Comment by jilebedev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jilebedev | Hacker News Reader

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Article: > unless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong — that surge of Pe activity a few hundred milliseconds after the error, directing our attention to the very thing we’d like to ignore — the mind will never revise its models

tpatke: > it just doesn't apply (and I am a huge fan on Dweck's work). This article is one for the masses - not people who are trying to create the next Google

aristus: > defining characteristic of highly creative people is their ability to change their mind at will. ... A factor in that is developing a strong associative memory ... seeking out many many kinds of knowledge and experiences and constantly trying to connect them together

Being wrong, persisting, and trying to learn from the mistake takes effort. It's difficult, and I suspect as difficult as (if not directly linked to) exerting self-control. Connecting thought is here: http://psr.sagepub.com/content/11/4/303.short

A good question for Moser/Dweck would be: is the physiological response of a child to a mistake a function of their blood glucose levels? I suspect that it is: anecdotally, people are a lot more optimistic and willing to explore an issue instead of yielding to to surface obstacles if they're on a sugar high.

The book 'Thinking: Fast & Slow' has a section on 'ego depletion' that may have some insight into your question. Basically when you think hard on a problem, make difficult choices, or work hard physically, you suffer from 'ego depletion' that makes further work even harder. This has a measurable impact on brain glucose levels. People given a glucose supplement don't suffer from the same drop-off in performance as those given a fake-sugar drink.

I hadn't thought about it in terms of Dweck's work on open-mindedness but it seems like accepting failures and persisting probably fall into the category of tasks that cause ego depletion. Very interesting.

| A good question for Moser/Dweck would be: is the physiological response of a child to a mistake a function of their blood glucose levels? I suspect that it is: | anecdotally, people are a lot more optimistic and willing to explore an issue instead of yielding to to surface obstacles if they're on a sugar high.

I wondered this as well. Even if it's not necessarily glucose-focused, there are a ton of angles. Depression? The two ends of manic/depressives? Sleep -> mood -> mistake response? Talking to an attractive member of the opposite sex and having it go well/not well?

Yet another question for Moser/Dweck: does the almost-immediate negative response to making mistakes diminish if the subject is in a state of flow? From personal experience, a state of flow while performing an intellectually engaging activity diminishes any and all negative feelings I may have. Positive and calm feelings remain, but when I encounter an obstacle or an error, I simply adapt to it like water flowing down a mountain.

I suspect that Moser/Dweck would find that programmers in a state of flow encountering a compile/runtime exception would exhibit significantly lower amplitude signal associated with immediate negative response.

For error-related negativity (ERN), "negative" refers to the direction of voltage change, not the person's attitude.

Since ERN amplitude is associated with better learning, it might be the other way around, that people in flow are producing stronger ERN's and correcting their mistakes faster.

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