Johann Hari decides to take Provigil (aka viagra for the brain) and reports back on the results:
I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water. Then I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee. I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I'm thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn't noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn't stop or stumble once.Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich - and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn't any different; I wasn't high. My heart wasn't beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration - deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.
Once that article was finished, I wanted to do more. I wrote another article, all of it springing out of my mind effortlessly. Then I go to dinner with a few friends, and I decide not to tell them, to see if they notice anything. At the end of the dinner, my mate Jess turns to me and says, "You seem very thoughtful tonight."
If only intelligence were so easy. Before you run out a get an illicit supply of Provigil, let me remind you that the brain is a precisely equilibrated machine. Even drugs that don't appear to have any negative side-effects - who wouldn't want a more focused brain? - can actually have deleterious consequences.
In this case, the tradeoff involves creativity. Some of my friends who relied on crushed Ritalin during college used to joke about how the drugs were great for late-night cramming sessions, but that they seemed to suppress any kind of originality. In other words, increased focus came at the expense of the imagination. It makes perfect sense that such a cognitive trade-off would exist. Paying attention to a particular task - like writing an article - requires the brain to ignore all sorts of seemingly unrelated thoughts and stimuli bubbling up from below. (The unconscious brain is full of potential distractions.) However, the same thoughts that can be such annoying interruptions are also the engine of creativity, since they allow us to come up with new connections between previously unrelated ideas. (This might be why schizotypal subjects score higher on tests of creativity. They are less able to ignore those distracting thoughts, which largely arise from the right hemisphere.) Other scientists have looked at the aging brain which, because the prefrontal cortex degrades with time, becomes less able to focus:
"It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing," said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. "It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind."For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.
When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.
"For the young people, it's as if the distraction never happened," said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. "But for older adults, because they've retained all this extra data, they're now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they've soaked up from one situation to another."
Brain & Behavior
Comments
Thanks for writing this! Out of the probably over 60 posts now indexed by technorati referencing Johann's anecdote, you're the only one to bring up his overly simplistic approach to intelligence. I've been making a similar point to yours, saying that speed is a tradeoff for depth. Are we really better off thinking faster but less deep?
Also objectionable to me was that he picked modafinil to write about, but didn't mention any of the easily available, over the counter, fairly well studied supplements that are also commonly used. Piracetam would be one example and Huperzine A would be another. They're all discussed in Smart Drugs and Nutrients. The heuristic that if it's effective, it's probably dangerous/banned just doesn't hold in this case, and his experience is way out of line with other accounts. I personally think he could have gotten similar results from a good night's sleep.
I do think the time has come for people to consider looking into possible enhancements, but as you say, this won't come without some sort of cost in another area. Potential health effects aren't the only area of concern.
Posted by: Mr. Gunn | May 20, 2008 11:22 AM
Back in the day, black beauties served a similar "function." Loads of work was done to exacting standards, but nothing very interesting (i.e., transgressing those standards) emerged.
Posted by: bob koepp | May 20, 2008 12:41 PM
Hey Jonah,
I'd agree that a trade-off makes sense in light of the context you received the information in, but do you have data to support that theory other than the anecdote of friends using a related but different substance?
Posted by: Jay Neely | May 20, 2008 1:05 PM
here's a very limited study:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790767848~db=all
But I'd also look at a lot of the research into moments of insight, particularly the work of Mark Jung Beeman. There's a reason that aha moments often come during relaxed and distracted moments (like the shower)...
Posted by: Jonah | May 20, 2008 1:32 PM
Not "drug" related, but a similar study I once read about (I think it was cited in Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister's Peopleware) was about geeks and their listening to music while working. They were given a simple programming task, one easily done in "300 lines" using what we call brute force programming (follow the specified requirements to the letter).
The test was originally designed to see if listening to music while working affected accuracy, with the idea that musical distractions might lead to more bugs in code.
The programmers were allowed to work exactly as they would have worked in real life (this was back before easy internet connections made "cheating" more possible)), so some had headphones full of their favorite music, others worked in silence.
What they found was that both groups (those with music, those without) completed the task with equal accuracy - music didn't affect that precision.
However, they also discovered that some programmers found a secret in the proposed algorithm they were implementing. With a little cleverness, you could implement the algorithm in only 50 lines instead of the full 300, and be done in half the time. Of those that discovered the shorter implementation, most were from the programming in silence group.
Posted by: Joe Shelby | May 20, 2008 1:52 PM
"Are we really better off thinking faster but less deep?"
I don't understand why there has to be a trade off. I'm with Jay on this. There being evidence of AHA! moments in some specific form of problem solving without focused attention is only evidence that processing continues below the level of awareness. It is not evidence that you can't do the same problem solving while being aware or during a focused task, nor is it evidence that creativity is suppressed.
For every story of people reporting that they are less creative while on stimulants I've heard just as many stories of people being more creative.
I think this is a lot of fanciful speculation on the part of people trying to find a 'function' for mental decline.
Posted by: Steve Higgins | May 20, 2008 1:57 PM
I respectfully disagree, Steve. Look at Jonathan Schooler's work on verbal overshadowing and insight puzzles. Some aspects of thinking are best left to the unconscious.
Posted by: Jonah | May 20, 2008 2:25 PM
I see Hari has linked to this post...
Posted by: Niko | May 20, 2008 2:25 PM
But is there evidence that increasing attention with drugs decreases processing without awareness?
Posted by: Steve Higgins | May 20, 2008 4:35 PM
I've had a little experience with Provigil, and I found that: if one were to also use a little hash, one might find an interesting balance between focus and creativity.
FWIW
Posted by: anonymous | May 20, 2008 4:49 PM
Joe,
If I recall correctly, it was a series of numerical operations which all cancelled out. It could have just been:
def func (x)
x
But instead it went on and on and...
Posted by: Danielle Fong | May 20, 2008 9:25 PM
You're speculating though. My experience with modafinil tends say otherwise, too.
Posted by: Jamougha | May 20, 2008 9:36 PM
It's an interesting theory, but that's all it is. It might very well be that Modafinil increases focus without decreasing creativity - there are simply no studies to say one way or another.
If I didn't value my health, I might be tempted to do a trial ;)
(To anybody who's considering this: Taking a drag without knowing about long-term effects should be a last resort in dire health situations. Think about it long and hard before you go there)
Posted by: Robert 'Groby' Blum | May 20, 2008 10:43 PM
So you're going after provigil...and your argument against it consists of an anecdote about Ritalin, an unrelated drug, and a study about young versus old brains?
I'm all for a good argument against provigil. My guess is there is a catch. But this article doesn't cut it. There's no science behind what you're saying at all yet, at least not that you can find.
Posted by: http | May 21, 2008 9:00 AM
I recently saw a psychiatric patient about 30, successful in business, who had used these drugs to get through a period of heavy workload and, after a few days with little sleep, became psychotic, believing devils were appearing through the walls, and worse.
This patient may have been predisposed to psychosis, or the effects may have been more to do with sleep deprivation than the drug - who knows? But there was a real problem, and danger both for the patient and others. Further testing needed...
Posted by: KM | May 22, 2008 2:44 PM
does no-one remember a film with Cliff Robertson called, if my minbd with enhancement recalls correctly, Charlie, where the hero, something of a simpleton. is given such drugs following tests on a mouse, who ends up addressing a seminar of academic celebrati with extraordiunary iknpowledge of a huge range of subjects, beside him the mouse in its cage. Towards the end ofhis olecture/question session, the mouse starts to behave erratically and the final shot of the filmn is Cliff sitting forlornly gawping on a kiddies swing, reduced below where he had started off. Beware.
Posted by: stewart dakers | May 27, 2008 3:23 PM
The film was just called Charly. It was based off the short story/novel, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.
Posted by: Therese | May 29, 2008 12:02 AM
I wonder if anyone has been treated with Progivil for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It makes sense, if you think about it. Having an over-active mind, intrusive thoughts, etc. Would they be controlled or "ignored" with the help of Progivil? I don't know; it would be worth looking into, though.
Posted by: Bwana | June 12, 2008 2:36 PM
I have just started on Provigil a treatment for daytime sleepiness as a result of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
I would warn all that Provigil is not without side effects indeed the insert that comes with the drug has a scarily long list.
For my self it has stopped me dropping off but my BP has risen alarmingly and my heart rate frequently hits 122bpm at rest. Other warnings include strange thoughts and other physical effects. I'm on a low dose of 100mg twice a day and to be entirely honest while it keeps me awake it has done nothing for my concentration or memory.
Given the side effects I'm suffering I would be seriously worried about anybody just picking it up and taking 200mg in one hit without medical advice. There are also warnings that prolonged use will cause a level of dependence.
As to the post by KM the Physcosis you describe is classic sleep deprivation. It will happen to anybody deprived of sleep for long enough, that would range from 3 days to 7 depending on the individual. This is why sleep deprivation is used in interogation and torture, in this state people are more prone to suggestion.
Posted by: Paul | July 3, 2008 4:40 AM