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Most people believe they can predict what they will do next. The evidence suggests otherwise.
Category: Cognitive Psychology
Why Your Brain Counts Things Even When You Tell It Not To
A simple experiment reveals just how much of mental life happens automatically.
A simple experiment reveals just how much of mental life happens automatically.
Many thoughts enter our minds without our conscious awareness or control.”
Although we can decide to think about certain things, there are other mental processes that get started automatically.
For example, we count things automatically, without willing it.
The conclusion comes from a study in which people were given a task involving an array of objects.
They were specifically told not to count the objects.
Despite this, 90 percent of the time people unconsciously counted them.
Dr Ezequiel Morsella, who led the study, said:
“The data support the view that, when one is performing a desired action, conscious thoughts about alternative plans still occupy the mind, often insuppressibly.”
Our minds are not as insulated from the outside world as we like to think, said Dr Morsella:
“Our conscious mind is the totality of our experience, a kind of ‘prime real estate’ in the cognitive apparatus, influencing both decision-making and action.”
Our inability to avoid counting, along with other unconscious habits, highlights how strongly our thoughts can be shaped by the environment.
Dr Morsella said:
“The research shows that stimuli in the environment are very important in determining what we end up thinking about and that once an action plan is strongly activated its many effects can be difficult to override.”
Related
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Bhangal et al., 2018).
What Your Reaction To Ambiguity Says About Your Mental Health (M)
The way people explain uncertain events may provide an early warning sign of future mental health difficulties.
Why Your Brain Struggles So Much To Multitask (M)
Even simple tasks compete for the same limited mental resources.
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What Psychology Says Good Writers Do Differently
The method could benefit people using computers, pen-and-paper or even speech-to-text.
The method could benefit people using computers, pen-and-paper or even speech-to-text.
Forcing yourself to slow your typing pace could improve the quality of your writing.
Participants in the study who typed with only one hand produced higher quality essays, researchers found.
Dr Srdan Medimorec, the study’s lead author, said:
“Typing can be too fluent or too fast, and can actually impair the writing process.
It seems that what we write is a product of the interactions between our thoughts and the tools we use to express them.”
People who type quickly may settle for the first word that comes to mind.
Slowing down allows the mind more time to find the right word.
This could be why forcing yourself to slow down a little improves the sophistication of the vocabulary used.
Professor Evan F. Risko, who co-authored the study, said:
“This is the first study to show that when you interfere with people’s typing, their writing can get better.
We’re not saying that students should write their term papers with one hand, but our results show that going fast can have its drawbacks.
This is important to consider as writing tools continue to emerge that let us get our thoughts onto the proverbial page faster and faster.”
Slowing down your writing could improve quality regardless of the input method used, the authors say.
The same trick could benefit people using pen-and-paper or even speech-to-text.
Slowing down too much, though, can be detrimental.
Previous research suggests that when people write more slowly than their normal handwriting speed, the quality declines.
Related
The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Medimorec & Risko, 2016).
Why Your Brain Needs Daylight To Think Clearly (M)
Real-world light exposure predicts how sleepy we feel and how quickly our minds respond.
