Ever Have the Phone Ring, Then Forget What You Were Going to Say? Blame it on the Surprise
When was the last time you were about to say something, then the phone rings and you completely forget what it was? If we're talking about me, yesterday. I couldn't count on both hands all the times that's happened to me lately. Most would blame it on age but I want to believe it's because I've got so much else in my brain, it crowds other things out. Now experts are finding that our derailed trains of thought have something to do with the brain’s electrical activity and are offering a new explanation of how that happens. Researchers at the University of California San Diego, along with Oxford University in the UK,suggest that the same brain system that is involved in interrupting, or stopping, movement in our bodies also interrupts cognition – which, in the example of the phone ringing, derails your train of thought. The current study focuses particularly on one part of the brain’s stopping system, a small lens-shaped cluster of densely packed neuro...