We can train our brain to access our unconscious for a cognitive boost

By Clare Wilson

Our unconscious mind has hidden depths

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Have you ever had a solution to a problem pop into your head, seemingly out of the blue? It might have been thanks to unconscious mental processes – and in future there might be a way to harness such brain activity.

Aurelio Cortese at the ATR Institute International, in Kyoto, Japan and his colleagues have trained people to learn a simple rule they weren’t consciously aware of, yet subtly influenced their decision making. “As far as I know, no one has (previously) directly shown that people can be trained to use their unconscious mind,” …