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ลำดับตอนที่ #68 : Why our brians barely need us
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160315-the-enormous-power-of-the-unconscious-brain
Why our brians barely need us
By
Chris Baraniuk
16 March 2016
If
you don’t think the act of stacking
and shuffling a set
of cups could boggle
your mind, watch the video below.
In it, neuroscientist David Eagleman introduces 10-year-old Austin Naber – a
world record-holding, champion cup stacker. Naber moves the cups around at a blistering pace and when Eagleman has a go at
keeping up with him, the difference in skill and speed becomes immediately apparent.
“He
smoked me,” Eagleman admits. “But the bigger point is that when I’m doing it,
it’s my first time cup stacking. It’s all conscious for me, I’m burning a lot
of energy trying to figure out the rules; how the cups balance.”
Both
Eagleman and Naber had their brain activity monitored via an
electroencephalogram (EEG). The difference was stark. Eagleman’s brain was firing on all
cylinders, but Naber’s barely flinched – despite the pace at which he was moving.
“His
brain was much more serene
than mine because he had automised
his behaviour,” explains Eagleman. Hours a day of practice had internalised the
behaviour of cup stacking for Naber, making it far less mentally taxing. What
other things can our brains get up to without conscious intervention?
It’s
a question that Eagleman explored in a PBS television series that aired recently on BBC4 in
the UK. The non-conscious mind, he says, plays a much deeper role in our
everyday decisions and relationships than we might realise.
You’re
already aware of the fact that breathing and organ functions are things we do
“automatically”, but there are lots of other examples.
Take
the experience of hitting a ball with a bat. It takes a ball travelling close
to 100mph (160km/h) just a few hundred
milliseconds to reach the hitter. It’s so fast that it’s not
possible to consciously register the trajectory of the ball and one’s response to it. It’s only after
hitting the ball, indeed, that we truly register what happened consciously.
“The
reason you practise sports over and over again is so you get really good at automising
your actions,” says Eagleman. “Thinking about them, naturally, slows you down.”
The
non-conscious mind also plays a role in more sophisticated actions, whether it’s deciding on
attraction to the opposite sex,completing
mathematical sums or forming political
views. There are even strange cases where people who are ostensibly blind can
‘see’, thanks to the non-conscious part of their minds: a phenomenon known
as blindsight.
“There
is debate in the field about whether consciousness even has efficacy,” says
Eagleman. “By the time your conscious mind registers something, is it always
just the last guy to get the news, and it doesn’t even matter what it thinks?”
Indeed,
designers and advertisers have known how to control our non-conscious decisions
for centuries. By using subtle cues designed to bypass conscious awareness, they can “trick” us
so that we drive more safely,
navigate cities in ways
we do not realise and even drink more alcohol
at the bar.
Yet
now that neuroscientists are exploring the influence of our non-conscious
actions, they may also be able to suggest ways to improve our lives. For
example, one question that Eagleman is exploring in his current research is the
extent to which the conscious versus the non-conscious mind plays a role in
addictions to drugs like cocaine. It’s early unpublished research, but the hope
is that by training addicts to be more consciously aware of their cravings, they
might gain better control over them.
The
more we probe the
brain’s workings, the more we realise that our conscious minds are really just
a summary of what our brains get up to all the time – without “us” having any
idea. As Eagleman puts it, “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you
wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.
“It’s
like a broom closet
in the mansion of the brain.”
''''''
Stack (n.)
(v.)
to arrange things in an ordered pile:
boggle (v.)
to (cause something or someone to) have difficultyimagining or understanding something:
to be very surprised and uncertain about how to deal with something:
blistering (adj.)
extremely fast
pace (n.)
the speed at which someone or
something moves, or with which
something happens or changes:
a single step, or the distance you move when you take a single step:
force the pacet
to make other people in a race go faster by going fasteryourself
the ability of a football player or team to move quicklywith the ball:
(v.)
to get someone to run a race at a particular speed,
for example by running with them
pace yourself
to be careful not to do
something too quickly, so that you do not get too tired to finish it:
to walk with regular steps in one directionand then back again, usually because you are worried or nervous:
stark (adj.)
empty, simple, or obvious, especially without decoration or anything that is
not necessary:
flinch (v.)
to make a sudden, small movement because of pain or fear:
internalize (v.)
to accept or absorb an idea,
opinion, belief,
etc. so that it becomes part of your character
If you internalize your emotions or feelings, you do not allowthem
to show although you think about them:
trajectory (n.)
the curved path that an object follows after it has been thrown or shot into the air:
sophisticated
(Adj.)
having a good understanding of the way people behaveand/or
a good knowledge of culture and fashion
intelligent or made in a complicated way and therefore ableto
do complicated tasks:
ostensibly (adj.)
appearing or claiming to be one thing when
it is really something else:
cues (n.)
a word or action in a play or film that is used as a signal by a performer to begin saying or doing something
a signal for someone to do something:[+ to infinitive]
If something happens on cue, it happens just after someone has said or thought it would happen:
.take your cue from sb
to take notice of someone's words or behaviour so that you know what you should do:
probe (v.)
to try to discover information that other people do not wantyou to know, by asking questions carefully and not directly:
to examine something with a tool, especially in order to findsomething that is hidden:
(n.)
an attempt to discover information by asking a lot of questions:
a long,
thin metal tool used by doctors to examine inside someone
a device that is put inside something to test or record information
flickers (v.)
to shine with a light that is sometimes bright and sometimes weak:
to appear for a short time or to make a suddenmovement:
broom (n.)
a brush with a long handle, used for cleaning the floor
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