How can a guy who never misses a field goal miss an easy one at a crucial moment?
Still, a semiconsensus is developing among the most advanced scientists. In the typical fight-or-flight scenario, scary high-pressure moment X assaults the senses and is routed to the amygdala, aka the unconscious fear center. For well-trained athletes, that’s not a problem: A field goal kick, golf swing or free throw is for them an ingrained action stored in the striatum, the brain’s autopilot. The prefrontal cortex, our analytical thinker, doesn’t even need to show up. But under the gun, that super-smart part of the brain thinks it’s so great and tries to butt in. University of Maryland scientist Bradley Hatfield got expert dart throwers and marksmen to practice while wearing a cumbersome cap full of electrodes. Without an audience, their brains show very little chatter among regions. But in another study, when dart throwers were faced with a roomful of people, the pros’ neural activity began to resemble that of a novice, with more communication from the prefrontal cortex.
When I was in the 6th grade I won our school’s spelling bee going away. The next level was the district-wide spelling bee, televised on community access cable. My amygdala tried to insert an extra `u’ into the word tongue and I was out in the first round.
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March 12, 2012 at 3:28 pm
twicker
Technically, from the article, your amygdala didn’t insert the extra “u;” the amygdala cued your conscious, theoretically “rational,” supposedly “cool” prefrontal cortex (more of why I hate the “hot” v. “cool” distinction), and it took over from the automatic, supposedly “nonrational” and “hot” thinking that would have given you the right answer. Neither one likely inserted the “u;” that probably happened because, once your “cool,” conscious thought was activated, it was too busy with too many things, making too many connections to stuff unrelated to, “tongue,” that the “u” just kinda slipped in there (since you were now forced to concentrate on spelling a word that would have otherwise been automatic).
As the snippet says, “The prefrontal cortex, our analytical thinker, doesn’t even need to show up. But under the gun, that super-smart part of the brain thinks it’s so great and tries to butt in.” ‘Tis the PFC that’s butting in because the amygdala is screaming for help in figuring out the situation (when the situation is really already known: “Spell the word,” not “WTF do I do about these TV cameras?!?!?”).
Great article – thanks!