People in the treatment group lost weight their body fat percentages, waist-to-hip ratios, and systolic blood pressures dropped. A control group of hotel room attendants, who were not told that their work provided the recommended exercise, was similarly monitored. ![]() This treatment group was monitored for 4 weeks. Alia Crum and Ellen Langer told hotel room attendants that their work provided the recommended exercise for a healthy lifestyle. (The physical activity involved meets the Surgeon General’s recommendation of at least 30 minutes of physical exercise per day for a healthy lifestyle.) However, most hotel room attendants believe that they do not get regular exercise and a lot of them believe that they do not get any exercise at all. Hotel room attendants clean on average 15 rooms per day, each room taking between 20 and 30 minutes to complete. However, merely changing our thoughts about our physical activity seems capable of changing our bodies. ![]() We count our calorie intake, the calories we lose on a treadmill, etc. We also tend to think that our bodies respond to physical exercise in a mechanical way. Because people were expecting to read the top two thirds of the shifted chart as well, they were able to read much smaller letters. At the top, it included letters equivalent to the medium-size letters on the normal eye chart and the chart progressed to letters of very small size at the bottom. In another experiment, Ellen Langer and colleagues showed people a shifted chart. In an eye exam, we are used to start experiencing problems at the bottom third of the eye chart, where letters start to get small. They did not show a significant improvement. The test was conducted while the simulator was inactive. After people finished reading, they were strongly urged to be as motivated as possible and try hard to perform well in the vision test. To rule out the possible effect of motivation, the researchers brought another group of people into the cockpit and asked them to read a brief essay on motivation. People’s vision improved only if they were in the working simulator. A control group took the same vision test in the cockpit while the simulator was inactive. They took a vision test while “flying” the simulator. People were given green army fatigues they sat in the pilot’s seat, and performed simple flight maneuvers. The cockpit was mounted on hydraulic lifts that mimic aircraft movement and performance. The simulator consisted of an actual cockpit including flight instruments. The researchers put people in the mindset of an Air Force pilot by bringing them into a flight simulator. It is a common belief that fighter pilots have very good vision. Recent research by Ellen Langer and colleagues suggests otherwise. There is accumulating evidence that suggests that our thoughts are often capable of extending our cognitive and physical limits.Ĭan our thoughts improve our vision? We tend to believe that an essentially mechanical process determines how well we see. In many cases, thinking that we are limited is itself a limiting factor. ![]() Our cognitive and physical abilities are in general limited, but our conceptions of the nature and extent of those limits may need revising. Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right. But, remarkably, the people who thought the answers were flashed did better on the test. In fact, for both groups, a random string of letters, not the answers, was flashed. The other group was told that the flashes simply signaled the next question. People in one group were told that before each question, the answer would be briefly flashed on their screens - too quickly to consciously perceive, but slow enough for their unconscious to take it in. Psychologists Ulrich Weger and Stephen Loughnan recently asked two groups of people to answer questions. ![]() There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge.
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