As the pace of technological change accelerates, we are increasingly experiencing a state of information overload. Statistics show that we are interrupted every three minutes during the course of the work day. Multitasking between email, cell-phone, text messages, and four or five websites while listening to an iPod forces the brain to process more and more informaton at greater and greater speeds. And yet the human brain has hardly changed in the last 40,000 years. Are all these high-tech advances overtaxing our Stone Age brains or is the constant flood of information good for us, giving our brains the daily exercise they seem to crave? In The Overflowing Brain, cognitive scientist Torkel Klingberg takes us on a journey into the limits and possibilities of the brain. He suggests that we should acknowledge and embrace our desire for information and mental challenges, but try to find a balance between demand and capacity. Klingberg explores the cognitive demands, or "complexity," of everyday life and how the brain tries to meet them. He identifies different types of attention, such as stimulus-driven and controlled attention, but focuses chiefly on "working memory," our capacity to keep information in mind for short periods of time. Dr Klingberg asserts that working memory capacity, long thought to be static and hardwired in the brain, can be improved by training, and that the increasing demands on working memory may actually have a constructive effect: as demands on the human brain increase, so does its capacity. The book ends with a discussion of the future of brain development and how we can best handle information overload in our everyday lives. Klingberg suggests how we might find a balance between demand and capacity and move from feeling overwhelmed to deeply engaged.

托克尔·克林贝里（Torkel Klingberg），医学博士、哲学博士，著名的瑞典卡罗林斯卡研究院以及斯德哥尔摩脑研究院的认知神经科学教授。克林贝里的研究证明，工作记忆（working memory）能力可以通过训练加以提高。他的突破性研究成果在《科学》（Science）、《自然神经科学》（Nature Neuroscience）、《美国科学院儿童与青少年精神病学杂志》（Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry）等学术期刊上均有发表。除了获得学术界的认可外，克林贝里还获得《科学美国人》（Scientific American）、《新科学家》（New Scientist）等知名媒体的高度评价。克林贝里还创建了Cogmed公司，开发出训练工作记忆的计算机软件并推向市场。