Lunch Talk: (TED) Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that well be miserable if we dont get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things dont go as planned.

tags: psychology, mind, bias

Problem solving and bilingualism.

  - Why did the cat bark? 
- He wanted to learn a second language. 
(A children joke).

NYTimes publishes an interview with Ellen Bialystok, a neuroscientist who has spent almost 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind. Her recent work shows that, among other things, bilingualism delays the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms.

I also find it interesting that researchers see differences in physical brain activity when mono- and bilinguals solve the same problems:

...when we look in their [bilinguals'] brains through neuroimaging, it appears like they’re using a different kind of a network that might include language centers to solve a completely nonverbal problem. Their whole brain appears to rewire because of bilingualism.

On the problem-solving side, I find that using abstract system-level language instead of a specific engineering or technology jargon helps me and my students approach the problem from a different perspective. I call this language "Inventorese." Maybe it should count as my 5th one :)

Finally, long-held common sense belief on the subject turned out to be wrong:

Until about the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was that bilingualism was a disadvantage.

tags: brain, mind, communications, psychology, creativity, system, five element analysis, health, bias

Keith E. Stanovich and Richard F. West in their research paper on the relationship between IQ and common thinking biases emphasize that:

...for a given task, the mindware is available to carry out override (whether the procedures and declarative knowledge are available to substitute an analytic response for a heuristic one). If the relevant mindware is not available, then the person must, of necessity, respond heuristically. It is immaterial whether the person detects the necessity for override or has the capacity to sustain override if the normatively appropriate response is simply not available. If the relevant mindware (probabilistic thinking skills, falsifiability tendencies, disposition to search for alternative explanations, sensitivity to contradiction, etc.) is not present, then participants will end up at what has been termed in the figure Path 1 to a heuristic response.

 In other words, if the problem-solver doesn't know rational methods to solve a problem (mindware), neither his/her general intelligence, nor the awareness of the bias, are going to help come up with a good solution.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008, Vol. 94, No. 4, 672–695
( reference to the paper from marginalrevolution.com)

Here is the first video I am going to embed into my Model-based Invention course this summer. This particular clip shows how "spontaneous creativity" can be shaped by previous experiences. Something to be aware of when you do real inventive work.