how delusions and procrastination affect memory and insights

Why then do thoughts wander at all? Promotes creative thinking (test for alternative use of objects.)

Unconscious information processing

After the stroke, the TN patient believed that he could not see anything, but some inner being saw and threw obstacles:

After the test, he was asked: “Did you see something?”
He replied: “No, I am blind.”
– Why did you press against the wall?
– I so wanted.

You can even throw a ball to a person and he will catch it. You can show scary pictures and the person will have emotions.

In another experiment, healthy people were shown images very quickly (100-200ms). Or one picture was presented to one eye, and another – to the other (a person is aware of only one, a person has a “priority eye”).

In another experiment, subjects were shown nude people at speeds above conscious perception. And then they showed a striped circle with vertical or inclined stripes. The task is to say to the right or to the left the stripes are deflected from the vertical. The subjects cope with the task better if the circle was on the same side as the naked body of the preferred sex (and if not preferred, then the effect works the other way around).

Conclusion: a person is susceptible to side channel attacks…

Memory and idlers

A person reproduces information better after a period of idleness than immediately after memorization. The subjects were given a list of 30 non-existent words (as in SIMS), then people were divided into two groups: one was asked to find the differences in the pictures, the second was just to idle around and guess the pictures a little.

Those who were messing around did better. Moreover, after a week, the “loafers” showed the best result.

They showed the person’s face and place, and asked if the person would be happier if they got to that place (for example, a garbage can or a beach).

They also showed a photo of a person (for example, an old woman or a stern man) and an object (for example, an excavator or a knitting kit) and asked: What is the probability that this person will use this object?

At the same time, we looked at the hippocampus (memorization) and the lateral occipital complex (object recognition) through a tomograph.

Then they let them rest and again showed a couple of pictures of a face + an object and asked: Is this the same pair?

The better the activity synchronized, the better the memories were after an hour.

Tim Urban

(Asya summarizes the content of Tim Urban’s longread.)

Academic research on procrastination

The main reason for procrastination is considered to be “fear of failure”.

If you had 2 weeks for a task and you did it badly, you are bad. And if the task was only one night – you are fine, millet you did not have enough time to make it perfect.

One way is to have a separate computer without social media. (Paul Graham: “Disconnecting from Distractions”).
The second social method is to share the screen with someone and ask them to follow your work.

The third way is to fall in love, and the way to reach your heart is to do the right job.

But if you have depression or anxiety disorder, you should first go to the doctor and eat pills, and not scold yourself.

Good About Procrastination

There are two types of tasks: “pull yourself together” and restructuring. Procrastination gets in the way of “pull yourself together” tasks. The less procrastination, the better the results. For creative tasks, moderate procrastination can be beneficial. You can even procrastinate in such a way as to come up with new ideas.

Imagine that there is a student named Jim who is very similar to you, he won a grant of $ 10,000 to start a business. You need to come up with a business idea for Jim. There is a description of Jim’s personality and a list of YouTube videos that Jim loves.

The subjects were divided into three groups. The first were given only one link to the video for 2 minutes. The entire task is 30 minutes. There is a lot of free time.

The second group is given 4 videos. And after watching there are 20 minutes of free time.

The third group is given 8 videos and they have 10 minutes to complete the task.

If you procrastinate a little, you will have a detailed business plan, but boring. If you watched 8 videos, then due to lack of time there will be a crooked and boring business plan. 4 rollers – optimal balance. You have both food for thought and plenty of time.