Staring at walls to improve focus and productivity | Alex Selimov
Staring at a wall for a few minutes is a difficult but effective way to reset your brain and recover from information overload.
Cognitive Science
Research into human cognition, brain function, and mental processes — including studies using EEG, neuroimaging, and behavioral experiments to understand how technology and tools affect thinking, learning, and memory.
Reading List
Free Running Sleep: The Key to Learning and IQ
432
Natural, unrestricted sleep is the essential foundation for memory consolidation, learning, and peak cognitive performance.
Human-Centered AI: The Evolution of Mathematical Thought
216
AI is a natural evolution of human intellectual tools that must be developed with a human-centered focus to expand our capacity for thought and solve complex problems.
Cognitive Surrender: How AI is Becoming Our Third System of Thought
198
Humans are increasingly bypassing their own logic to blindly follow AI outputs, a phenomenon termed 'cognitive surrender' that persists even when the AI is wrong.
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task – MIT Media Lab
710
Using ChatGPT for writing can reduce brain engagement and foster cognitive debt, leading to weaker neural activity, homogenized language, and lower sense of ownership over time.
Game Design in 12 Principles: A Practical Cheat Sheet
560
Design uncertain problems players can master, scaffold them with clear loops and feedback, vary and pace them well, dress them coherently for a target audience, and keep pushing just beyond mastery.
AI as Compression: Why LLMs May Truly Be Thinking
278
LLMs likely perform a genuine, brainlike form of thinking via recognition and compression, but turning that into human‑level intelligence demands solving hard scientific problems and grappling with serious risks.
Working After a Parietal Stroke: Protect Bandwidth, Single-Thread, Use AI, Say No
505
Work in a way that fiercely protects limited cognitive bandwidth: minimize inputs, single-thread, use AI, and prioritize health over performance.
Choose Friction: Use AI Intentionally to Foster Growth
158
Choose intentional friction: use AI as a tool that supports growth rather than replacing the hard work that builds it.
You Can’t Outsource Thinking: Memory and Depth Are Non‑Optional
385
To think well, you must remember deeply—tools can assist, but they can’t replace a trained, knowledgeable mind.
Knowledge Without Memory: Why LLMs Guess and Humans Don’t
101
Without lived, structured memory, AI will keep guessing wrong; fixing hallucinations requires AI that actually lives and remembers over time.
Study Claims AI Writing Tools Weaken Brain Engagement and Memory
616
Using LLMs for writing may deliver quick results but, according to the cited study, it erodes neural engagement and memory, cultivating long-term cognitive debt.
Why AI Is Chasing World Models Again
211
AI is chasing coherent internal world models to move beyond brittle heuristics and achieve robust, reliable reasoning.