Word: brained
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According to a surprising study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, commercial interruptions often enhance enjoyment of television, at least for younger viewers. How could that possibly be true? How can brain-shearing jingles, annoying announcers and awful acting possibly make you happier? According to the researchers, it all boils down to a behavioral trait called adaptation. Adaptation predicts that even positive experiences become less enjoyable over time. Prior studies have shown that the longer people live in an enjoyable place, consume their favorite ice cream or listen to their favorite song, the more the intensity...
Doodling, in contrast, requires very few executive resources but just enough cognitive effort to keep you from daydreaming, which - if unchecked - will jump-start activity in cortical networks that will keep you from remembering what's going on. Doodling forces your brain to expend just enough energy to stop it from daydreaming but not so much that you don't pay attention...
...does doodling aid memory? Andrade offers several theories, but the most persuasive is that when you doodle, you don't daydream. Daydreaming may seem absentminded and pointless, but it actually demands a lot of the brain's processing power. You start daydreaming about a vacation, which leads you to think about potential destinations, how you would pay for the trip, whether you could get the flight upgraded, how you might score a bigger hotel room. These cognitions require what psychologists call "executive functioning" - for example, planning for the future and comparing costs and benefits...
...Since the production takes up so much space, the dining hall can no longer fit the people who actually live in the house. They even rehearse during brain break. Because everyone wants a high F sharp with their late-night cereal. Naturally, angry Lowellians have responded in the best way Harvard students know how: passive aggressive email threads. At last count over 20 messages on the topic had been sent. Check out this...
...after so many years of brain research showing that most of our everyday cognitions result from a complex but observable interaction of proteins and neurons and other mostly uncontrolled cellular activity, how can so many otherwise rational people think dreams should be taken seriously? After all, brain activity isn't mystical but - for the most part - highly predictable...