Author: TSM Admin

Below are the full links to Graham Taylor’s interview with Robin Phillips about brain fitness.

In this conversation, Phillips suggested that the notion of “being smart” often invokes a one-sided paradigm of mental ability that may not be consistent with overall cognitive health. He explained how a proper understanding of brain fitness should also include such things as a well-developed imagination, intellectual curiosity, mental focus and self-control, the ability to think outside the box, the ability to exercise emotional intelligence, the ability to connect knowledge into overarching schemas, the ability to avoid common thinking errors, and many other aspects of a healthy brain that tend to be insufficiently emphasized in our culture.

Brain Fitness Interview (Part 1)

• In this first installment of the conversation, Phillips explained why the category of brain fitness is helpful in emphasizing a holistic approach to cognition, which has implications to how we approach the whole learning process. He highlighted certain under-valued mental assets such as being able to think outside the box as well as the skill of emotional intelligence. He also highlighted how the avoidance of thinking errors is integral to developing a healthy brain.

Brain Fitness Interview (Part 2)

• In this second installment of the conversation, Robin Phillips and Graham Taylor talked about the way the human brain organizes what it learns into a series of schemas. Schemas are networks of associations through which the brain organizing everything into meaningful patterns. These patterns then serve as hooks on which to hang new information. In order for the brain to build up schemas effectively, we need to reflect deeply about life in a slow and undistracted manner and remain open-minded to new models of understanding our world. They discussed some factors in modern life that make it difficult to form schemas and instead orient us towards shallowness and oversimplifications.

Brain Fitness Interview (Part 3)

• In the third part of the interview, Phillips and Taylor looked at some theories of memory and learning. They discussed how a good memory is not a gift but a skill and that we can develop this skill through learning the right techniques. They also talked about the important role that focus plays in the learning process and in career success.

Brain Fitness Interview (Part 4)

•  In the final part of the conversation, Dr. Taylor asked Robin about the role imagination and intellectual curiosity play in having a healthy brain. Phillips shared concern that recent developments in the American school system are diminishing the importance of imagination as learning is reduced to simply a utilitarian tool. Phillips closed by pointing out some areas in which the ancients understood brain fitness better than we do.

 

 

This is the fourth of a 4-part series covering Dr. Taylor’s conversation with Robin Phillips about the brain. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

 

Robin Phillips: Can I just share a few more ingredients that go into a healthy brain?

Graham Taylor: Go ahead.

RP: Another element that should be absolutely front and center of any discussion of brain fitness is intellectual curiosity and imagination. These are really two separate skills but since they are closely related I find it useful to discuss them under the same rubric.

When I used to teach high school history, I often found myself puzzled why some students would diligently take notes about all the different historical figures I discussed in class but then as soon as the final test was over they would throw away a year’s worth of notes. Why was it that some students were genuinely interested in the material while others didn’t care and only learned for the test? We could probably think of lots of different reasons for this, but one important factor seemed to be the total lack of intellectual curiosity in some students. Continue reading →

This is the second of a 4-part series covering Dr. Taylor’s conversation with Robin Phillips about the brain. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

 

Graham Taylor: What would be some other examples of what you are calling ‘brain fitness skills’?

Robin Phillips: Another brain fitness skill—and this is one that I feel very strongly about—is the ability to create schemas. In a world where all of us increasingly have access to the same information, the successful people will increasingly be those who can connect the various fields of knowledge and create frameworks for integrating different ideas, fields and facts. All of our minds do this naturally to some extent since the ability to create schemas is one of the most fundamental ways the human brain organizes the vast array of data stored in our long-term memories. You see…

GT: Sorry to interrupt you Robin, but can you explain for our readers what exactly a schema actually is?

RP: Oh, sorry. Yes, the brain’s long-term memory stores information in schematic structures that provide a framework by which we simplify and find meaning in what would otherwise be a vast warehouse of disconnected facts and memories. Schemas are the networks of associations by which the brain organizing everything into meaningful patterns.  The brain often does this when we sleep, which is why sometimes the things we find confusing make more sense in the morning after a good night’s sleep.

Continue reading →

Have you ever had so many windows open on your computer at once that it caused the computer to freeze? It happens on my computer all the time.

The solution, of course, is to close things down. To preserve your computer’s processing power, you sometimes need to prioritize the programs that are the most important to have running.

The human brain is like that as well. Psychologists sometimes use the term “cognitive load” to describe the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory at any one time. If a person has too high of a cognitive load—that is, if the person is multitasking or if their short-term memory is focused on too many things at once—then the brain will work below peak capacity and may even freeze up.
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