The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

by John Coates

glimpse into this process has been provided by a brain-scanning study of people learning the computer game Tetris. At the beginning of the study, large swathes of the trainees’ brains lit up, showing a complex process of learning and voluntary movement; but once they had mastered the game their movements became habitual, and brain activity in the cortex died down. Their brains now drew much less glucose and oxygen, and their speed of reactions increased markedly. Once the players had the knack, they no longer thought about playing the game. This study, and others like it, supports the old saying that when learning begins we are unconscious of our incompetence, and proceed to a stage where we are conscious of our incompetence; then when training begins we move to conscious competence; and as we master our new skill we arrive at the end point of our training—unconscious competence. Thinking, one could say, is something we do only when we are no good at an activity.