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Health

We can train our brain to access our unconscious for a cognitive boost

By Clare Wilson

27 August 2020

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Our unconscious mind has hidden depths

akindo/Getty Images

Have you ever had a solution to a problem pop into your head, seemingly out of the blue? It could have been thanks to unconscious mental processes – and, in future, there might be a way to harness such brain activity.

Aurelio Cortese at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan, and his colleagues have trained people to learn a simple rule they weren’t consciously aware of, yet subtly influenced their decision-making. “As far as I know, no one has [previously] directly shown that people can be trained to use their…

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