Brain Archives - Page 23 of 45

The Seductive Lure of Online Brain Games

January 8, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

You may have heard that Lumosity has agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission to the tune of $2 million in response to charges of deceptive advertising:

The FTC alleges that the defendants claimed training with Lumosity would 1) improve performance on everyday tasks, in school, at work, and in athletics; 2) delay age-related cognitive decline and protect against mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease; and 3) reduce cognitive impairment associated with health conditions, including stroke, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, ADHD, the side effects of chemotherapy, and Turner syndrome, and that scientific studies proved these benefits.

This didn’t surprise me since I’ve been following various researchers’ attempts to substantiate the many claims made by such companies. I was also aware that in 2014, a group of 70 cognitive scientists and neuroscientists issued a statement warning consumers of the hype over brain games:

We object to the claim that brain games offer consumers a scientifically grounded avenue to reduce or reverse cognitive decline when there is no compelling scientific evidence to date that they do. The promise of a magic bullet detracts from the best evidence to date, which is that cognitive health in old age reflects the long-term effects of healthy, engaged lifestyles. In the judgment of the signatories below, exaggerated and misleading claims exploit the anxieties of older adults about impending cognitive decline. We encourage continued careful research and validation in this field.

A large percentage of the population is concerned about cognitive decline. And they’re willing to pay for what appears to be an easy and even enjoyable quick fix. Quick fixes have become increasingly desirable in the internet age, so the concept of using your electronic device to play games devised by someone else to keep your brain in top form is brilliant marketing, if nothing else. It’s a mini, no-stress, workout for your brain.

The jury is still out as to whether brain games offer any long-term effectiveness. One thing that is known is that improving your performance in a particular game leads to improved performance in that particular game. In that regard, computerized games are no different from playing Scrabble or working crossword or Sudoku puzzles. The more crossword puzzles you work, the better you get at working crossword puzzles. The more Sudoku puzzles you complete, the easier the “challenging” puzzles become. That’s just how the brain works. The more often you attempt any task, the quicker and easier it is to do it. Practice may not make perfect but it definitely makes better.

According to David Z. Hambrick, associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University:

[I]f you find that people get better in one test of reasoning, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re smart; it means they’re better on one test of reasoning.

In fact, there’s some indication that just playing video games is better than so-called brain games at improving short-term memory capacity and reasoning.

If you like the experience of playing—and getting better at—computerized brain games (and paying for the pleasure), then go ahead and continue doing it. But computerized brain games are unlikely to have any far-reaching or long-term effects on your cognitive abilities.

And, as an article in Scientific American points out, they take up time that could be put to better use. I’ve been saying for some time now that the two things you can do to grow new neurons and increase the number of synaptic connections in your brain (thus expanding your mental model and your cognitive abilities) are:

Move! Engage in physical exercise.
Learn! Study something new and challenging.

That’s it. Do those two things every day and you will not only be doing something effective to forestall cognitive decline, you will also become healthier and potentially even higher-functioning than you already are.

2016: The Year of Clearing Space?

January 1, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

You can’t reach for the stars by climbing that mountain of clutter.

That’s what I wrote two years ago (2014: Time to Start Shoveling?) and I stand by it today. There are plenty of obstacles you’ll encounter in your life that you have no control over.

Clutter is a major obstacle, but it’s one you can do something about.

In fact successfully dealing with clutter, if it’s an issue for you, can actually boost your ability to deal with those other obstacles.

Not sure if clutter’s an issue? Here are some questions to ask yourself.

How much stuff are you holding onto because you might need it someday?
How much stuff are you holding onto because it has financial value or “might be” valuable?
How much stuff are you holding onto because it has sentimental value? Just how much of your past are you curating?
How much stuff are you holding onto simply because it’s already there?
How much stuff might you be holding onto that you don’t even know you have?
How many items of clothing or pairs of shoes do you have that you no longer wear—or that don’t even belong to you?
How many drawers, cabinets, closets, countertops, and shelves are so full you can’t fit anything else in or on them?
How much work do you have to do before you can clean your living or work space?
How much time do you spend looking for things?
Have you ever failed to respond to something in a timely manner because you lost track of the paperwork?
How much of your stuff needs to be repaired, refinished, repurposed, or recycled?
How often do you notice something in your living or work space and think “I really need to do something about that”?
Have you ever panicked at the thought of someone coming into your home and seeing the mess?
Conversely, have you ever said, “You think your place is bad, you should see mine”?
How many times have you gotten everything in one area completely tidy and organized only to find the clutter slowly creeping back months, weeks, or even days later?

My interest in clutter and having too much stuff (the two often go together) is related to the effect hey have on the brain. Clutter tends to snag your attention on a regular basis and in dozens of different ways. You don’t have an unlimited amount of System 2 (conscious) attention. How much of it are you letting your stuff siphon off? Wouldn’t you rather use your System 2 attention for something more productive or at least more interesting?

Having so much stuff that every space or place is filled or overflowing can have another dampening effect by keeping you stuck instead of allowing you to move on and explore other interests. Have you ever decided not to take up a new hobby, for example, because you have no space for the materials or the activity due to the fact that you’re storing a bunch of stuff you no longer use?

Clutter falls into different categories: physical/material, mental, emotional, and the hodgepodge of things left undone and/or not being attended to. But all of it has the same effect. So whatever it is:

Clean it out
Fix it
Address it
Replace it
Finish it
Toss it out

The best thing you can do for yourself in 2016 is to make it The Year of Clearing Space. You have no idea what you’ll be able to see once you get all that clutter out of your way.

Power Up:
Fake It till You Become It

December 25, 2015 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

It’s difficult to make the kind of difference you want to make—in the world, in your immediate sphere, or even in your own life—if you lack the power to do so.

When stated directly, it seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, so many people who want to make a difference, or who just want to be effective, shy away from the very idea of power. Quite a few of them are women, but not a hundred percent of them.

What struck me the most during my collaborative group’s follow-up discussion on the subject of power this week was the extent of the mixed feelings that were expressed about being powerful. After listening to the comments and then doing a bit of research, I’ve concluded there’s a widespread tendency to conflate power itself with the use—and especially the misuse and abuse—of power. But power and the use of power are not at all the same thing. So this is likely the result of the unconscious part of the brain (System 1) taking one of its shortcuts, thereby sacrificing accuracy for speed.

Power is like water. Water is essential for life on this planet. A person usually can’t go for longer than three days without water, for example, and annual rainfall is critical for crops. Having enough water to sustain life is good. But tsunamis, tidal waves, floods, and hurricanes are not good. So both too little water and too much water can lead to negative, sometimes devastating, consequences. And when water is coming out of a firehose that’s being used to put out a fire, it’s good. But when water is coming out of a firehose that’s aimed directly at you, it’s bad.

Similarly, power unchecked is often power that’s misused or abused. But power kept too much in check is useless. If you want to be effective, you need to be powerful. In fact, a good working definition of power is: the ability or capacity to act or do something effectively. I can’t imagine there’s anyone reading this who wouldn’t be happy to be more effective.

Besides, powerful people tend not only to be more assertive and confident, but also more optimistic. And they tend to be better at abstract thinking.

If you don’t feel powerful or you’re making a concerted effort to avoid giving the impression of being powerful, you may unwittingly be expressing your powerlessness (which is probably not your intention). That’s because our bodies give us away. Whether subtle or readily apparent, nonverbal communication has a profound effect not just on the person or persons who might be observing us, but also—and most importantly—on us.

Posing for Power

Research by social psychologist Amy Cuddy reveals that sitting or standing in what she calls “low-power” poses can decrease your testosterone level by about 10 percent and increase your cortisol level by about 15 percent. Lower testosterone and higher cortisol will alter the way you feel about yourself—and not in a good way.

On the other hand, sitting or standing in “high-power” poses can increase your testosterone level by about 20 percent and decrease your cortisol level by about 25 percent. In effect, more power = less stress, which makes sense. [Please note that if you’re female, your testosterone level will not rise to the same level of a male. It will increase as a percentage of your own baseline level.]

You don’t have to go out and strut your stuff in front of the world every day. That isn’t even a good idea. What matters is whether or not you perceive yourself to be a powerful (effective) person. And you can increase your self-perception by altering your levels of testosterone and cortisol, which in turn will affect the amount of confidence you have in yourself, which is what others will then perceive.

Pick one of the high-power poses and stand or sit in it for two minutes. That’s it. If you’ve been ambivalent about experiencing and/or expressing power, you may find adopting one of these poses awkward or even uncomfortable. You may think it’s silly. Do it anyway. There are things you want to do in the world and for yourself. You’re up to something. If you want to be effective, if you want to able to translate your intentions into reality, you need to empower, rather than disempower, yourself.

Matter over Mind

December 18, 2015 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

I was sitting at my desk considering the topic of embodied cognition with the aim of exploring power and power poses. But of course there are many different ways in which what we do with—or how we arrange various parts of—our bodies affects our minds.

For example:

If you nod your head while listening to someone, you’re more likely to agree with him or her.

If you encounter another person while you’re in the middle of—or right after—a scary situation, you’re likely to consider that person more attractive than you otherwise would.

If you’re holding a hot drink in your hand, you’re more likely to consider a stranger warm and friendly (and vice versa if you’re holding a cold drink).

So I took a pencil out of the brilliantly colored oversized Majolica mug that currently holds my writing implements and put it between my teeth. Yes, it did noticeably elevate my mood (because the activity uses the same muscles we use when we smile). And I immediately thought of William James’s bear, which made me think of Joseph LeDoux, and then of his band, The Amygdaloids.

I can see how my mind associated William James’s bear, whether or not accurately, with embodied cognition. But it’s striking how the thought came to me the very second I put the pencil between my teeth. Was it conning my brain into believing I was happier that did the trick?

William James published an article in 1884 titled “What Is an Emotion?” Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, author of several books, including The Emotional Brain, described James’s inquiry:

Do we run from a bear because we are afraid or are we afraid because we run? [James] proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run.

James’s theory—at least in regard to emotion—has not entirely held up over time. But there isn’t much doubt that we can at least alter our emotional state, or our state of mind, via our bodies and the actions we take. Which leads to Amy Cuddy’s research on body language—and power poses.

But first, here’s a video of The Amygdaloids (an all-neuroscientist rock band) performing “Mind over Matter.”

Our Bodies Change Our Minds

Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk (“Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”) is well worth watching. A social psychologist, she says she became interested in power dynamics, especially nonverbal expressions of power and dominance.

Power has been a recent topic of discussion in a collaborative group I meet with weekly. Prior to one of our sessions, I tried to come up with as many synonyms for the word as I could and made it all the way to 40. Not everyone has a positive view of the concept of power, and power can definitely be abused and misused. But although a few of the synonyms may have negative connotations, most seem desirable—at least to me. In my group, we discussed power as the speed (or velocity) with which one translates intention into action, which I think most of us would like to be better at.

If you could use body language to trick your brain (using matter over mind) into believing you’re powerful—so that you actually felt powerful whenever you wanted or need to be—would you want to do that?

The thing about body language is that whether or not we want to be communicating something in particular to another person or to ourselves, our body language is communicating all the time. So it’s useful to pay attention to our habitual physical postures to notice what it is we are communicating.

Here are five high power poses and five low power poses courtesy of Amy Cuddy:

What’s your relationship with power?

Do you see yourself in any of the pictures? What about other people you know: friends, family members, co-workers, colleagues?

And what about the power synonyms? Which ones do you relate to or feel positive about? Which ones are a turn-off?

My group plans to continue the discussion on power next week, so stay tuned for the next installment, which will include the roles testosterone and cortisol play in regard to power.

Is What You See All There Is?

December 11, 2015 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

rainbow eye

As you move through the world, you probably have the sense that you’re aware of whatever there is to be aware of as it is. This applies not only to the sensory world, but also to events, situations, interpersonal interactions—actually to everything that exists or occurs within your world. But the capacity of conscious attention is much too limited for this to even be possible. The 11,000,000 bits of information being processed by the unconscious part of the brain at any given moment need to be considerably (and swiftly) condensed and summarized into the 40 bits you can process consciously.

Consciousness is a way of projecting all the activity in your nervous system into a simpler form. [It] gives you a summary that is useful for the larger picture, useful at the scale of apples and rivers and humans with whom you might be able to mate. —David Eagleman, Incognito

What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI)*

Your brain maintains a model of the world that represents what’s normal in it for you. The result is that you experience a stripped-down, customized version of the actual world. To a great extent, each of us really does inhabit our own world. But it would be incorrect to say that we create our reality; rather, our brain creates our reality for us.

Much, if not most, of what you do, think, and feel consists of automatically generated responses to internal or external stimuli. And it isn’t possible to consciously mediate all of your responses. It wouldn’t even be a good idea to try.

In addition to helping you navigate the world, your mental model gives rise to your sense of the way things should be. It generates expectations (that are either confirmed or denied), assumptions, biases, etc. that determine what you pay attention to, what you perceive (even what you are able to perceive), how you interpret and respond to what you perceive, and the meaning you make of it all. Your mental model is the result of your genes and your experiences, of both intention and accident. Your brain has been constructing your particular model of the world since your birth, and it is continually updating and modifying it—most of the time entirely outside your awareness.

But while the contents of your particular mental model determine what you think, feel, do, and say, you can’t search them—or follow a bread-crumb trail backward through them—to find out precisely which aspects (and when and how they came to be) give rise to any specific facet of who you are and how you react now.

The significance of your mental model in your life can’t be overstated. Although you aren’t consciously aware of it, your mental model circumscribes not only every aspect of your present experience but also what is possible for you to do and be. It determines what you see and how you see the world, both literally and figuratively, as well as how you see yourself.

But…Your Brain Can Get It Wrong

System 1, the unconscious part of your brain, uses associative thinking to develop and maintain your model of the world. However, there are some problems with associative thinking. For example:

It sacrifices accuracy for speed.
It doesn’t discriminate very well.
It takes cognitive shortcuts (aka cognitive biases).

Your mental model can—and sometimes does—lead to erroneous conclusions and inappropriate responses. It’s the job of consciousness (System 2) to check the impulses and suggestions it receives from System 1, but consciousness is slow, lazy, and easily depleted. Most of the time, it’s content to go along with System 1, which means it’s susceptible to cognitive biases. By definition, cognitive biases are distortions or errors in thinking. They actually decrease your understanding while giving you a feel-good sense of cognitive ease.

Confirmation bias is the easy acceptance of information that validates what you already believe. It causes you to selectively notice and pay attention to what confirms your beliefs and to ignore what doesn’t. It underlies the discomfort you feel around people who disagree with you and the ease you feel around people who share your beliefs.

Information that confirms what you already believe to be true makes you feel right and certain, so you’re likely to accept it uncritically. On the other hand, you’re more likely to reject information that is inconsistent with what you already believe or at least you hold inconsistent information up to greater scrutiny. You have different standards for evaluating information depending on the level of cognitive ease it generates.

Evidence has precious little impact on any of us if it conflicts with what we believe simply because the cognitive strain of processing it is too great. To a very real extent, we don’t even “see” conflicting evidence. While total commitment to our particular worldview (mental model) makes us feel more confident, it narrows—rather than expands—our possibilities. That means it limits our powers of discernment, our ability to increase our understanding of the world around us, and our creative potential. It closes the world off for us instead of opening it up.

The often-quoted statement is true: we don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. If we want to live fuller lives, if we want to be more effective or useful or loving in the world, we first need to recognize that our greatest constraints are imposed by our own mental models.

It’s important to remember that what you see is not all there is.

*Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Posing for Power

Our Bodies Change Our Minds

What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI)*

But…Your Brain Can Get It Wrong

Contact Me