How Technology Is Changing Our Brains
A while back, Bill Keller of The New York Times stirred up a hornet’s nest when he wrote a column worrying that joining Facebook would have a debilitating effect on his 13 year-old daughter’s intellectual faculties. Technology advocates, including me, pounced. Now there are new studies out that seem to support his argument. I think the question itself is misplaced. What Makes An Expert? We come into the world not knowing much. We learn virtually everything that way, by combining low order patterns to form higher order ones. Experts define themselves by learning the highest order patterns through what Anders Ericsson, calls deliberate practice. In much the same way, surgeons spend years learning the patterns of the human body and experienced firemen become familiar with the patterns of burning buildings. How Machines Are Taking Over The fear that new technologies lessen our ability to function is nothing new. Yet computers can absorb material much faster than we can. The Power To Choose
Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity - Rewiring the Creative Mind
Close your eyes and visualize the sun setting over a beach. How detailed was your image? Did you envision a bland orb sinking below calm waters, or did you call up an image filled with activity -- palm trees swaying gently, waves lapping at your feet, perhaps a loved one holding your hand? Now imagine you're standing on the surface of Pluto. What would a sunset look like from there? scene. What you conjured illuminates how our brains work, why it can be so hard to come up with new ideas -- and how you can rewire your mind to open up the holy grail of creativity. Creativity and imagination begin with perception. Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Entire books have been written about learning, but the important elements for creative thinkers can be boiled down to this: Experience modifies the connections between neurons so that they become more efficient at processing information.
Boost Your Brain Power: 7 Tips for Improving Your Memory
Surely, constantly forgetting what you were doing in the middle of doing something and constantly looking for your misplaced house keys is not the ideal way to spend your golden years. Don't wait until it is too late to start thinking about improving your memory. If you are bad at remembering simple to-do tasks, other people's names, your girlfriend's birthday, and other relevant pieces of information, use some of the most useful mnemonic devices illustrated below to help you retain things more permanently in your brain space. More importantly, be sure to practice good physical and mental health habits on a regular basis to keep your memory and brain stamina high. Challenging your brain on a regular basis is also a must to constantly improve and maintain the strength of your memory. Got your own tips for improving your sense of memory? Click on image to enlarge.
How to Dispel Your Illusions by Freeman Dyson
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 499 pp., $30.00 In 1955, when Daniel Kahneman was twenty-one years old, he was a lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Forces. He was given the job of setting up a new interview system for the entire army. Kahneman had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and had read a book, Clinical vs. A famous example confirming Meehl’s conclusion is the “Apgar score,” invented by the anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar in 1953 to guide the treatment of newborn babies. Having read the Meehl book, Kahneman knew how to improve the Israeli army interviewing system. Reflecting fifty years later on his experience in the Israeli army, Kahneman remarks in Thinking, Fast and Slow that it was not unusual in those days for young people to be given big responsibilities. Cognitive illusions are the main theme of his book. An episode from my own past is curiously similar to Kahneman’s experience in the Israeli army.
8 Common Thinking Mistakes Our Brains Make Every Day and How to Prevent Them
12.3K Flares Filament.io 12.3K Flares × Get ready to have your mind blown. I was seriously shocked at some of these mistakes in thinking that I subconsciously make all the time. Obviously, none of them are huge, life-threatening mistakes, but they are really surprising and avoiding them could help us to make more rational, sensible decisions. Especially as we thrive for continues self-improvement at Buffer, if we look at our values, being aware of the mistakes we naturally have in our thinking can make a big difference in avoiding them. Regardless, I think it’s fascinating to learn more about how we think and make decisions every day, so let’s take a look at some of these thinking habits we didn’t know we had. 1. We tend to like people who think like us. This is called confirmation bias. It’s similar to how improving our body language can actually also change who we are as people. Confirmation bias is a more active form of the same experience. 2. 3. 4. Well, no. 5. 6. 7. The lesson here?
List of cognitive biases
Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm and/or rationality in judgment. They are often studied in psychology, sociology and behavioral economics.[1] Although the reality of most of these biases is confirmed by reproducible research,[2][3] there are often controversies about how to classify these biases or how to explain them.[4] Several theoretical causes are known for some cognitive biases, which provides a classification of biases by their common generative mechanism (such as noisy information-processing[5]). Gerd Gigerenzer has criticized the framing of cognitive biases as errors in judgment, and favors interpreting them as arising from rational deviations from logical thought.[6] Explanations include information-processing rules (i.e., mental shortcuts), called heuristics, that the brain uses to produce decisions or judgments. Belief, decision-making and behavioral[edit] Anchoring bias[edit]
How to Learn Without Memorizing
Photo by Edwin Stemp Rote memorization is an inefficient way to learn. Just retaining a single formula can mean pounding the same information into your skull dozens of times. If your computer hard drive had this accuracy, you’d probably throw it out. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with your brain. The good news is that you don’t need to learn by memorization. A few years ago, I noticed that smart people seemed to learn differently than most other people. While there are undoubtedly some genetic advantages that allow some people to learn effortlessly, I think part of this difference in success comes down to strategy. Is Your Brain a File Drawer or a Web of Ideas? A computer stores information as thousands of electrical 1s and 0s in a linear fashion. However, your brain isn’t a sequence of bits and bytes, so this approach doesn’t make sense. Other Forms of Learning There are lots of ways you can learn creatively: 1. Connect ideas together by relating them to something you already understand. 2.
The neuroscience of leadership.
The following article is reprinted from strategy+business magazine, published by the leading global strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. The magazine provides executives with commentary, research, and practical ideas that bridge the gap between theory and practice in contemporary global business. Breakthroughs in brain research explain how to make organizational transformation succeed. Mike is the CEO of a multinational pharmaceutical company, and he's in trouble. With the patents on several key drugs due to expire soon, his business desperately needs to become more entrepreneurial, particularly in its ability to form internal and external partnerships to reduce time-to-market. Businesses everywhere face this kind of problem: Success isn't possible without changing the day-to-day behavior of people throughout the company. The implications of this new research are particularly relevant for organizational leaders. * Change is pain. * Behaviorism doesn't work. Dr.
