popular misconceptions on humain brain

Popular misconceptions

The following are some commonly held misconceptions of the mind and brain perpetuated through urban legends, mass media, and the promotion of dubious products to consumers (Sala, 1999). A number of practitioners of pseudoscience, New Age philosophies, and mystical or occultalso see popular psychology). practices are known to use some of these ideas as a part of their belief systems (

• The human brain is firm and grey: The fresh/living brain is actually very soft, jelly-like and deep red. They do not become firm and grey until they have been preserved with various chemicals/resins.
• Humans use only 10% or less of their brain: Even though some mysteries of brain function persist, every part of the brain has a known function.
  • This misconception most likely arose from a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation in an advertisement) of neurological research in the late 1800s or early 1900s when researchers discovered that only about 10% of the neurons in the brain are firing at any given time.
  • If all of a person's neurons began firing at once he would not become smarter, but would instead suffer a seizure. In fact, studies have shown that the brains of more intelligent people are less active than the brains of less intelligent people when working on the same problems.
  • Some psychics continue to propagate this myth by asserting that the "unused" ninety percent of the human brain is capable of exhibiting psychic powers and can be trained to perform psychokinesis and extra-sensory perception.
  • A less literal interpretation of the statement is valid. It can be reasonably claimed that most people only use a very small fraction of the cognitive potential of their brain, even though all individual brain neurons are busily working. Various culturalreading, education, problem solving, critical thinking, etc. inventions enable humans to better utilize their cognitive potential, such as
• Mental abilities are separated into the left and right cerebral hemispheres: Some mental functions such as speech and language tend to be localized to specific areas in one hemisphere. If one hemisphere is damaged at a very early age however, these functions can often be recovered in part or even in full by the other hemisphere. Other abilities such as motor control, memory, and general reasoning are spread equally across the two hemispheres. See lateralization of brain function.
• Creativity can be easily developed using simple brainstorming/lateral thinking techniques.
• Learning can be achieved more powerfuly through subliminal techniques: Technically, information that is entirely subliminal cannot be perceived at all. The extent to which subliminal techniques can influence learning depends largely on what level of perception the techniques affect.
• Hypnosis can lead to perfect recall of details: Not only is this not entirely true, an incompetent or deceptive hypnotist can actually implant (deliberately or unintentionally by leading questions) false memories of events that never occurred. This is because memory is not stored as "facts", but as impressions, and emotions, and is often reinterpreted as people mature or change.
• New neurones cannot be created, they only die as one ages. In fact, new neurones grow in two areas (the sinuses, surprisingly, being one, speculated to have some connection with scent recognition of newborn offspring and the olfactory sense), and one other brain area. Regardless of neurone growth or death, brain function and capabilities can be learned and developed throughout life.