Unstressed » research http://linebreak.org/blog A weblog from the editors of Linebreak Sun, 08 May 2011 07:06:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Gyres and gimbles in the wabe http://linebreak.org/blog/2009/10/09/gyres-and-gimbles-in-the-wabe/ http://linebreak.org/blog/2009/10/09/gyres-and-gimbles-in-the-wabe/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:44:52 +0000 Johnathon Williams http://linebreak.org/blog/?p=1337 Confronting nonsense can sharpen the intellect and increase the brain’s ability to identify patterns and make creative connections, according to a recent study described in the New York Times. Psychologists found that students who read an absurd short story based on work by Kafka were then twice as accurate at identifying subtle patterns than students who read a coherent story.

The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns.

When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense.

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