Neurons link into ‘pathways’ that map perceptions to actions. But, neural pathways don’t just link one thing to one other thing—each pathway is involved at many things at once. So to change one, you have to also contend with all the rest.

Glossolalia has a unique pattern of neural activity, distinct from psychopathologies and even other trance-like states. So, the feeling underneath is special, but the actual speaking itself seems learned. It makes you wonder where that feeling comes from.

The brain almost certainly has many processes that contribute to any decision. Here we have one that cares about what it sees, and maybe another process that decides what to do about what it sees.

The brain probably enhances colour information, inhibits word information, or some combination to solve the Stroop task. I found inhibition, but really, this is more of a catalogue of how hard brain science really is.

It’s not exactly clear how often humans really ‘think’. Most of what we do is automatic—habitual responding to a predictable world. But there are a few puzzling examples of thinking, and we don’t really know how they work.