"Automatic" Processing

I don't read my professional journals. I'm not proud of this. I understand that the object of the academic articles is to validate clinical practice and I admire the statistical methods used to do this even if I don't entirely trust or understand them. I also admit to reading a lot of popular science. There are some great science writers who gather information from researchers and summarize the findings. Often, I come across an article that puts things together in an amazing way.

One such discovery had to do with how we grow new nerve fibers. We've known for awhile that the brain grows new fibers and establishes new connections pretty much forever. It is the mechanism of new learning. There was a study a while ago indicating that we have the maximum profusion of nerve fibers in the brain as teenagers/young adults. Then, what happens is that our brains gradually shed some of the connections even as we get more proficient at tasks.

I got to thinking about this and, of course, it makes perfect sense. As we're learning, the neurons send out fibers to reinforce information. Each step in a process might be represented by neural fibers (individual steps, multiple parts). As we get better, the process consolidates - maybe it gets "summarized", channeled into one central connection. The auxiliary fibers could then atrophy because they are no longer needed. The process is now automatic.

But, what happens if there's a problem with the main connection? Oops. There aren't any backup fibers ready to take over. When the process became automatic, they were no longer relevant. The good news is that, with effort, those steps can be accessed, reinforced and eventually reconsolidated.

So, when clients tell me, "I used to do that without thinking", I explain this little neurological hypothesis. It helps them understand how they got to the point of automatic processing and why it's now important to go through the intermediate steps. Of course, we never do anything without thinking: some things happen so quickly and efficiently that it seems that way. Doesn't make it less frustrating but people are generally interested if not reassured by this information. And, if they do the work, they can shake that rust off!