscondessa Viscount Viscount and Viscountess Viscountess W Baron W/Cdr

And the pilot discussing landing conditions at some distant airport with air traffic control is also multitasking... The WHO references are mostly reviews and meta-analyses themselves, so it's difficult to tell what methodologies they've used. There are a couple that refer to a "100-Car Naturalistic driving study" and that's the kind of evidence that would be useful. I'd imagine it ought to be possible, without too much investment, to rig some fairly rigorous driving simulations where you study different kinds of distraction under experimental conditions. (You can bet they do this kind of thing with pilots' flight simulations, because the regulations are a different order.) I would give much more credibility to studies of actual distraction in a realistic context than to brain imaging reports, from which the degree of distraction has to be inferred (by means that are not widely understood or agreed). Mini rant here: in some quarters brain imaging and neuroscience have acquired the status of voodoo. People who don't begin to understand the basis or methodologies of these studies give them the kind of credence normally reserved for Moses' tablets of stone (it was Moses, wasn't it?). Just because some scientist (read: witchdoctor) has taken assigned significance to some parts of an image of a brain (read: stuck pins in a doll representing someone), the world will now shift on its axis. The differences is that most neuroscientists are actually much more humble and cautious about the significance of their work than the people who recruit this work for their own ends. Rant over. I haven't read the WHO report in detail, but two figures jumped out at me. "In Great Britain, distraction was cited as a contributory factor in 2% of reported crashes". Mobile phones are mentioned in 2 of the 10 "main internal sources of driver distraction" - others including adjusting temperature controls, radio etc. To be clear, NONE of this is to dismiss or belittle the importance of distraction while driving or operating any other kind of potentially lethal machinery. I'm quite prepared to accept that evidence of mobile phones being implicated in dangerous driving may exist (just let's try some other more direct methods than brain imaging). If I seem to be playing devil's advocate here, it's because I'm wary of some on the Keen-Carr "modern life is rubbish" axis who, knowingly or unknowingly, make misleading claims based on evidence that doesn't robustly support the arguments they say it does.

So what tasks can you do while driving and which are unsafe? If calling is out, what about carrying on a conversation with someone in the car? Kevin Kelly recently blogged about multiplexing, as opposed to multitasking, though I'm not sure if this is a bogus distinction. He writes of being totally engaged in audiobooks while driving, without ever having had an accident. But is it a biological fact that he's wrong to be so confident. Should car radios and CD players be banned? I'm not saying there's no cause for concern here, but it seems like it's another of those insidious "a line has to be drawn somewhere, but where?" arguments. I'm sceptical about "biological fact" claims unless backed up by multiple sources that show a sophisticated understanding of attention that goes beyond just a unitary, zero-sum resource.

Gesa, you have not provided me with any means to contact you.

Guy Claxton makes the same point (about the importance of the unconscious mind being able to turn over learned facts and concepts to generate new ideas) in some detail, and with more evidence -- dare I say there is a strong flavour of anecdote in the Poincaré piece? -- in a few of his books. Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind is probably the most accessible and direct on this point, though I love the broader scope of Noises from the Darkroom.

Hi Rachel, Obviously I can't share a company's copyrighted publications, but I'll be in touch privately to see if we can sort something out. David