mind

Attention

What subject does your brain return to when nothing else claims it?

Marcus Raichle and colleagues. A Default Mode of Brain Function, PNAS 98. 2001. empirical paper.

What it argues

A set of regions is more active at rest than during task, and deactivates when a task begins. Later work tied the network to self-referential thought, remembering, and imagining. Its content is your mind's preferred subject, not your chosen one.

The probe

Notice what your mind returns to in the first ten seconds after a task ends. Write it down; that is the default, not the decision.

The source

A Default Mode of Brain Function, PNAS 98 — Marcus Raichle and colleagues, 2001. The link goes to the text or to a catalogue record for it, not to a summary. This one is a catalogue record: the entry gives you the question and the probe, not the argument in the author's words.

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