expertise

5 ideas to help knowledge workers increase lifelong learning and productivity

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worker-brains—–

Some apps aim to help you train spe­cif­ic brain func­tions, such as work­ing mem­o­ry. Oth­ers are meant to help you main­tain spe­cif­ic skills, such as use­ful field of view for safe dri­ving. But sup­pose you are read­ing a very insight­ful book and need to mas­ter some of its knowl­edge gems.

What kind of app might you use? [Read more…] about 5 ideas to help knowl­edge work­ers increase life­long learn­ing and productivity

Increasing cognitive loads on miners’ brains: good example of where society is heading

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NIOSH to Study Cog­ni­tive Loads on Under­ground Coal Min­ers (Occu­pa­tion­al Health & Safety):

“NIOSH has pub­lished a notice out­lin­ing an inter­est­ing study it plans to under­take to under­stand the cog­ni­tive demands placed on under­ground coal min­ers by new safe­ty devices they must car­ry, with the indus­try increas­ing­ly deploy­ing wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, per­son­al dust mon­i­tors, and prox­im­i­ty detectors…

The phys­i­cal bur­den is evi­dent, but the cog­ni­tive effect may not be as clear,” [Read more…] about Increas­ing cog­ni­tive loads on min­ers’ brains: good exam­ple of where soci­ety is heading

The Brain Advantage: Train your Autopilot…and how to turn it off

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(Edi­tor’s Note: as part of our Author Speaks Series, you can enjoy below a stim­u­lat­ing excerpt from the new book The Brain Advan­tage: Become a More Effec­tive Busi­ness Leader Using the Lat­est Brain Research).brain_cv

Brain-imag­ing tech­niques allow researchers to wit­ness the brain’s activ­i­ty reflect­ed in a rain­bow of col­ors on a com­put­er screen. When brain cells are high­ly active ”work­ing hard­er” the result shows up as brighter col­ors on the com­put­er screen. Bril­liant reds and yel­lows indi­cate brain areas that are most active. In con­trast, the blues and greens on a scan show a qui­eter, less active brain.

What would we expect to find if we exam­ined the brain scans of peo­ple with high ver­sus aver­age IQ scores? We might pic­ture the active brain of an Ein­stein as a hotbed of smol­der­ing col­ors ”but we’d be wrong. Neu­rol­o­gist Richard Restak sum­ma­rized a UCLA study that com­pared indi­vid­u­als with high IQs to those with aver­age IQs. Restak wrote, The researchers start­ed off with the seem­ing­ly rea­son­able idea that ‘smarter brains work hard­er, gen­er­ate more ener­gy, and con­sume more glu­cose. Like light bulbs, the brains of bright peo­ple were expect­ed to illu­mi­nate more intense­ly than those of dimwits with a reduced wattage.  What they dis­cov­ered instead was exact­ly the oppo­site. High­er IQ peo­ple had cool­er, more sub­dued brain scans “while their less intel­lec­tu­al­ly gift­ed coun­ter­parts lit up like minia­ture Christ­mas trees..

Why would smarter brains work less hard? [Read more…] about The Brain Advan­tage: Train your Autopilot…and how to turn it off

To Think or to Blink?

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(Edi­tor’s Note: Should Ham­let be liv­ing with us now and read­ing best­sellers, he might be won­der­ing: To Blink or not to Blink? To Think or not to Think? We are pleased to present, as part of our ongo­ing Author Speaks Series, an arti­cle by Blind SpotsMadeleine Van Hecke, author of Blind Spots: Why Smart Peo­ple Do Dumb Things. In it, she offers the “on the oth­er hand” to Mal­colm Glad­well’s Blink argument.)

To Think or to Blink?

- By Madeleine Van Hecke, PhD

Is thought­ful reflec­tion nec­es­sar­i­ly bet­ter than hasty judgments?

Not accord­ing to Mal­colm Glad­well who argued in his best-sell­ing book, Blink, that the deci­sions peo­ple make in a blink are often not only just as accu­rate, but MORE accu­rate, than the con­clu­sions they draw after painstak­ing analysis.

So, should we blink, or think?

When we make judg­ments based on a thin slice of time  a few min­utes talk­ing with some­one in a speed dat­ing sit­u­a­tion, for exam­ple are our judg­ments real­ly as accu­rate as when we ana­lyze end­less reams of data?

[Read more…] about To Think or to Blink?

Your Trading Brain: Expert or Novice

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We had the for­tune to inter­view Dr. Brett Steen­barg­er on Enhanc­ing Trad­er Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­o­gy of Trad­ing as we launched our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series.

Below, Expert Con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jan­ice Dorn pro­vides an in-depth brain-based dis­cus­sion of the top­ic, con­clud­ing that “The brain is the most pow­er­ful struc­ture in the known uni­verse and the only trad­ing tool that the trad­er needs to become an expert.”

No mat­ter whether you are a Pro or Ama­teur Trader…this will cer­tain­ly exer­cise your brain! (Dr. Dorn is prepar­ing more arti­cles on trad­ing per­for­mance and the brain…so stay tuned).

This is Your Brain On Trading

– By Dr. Jan­ice Dorn

The open­ing bell sounds, and six­ty mil­lion traders enter the great­est are­na in the world to do bat­tle with each oth­er. They put their mon­ey, beliefs and skills on the line as they make deci­sions to buy and sell. Wel­come to the finan­cial mar­kets where bil­lions of dol­lars are won and lost every day. Volatil­i­ty com­pels all to engage their brains in the con­tin­u­ous process of deci­sion mak­ing. What sep­a­rates the win­ning from los­ing traders is the way they use their most pow­er­ful trad­ing tool—the human brain.

[Read more…] about Your Trad­ing Brain: Expert or Novice

What’s on your mind now?

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I’d love to know what was going in your mind just a few sec­onds ago, when you start­ed read­ing the title of this post. That will help us under­stand your mind­set, pri­or­i­ties, ques­tions, con­cerns, interests, and keep improv­ing our blog!

Thank you