Understanding Brain Function Helps Students Study Smarter: Expert

Explaining about the science of `Thinking', Cognitive Psychologist Dr Srikanth Dandotkar, said that students who understand how a brain functions will benefit in studying smarter and not just harder.

“If you (students) are young in India today, your mind is always busy. By handling issues like entrance exams, semester marks, internships, relationships, family expectations, social media, news, memes, reels - one's brain is constantly processing information.”

“But in the middle of all this, have you ever paused and asked yourself: What exactly is thinking? We usually treat thinking as something automatic, like breathing. It just happens. But modern science, especially cognitive psychology and neuroscience, shows that thinking is a powerful, complex process,” he explained.

“Understanding it can change how you study, how you make decisions, and even how you understand yourself,'' Dr Srikanth, associate professor of Psychology at University of Southern Indiana, who helps students think critically, read deeply and reason clearly, said.

In scientific terms, thinking is the set of mental processes that help us to take in information from the environment, interpret what it means, connect it with the past knowledge and memories, and decide how to respond. Everything happens in a fraction of second.

A human's sense organs are the gateways that send information to the brain. Each sense organ is specialized: Eyes pick up light (vision), ears pick up sound waves (hearing), skin picks up pressure, temperature, and pain (touch), nose picks up chemicals in the air (smell), tongue picks up chemicals in food and drink (taste).

“But here is the interesting part: Your eyes do not send light into your brain. Your ears do not send sound into your brain. Instead, they send something else, something your brain actually understands. The brain's language: electrical signals,”' Srikanth said.

Once these electrical signals reach your brain, different regions start working together: Visual areas decode shapes, colors, edges, and movement. Auditory areas decode pitch, loudness, rhythm, and speech. Other regions process touch, temperature, pain, smell, and taste.

“Then higher-level parts of your brain step in and connect all this with: your memories (Have I seen this before?), Your language (What is this called?), Your beliefs and expectations (What does this mean to me?), Your goals (Do I need to do something now?). The final result is your conscious experience: I see my best friend. I hear my name being called. I smell something burning,'' the professor said, explaining how electrical signals play a key role in thinking.

This transformation, from raw electrical signals to a meaningful, rich experience, is a key part of thinking.

Understanding the science of thinking can:

- Help you study smarter, not just harder

- Make you more aware of attention and distraction

- Help you understand why you forget, misremember, or misjudge things

- Explain why we sometimes get carried away by emotions or fall for illusions and biases

- Show you that thinking is a skill you can train, not just something fixed