Why does my productivity skyrocket as soon as I get to the café?

Image credit: Unsplash

You should be studying in the dormitory or working overtime at home, and you know the art of touching fish, why can you only go to the library or café to open the concentration mode and learn to work more efficiently? Excluding all kinds of factors that are forced to concentrate, in fact, the brain is already biased towards new and unfamiliar scenes, so that it will be easier to turn on the switch
of learning mode.

Written | not carefully reviewed| Erqi, clefable reminiscences of the past, you may find that what left a deep impression on your life is not all those important events, some will even make you very confused: this matter is obviously insignificant, why do I still remember it? In fact, if you summarize these seemingly meaningless memories, you will find that a considerable part of them are accompanied by "surprises", that is, unexpected events
that violate expectations.

However, due to the limited resources of the brain, or in order to improve the efficiency of information processing, there is a conflict
between the encoding and retrieval mechanisms of memory.

 

The first two rounds of experiments were mainly to train volunteers to associate natural objects with square patterns and artificial objects with triangle patterns
.

This is equivalent to setting psychological expectations for volunteers: in theory, as long as volunteers see square clues, they can identify the corresponding item pictures through the memory retrieval function, which is similar
to triangles.

 

But in the third round, the volunteers were divided into two groups
.

The researchers incorporated several other new images into each of the old pictures previously shown to the volunteers and showed them to the volunteers together with the
corresponding clues.

That is to say, volunteers need to combine clues (expected events) to identify the target pictures they have seen in the first two rounds from these pictures to test their information retrieval ability
.

In a group of volunteers, the researchers still followed the rules
of square-natural classes and triangular-man-made classes.

But in another group of volunteers, 30% of the "surprise" events were set: providing the wrong clues, such as providing a triangle clue, but giving a natural picture, thus breaking the volunteers' expectations
.

Along the way, volunteers were asked to identify which images were "old images" that appeared in the first two rounds and which were "new images" that only appeared in the third round
.

 

Based on the comparison of the results of the two groups of volunteers, the researchers found that when they encountered "surprise" events during the information retrieval process, they affected the results of the volunteers' recognition of pictures - they were even less good at finding "old pictures"
.

This suggests that unexpected events that violate expectations do trigger the information encoding mechanism to seize the resources of the
hippocampus's information retrieval function.

 

"Surprise" events improve the ability to encode information on current events, but at the same time sacrifice the ability
to recognize retrieved information.

But interestingly, the brain's memory performance of the expected events after the "surprise" has improved
.

That is to say, after an unexpected event, when volunteers encounter a corresponding picture that matches the expected clues, it will be easier than before to identify the target picture
.

This means that, in the short term, an unexpected event can disrupt our ability to retrieve memories of the task at hand, but in the long run, the unexpected event may benefit memory
.

 

When an event that violated expectations occurred, the hippocampus (red) and midbrain (orange) regions of the participants' brains were shown to be activated
.

(Image source: original paper)

 

Meanwhile, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners to monitor brain activity
in real time during the volunteers' experiments.

Images showed that volunteers who experienced unexpected events were activated
in their brains in the hippocampus responsible for memory function and in the midbrain that releases dopamine.

This suggests that hippocampus-midbrain activation is a sign that unexpected events trigger memory coding states, and that switching between different hippocampus states is likely regulated by dopamine input
.

Overall, unexpected events that violate expectations at the expense of the retrieval function not only improve the memory of the unexpected event itself, but also improve the memory performance of subsequent expected events
.

The improvement of the former is easy to understand, but why is it also helpful for subsequent memory? In this regard, the researchers propose two possible explanations
.

One is that the encoding process that violates the expected trigger most likely optimizes the subsequent retrieval of the expected event
.

Because its coding represents retrieving the current expected event, it can also be contrasted with previous unexpected events, thus providing information and guidance for the current recognition decision, and improving memory performance
overall.


Magic Cafe So back to the original question: Why is it more efficient to study and work in a library or café? One of the most important mechanisms that this article has been exploring is the strangeness that prompts the hippocampus to turn on memory encoding and switch the brain to learning mode
.

A suitable café may be particularly effective
in improving learning productivity compared to libraries.

The strange scenes that are diametrically opposed to the familiar comfort of the home, the moderately noisy white noise of the environment, the enticing aroma of coffee in the air, the dim lighting, and even the whispers of those around us all provide us with a vivid and fresh audiovisual experience in it, constantly tapping our potential and prompting the brain to improve learning efficiency
.

 

Image credit: Unsplash

Another reason may be related to the social facilitation effect, which involves the two concepts
of audience effect and co-effect.

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