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Don't think about it, just think!

20:47 / 30.11.04

Nature asks: Are you thinking too much?

Apparently, it's easier to learn simple patterns when you're not actually trying, according to this Cambridge study.

The harder you look for the pattern, the harder it is to discover it.

The experiment:
The team asked subjects to press one of four buttons, depending which one of four boxes on a screen was highlighted. During the six-minute test, each person was required to pushed roughly 300 buttons, including 18 repetitions of a particular 10-item sequence.

One group of volunteers was asked to try to learn the pattern, and a second group was told to relax and not to worry about finding it. Learning the pattern should help people to respond more quickly, explains Fletcher.

At the end of the test, those who weren't looking for a pattern completed the task with a reaction time that was about 40 milliseconds faster than those who were looking, suggesting that the former had learned the pattern more effectively.

The conclusion:
Why would increased frontal lobe activity make it harder to learn the pattern? Fletcher explains that the frontal lobes are valuable in a crisis, when it is necessary to make a quick decision about which course of action to take. But this conscious processing might actually inhibit the automatic learning of simpler tasks, he says.

12:53 / 01.12.04

Gives new meaning to the Taoist dictum of 'do without doing, be without being'.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

16:12 / 01.12.04

Seriously. This doesn't come as much of a shock. I've known for years that I get in my own way more than anybody. Nice to see the scientific community getting into it, though.

19:36 / 02.12.04

this is great! cheers...

it is more experimental data to substantiate allan snyder's theories about nonconscious processes... he developed a quantitative measure for creativity using information theoretic science. one facet of the research suggests that it is the nonconscious processing that is responsible for that 'a-ha!' phenomenon and he is pursuing means of accessing these processes! turning off brains...

if you're interested, this is the abstract from his paper 'nonconscious idea generation' in psychological reports 94 (2004) pp.1325-1320:

Summary.—The recognition of the correct solution to a problem after a period when one is not actively searching for an answer is well documented. However, previous research has focused on problems an individual has not yet resolved. We presented a scenario in which 125 participants believed that they had completed a task and so had no reason to seek further solutions. To their surprise, after a period of distraction, we resumed the testing session. This novel method was combined with accurate recording of both response content and timing. The results from the second session displayed a remarkable similarity to those from the first, including an initial burst of ideas, allowing the inference that, even in the absence of a reason to seek solutions, a process of nonconscious idea generation might be operating.

this paper and others are at centreforthemind.com

20:31 / 02.12.04

Yeah, I figured this was up your alley. I'm surprised there's not a lot more research like this out there.

17:36 / 03.12.04

this seems (to my admittedly dozy and uneducated eyes) to back up the NLP'ers and hypnotists' claims that the Unconscious is the true one driving the bus

Richard Bandler (and I know many don't like him or his methods) allegedly overwhelms the consciousness of his trainees and gives their conscious so mcuh to do that the real meat and potatoes of his teachings, go straight to the unconscious. Yes this might all be Bandler speak for a load of bollocks but this research would seem to back up the idea that sometimes the conscious mind can be a hindrance to the learning process

19:10 / 05.12.04

must say, thanks grant! my gaffer liked this and was chuffed at me presenting him with it.... ta daaa.....! he agreed it backed up his work. did you get the paper cited? very good.

but there is a fair amount of stuff about, if you look hard enough - though it is a branch of scientific endeavour very much in its infancy and much of the established science world is [probably quite appropriately] rather wary of some claims.

lord winston (or does one call a lord by the christian name, like a sir?) cited snyder in his book of his series - the human mind - i noted just last week. he too urged caution as he hadn't seen our results - or bruce miller's, who was mentioned in the same section [miller does work along similar lines but from the dementia end of the spectrum] - published in the journals. i am almost, right this moment, sending him our papers. something cool about sending a lord stuff you know he'll dig!

but look for persinger's work on the web. great stuff about the 'god spot' and humphrey's tangential ideas on cave art... all mind state stuff that is consuming me; and i love it!

what's your outlook on all this?

18:15 / 06.12.04

Gives new meaning to the Taoist dictum of 'do without doing, be without being'.

I also thought of Eastern philosophy as soon as I saw the thread title and summary. The ability not to think about thinking is one of the fundamental concepts of Zen aswell, Alan Watts dealt with it in his The Way Of Zen. I've tried it in the past and had success with it, but keeping it up is the trick, which I haven't quite managed to pull off yet.

02:30 / 07.12.04

try this: try to be autistic...

sit in a spot amid a quiet cacophony (like a cafe, or something) and try to disengage from identifying any sounds you hear as language and try to monitor EVERY sound equally - clinking, guffawing, birdsong (if you're lucky and it's a nice sunny day outside), traffic, wind/rain, many simultaneous conversations, etc... [don't try this in company; they'll think you're rude!]

it is rather meditative and i found recently i had an epiphany about a dense personal problem while so engaged - it flooded into my consciousness as if waiting for me to become receptive. the issue was pretty pervasive in my life, and so often on my mind, and shutting off to all my normal conscious life must have released it. [...and i hadn't found this release with meditation and yoga]

anyway, an interesting experiment - i'd be keen to know results (both ends of the scale!) you'll appreciate the intensity of aural stimulation for some autistic kids. now you'll know why they curl up in a corner and wail!

and yes, buddhism has many astute answers to deep problems of mind that western science is now just starting to even pose as questions. interesting.

19:24 / 07.12.04

That autism trick sounds a lot like that "pay attention to all the details" thing Robert Anton Wilson would talk about.

I like it.

what's your outlook on all this?

I dunno -- I think there's some kind of non-psychiatric (or parallel-psychiatric) field of study that's been developing since the 1960s at least, tinkering with the way consciousness works on the level of perceiving and processing information (rather than mapping out the mind/self like Freud and Jung).

Maybe non-medical psychiatry. I dunno. I think it's got as much potential as mechanical & electrical engineering did in the 1700s. That's the feeling I get, anyway.

07:41 / 27.12.04

Me thinks that the topic abstract should be changed from:

"A new study shows that thinking about thinking interferes with learning and other mental tasks. "

to

"A new study shows that thinking about thinking interferes with the acquicition(sp?) of patterns."

Why? Cause this study isn't about learning but about following simple patterns. Simple in the way that the patterns are direct. There's nothing abstract about it. I bet that if the same study is done using a jigsaw puzzle you'll get the opposite results.

23:28 / 27.12.04

Actually a jigsaw puzzle, being a visual problem, is probably a bad example.

This reminds me of the old trick of setting yourself a problem to solve before bed and waking up with the answer. Works so often it's almost frightening.