The study suggests that the ability to pay attention to
something is driven by inhibition.
Inhibition sounds like the opposite of openness, and openness is considered vitally important to being a good programmer according to http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/programmers-are-a-tin...
In the human brain, neurons fire in response to various stimuli (but generally not in response to the lack of stimuli). Consequently, to moderate all the neural activity and prevent you from going spastic all the time, part of the brain modulates/attenuates the neural response to given stimuli. Effectively, this part of the brain inhibits your responses/actions. This is, for example, why alcohol makes people do stupid things--it inhibits the inhibition units in their brain, so the part of the brain that says "this is a bad idea" never speaks up.
As applied to concentration, inhibition is your brain tamping down on the distracting signals so that you can focus on whatever it is you're trying to focus on.
[Edit: excessive inhibition is also thought to play a role in Parkinson's disease. There, the problem is that the inhibition units function too strongly in response to self-initiated actions. This limits the victim's ability to initiate actions such as walking. Responsive action is not as badly effected by Parkinson's, so to walk many victims bounce a cane off the front of their leg to set up an external stimuli for their body to respond to.]
This Wikipedia page can provide a better overview/launching pad for self-directed research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_inhibition