Recent research shows that your brain doesn’t pay attention in one smooth stream—instead, it switches focus in quick bursts, about 8 times per second. This process, called “attentional sampling,” helps your brain deal with too much information by jumping back and forth between different things you're seeing. It’s kind of like your brain is taking rapid snapshots instead of watching a constant video. And when you need to focus on more than one thing, the rhythm splits to allow focusing on each one around 4 times per second. This helps explain how we make sense of a busy world, even when we don’t notice it happening. According to the researchers, this rhythmic alternation between the objects or features that capture our attention helps resolve the competition for neural processing that emerges among them. Our attention is always moving—even when we think we’re locked in.