How the brain creates the 'buzz' that helps ideas spread - 1 views
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UCLA psychologists have taken a significant step toward answering these questions, identifying for the first time the brain regions associated with the successful spread of ideas, often called "buzz."
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"Our study suggests that people are regularly attuned to how the things they're seeing will be useful and interesting, not just to themselves but to other people,"
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We always seem to be on the lookout for who else will find this helpful, amusing or interesting, and our brain data are showing evidence of that.
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The study findings are published in the online edition of the journal Psychological Science, with print publication to follow later this summer.
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"Now we have mapped the brain regions associated with ideas that are likely to be contagious and are associated with being a good 'idea salesperson.' In the future, we would like to be able to use these brain maps to forecast what ideas are likely to be successful and who is likely to be effective at spreading them."
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the interns who were especially good at persuading the producers showed significantly more activation in a brain region known as the temporoparietal junction, or TPJ, at the time they were first exposed to the pilot ideas they would later recommend.
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We found that increased activity in the TPJ was associated with an increased ability to convince others to get on board with their favorite ideas.
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The TPJ, located on the outer surface of the brain, is part of what is known as the brain's "mentalizing network," which is involved in thinking about what other people think and feel.
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Interesting findings. The emphasis here is on identifying activity of the brain that indicates a person's effectiveness with passing on (sharing) information. While that is notable, it would be great to know what activity indicates that the information has merit in and of itself. We have plenty of buzz in our world. What we need are authoritative sources.