If you’re easily bored, it’s also likely that you’re more prone to depression. According to those who study boredom, its sources, types and treatments, boredom appears to be determined somewhat by personality but also by choices we make. In short, boredom researcher John Eastwood of York University in Toronto says, “To be bored is to be disengaged from the world.” Researchers Norman Sundberg (University of Oregon) and Richard Farmer (Oregon Research Institute) have even come up with an instrument to measure your propensity toward it: the Boredom Proneness Scale. You can test yourself against it at the link above, or read about the whole subject in more depth in Scientific American Mind’s December 2007 issue.
Tag Archives: your brain
Pain Gets Largest Share of Attention
Pain Gets Largest Share of Attention
Do you know why it’s impossible to concentrate with a splitting headache, an aching back or the throb of carpal tunnel? There is a region of the brain responsible for processing both working memory and pain, and when you’re in pain, guess what gets priority. According to functional magnetic resonance imaging performed by Ulrike Bingel and other researchers at Germany’s Univeristy Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, applying pain to volunteer’s hands increased activity in areas involved in pain processing and decreased activity in the areas working on performing the assigned task. This study reflects the growing understanding that preventing worker injuries and accomodating worker’s needs for injury recovery pay off in multiple ways for employers. And for doctors weighing the cognitive side effects of prescribing strong painkillers such as opiates, it’s a reminder that the pain may be even more debilitating.
Amazing Ayumu
Ayumu is amazing. Numbers 1-9 flash across a screen for 210 milliseconds, less time than it takes the human eye to scan across the screen, before turning into white squares. Ayumu reaches out and touches each white box in the correct numerical order. The rest of Koyoto University’s subjects get the order right about 40% of the time, compared to Ayumu’s amazing 80%. Click the link above to witness Ayumu outsmart her peers, and click http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071208/fob2.asp if you want to learn more about the experiment pitting chimp brain-power against humans, where the chimps win. And we wonder about the Peter Principle?