When people suppressed their fearful thoughts, as opposed to vividly imagining them, they were markedly less anxious about those thoughts later. They also rated their fears as less vivid and remembered them less.
we tell ourselves that humans do something clever or tactical because our brains have simulated that this course of action will produce favourable outcomes, but when we learn that ants do the same thing by enacting preprogrammed responses to pheromones, surely that doesn’t count.
Advising is hard. It’s a complex activity that involves negotiating someone’s difficulty in dealing with a problem and their responsibility for dealing with it. Often, it degenerates into telling people what to do or showing off how much we know. Perhaps if more of us understood advising a little better, we could avoid giving overbearing advice and... See more
While most people tend to be optimistic, those suffering from depression and anxiety have a bleak view of the future — and that in fact seems to be the chief cause of their problems, not their past traumas nor their view of the present. While traumas do have a lasting impact, most people actually emerge stronger afterward. Others continue... See more
An experiment seven years in the making has uncovered new insights into the nature of consciousness and challenges two prominent, competing scientific theories: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT).
IIT suggests that consciousness emerges when information inside a system (like the brain) is highly connected