Feynman had a party trick where he could time a minute in his head by counting the seconds and count up the number of lines in a newspaper article. A friend of

Feynman had a party trick where he could time a minute in his head by counting the seconds and count up the number of lines in a newspaper article. A friend of his tried and couldn't do it, but was able to hold a conversation while timing a minute, which Feynman couldn't do. They realised that while Feynman was counting the minute, he was counting verbally (but silently), while the friend was visualising a counter - or Feynman was using the speech centre, so could do a visual task at the same time, while the friend was using the visual centre, so could do a verbal task. Something as simple as counting in their head was done completely differently.