How It Works

Our three-pound brain is tuned to the space/time world we inhabit. Only a relatively small part of our large brain is needed to regulate such rhythmic internal space/time maintenance functions as circulation, respiration, and digestion.

Most of our brain is devoted to recognizing, understanding, and responding to the very complex external space/time challenges we continuously confront. These often-unpredictable challenges require rapid access to potentially useful information gained through personal experience or provided by others.

Not everything in the external and internal environments is of immediate concern. Our brain thus contains emotion and attention systems that alert us to and focus on selected immediate dangers and opportunities. This integrated arousal/focusing system is commonly called our working brain (or working memory), and it certainly simplifies our cognitive load. Imagine a working brain that consciously attended to everything occurring inside and outside our brain. We don't need a constant conscious awareness of everything, just ready access to information we need when we need it. Think of the single page a library patron is currently reading and the immense amount of additional readily available related information the library contains, if needed.

It's thus biologically praiseworthy for our brain to have a powerful limited-capacity cognitive processing system focused on selected immediate concerns – but connected to a large easily accessed storehouse of potentially useful background and supplementary information.