I Can't Think!

Did anyone else feel like they had received information overload after reading "I Can't Think"? I thought this article presented interesting findings about how our brain works when receiving information. Being the organized person that I am, I personally thought that if we have more information about something, then we could make a better decision. However, after reading this article I can see now that sometimes more information isn't always the best. When researchers studied the brain activity in an experiment, they found that people who were given more information, resulted in their prefrontal cortex to fall off. When I read that, I was shocked! How can a part of our brain just fall off? But, the more I read the article, the more it made sense. For instance, when there is a high stakes test coming up, I study for long hours on the all of the material. I want to make sure that I know everything; however, I have a hard time knowing when to stop studying. There was a time when I stayed up studying for a test, and when I went to take the test, I completely went blank on some questions. Why does that happen to us? Is it because our prefrontal cortex popped and now all the information that we learned before is just scattered? 

This makes me think of a saying that is said when people are trying to make a decision; "clear your mind". I never really deeply thought about what 'clearing our mind' entailed, but it makes sense. We are so addicted to knowing about things (well at least I am sometimes), that we just accumulate more and more information to the point it becomes impossible to make a good decision, unless we go over each and every piece of information again, which results in one huge headache. This is important to remember when we are teaching our students. If we get headaches and stress out when we receive a ton of information, then we know to not do that to our students. We can only hold so much information at once. According to the article, our brain's working memory can only hold seven units of information. Therefore, we shouldn't teach our students about the Civil War and the five oceans all at the same time. 

I think my previous thoughts about 'the more information the better' has definitely changed. I know now why I get headaches at the end of class or sometimes after a conversation with someone; there is just too much information being passed on that my brain just can't take it. From now on, I am going to try to not want to know everything, but go with my what I already know so that I'm not popping my prefrontal cortex anymore!