Notes from The Extended Mind
- All
- Thinking with the Body
- Thinking with Spaces
- Thinking with Relationships
- Thinking with Tools
The conversations we’re not having
Working remotely has become the new normal for many of us—so much so that we may not quite…
Learning how to use our extended minds
“Prospective memory”—the ability to remember to act on our intentions—declines with age. But older people can perform on…
The importance of knowing what your teammates know
In today’s information-saturated workplace, there’s too much knowledge for any one person to keep tabs on. Yet all…
How exercise helps us regulate our emotions
Many of us have no doubt noticed that if we’re feeling stressed or upset about something, we feel…
There’s not one single way of being smart
In my work I try to challenge conventional notions of what intelligence is—not a lump of stuff inside…
Do you have a theory of your own mind?
If you like to read about psychology, you may have encountered the term “theory of mind,” which refers…
The joy of letting go of our individuality
During this pandemic year, we’ve been living as individuals—isolated individuals, practicing personal responsibility, wearing our own masks, washing…
John le Carré didn’t write alone
Most all of us are familiar with the novelist John le Carré. How many of us have heard…
Politics plays out in the body
Political observers spend a lot of time contemplating how voters think: what they believe, how they can be…
The new appeal of “touchless” games
In so many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster for education. But there some ways in…
Paying attention, together, changes the way we think
Imagine a real-life mind meld, in which one brain communicates directly with another. New advances are making this…
Creating conditions that promote learning from the body
Our bodies are repositories of knowledge that we can draw on to make better decisions—if only we can…
To understand an abstract concept, get moving
Moving our bodies can help us express, and even to understand, an abstract concept. One very enjoyable example…
Teaching others can reignite our passion for the subject
Teaching others what we know can help us understand the material more thoroughly. Science writer John Horgan has…
An important cue of belonging: the people who are present
At Barnard, a women’s college, most of the employees are women—”but a lot of the ones who show…
Guess before you Google
It’s often been noted that search engines and other technological tools act as a kind of “external memory”—…
Exposure to nature helps kids to self-regulate
We know that the capacity to self-regulate—to focus one’s attention and control one’s behavior—is really important. Self-regulation in…
Fluid movements promote fluid thinking
Physical movement affects the way we think. For example: we are able to understand abstract concepts by linking…
For young children, more gestures now mean more words later
Research tells us that language emerges out of gesture: infants and toddlers can use their hands to communicate…
How teachers’ gestures help students learn
Lots of research has shown that students learn better when their teachers’ words are accompanied by gesture. A…
A lack of belonging, by default
Bias exists not only in people’s minds, but in physical settings. Recognizing this fact can help us answer…
Sensing your own feelings to better understand others
Interoception—the perception of the body’s internal sensations—can help us understand in a fine-grained way just what it is…
About the Author
Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Scientific American, and The Best American Science Writing, among many other publications. She is the author of Origins, The Cult of Personality, and now The Extended Mind.