Tuesday 13 January 2009

Journey to the centre of your mind

Before approaching the core of your mind, let us get a glimpse of a few pointers that everyone must know about their mind !

The Hidden Workings of Our Minds

How great artists create? How do brilliant scientists solve the hardest problems in their field? Listen to them try to explain and you'll probably be disappointed. Artists say mysterious things like: "The picture just formed in my mind." Writers tell us that: "I don't know where the words come from." Scientists say they: "Just had a hunch."

Read more here.

What We Don't Know About Shopping, Reading, Watching TV & Judging People

Psychology studies that rely on deceiving participants have shown we often have little clue what's going on in our own minds. But what about in everyday situations where trickery isn't involved?

Here are four everyday situations - shopping, reading, watching TV and judging other people - and four experiments that show how little we know in each situation about what's really going on in our minds (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977)

Read more here.

At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness

Across a crowded room your eyes lock with an attractive stranger. You look away, you look back. The first hint of a smile plays across their lips. Suddenly you're nervous, your mind goes blank, you want to go over and you want to run away, both at the same time.

You turn around too fast, bump into someone, almost spilling your drink. 'Wow,' you think as you recover, 'Now, that's what I'm talking about!'.

Read more here.

Now, traveling further, into the brain we seek V Ramachandran's help. Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples.



Using three very cool examples -

  • Capgras syndrome: where a man looks at his mother and says: "It looks like my mother but she's an imposter." How can a person recognise his mother's face yet feel it's not her?
  • Phantom limbs: why would an amputated limb still hurt? Can this pain be relieved?
  • Synaesthesia: Numbers are colours. Notes are colours. Cross-talk between the senses has a higher incidence in creative people: why?

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