Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
Better vision, stronger muscles—expectations can have surprising effects, research finds
Expectancies, such as expecting that one’s work will bring about health
benefits, are capable of producing physiological outcomes. Learned
associations, such as the association between being an Air Force pilot
and having good vision, can alter other cognitive processes, such as
visual perception. Meanwhile, placebo effects observed in clinical
research work via expectancies and learned associations created by fake
operations, sham drugs, etc. Such expectancies and learned associations
have been shown to change the chemistry and circuitry of the brain.
These changes may result in such physiological and cognitive outcomes
as less fatigue, less immune system reaction, elevated hormone levels,
and less anxiety. The interventions that resulted in better performance
in a knowledge test or better vision are placebos outside of the clinical context. However, the chemical and neural mechanisms by which they operate are probably similar.
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