Thinking. Interesting facts about thinking Interesting facts about thinking

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Wandering around the bush, empty dreams, grief and loss - all these things are associated with something bad. But in fact, they can positively influence our creative efforts. And this is just one of the surprises presented by the study of the creative abilities of the brain. Scott Kaufman and Carolyn Gregor, in their book Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, describe a number of such discoveries that are not obvious, but very useful in practice. Here are some of the most notable examples.

1. 72% of people experience creative insight when they are in the shower.

No, it's not a cliché: standing under a stream of hot water and letting your mind relax is creatively beneficial. Gregor and Kaufman show that the isolation we find ourselves in when we shower is a great incubator for ideas. In a study conducted by Kaufman in 2014, 72% of respondents from around the world admitted that new ideas came to their minds.

2. Victory for introverts and the power of loneliness

No matter how productively we work in a team, nothing compares to the moments when we work - and think - alone. The more creative, imaginative parts of the brain function better when no one is around. Neurologists call this “constructive internal reflection,” which is essential for generating ideas and creative insights. When you turn down the volume of the outside world, the brain is more successful at making certain connections, forming memories, and processing information.

3. Experimentation makes us more creative.

Logically, the willingness to try new ideas correlates with creativity. The Beatles' music changed as they began experimenting with new recording techniques and new instruments. And neuroscientists have established a clear link between openness to new experiences and creative thinking. Exploration of the new is associated with the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which also plays a beneficial role in motivation and learning, "stimulates psychological plasticity, propensity for exploration, flexible interaction with new things," the authors write. The body of research that Kaufman and Gregor reviewed shows that the desire to expand experience can be a major predictor of creative achievement.

4. Trauma expands creative horizons

Frida Kahlo, Truman Capote, Robin Williams, Jerry Garcia - many people of art have experienced a great loss or trauma in their lives, which has seriously affected their creative research. And this is no coincidence: psychologists call this phenomenon “post-traumatic growth.” After a serious loss, the brain begins to function more creatively, trying to "rebuild" life as a whole, when our ideas, priorities, and ways of thinking change dramatically. There are hundreds of studies on post-traumatic growth. In particular, work published in 2004 in the Journal of Traumatic Stress showed that 70% of people who had a traumatic experience then experienced positive psychological changes.

5. Keeping your head in the clouds is good for your brain.

During an important meeting on the budget of your project, you should not be distracted and drift away somewhere in your thoughts. But in general, daydreaming can be very useful for creativity. Imagining your dream home or re-living a pleasant summer vacation while sitting at your office desk seems counterproductive. But at this time, a lot of interesting things are happening in my head. As studies show, these moments are a kind of incubation process that enhances creative thinking, long-term thinking and consciousness. Psychologists have been studying these “constructive dreams” for decades and show that they play a key role in the development of imagination and creative work.

6. The best ideas are ridiculed first.

There are many examples in history of discoveries and ideas that were first rejected, and then accepted as the norm. The Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis first lost his job, and then ended up in a psychiatric hospital - and after all, he only suggested that infections could be spread thanks to germs on the hands of doctors in the hospital. In the 19th century, this idea seemed radical and insane. This resistance to new, non-standard ideas has an understandable psychological basis and continues to this day. A paper published in the journal Scientometrics in 2009 explores examples of Nobel Prize-winning ideas and discoveries that were initially opposed by the scientific community. This systemic phenomenon is skepticism towards theories that challenge the existing paradigm.

The human psyche keeps no less mysteries than the depths of space, but the research of scientists still allows at least a little to open the veil of secrecy.

1. The word "Psyche" of Greek origin, derived from the word ψυχικός, which translates as "spiritual".

2. Previously, it was believed that short-term memory is capable of storing no more than 5-9 elements at a time. Today, scientists are even more skeptical and talk about 3-4 blocks of information available.

3. Strong emotions distort memory and create false memories. This was confirmed during interviews with eyewitnesses of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

4. Every second our brain is attacked by 11 million individual units.

5. Idleness makes a person feel uncomfortable.

6. If a person is afraid that his talents and abilities will not be recognized, he, contrary to common sense, deliberately belittles them. Thus, he immediately puts himself in a position from which it is difficult to be underestimated.

7. A person's ability to social connections is determined by the "Dunbar number". As a rule, it is a maximum of 100 to 230 people.

8. Research by psychologist Heidi Halvorson has proven that people prefer things with a story. According to the psychologist, preconceived notions and inertia, backed by fear of change, are the main reasons why people do not try to change something in their lives.

9. According to a study by the University of Cambridge, “there are no gaps in each podacra in the left. Smaoe vaonzhe, it’s chotby first and suffered bkuva blyi on their own metsah ”

10. Most people in an unfamiliar place make a right turn. Knowing this fact is useful: if you do not want to be in the crowd or stand in line for a long time, feel free to go left or take the queue to the left.

11. Research conducted by the University of Cleveland in 1991 showed that those who are often late are much more in need of the care of others and are prone to increased anxiety.

12. In psychology, there is such a term as the "fundamental attribution error" - that is, the tendency to blame the behavior of other people with the internal characteristics of the personality, and one's behavior - with external factors.

13. In 1957, the American psychologist Leon Festinger voiced the theory of cognitive dissonance, which dealt with the psychological discomfort that occurs when conflicting ideas and actions collide in a person's mind. For example, a smoker knows that nicotine kills, but this does not force him to give up the bad habit.

14. Scientists have come to the conclusion that phobias can be memories that are passed down from generation to generation using DNA.

15. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in their research proved that in two identical situations, a person chooses the one in which, as it seems to him, losses are minimized. To completely eliminate losses and “please your brain”, you only need one thing - to do nothing!

16. The 21-day theory, during which a person forms a habit, was invented by plastic surgeon Maxwell Moltz, but it is speculative and has now been refuted. Habit formation is an individual process and can take from 18 to 254 days.

17. Psychological tests show that most people will go along with the group and not contradict the opinion of the group, even if they believe that the group is wrong.

18. American scientists conducted an experiment in which a group of volunteers wore glasses for 30 days, turning the vision of the world upside down. When the volunteers took off their glasses, they got used to the usual vision of the world for another 30 days, and at first they saw the world upside down. This suggests that even our perception of reality is rooted in habit.

19. Scientific studies of the Pentagon prove that the human brain is able to continuously perceive the information received (and most importantly, correctly “process” it) for a maximum of 18 minutes. Moreover, this applies to people with high intellectual abilities.

20. According to family therapist Roger S. Gil, stress can be caused not only by problems, but also by joyful, positive moments in life, including those that a person deliberately “provokes”. This means that any change in the "usual way" can potentially turn into stress.

22. The human mind is able to "rewrite" the monotonous, boring speech of the interlocutor, so that the information seems interesting and better perceived.

23. More than 400 phobias are known in psychology.

24. The NSF (US National Science Foundation) estimates that the human brain produces between 12,000 and 50,000 thoughts per day.

25. By chemical reactions, romantic feelings are indistinguishable from obsessive-compulsive syndrome.

26. In the old days, it was believed that the soul of a person is placed in a recess between the collarbones, a dimple on the neck. In the same place on the chest was the custom to keep money. Therefore, they say about a poor person that he "has nothing behind his soul."

27. After the release of the movie "The Truman Show" in 1998, psychologists began to talk about the syndrome of the same name. Psychologists the Gold brothers describe it as a type of polythematic delusional disorder - a combination of delusional ideas of persecution with ideas of greatness

28. There is a psychic phenomenon, reverse deja vu, and more rare, called jamevu. It consists in the sudden feeling that you are encountering a situation or person for the first time, although in fact they are very familiar to you. On a par with them, you can put the phenomenon of presquevu - a state well known to many, when you cannot remember a familiar word that “spins on the tongue”.

29. Psychological experiments have proven that people perform better on the same task within the same room than when the end goal is in another room. This is called the doorway phenomenon.

30. Micropsia - a state when a person perceives objects and objects of a significantly smaller size than they really are. In general, an object appears to be far away or extremely close at the same time. This deviation is also called the Alice in Wonderland syndrome.

31. When the ancient physicians discovered the meaning of the nerves in the human body, they named them by their resemblance to the strings of musical instruments with the same word - nervus. From this came the expression for annoying actions - "play on the nerves."

32. One of the most effective manipulation techniques is Benjamin Franklin's trick. He liked to say that the one you asked for a favor is more likely to do it again than the one you oblige.

33. Most of our decisions are formed in the subconscious, as our brain encounters more than 11 million individual bits of data every second.

34. Today, scientists no longer doubt that in the sport of high achievements the role of the psyche is no less important than the role of physics. Tim Knox, a professor at the University of Cape Town, has shown that the brain has a subconscious self-preservation mechanism that kicks in to keep the body from getting too close to dangerous limits. Knox calls this mechanism the "central regulator". In his opinion, fatigue is more of a protective emotion, rather than a reflection of the physiological state of the body.

35. Conscious copying of the appearance and behavioral traits of a person involuntarily places the latter in relation to the imitator. According to the researchers, this adds confidence to a person, flatters his self-esteem. As a result, the "original" becomes dependent on the "copy".

36. The environment can seriously influence our decisions. This was proven in 1951 by the soon-to-be Pittsburgh University professor, Solomon Ash. He conducted an experiment in which the participants had to compare the length of segments of different lengths shown on the cards. It turned out that three people are enough for the subject to have an internal conflict, forcing him to accept the point of view of the majority.

37. Body dysmorphophobia is a disorder in which a person (most often a teenager) is very concerned about his body and experiences a feeling of anxiety due to its defects or features. Now, in the age of the selfie, this disorder is becoming more common.

38. Research has proven that false memories are very easy to create artificially. Especially if you influence several types of human perception at once (auditory, visual, tactile).

39. Long-term studies have shown that 50-70% of visits to the doctor are due not to physical, but to psychological reasons.

40. The computer age has already brought a lot of phobias to mankind. Such, for example, as “trollephobia”, “tredophobia” (fear of commenting), “selfiephobia”, “imagephobia” (fear that the sent emoticon or picture will be misinterpreted), “socionetophobia” (fear of social networks), “nomophobia” (fear of being left without a smartphone).

The brain wakes up longer than the body. The intellectual abilities of a person immediately after waking up are lower than after a sleepless night or in a state of moderate intoxication. To "wake up" the brain, in the morning it is better to read a little or solve a crossword puzzle.

It is easier for the brain to understand the speech of men than women. Women's voices are more musical and sound at higher frequencies. The frequency range is wider than that of male voices. The human brain has to "decipher" the meaning of what a woman says using its additional resources.

The human brain, as scientists at Harvard University have established, can accommodate the number of bytes (1 byte is the minimum unit of information, equal to 8 bits), expressed as a number with 8432 zeros.

Designed by Disney, Celebration City (Florida, USA), which can accommodate 20,000 people, is the city of the future. Its cost is $350 million. Each of the 8,000 homes has an Internet connection, high-speed ISDN connection with cable TV, multimedia resources, and optional video. Celebration has been under construction since 1996, by the summer of 1997. 1,000 people lived in it.

A group of American scientists have found that the human brain continues to evolve, BBCNews reports. Comparing the genotype of a modern person and an ancestor who lived 37 thousand years ago, the researchers found a significant discrepancy in the structure of two genes that are responsible, presumably, for the volume of the brain.

Jacques Inaudi, who was born in 1877 and remained illiterate until the age of 20, gave public performances from the age of 7, extracting roots of the 3rd and 5th degrees from 21-digit numbers. He differed in that he did not see the answers, but heard them.

Diamandi had an extraordinary memory. He was eidetic and saw the numbers written. Diamandi could repeat about 40 numbers after a single reading aloud and about 300, which were encountered in various tasks during a 3-hour session.

According to various estimates, the amount of human memory is approximately from one with seven zeros to one with 21 zeros. If we proceed from the fact that one book of 10 printed sheets contains 432,000 characters, then the human brain can store information equal in volume to 23,000 to 300 trillion books. For comparison: the fund of one of the largest libraries in the world - the US National Library of Congress - is 100 million books.

Ben Underwood, thanks to his super hearing, is able to distinguish even very quiet sounds coming from any object.

Eyra Colbury, a native of the United States, gave a performance in London in 1814. At the age of 10, he could instantly raise not very large numbers to the 16th power and extract roots.

The human brain uses less energy than a light bulb in a refrigerator. Messages between brain cells are transmitted using electrical signals. This uses 12 watts of energy - less than a light bulb in a refrigerator.

Mental work does not tire the brain. The composition of the blood flowing through the brain is unchanged throughout its vigorous activity, no matter how long it lasts. At the same time, the blood taken from the vein of a person who has worked all day contains a certain percentage of “fatigue toxins”.

The color that is best perceived by the brain is yellow-green. Our eyes have receptors for blue, green and red. But the brain does not receive information about colors, it receives information about the difference between light and dark, and information about the difference between colors. By the way, this color is called chartreuse.

Prayer has a beneficial effect on brain activity. During prayer, the perception of information by a person goes bypassing thought processes and analysis, i.e. the person escapes from reality. In this state (as in meditation) delta waves occur in the brain, which are usually recorded in infants in the first six months of his life.

It turns out that our mind is not always useful to us. Reflection, reflections on the unfair structure of the world and an empty game of associations exhaust our strength and divert our attention from what surrounds us. Raptitude blogger David Kane wrote about the limited attention budget and constant internal "mapping" of our experience - T&P translated his article.

People don't talk much about thinking. We constantly talk about what we think, but rarely talk about the process itself. But thinking is a huge part of our lives - it is perhaps the most significant part of our experience.

Your mindset affects everything in life: your actions, your self-image, your abilities, your stress levels, and your health. Your way of thinking determines what kind of experience will prevail during your life: whether it will be fear or admiration, whether it will be too much or not enough.

My life has gotten a hell of a lot better since I started paying attention to the role my thoughts play in it. There was a time when I would have doubted the truth of the following five statements, but now I consider them to be the essential truth of life.

We think almost all the time

Young children are wonderful observers. Most of the time their attention is occupied by what they see and hear. They can definitely think and reflect, but the momentary sensory world seems to them more important. It's not uncommon to see an adult lost in thought and not noticing anything around, but it's strange to see a two-year-old child with the same glassy, ​​absent look.

With maturity, thought comes to the forefront of our experience. Even when we pay attention to the sensory world, we are constantly interpreting, predicting and evaluating. As children grow older, they devote more and more attention to their own internal mapping - it becomes more important than momentary fresh observations.

Imagine tourists wandering around with a map in front of them. They see real world landmarks, but use them only as references to determine their location and to build a route to another point. Most adults also interact with the world out of habit: the content of our thoughts and impressions is the main landscape, and momentary sensory experience is secondary.

Most of our thoughts don't really lead anywhere.

We need to think: our mind is capable of amazing things. But most thoughts do not lead to any solution or understanding that would be applicable in the real world. We're just kicking up swirls of dust. One thought always leads to another, but keeping track of their progress is like picking up randomly growing flowers, rather than following the trail of deliberately scattered breadcrumbs.

If you get in the habit of asking yourself what exactly you want to achieve by thinking about something at a certain moment, you may find that you do not find the answer. What is a good thought, is it not pushing for some kind of decision or action? Of course, thinking has other purposes as well - for example, to distract yourself from even more distressing reflections or to please yourself with fantasies. But in this case, the real world comes to an end. More often than not, these thoughts are not intentional, nor are they particularly helpful.

For the most part, thinking is just an unconscious association, tiring and absorbing our attention. This is the usual useless work of the mind, capable of eating as much of your attention as it can until you turn it off from the power.

Thinking is addictive

Who cares about the name of the actor who played the average guy on that 80s sitcom whose theme song has been playing in my head since morning? For some reason my mind is busy. If I had not intervened, I would have had to put aside the rest of my life in order to resolve this issue.

The mind is happy with any work, even if it has no foreseeable benefit. Just like a salesman who will sell you all sorts of gizmos until you stop buying them, your mind tends to work while it can. He really likes to believe, compare and invent.

We can all agree that it's great that the mind is capable of these things. But in order to do them, he needs your attention, which is not so much. If the mind knew that it would have to work on a budget, it would be more judicious about the projects it takes on.

We adults are so accustomed to this constant mental activity that when it stops, we have a strange feeling. For the same reason, it's hard to break away from an unplanned Netflix marathon. It's not necessarily because the show you're watching is that good. The thing is, you're more comfortable with continuing to watch rather than deciding what to do instead.

We often confuse our thoughts with their subject matter.

All of us have been so absorbed in thoughts that we have lost the thread of what is happening. You could be completely taken over by your old relationship, or your office schedule across town, or a future where there are no more ocean fish and you barely notice yourself sitting in the bathroom at 4 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.

Your emotions in these cases correspond better to what is in your head, but not to what is happening around you. This is because all thoughts exist in the present, even thoughts about absent people or events not taking place. So when you think about something that upsets you, you are actually reacting to the thought, not to its subject matter. Obviously, it's not your ex-girlfriend who makes you sit in the bathroom and be sad, it's your thought about this person and this time. She is not there. At all. There is only a thought.

Your body is constantly being led by the nose. You just have time to think about a plate of french fries, as the salivary glands are already starting a party in your mouth, not yet knowing that there are no potatoes. Or just think about sex, and the genitals will immediately begin to rebuild, moving fluids back and forth and preparing to welcome a guest who will not come. If you indulge in the delusions of your body, it may even try to have a baby on its own.

When you lie in bed and cannot sleep because of political violence, it is not the imperfect arrangement of the world that keeps you awake. This is the thought that you have right now, right here in your bedroom. Otherwise, why didn't the "organization of the world" bother you from the moment you were born? We can only react to what is in the present.

We can live less inside our heads

I'm not trying to demonize thought. Thoughts are absolutely necessary for our functioning. But the clean-to-noise ratio will overwhelm you if you get in the habit of paying attention to it from time to time. Knowing that most of our thoughts are not really serving us, we can figure out how to regain our attention and bring it back to what is happening in the moment.

Your attention is drawn either to your thoughts, or to the rest of what is happening - to the sensory world of images, sounds, smells, sensations and tastes. He simply has nowhere else to be. So the reduction of the life lived inside the head is equivalent to the increase in the life lived in the material world. Sometimes the world around is so beautiful that it distracts our attention from thoughts, but the rest of the time we need to direct it manually.

It's not particularly difficult to do this - it's hard to remember that it's necessary. Attention management should become a habit, because we adults know how to live in the head without even noticing it, better than doing anything else.

Icons: 1) Anne-Marie Nguyen, 2) Ásgeir Vísir, 3) Luis Prado, 4) Jhun Capaya, 5) Acider C Balandrano.