NATS 1505 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Prefrontal Cortex, Long-Term Memory, Neuroplasticity
2 May 2019
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Nicholas carr came up with this debate. Our dependency on the internet has come with a cost: we are increasingly losing our ability to engage in deep thinking or reading. He can"t read without getting distracted and sometimes forgets what he just read. Neuroplasticity: the human brain is plastic and malleable. Cognitive flexibility: when we stop using certain mental skills, the brain will use that space for other skills being used more frequently. Scientists used to believe that only children"s brains change over time, now there"s research showing that the adult brain still changes as it adapts to new situations. Hodge and harmon: plasticity helps to automate skills that are consistently used, conversely; it prunes skills that are not utilized. If you don"t use a skill, you lose that ability over time. Using a gps= forgetting how to read a map. Small: compared the brain activity of experienced internet surfers to to inexperienced internet surfers.
