• Literature

    Your Brain on Fiction

    The New York Times posted an interesting article on the neuroscience behind reading, how the brain reacts to the metaphors and descriptions in the same way it might react to the actual physical experience. The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” — Annie Murphy Paul,…

  • Books Read

    Blink

    Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Published: 2005 The basic premise of this book is that we should pay more attention to our initial gut reaction when making decisions, as having more information can often lead to making worse decisions, except if you haven’t spent enough time honing the particular skill and knowledge set you’re basing the decision on, because then it could lead to shooting an innocent dude 41 times. So…be careful with that. I liked this book a lot. It’s not really going to change how you make decisions, but it does provide chapter after chapter of interesting anecdotes showing both the positive and negative aspects of ‘thin slicing’ –…