Why You Can’t Stop Halfway, Even If You Know It’s a Bad Idea
You ascend the porch when you realize that it is covered in shimmering slippery ice. Your mind wants to stop so you don’t hurt yourself, but your body won’t be able to pick up the message in time. This is what’s going on in your brain.
According to a recent study by neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins University and published in the journal Neuron , we only have a few milliseconds to change our minds and stop acting after the initial permission signal sent by our brain. This is why we often know that we make a mistake when it happens. Scientists previously thought that only one area of the brain was active when people tried to change course, but now they have realized that stopping themselves in this way requires quick choreography between several different areas of your brain, and as you age, this becomes more difficult. … As senior author Susan Courtney points out, three areas of the brain must communicate successfully in order for us to stop, including the “oops” area where Courtney says we continue to draw conclusions about what we were supposed to do and the whole process must happen very quickly.
Kitty Z. Xu, the first author of the study, explains the process by driving and approaching an intersection when the light has just turned yellow. Your brain decides to speed up and speed up, and as soon as you notice it, you notice that it is being watched by a police car and change your mind. Instead, you want to hit the brakes, but it’s too late:
“Which plan will benefit? The sooner you see a police car after you decide to drive through the light, the higher your chances are that you can put your foot on the brake instead … “.
According to Xu, you have milliseconds to notice the police car and change your course of action (less than 200 milliseconds, or less than a quarter of a second to be precise). Take your time, and you will quickly pass by and swear up and down, wondering: “Why am I doing this ?!” Answer: The original signal was already on its way to your muscles and passed the point of no return. Basically, our brains think faster than our muscles can respond, and changing our actions is harder than we once thought.