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This story is from the category The Brain
Date posted: 10/02/2008 Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London report in the journal PLoS ONE that they monitored action in the brains of 21 volunteers with electroencephalography (EEG) as they tackled verbal problems in an attempt to uncover what goes through the mind?literally?in order to observe what happens in the brain during an "aha!" moment of problem solving. "This insight is at the core of human intelligence ? this is a key cognitive function that the human can boast to have," says Joydeep Bhattacharya, an assistant professor in Goldsmiths's psychology department. "We're interested [in finding out] whether?there is a sudden change that takes place or something that changes gradually [that] we're not consciously aware of," he says. The researchers believed they could pin down brain signals that would enable them to predict whether a person could solve a particular problem or not. The research team noticed an interesting phenomenon taking place in the brains of participants given hints: The clues were less likely to help if subjects had an especially high gamma rhythm pattern. The reason, Bhattacharya speculates, is that these participants were, in essence, locked into an inflexible way of thinking and less able to free their minds, and thereby unable to restructure the problem before them. "If there's excessive attention, it somehow creates mental fixation," he notes. "Your brain is not in a receptive condition." See the full Story via external site: www.sciam.com Most recent stories in this category (The Brain): 14/06/2013: Deep Brain Stimulation Links Obesity to Programmed Metabolic Increase |
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