The Fallible Mind

Emotion, perception, and other tricks of the brain

by Richard E. Cytowic, M.D.

The Maddening Normality of Autistic Brains

Brain scans have limitations, and "hot spots" are hardly the whole picture. For most autistics, even those with severe deficits, "You'd be amazed how normal their brains look." Read More

It Takes Emotion, Not Facts, to Change a Habit

Everyone knows what to do to quit smoking or lose weight, yet fails to do it. Likewise, pocketbook reasoning fails to make people change their habits even when it gives them the "more money" that they say they want. The emotional jolt that prods us must be highly personal, and the feeling of what you stand to "lose" must outweigh the present feeling of reward. Read More

Do Things Make You Happy, or Does Your Disposition?

Other people influence what we want more often than we think. Because we want others to admire us, we want the material things that we do. If we didn’t care about social status, or if neighbors laughed at instead of admired luxury cars, pricey watches, and McMansions, we would never exert ourselves trying to attain such things. Read More

Would You Rather Be Happy or Content?

People use both terms to indicate a general state of success and felicity. But words have the power to change us, and there is a world of difference between the two. Read More

Prepared to Say No: Mastering the Art of Personal Choice

Yes and no are short words often in need of lengthy thought. How will you recognize happiness when it hits you over the head if you have never decided beforehand on what conditions would make you happy? When you have prepared yourself in advance to not want something, it is easy to say no. Read More

Why Black Coffee Can’t Sober You Up

Coffee and energy drinks may make you feel more awake when you've drunk too much, but that's merely an illusion—your judgment and driving are both impaired. Read More

Using Only 10 Percent of Your Brain? Think Again!

If someone removed 90 percent of your brain, don't you think you'd notice? Yet an old myth says we use only a tiny fraction of potential brainpower. What fallacy lies behind this persistent but mistaken belief? Read More

Yawns, Mayhem, and Other Social Contagions

People in love are wildly attractive, a fact not lost on outsiders. Read More

Teach Yourself Synesthesia? I Don’t Think So!

About the claim of teaching grapheme synesthesia by the reading of specially-printed books. Read More

No Is a Complete Sentence!

The way to refuse to do something one is not obligated to do is to gracefully refuse. Read More

The Key to Efficient Multitasking: One Thing at a Time

You can have either e-mail or a life—but not both. Read More

Banishing Winter Doldrumns

What a lark! Sing to yourself, and boost your spirits. Read More

Confessions of an Allergic Mind

This is a guest blog by my friend Sandra Beasley, poet, champion of the sestina, and author most recently of Don't Kill the Birthday Girl. Read More

The Key to Self-Esteem? Accomplishment.

A fisherman wants to catch his own fish, not be handed one. If you want self esteem, do estimable things. Read More

The Placebo Response: Not in Your Head but in Your Brain

* A surgeon cuts the skin over your knee instead of performing arthroscopic surgery, but your knee pain still goes away.

* You swallow a dummy pill that contains nothing but starch, and yet your migraine vanishes as if you had taken an Imitrex.

* A saltwater injection eases your asthma the same amount that puffing on a bronchial inhaler does. Read More

Tune Stuck in Your Head? You May Have an Earworm!

This blog is different from those that I normally post. In this one I ask readers to share a specific experience that might seem unusual, even strange perhaps. Given my long history with synesthesia, however, it shouldn't be a surprise that I am open to hearing about strange and unusual experiences. Read More

Image & Ego 2: Decision Time: How to Know What You Really Want

Being a person takes work. Being the person you want to be takes special effort, much of it centered on making decisions everyone has to face but many try to avoid. Which is to say that most consequential things in life depend on knowing how to choose. In the first "Image and Ego" post I illustrated how ego defense mechanisms work. Read More

Richard E. Cytowic, M.D., is a neurologist best known for bringing synesthesia back to mainstream science. His latest book is Wednesday Is Indigo Blue.

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