We all answer the phone while we’re driving, send text messages while walking down the street, read while listening to music, and write emails while talking to someone sitting in our office. We often do many things at once, engaging in the mythical activity of “multitasking”. What we are really doing is “attention management”. In this book the authors lead us on a journey into our inner world, explaining how attention works and showing that, usually, we are not at all able to do more than one thing at a time. The authors also unveil the secrets of how to exploit attention in order to convey effective messages. Not all stimuli affect us the same way; some types of “superstimuli” command our attention more successfully than others. Readers will learn the rules of attention and thus how to defend themselves in a world flooded with stimuli and information.

Paolo Legrenzi is professor emeritus of Psychology at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.

Carlo Umiltà is professor emeritus of Neuropsychology at the University of Padova.