QUIET!! Thinking Fast and Slow

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Texan Hall Library in Fort Worth seems to be considerably quieter during finals week?  Why?

I think it might relate to this funny post going around on Facebook about turning down the radio when you are driving down the road looking for an address.  

taken from Jodideo. com

Yes, some people admit to doing this as some sort of fault or an ironic action that they have taken, but the truth is that the active thinking required to find an unfamiliar address has invoked the unconscious action of turning down the radio.  The result is that the auditory senses have given way to the visual senses to use more brainpower. 

Professor Steven Yantis of John Hopkins University uses this principle as it pertains to cell phone use and driving.  Yantis (2005) states, "Directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited -- a zero-sum game.”  

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 The book, Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, is available at the Dick Smith Library at BF441 .K238 2011. 

The book deals with the function of fast thinking and slow thinking.  Fast thinking is the thinking that allows us to accomplish daily tasks. Slow thinking is the deliberative thinking that it takes to concentrate, the type of thinking required to study for finals!  Check out this book to find out more about these thinking processes and how Kahneman applies these to the world of business executives.

                 


References:

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow, New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.Yantis, S. (2005). Multitasking: You can't pay full attention to both sights and sounds:

Lab findings suggest reason cell phones and driving don't mix, EurekaAlert!: The Global Source for Science News. Retrieved from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/jhu-myc062105.php