Much like responding yes or no to an individual’s request, Crawford’s examples of attentional tradeoffs are binary. That is, we are either paying attention or not. The process of paying attention is more like a computer receiving bytes of data through an optical fiber cable than an on-off switch. You can stream information along the cable at different time intervals, much like quickly paying attention to one item and then paying attention to another or you can stream at different frequencies, like being able to utilize the senses at the same time. Some activities, such as studying and listening to music or chewing gum during an exam are attentionally complementary. Other activities might interfere with your ability to focus your attention,
