Brain Scans Reveal New Levels of Human Laziness
Wasn't life so much simpler when the function of the grey matter inside our skulls was a mystery as unknowable as what happens after we die or how many different wigs Tyra Banks owns? Now words like synapse and neuron are thrown around in general conversation, we use drugs to fine tune our dopamine and serotonin levels, and most disconcerting of all, machines understand our mental processes better than we can.
The latest mind-reading trick performed by a brain scanner shows that when we receive advice from "experts," the decision-making part of our brain (the "anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex") completely shuts down.
To those of us who would really rather not think for ourselves, that doesn't sound so bad. But apparently, when advice comes from an authoritative source, we're rendered incapable of weighing up the pros and cons of a decision even if the wisdom we receive is faulty. Concerning enough when you consider that people gamble their financial well-being on advice from all-too-fallible TV pundits, but can you imagine if you happened to get some style tips from, say, Simon Doonan when he was having an off day? The consequences hardly bear thinking about.
