Cognitive Reflections Part I.

January 2nd, 2010 by zen

It is no coincidence that tolerating exposure to differing viewpoints (political, methodological, religious – whatever) and assessing them objectively and critically is something that most adults have great difficulty doing. The defensive emotional surge that many people feel when facing antipodal views not only protects the ego, but by intefering with the ability of the frontal lobes to engage in critical, abstract, reasoning, the brain prevents the “waste” of time/energy of having to do the hard work of (perhaps) fundamentally re-thinking the premises that order our worldview. Not only are many zealous partisans unwilling to listen to opposing views and process their arguments rationally and fairly, they are often cognitively unable to do so! Unfortunately, that “bitter medicine” of evaluating critical feedback is exactly what our brains need in order to stay mentally sharp and adaptive.

The true believers who organize echo chambers and police the community for adherence to the “party line” are drugging their brains with ideology and corrupting their OODA Loop.

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Posted in academia, analytic, brain, cognition, education, emotion, Epistemology, feedback, horizontal thinking, ideas, intelligence, metacognition, politics, psychology, science, society, synthesis, theory, vertical thinking | 4 comments

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  1. Vonny:

    January 2nd, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    Hey Zen,

    Good post.  As we’ve discussed many times, studies and articles like this tend to focus on single aspects of a more complex system or problem.  Not much out there that will exceed the complexity of the brain.  For example, as jobs change and so many millions of adults are forced to change or modify careers, adults learning new information will be and already is a major emphasis on brain research, as it needs to be, as countless adults are going back to school and taking courses or new training programs.  And physically, new pathways are created within the neural network when learning new material.  But I agree that there are so many other features that need to be addressed, including challenging our existing world-view with those who may be polar opposites.  Another way is to get involved in an entirely new intellectual area, such as taking a class or reading a book in an entirely new field of study that you have never been exposed to, which can enhance and grow new connections.  Physical activity and diet have effects on brain growth at all ages, so trying a new sport or expanding one’s routine diet and menu can spark new brain activity.  Enrichment in general is a good thing.

    The brain is too complex to focus on and promote single solutions for growth.  This is why I like the fact you discuss not only growing the ‘cognitive map’ but also the efficiency, versatility, pattern recognition ability, problem solving, and the many other types of mental activity needed for a well-developed brain.

  2. zen:

    January 2nd, 2010 at 10:03 pm

    Hey Von,
    .
    Agreed. I wonder how many MRI brain scan studies out have tried controls where exercise was added as a variable to learning new material vs. controls. I suppose this has been done with rats but it would be interesting to see how it would affect human learning. The likely need for a "multiple bullet" approach to maximizing brain adaptivity in learning makes it a bit of a trial and error guessing game right now for practitioners in the classroom. I suspect the techniques would have to be staggered/rotated for best effect.

  3. tdaxp:

    January 7th, 2010 at 4:37 am

    Excellent article. Well said all around — and thanks for the link!

  4. zen:

    January 7th, 2010 at 5:00 am

    Hey Dan,
    .
    How’s the PhD research going? Any journal articles in the works ?