Research shows that there is one way to make this task easier for you—and that is not to give you “milk” and “snow.” In experiments, people given these “helpers” name fewer total items, even counting the freebies. This perverse outcome is a consequence of what psychologists call inhibition. Once the link between “white” and “milk” is activated in your mind, each time you think, “things that are white,” that activated link draws you right back to “milk” (and activates it further). As a consequence, all other things white are inhibited, made harder to reach. You draw a blank.
