How Your Brain Figures Out What It Doesn't Know

hex0D passes along an article at NPR about a study that examined the biology behind the self-assessment of knowledge. Quoting: "We isolated a region of the prefrontal cortex, which is right at the front of the brain and is thought to be involved in high-level thought, conscious planning, monitoring of our ongoing brain activity,' Fleming says. In people who were good at assessing their own level of certainty, that region had more gray matter and more connections to other parts of the brain, according to the study Fleming and his colleagues published in the journal Science."

Comments

Re:relation to politics

[jellomizer]

I am willing to bet that if they did they wouldn't find much of a difference over all. Political Affiliation has influence of your environment your emotional response to particular issues and only a small fraction of actual rational thinking.

Environment
Left Wing Parties. Tend to have supporters who are people who directly benefit from government support. Live in Cities where they need governments to keep the infrastructure up so they can survive, or are students where the government invests into their futures.
Right Wing Parties. Tend to be in Rural areas where there are little government services, work in institutions who get little government funding or support. And often see the government as a hindering their success.

Emotional Responses
Left Wing Parties. Wants a world where everything is fair and on equal footing. People who have more should be giving even more. People who have less should be getting some more.
Right Wing Parties. Are more on "Tough Love" where if you mess up in life then you will need to suffer the consequences, if you are successful you need to reap the rewards.

Any particular facts which are true are almost purely accidental. Statistics and numbers can be taken and analysis to mean many things, that will prove anyones point. Politics are all about geting the emotional factor in.

Right Wing Parties are Evil because the support the theoretical Rich man who sits on a pot of money and does spread a dime except to pay off people to keep him there.
Left Wing Parties are Evil because they are Godless folks with no morals who wants to bankrupt the American Worker.