[OPE] Marxist psychology 101

From: Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@telfort.nl>
Date: Thu Oct 08 2009 - 13:57:00 EDT

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

Published: October 5, 2009

(...) In the most recent paper, published last month, Dr. Proulx and Dr.
Heine described having 20 college students read an absurd short story based
on "The Country Doctor," by Franz Kafka. The doctor of the title has to make
carriage begin to act up; the boy's family becomes annoyed; then the doctor
and nonsensical - Kafkaesque.

letters, like "X, M, X, R, T, V." They later took a test on the letter
some more likely to appear before or after others.

knowledge gained without awareness. The students had no idea what patterns
their brain was sensing or how well they were performing.

coherent one.

"The fact that the group who read the absurd story identified more letter
others," Dr. Heine said. "And the fact that they were more accurate means,
we think, that they're forming new patterns they wouldn't be able to form

Brain-imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out
unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior
cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the
world, a recent study suggests. "The idea that we may be able to increase
that motivation," said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, "is very much worth

Researchers familiar with the new work say it would be premature to
see patterns where none exist - becoming more prone to conspiracy theories,
the quality of the evidence.

Still, the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual
time, disorientation begets creative thinking.



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Received on Thu Oct 8 14:03:13 2009

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