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" When people are asleep, their spirits wander off; when they are awake, their bodies are like an open door, so that everything they touch becomes an entanglement. Day after day they use their minds to stir up trouble; they become boastful, sneaky, secretive. They are consumed with anxiety over trivial matters but remain arrogantly oblivious to the things truly worth fearing. Their words fly from their mouths like crossbow bolts, so sure are they that they know right from wrong. They cling to their positions as though they had sworn an oath, so sure are they of victory. Their gradual decline is like autumn fading into winter—this is how they dwindle day by day. They drown in what they do—you cannot make them turn back. They begin to suffocate, as though sealed up in a box—this is how they decline into senility. And as their minds approach death, nothing can cause them to turn back toward the light. "
― Edward Slingerland , Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity
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" Brain imaging studies suggest that a couple brain areas in particular are involved in cognitive control: the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (lateral PFC). We’ll be referring to these together as the “cognitive control regions” of the brain. There is still some debate about the precise role played by each of these regions, but one plausible characterization is that the ACC is a kind of smoke detector, and the lateral PFC is the fire response team. Like a smoke detector, the ACC is in constant monitoring mode, waiting to detect a whiff of danger, such as an instance of cognitive conflict. In the case of the Stroop task, we’ve got two automatic processes that are in conflict: the identification of a typeface or color versus the automatic processing of a simple word (assuming you’re literate and it’s your native language). This conflict alerts the ACC, which then sends out an alarm to the lateral PFC to come deal with the situation. The lateral PFC is responsible for many higher cognitive functions, such as the integration of conscious and unconscious knowledge, working memory (the small spotlight of consciousness that allows us to focus on explicit information), and conscious planning. Most relevantly, when it comes to the case of the Stroop task, the lateral PFC also exerts control over other areas of the brain by strengthening the activation of task-relevant networks at the expense of other networks. By weakening certain neural pathways, the lateral PFC essentially tells them to stop doing what they are doing, which is the neural equivalent of fire-retarding foam. In the Stroop task presented above, "
― Edward Slingerland , Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity
