Sat navs can 'blind' drivers to the road While our eyes continue to see things in their path, the visual messages seem not to reach the brain when we are concentrating on something else because its ability to process information is limited, researchers said. The study, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, showed that they were less likely to detect the flash when they were concerned with trying to remember the image than when their mind was unoccupied. Scans of the participants' brains as they carried out the task revealed a lower level activity in the brain region which processes incoming visual information while the patients were trying to recall the image. Prof Nilli Lavie, who led the study, said: "An example of where this is relevant in the real world is when people are following directions on a sat nav whilst driving. "Our research would suggest that focusing on remembering the directions we've just seen on the screen means that we're more likely to fail to observe other hazards around us on the road, for example an approaching motorbike or a pedestrian on a crossing, even though we may be "looking" at where we're going,"