#cognitive control

Calculated surprise leads to groundbreaking discovery in cognitive control research

Say nice things to yourself!

Talking to yourself can help you control stressful emotions

The simple act of silently talking to yourself in the third person during stressful times may help you control emotions without any additional mental effort than what you would use for first-person self-talk – the way people normally talk to themselves.

A first-of-its-kind study led by psychology researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan indicates that such third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control. The findings are published online in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal.

Jason S. Moser et al. Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3

Diving In to How Our Brains Process Information

To live in a functioning society implies complying with the majority. If everyone agrees that throwing garbage out of your window is unacceptable, you simply cannot do it—and that supports a clean city. We are now at a point where even private thoughts risk being perceived as noncompliant by groups around you that can turn hostile, even physically violent, in an instant. In early training,…

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This article is about how our brain, the superhero of every human system takes the responsibility of ingesting all the information and transforming them into everyday actions thus helping us achieve all our goals. This functioning of the brain is termed as ‘cognitive control’ and is elaborated by cognitive neuro scientist Prof. David Badre. His insight dives deep into the process of the human consciousness that generates a profound impact on our daily activities and well-being.

David Badre also discusses about the different parts of a human brain and their functions: For instance, how is the prefrontal cortex crucial for all the highest mental functions? He calls this a puzzle because this part of the brain plays a major role in human intelligence and joining all the pieces together.

There are so many questions and doubts around ‘Cognitive control’ – How do we acquire and store the knowledge, where does it all start from? How does the understanding begin? Action itself is kind of a knowledge. Some of the thoughts are controlled automatically like a fixed program in our system. However, we can either implement the already existing knowledge or inculcate the new knowledge to pursue what we want to do.

He compares our brain to the functioning of an SEO as to how our computer stores databases, similarly our brain cells collect all the information that is fed to us. With a good memory system, we can maximise value, where you don’t have to access the entire memory but the needed information is readily available and can be easily retrieved. Dr. Badre also states that the design of our brain is equivalent to that of a well-designed computer that contributes to stability.

Our system is very fragile – there are so many things happening around us and sometimes it becomes hard to process all the information and actions happening. That is when cognitive control plays a role, for instance if you have an incoming buzz from the phone – there is always an impulse to check it. Control at this point is essential especially when you’re driving a vehicle or during a lecture – during times like these, it is important to identify the context you’re in and be able to deploy the information at that very moment. Cognitive science is all about how we absorb the information and how we gate it out.  

David Badre, is a renowned cognitive neuro scientist who has published his book called ‘On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done’. He completed his bachelors in science in the year 2000 from the University of Michigan and pursued his Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences from MIT. He has also published several research papers on neuroscience of the memory and cognitive control. Dr. Badre started of as an assistant professor and is currently serving on the Board of Reviewing Editors. His area of expertise are psychological sciences, cognitive sciences and behavioural neurosciences. His research papers can be accessed from Google scholar since 2007 and his book has bagged good reviews from the public.

Reference Links:

‪David Badre - ‪Google Scholar

David Badre (Author of On Task) (goodreads.com)