On his book On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done
Cover Interview of December 16, 2020
In a nutshell
On any given day, we accomplish a wide range of tasks from
big long-term goals down to the simplest chores like making a cup of coffee. If
we have a new goal in mind, we can even perform tasks that we have never done
before. (I’m doing that right now). This all seems routine to us, but no other
species on the planet and no Artificial Intelligence yet built comes even close
to this ability. On Task is about how we do this; in other words, the
book explains the science behind how our brains get things done.
At the heart of this ability to get things done is a
function that neuroscientists term cognitive control or executive function.
Cognitive control is what allows us to bridge our knowledge with action and to
perform any task that meets our goals. Neuroscience and psychology have taught
us that it is not enough to want to do a task or even to be able to state the
rules for doing so; our brain needs a way of taking that knowledge and building
a plan to execute it. And it needs to adjust what we are doing along the way to
keep us on track. Ultimately, it needs a way of mapping what we want to do to
how we actually do it. That is the function that cognitive control serves, and
humans do it better than any other species.
This is why we can do just about any task that we can
conceive. But this gift of nimble cognition also comes with some costs and
limitations, which likewise impact our lives. For example, the difficulties we
have in multitasking, the exhaustion we experience when we exert mental effort,
the everyday slips and errors we commit in our actions, and the years we spend as
children growing and developing toward independence are all consequences of
this unique system for controlling our behavior.
My book is for readers who are generally curious about the
brain and cognition, as well as those with interests in specific topics, such
as decision making, memory, productivity, child development, aging, the
benefits of “brain training”, and the challenges of mental health. The book
addresses all of these topics through the lens of cognitive control. On Task
invites readers to explore this unfamiliar aspect of cognitive function and to
ask how the brain translates what we know and conceive into how we act.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
On any given day, we accomplish a wide range of tasks from big long-term goals down to the simplest chores like making a cup of coffee. If we have a new goal in mind, we can even perform tasks that we have never done before. (I’m doing that right now). This all seems routine to us, but no other species on the planet and no Artificial Intelligence yet built comes even close to this ability. On Task is about how we do this; in other words, the book explains the science behind how our brains get things done.
At the heart of this ability to get things done is a function that neuroscientists term cognitive control or executive function. Cognitive control is what allows us to bridge our knowledge with action and to perform any task that meets our goals. Neuroscience and psychology have taught us that it is not enough to want to do a task or even to be able to state the rules for doing so; our brain needs a way of taking that knowledge and building a plan to execute it. And it needs to adjust what we are doing along the way to keep us on track. Ultimately, it needs a way of mapping what we want to do to how we actually do it. That is the function that cognitive control serves, and humans do it better than any other species.
This is why we can do just about any task that we can conceive. But this gift of nimble cognition also comes with some costs and limitations, which likewise impact our lives. For example, the difficulties we have in multitasking, the exhaustion we experience when we exert mental effort, the everyday slips and errors we commit in our actions, and the years we spend as children growing and developing toward independence are all consequences of this unique system for controlling our behavior.
My book is for readers who are generally curious about the brain and cognition, as well as those with interests in specific topics, such as decision making, memory, productivity, child development, aging, the benefits of “brain training”, and the challenges of mental health. The book addresses all of these topics through the lens of cognitive control. On Task invites readers to explore this unfamiliar aspect of cognitive function and to ask how the brain translates what we know and conceive into how we act.