Another NYT article to think about on motivation, the human need for things to make sense, and implicit learning.  You know that feeling you get when you are faced with something perplexing - a profound “sensation of the absurd.”  Much like when we come across a three-dollar bill or a story that doesn’t make sense (or a bad date?).  “We’re so motivated to get rid of that feeling that we look for meaning and coherence elsewhere,” said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  And in our quest to channel that feeling into another project, it appears to have the uncanny side effect of improving other areas of learning.  An excerpt:

In a series of new papers, Dr. Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, argue that these findings are variations on the same process: maintaining meaning, or coherence. The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns…

Brain-imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in the real world, a recent study suggests. “The idea that we may be able to increase that motivation,” said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, “is very much worth investigating.”

They tested the theory by giving one group an absurd short story to read that didn’t quite add up - then they threw them a series of pattern-finding exercises.  Surprisingly, the group fared better than another that was given a coherent story to read.  Though the study doesn’t outright tell us that we might be able to trigger better performance on our own, it does imply that when faced with the uncanny, we tend to see patterns where none exist.  And as the article states “the urge for order satisfies itself” and at least some of the time, “disorientation begets creative thinking.”