other tasks while you are seeing, but you can't think about something else while you are working on a problem. Finally, thinking is uncertain. Your visual system seldom makes mistakes, and when it does you usually think you see something similar to what is actually out there – you're close, if not exactly right. Your thinking system might not even get you close. In fact, your thinking system may not produce an answer at all, which is what happens to most people when they try to solve the candle problem.
If we're all so bad at thinking, how does anyone get through the day? How do we find our way to work or spot a bargain at the grocery store? How does a teacher make the hundreds of decisions necessary to get through her day? The answer is that when we can get away with it, we don't think. Instead we rely on memory. Most of the problems we face are ones we've solved before, so we just do what we've done in the past. For example, suppose that next week a friend gives you the candle problem. You would immediately say, “Oh, right. I've heard this one. You tack the box to the wall.” Just as your visual system takes in a scene and, without any effort on your part, tells you what is in the environment, so too your memory system immediately and effortlessly recognizes that you've heard the problem before and provides the answer. You may think you have a terrible memory, and it's true that your memory system is not as reliable as your visual or movement system – sometimes you forget, sometimes you think you remember when you don't – but your memory system is much more reliable than your thinking system, and it provides answers quickly and with little effort.
We normally think of memory as storing personal events (memories of my wedding) and facts (the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Church is in Egypt). Our memory also stores strategies to guide what we should do: where to turn when driving home, how to handle a minor dispute when monitoring recess, what to do when a pot on the stove starts to boil over (Figure 1.3). For the vast majority of decisions we make, we don't stop to consider what we might do, reason about it, anticipate possible consequences, and so on. For example, when I decide to make spaghetti for dinner, I don't scour the Internet for recipes, weighing each for taste, nutritional value, ease of preparation, cost of ingredients, visual appeal, and so on – I just make spaghetti sauce the way I usually do. As two psychologists put it, “Most of the time what we do is what we do most of the time.”3 When you feel as though you are “on autopilot,” even if you're doing something rather complex, such as driving home from school, it's because you are using memory to guide your behavior. Using memory doesn't require much of your attention, so you are free to daydream, even as you're stopping at red lights, passing cars, watching for pedestrians, and so on.
FIGURE 1.3: Your memory system operates so quickly and effortlessly that you seldom notice it working. For example, your memory has stored away information about what things look like (Gandhi's face) and how to manipulate objects (turn the left faucet for hot water, the right for cold) and strategies for dealing with problems you've encountered before (such as a pot boiling over).
Source: Gandhi © Getty Images/Dinodia Photos; faucet © Shutterstock/RVillalon; pot © Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov.
Of course you could make each decision with care and thought. When someone encourages you to “think outside the box” that's usually what he means – don't go on autopilot, don't do what you (or others) have always done. Consider what life would be like if you always strove to think outside the box. Suppose you approached every task afresh and tried to see all of its possibilities, even daily tasks like chopping an onion, entering your workplace, or sending a text message. The novelty might be fun for a while, but life would soon be exhausting (Figure 1.4).
FIGURE 1.4: “Thinking outside the box” for a mundane task like selecting bread at the supermarket would probably not be worth the mental effort.
Source: © Shutterstock/B Brown.
You may have experienced something similar when traveling, especially if you've traveled where you don't speak the local language. Everything is unfamiliar and even trivial actions demand lots of thought. For example, buying a soft drink from a vendor requires figuring out the flavors from the exotic packaging, trying to communicate with the vendor, working through which coin or bill to use, and so on. That's one reason that traveling is so tiring: all of the trivial actions that at home could be made on autopilot require your full attention.
So far I've described two ways in which your brain is set up to save you from having to think. First, some of the most important functions (for example, vision and movement) don't require thought: you don't have to reason about what you see; you just immediately know what's out in the world. Second, you are biased to use memory to guide your actions rather than to think. But your brain doesn't leave it there; it is capable of changing in order to save you from having to think. If you repeat the same thought-demanding task again and again, it will eventually become automatic; your brain will change so that you can complete the task without thinking about it. I discuss this process in more detail in Chapter 5, but a familiar example here will illustrate what I mean. You can probably recall that learning to drive a car was mentally very demanding. I remember focusing on how hard to depress the accelerator, when to apply the brake as I approached a red light, how far to turn the steering wheel to execute a turn, when to check my mirrors, and so forth. I didn't even listen to music while I drove, for fear of being distracted. With practice, however, the process of driving became automatic, and now I don't need to think about those small-scale bits of driving any more than I need to think about how to walk. I can drive while simultaneously chatting with friends, gesturing with one hand, and eating French fries – an impressive cognitive feat, if not very attractive to watch.† Thus a task that initially takes a great deal of thought becomes, with practice, a task that requires little thought.
The implications for education sound rather grim. If people are bad at thinking and try to avoid it, what does that say about students' attitudes toward school? Fortunately, the story doesn't end with people stubbornly refusing to think. Despite the fact that we're not that good at it, we actually like to think. We are naturally curious, and we look for opportunities to engage in certain types of thought. But because thinking is so hard, the conditions have to be right for this curiosity to thrive, or we quit thinking rather readily. The next section explains when we like to think and when we don't.
People Are Naturally Curious, But Curiosity Is Fragile
Even though the brain is not set up for very efficient thinking, people actually enjoy mental activity, at least in some circumstances. We have hobbies like solving crossword puzzles or scrutinizing maps. We watch information-packed documentaries. We pursue careers – such as teaching – that offer greater mental challenge than competing careers, even if the pay is lower. Not only are we willing to think, we intentionally seek out situations that demand thought.
Solving problems brings pleasure. When I say “problem solving” in this book, I mean any cognitive work that succeeds; it might be understanding a difficult passage of prose, planning a garden, or sizing up an investment opportunity. There is
