talking hands!
This isn't quite new news. They've been doing a few studies here and there on gesticulation for things like presentations and verbal communication skills, but these are usually external studies on communication not relating to internal processing. It doesn't surprise me that it might help cognition. I do all sorts of little hand motions and gestures when I am thinking (if I can't pace, I write in my head as I walk). Some children do these sorts of things all the time and good educators have sort of learned to tell the difference between kids' learning habits and annoying kid habits. This sort of thing would help more I imagine.
At the very least it gives me some excuse for using various finger tapping motions that appear outwardly diabolical. I can just say I'm calculating...which is perhaps true anyway...
22 February 2009
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I remember hearing about a study in one of my psy courses o' so long ago about the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. The subjects who had their hands restrained were less likely to hit upon the word than those who were free to gesticulate with their hands. I've also noticed that a trend for caged zoo animals is to engage in some sort of repetitive motion, such as rocking back and forth, pacing, or nervous gnawing. It seems the nervous system is always needing to do something, even when it sleeps.
I've noticed some of my best thoughts come when engaged in some sort of repetitive behavior that doesn't require much thought once it's become a habit, such as pacing, driving a route I always drive, or in the shower. It seems like it helps get the mental juices flowing, engaging your motor cortices, which may help push some of the other synapses involved in higher order thought above threshold. It may also, oddly enough, act as an inhibitor, much like repeating a mantra or prayer can do in meditation, allowing otherwise quiet (for the lack of a better word) thoughts to be more easily noticed. I'm a subscriber to the notion that we have tons of thoughts going on at once in our heads but we can only be aware of so much at any given time because of attentional limitations. Maybe some of the age old routines such as pacing or meditating is a way of getting at those other thoughts. Who knows...I'm speculating far too much now, something I don't dislike just a little when I observe others do it when discussing the mind. I'll stop now.
I have some of my more unusual (and perhaps useful) insights in post dream states. Which is basically where all sorts of thoughts get piled together. But I have the most concentration pacing, driving to work, showering, or making simple Monty Burns-ian gestures.
There's a key balance that I have to somehow reach between flights of thought and focused thought. And I don't find it that easy to allow myself to waver in between the two.
I have my oddest, and usually most disturbing thoughts, when I'm in a half asleep state, such as when I wake up on the couch in the middle of the night when I dozed off instead of going to bed or after late night shows and I enter that zombie state from lack of sleep. Some real fucked up thoughts come around then. But then again, some good short stories have come from that as well. A give-n-take I reckon.
I'm sure that the stereotype of Italians talking with their hands isn't logical, because all nationalities/ethnicities/whatever I'm sure have people that do so more and less, but I do fit the stereotype. Just wave 'em around until I find the right word.
I think I think best while driving. Showering seems to be when I notice the earworms. Erg. That's a fucked up sentence!
I'm not sure there's a problem with being a very gesticulative people. But even so, I am Scotch/Irish mostly, so it's not a ethnically limited conversation with our hands.
I tend to get earworms where I am in a non-routine activity. My brain stores a lot more subtle informational cues during such occasions. Or at least, it makes me aware of much more information than if I'm doing something boring and rote.
Also for some reason, your further recommendation for Nanking wasn't posted, even though I told it to be.
Thai Nine is appreciated mostly because the Nine stands for the level of spicy you want (1-9). I tend to settle for 7 or 8. It tended to be busy whenever I went there also (it's been a while, so I'm not sure if this is still a problem given our external conditions). Sima's a Korean/Japanese BBQ place. I liked it because they basically had 7-up imported from Japan and the waiter was actually foreign.
Both of them have pretty good sushi, though I usually get something else when I'm at a Thai place.
What's an 'earworm'?
I was just talking with a friend at work about how I do my best thinking while driving and she countered that she does her best thinking while drinking. Cheers!
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