Daily Archives: February 20, 2023

Psychology, Research, Science

Brain entropy

NEUROSCIENCE

Intro: A new research study helps to measure levels of consciousness

“OUR brains produce more entropy when we are awake than when we are asleep.” The finding from a research study could lead to better ways to measure the consciousness of people who appear to be in a coma.

Entropy is a measure of disorder, and in our universe, everything tends to move from less disorder to more over time. For instance, breaking a coffee cup increases entropy. While this breaking can happen in many ways, you never see a broken cup spontaneously reassemble itself and therefore decrease its entropy.

Electrical signals in our brains can also produce entropy as part of processing and transmitting information, such as the visual signals from our eyes. Researchers at the Paris-Saclay University in France wanted to determine whether our brains produce more entropy when we are awake or when we are asleep.

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 15 people in different states of consciousness: while each person was awake and in three stages of sleep, from light to very deep.

To calculate entropy, the research team used a model that was previously developed from studying the pathways that electrical signals can follow inside of the brain. The different routes help reveal the different processes they can carry out, and each of those processes produces different amounts of entropy. From this, the researchers calculated entropy production for each person in each state of consciousness. The findings suggest that entropy decreases as people fall deeper into sleep. In the state of deepest sleep, people’s brains, on average, produced 25 per cent less entropy than when they were awake.

This now gives researchers and scientists a way to quantify consciousness. A person whose brain shows the same amount of entropy production in an fMRI study as someone who is deeply asleep is likely to have the same types of processes happening in their brain and to be at a similar level of consciousness.

This new method could potentially be used to quantify the consciousness of people in comas or eventually help to diagnose people with locked-in syndrome, who are conscious but unable to communicate with the external world.

Previous research has linked consciousness to entropy. Some fMRI studies, for example, have indicated that states of very altered consciousness, such as those induced by psychedelic substances like psilocybin, result in an increase in entropy of the brain itself – meaning that it is harder to predict its overall electrical state – and not just the entropy different signals produce.

Understanding the state of awareness of people that are minimally conscious has long been an area of scientific study. However, it isn’t yet clear that entropy production is an unambiguous mark of consciousness.

For example, dreams can happen in deep sleep – a time of low entropy – but they reflect a high level of consciousness. As such, dreams could actually increase entropy production in the brain, but the study carried out by researchers didn’t consider this.

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Arts, Psychology, Science

Wellbeing theory: accomplishment and achievement

 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Martin Seligman’s most recent theory of wellbeing contains the new component of “accomplishment”. It’s a broad category, covering everything from achievement, competence and success to progress towards goals and mastery at the highest possible level. These concepts have been studied individually in psychology for decades – but collecting them together under the heading “accomplishment” within positive psychology is new.

Positive psychologists don’t always agree on definitions of happiness and wellbeing, nor what should be included in wellbeing theory and what should be left out. Seligman’s original model of “authentic happiness” consisted of three components: positive emotions, engagement and meaning. In the intervening years, scientific research and debate inspired him to revise this by adding two further components to wellbeing theory, relationships and accomplishment.

Accomplishment is included as one of the facets of wellbeing because like the other components, it is something that humans pursue for its own sake. Even though we all know people who are high achievers for extrinsic reasons, such as increased power, status or pay, accomplishment per se is intrinsically motivating. Nurturing accomplishment on its own or together with any of the other four facets, says Seligman, will lead to higher wellbeing.

There are various techniques in psychology that can be used to increase your sense of accomplishment. One of these is known as the “accomplishment anchor”. With this, you can use your past successes to give you confidence, spur you on to greater achievements and give you a boost of positive emotion when you need a little psychological pick-me-up. This is an idea adapted from positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson.

How to increase your level of goal achievement

According to Seligman’s theory, achievement can be summarised as follows:

Achievement = skill x effort

He suggests that the skill and effort elements have certain characteristics which are needed for higher achievement:

. Speed of thought. According to wellbeing theory, if you have already acquired a lot of relevant skills or knowledge about a particular task, you won’t have to waste brain power on the basics. This leaves you more able to think quickly, and with time left over to devote to planning, checking and being creative. These, of course, are the hallmarks of performance excellence.

. Rate of learning. Clearly the faster you learn, the more information and knowledge you can acquire per hour spent on the task. In terms of achievement and accomplishment, this will also put you ahead of the game.

Becoming an expert

In terms of effort, research by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues suggests that it takes a minimum of 10 years (or roughly 10,000 hours) of deliberate practice in any subject to become an expert. By “deliberate practice”, Ericsson doesn’t mean practising those things which you already know how to do, he means putting sustained effort into the things you can’t do very well, or even at all. In other words, in order to become an expert, you must put yourself outside of your traditional comfort zone, which requires substantial self-motivation and self-discipline.

Since very little is currently known about how to increase our speed of thought and rate of learning, the one thing we can all do to improve our rate of accomplishment is to spend more time on deliberate practice.

Becoming an expert in a particular field, Ericsson and colleagues recommend two tips:

. Find a coach or mentor who can provide the level of challenge and critical feedback necessary to keep improving your skills.

. Spend time observing a “master” at work, then utilise or use similar techniques that were used.   

The role of competence

Competence is one of the psychological facets which increases self-motivation, goal achievement, and wellbeing. When it’s accompanied by perseverance, competence makes a good recipe for accomplishment at any level, big or small. When psychologists speak of competence, it implies being confident and effective in what we do.

There are several strategies you can adopt to increase your competence in a particular field. One way is to get regular constructive feedback about how you are performing. The feedback might be inherent in the activity: you can tell straight away whether or not you’re playing the piano or playing a game of squash well, for example. Or you may have to wait for results or seek feedback from someone else.

Another way to increase your competence in relation to your goal is to find ways to improve your skill-set. You could do this by gradually making the goal more challenging, so that you have to strive a bit harder every time you do it. People naturally shy away from stepping outside their comfort zone, but remember, this really is the only way to learn new skills. When feeling uncomfortable, remind yourself that this is a sign that you have the opportunity to learn something new.

A third method is to undertake specific skills training. You might do this in your own spare time or through an organisation. As Ericsson suggests, you could find a role-model to emulate.

Those are some of the ways that will help to improve your competence, and increase the probability that you will tread the accomplishment pathway to wellbeing. Effort and persistence are so essential for goal achievement.

Indeed, research in psychology suggests that regardless of innate talent, considerable effort is required to become an expert. Continual practise is a key ingredient.

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