Controlling Your Thoughts

Perhaps the main question to answer with any general theory of mental control is when we possess the control and when we do not. Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University offers his theory of ironic processes of mental control as a means of determining the extent of this control.

Wegner begins this piece featured in http://www.sciencemag.org/ with a scenario we are all quite familiar with--when we go into a situation with a clear sense of not saying or doing a particular thing and then ending up doing it despite ourselves. Why does this happen?

The central variable to this theory is the availability of mental capacity. We are successful at control from ironic effects if we have no other variables standing in our way that will reduce our capacity such as distractions, stress and time pressure. When our capacity is lowered, the control used to redirect thoughts does not decline to a zero level, but instead results in ironic effects. Why? Because our brains' have the natural ability to allow normal mental control, they must also allow for the opposite to exist as well. 

When one attempts to control the mind, two processes are incited. First, an intentional operating process searches the mind for contents that are in line with the intended state. An ironic monitoring process then searches for content that conflict with the intended state to signal achievement failure. The operating process fills the mind with thoughts and sensations related to the desired state, while the monitoring processes searches out those areas in need of control.  Through the cooperative interaction of these two processes, we are able to regulate whether or not an operating process will be initiated at any given time. 

Figure 3 details a pendulum illusion for which participants were asked to perform certain tasks while holding a handheld pendulum on a string. As you can see, what was asked of the participant and the behavior that was demonstrated do not always match up! The illustration reminds me of my attempts to do yoga on wii fit while keeping the red dot inside the yellow box. Can you think of a time that you were trying very hard to do one thing but ended up doing something else instead?