The Brain that Changes Itself Flashcards
Sharanksy
“Sharansky, a Jewish computer specialist falsely accused of spying for the United States in 1977, spent nine years in prison, four hundred days of that time in solitary confinement in freezing, darkened five-by-six-foot punishment cells. Political prisoners in isolation often fall apart mentally because the use-it-or-lose-it brain needs external stimulation to maintain its maps. During this extended period of sensory deprivation, Sharansky played mental chess for months on end, which probably helped him keep his brain from degrading. He played both white and black, holding the game in his head, from opposite perspectives—an extraordinary challenge to the brain. Sharansky once told me, half joking, that he kept at chess thinking he might as well use the opportunity to become the world champion. After he was released, with the help of Western pressure, he went to Israel and became a cabinet minister. When the world champion Garry Kasparov played against the prime minister and leaders of the cabinet, he beat all of them except Sharansky.”
Excerpt From: Norman Doidge. “The Brain That Changes Itself.” Apple Books.
Rüdiger Gamm
“Though Gamm was not born with exceptional mathematical ability, he can now calculate the ninth power or the fifth root of numbers and solve such problems as “What is 68 times 76?” in five seconds. Beginning at age twenty, Gamm, who worked in a bank, began doing four hours of computational practice a day. By the time he was twenty-six, he had become a calculating genius, able to make his living by performing on television. Investigators who examined him with a positron emission tomography (PET) brain scan while he was calculating found he was able to recruit five more brain areas for calculating than “normal” people. The psychologist Anders Ericsson, an expert in the development of expertise, has shown that people like Gamm rely on long-term memory to help them solve mathematical problems when others rely on short-term memory. Experts don’t store the answers, but they do store key facts and strategies that help them get answers, and they have immediate access to them, as though they were in short-term memory. ”
Excerpt From: Norman Doidge. “The Brain That Changes Itself.” Apple Books.
every ____ “alters the physical state of your brain synapses at a microscopic level.
thought;
Each time you imagine moving your fingers across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain.
Nobel Prize 2000
“Kandel was the first to show that as we learn, our individual neurons alter their structure and strengthen the synaptic connections between them. He was also first to demonstrate that when we form long-term memories, neurons change their anatomical shape and increase the number of synaptic connections they have to other neurons”
Excerpt From: Norman Doidge. “The Brain That Changes Itself.” Apple Books.
eudamonia
a state where we feel we’re achieving our full human potential
attention acts more like _____ than water
molasses [ https://medium.com/ten-timezones/focused-teamwork-8ed325d34e62]
; you can redirect it, but a sticky “attention residue” stays behind, fixed to the last task you were working on. That residue is particularly thick when you don’t complete one task before moving on to the next one. But even when you do manage to finish the first task, your attention continues to stay fractured.
On average, employees who do the majority of their work on computers are distracted once every ______ minutes
10.5
Explain the logic of why time pressure during task A reduces residual attention towards task A, once you are done with task A (and then working on Task B)?
1) People who make a decision under high as opposed to low time pressure react to time pressure by narrowing down the number of alternatives they actually consider (e.g. Ben Zur and Breznitz, 1981, Kruglanski, 2004, Weening and Maarleveld, 2002). 2) (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000) have shown that the fewer options people consider when making a decision or a choice, the more confident they are in their choice once it is made. 3) Further, confidence in one’s decision or performance leads to the cessation of one’s cognitive effort (Metcalfe, 1998). 4) People who consider fewer alternatives when performing a task are then more likely to stop thinking about their performance once the task is finished.
Leroy Study 2 Performance Results Summary
Compared results on completing task B
2 axes - 1) finished task A vs did not finish Task A 2) performed under high time pressure vs did not perform under high time pressure
Those that Finished & performed under high time pressure scored a ~65. All other categories scored around 45. This shows two things: 1) finishing with low time pressure on Task A still led to low performance on Task B. 2) Not finishing Task A (but still with high time pressure) still led to low performance on Task B.
Does high time pressure necessitate stress?
No. I think there are plenty of tasks with a time limit that don’t cause stress. e.g. filling your cup with water under the sink. it’s understood that you need to move your cup out from under the stream and/or turn off the stream w/i 5-10 seconds. And if you didn’t (e.g. if you went to go to the restroom to brush your teeth (while say filling up a pot of water that takes ~60 seconds) your train of thought would keep getting interrupted by the thought of “I wonder if my pot is overflowing with water now”)
Is it worth it to put a time limit even if some of the time you won’t finish on time?
Yes, because the X% of the time that you do finish the task w/i that time pressure, on the next task you will perform 50% better.
