To engage the brain in difficult problems (which may or may not be different from intellectually stimulating - this seems a little more subjective), there are widespread networks activated. So, to really understand what regions are essential in comparison with unengaging/easy problems, you need to devise an experiment where the brain will do both things in the MRI scanner. This is what I do with the n-back task. It has two types of blocks: one, where you have to identify only when a letter is the same as the one right behind it (easy: 1-back), and one where you have to remember a string of 3 constantly-changing letters (difficult: 3-back). The 3-back takes some practice. But, when you do it properly, it’s very engaging and impossible to do anything else. When I analyse my MRI data, I design contrasts that compare this difficult condition with the easy condition. I am going to post a picture of what this looks like, just for your interest, since it answers your question exactly.
What you can tell from this picture is that there is a dominance of frontal and parietal networks (and a bit of cerebellum) involved specifically in the engaging/hard blocks of the task, compared to the easy bits of the task. The biggest (most statistically significant) cluster of activation is in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In my view, this is one of the most important regions involved in doing anything engaging/difficult - making hard decisions, for example.
1. After World War II, the idea was that if you went and killed some Nazis, managed at a minimum to not get killed by some Nazis and still wanted to know what some ancient Greeks thought about things then go ahead and take a seat. Put away your wallet. You've earned an education through public virtue. That panned out pretty well. The Greatest Generation went on to build America as we know it today.
2. During Viet Nam they came up with the opposite idea: Now, if you don't want to get shot by some VC, you need to stay in school. That's going to require some money, some connections or some smarts but not getting shot is really its own reward. Interestingly this seems to have worked even better than the virtue thing. Maybe, because we literally killed off the slackers. I don't know. But, the Baby Boomers were even more economically successful than their GI fathers.
3. The system we have today was developed for Gen X. People were really beginning to recognize the personal economic value of an education and for want of a war, there was a lot young people kicking around. The universities, being full of smart people, decided to get scientific about it and base admissions on some quasi-virtue principles. Do you have money? Are you willing to go into debt? Did you show up in high school? Take this multiple-choice test. Surprisingly, this system was not so bad and the Gen Xers have done okay for themselves economically.
4. Gen-X also went on to fetishize the value of higher education for their kids. The Universities have become very sophisticated and venal with their admissions practices. They still ask if you have money or willingness to take on debt and a much greater debt than ever before. They also want to make sure you took ballet, volunteered to walk for the cure and that you went to the right pre-school. They have become trapped in competition with each other to see who can reject the most applicants and thus command the highest price. The penalty for failing to play this game is said to be lifelong poverty, but I'm not so sure. There's a few counter examples. The economy has gone into the crapper. But there's lots of good stories to explain how that's not the Universities fault. They benefit from employing a lot of public intellectuals to defend their point of view.
So, yeah. It would be interesting to see what would happen if fair access to education became like a human rights issue. The results of affirmative action seems to suggest it would be helpful. But no one's taken it any further than adding a small quota for poor black kids. I guess we'll see.
Hi Suman - I think these messages are intended for someone else?
To engage the brain in difficult problems (which may or may not be different from intellectually stimulating - this seems a little more subjective), there are widespread networks activated. So, to really understand what regions are essential in comparison with unengaging/easy problems, you need to devise an experiment where the brain will do both things in the MRI scanner. This is what I do with the n-back task. It has two types of blocks: one, where you have to identify only when a letter is the same as the one right behind it (easy: 1-back), and one where you have to remember a string of 3 constantly-changing letters (difficult: 3-back). The 3-back takes some practice. But, when you do it properly, it’s very engaging and impossible to do anything else. When I analyse my MRI data, I design contrasts that compare this difficult condition with the easy condition. I am going to post a picture of what this looks like, just for your interest, since it answers your question exactly.
What you can tell from this picture is that there is a dominance of frontal and parietal networks (and a bit of cerebellum) involved specifically in the engaging/hard blocks of the task, compared to the easy bits of the task. The biggest (most statistically significant) cluster of activation is in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In my view, this is one of the most important regions involved in doing anything engaging/difficult - making hard decisions, for example.
They have tried several things:
1. After World War II, the idea was that if you went and killed some Nazis, managed at a minimum to not get killed by some Nazis and still wanted to know what some ancient Greeks thought about things then go ahead and take a seat. Put away your wallet. You've earned an education through public virtue. That panned out pretty well. The Greatest Generation went on to build America as we know it today.
2. During Viet Nam they came up with the opposite idea: Now, if you don't want to get shot by some VC, you need to stay in school. That's going to require some money, some connections or some smarts but not getting shot is really its own reward. Interestingly this seems to have worked even better than the virtue thing. Maybe, because we literally killed off the slackers. I don't know. But, the Baby Boomers were even more economically successful than their GI fathers.
3. The system we have today was developed for Gen X. People were really beginning to recognize the personal economic value of an education and for want of a war, there was a lot young people kicking around. The universities, being full of smart people, decided to get scientific about it and base admissions on some quasi-virtue principles. Do you have money? Are you willing to go into debt? Did you show up in high school? Take this multiple-choice test. Surprisingly, this system was not so bad and the Gen Xers have done okay for themselves economically.
4. Gen-X also went on to fetishize the value of higher education for their kids. The Universities have become very sophisticated and venal with their admissions practices. They still ask if you have money or willingness to take on debt and a much greater debt than ever before. They also want to make sure you took ballet, volunteered to walk for the cure and that you went to the right pre-school. They have become trapped in competition with each other to see who can reject the most applicants and thus command the highest price. The penalty for failing to play this game is said to be lifelong poverty, but I'm not so sure. There's a few counter examples. The economy has gone into the crapper. But there's lots of good stories to explain how that's not the Universities fault. They benefit from employing a lot of public intellectuals to defend their point of view.
So, yeah. It would be interesting to see what would happen if fair access to education became like a human rights issue. The results of affirmative action seems to suggest it would be helpful. But no one's taken it any further than adding a small quota for poor black kids. I guess we'll see.