We learn from our mistakes? What about spam? Remarriage?

Psychologists have identified an ‘early warning signal’ in the brain that helps us avoid repeating previous mistakes. There was no word on why in many case people continue to override that brain signal and make the same mistakes over and over however.  Researchers at the University of Exeter said that their research identifies, for the first time, a mechanism in the brain that reacts in just 0.1 seconds to things that have resulted in us making errors in the past. Previous research has shown that we learn more about things we do wrong rather than right.   The element of surprise in discovering we are wrong is conducive to learning, but this research is the first to show how amazingly rapid our brain’s response can be, researchers said. This discovery was made possible through the use of electrophysiological recordings, which allow researchers to detect processes in the brain at the instant they occur, researchers said.  For this study, a group of volunteers took part in a computerized task, which involved them making predictions based on information they were given. New information was then introduced, which made many of their predictions incorrect, so they needed to learn from this in order to avoid repeating the error. While they did this, their brain activity was recorded via 58 electrodes placed on their scalp. The researchers identified activity in the lower temporal region of the brain, the area closest to the temples. This occurred almost immediately after the person was presented with the visual object that had previously made them make an error, and before there was time for conscious consideration, according to an article in this month’s Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The findings seem to fly in the face of reality in many instances.  For example, Spam.  How many times have computer users been told NOT to click on attachments or links in email?  In a six-month experiment by security researcher Didier Stevens, some users weren’t warned off by a Google sponsored link that read:  Drive-By Download Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here! Of the 259,723 times the ad was viewed, it was clicked on 409 times, said Stevens. Spammers, hackers and others rely on the promise that others WILL make this mistake so that they can take advantage of it….repeatedly.