Exhibit: Driven to Distraction

The steering is reversed, and it takes some time to get used to driving this way. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Through this learning process you make physical changes to your brain. Your brain has billions of nerve cells called neurons; information flows through synapses between the neurons and your body. When you practice a skill it becomes automatic as the connections between your neurons are strengthened or weakened. This happens whenever you learn something new.

Initially messages travel slowly along these neural pathways and it is difficult to produce the smooth co-ordination of actions to drive the car correctly. This is because the actions are “counter-intuitive”; they do not correspond with your common sense of your previous experience. After some time it gradually gets easier for you to steer the car and it requires less thought, until the action becomes automatic.