Annie Murphy Paul’s ‘The Extended Mind’ opens as Nietzsche reaches out to her through time in his writing. As he comments on the physicality of writing, the author reflects how we are taught that thinking only happens inside the brain and not by “extra-neural” resources our body (think hand gestures), influence of place or thinking with others.

Inspired to gather this previously disjointed set of theories into one by Professor Andy Clark’s 1998 paper on the subject, Murphy Paul suggests we should look elsewhere rather than just inward. Being ‘brainbound’ increasingly causes problems of attention, memory and motivation and this misunderstanding of where thinking happens leads the author to create a “curriculum of the extended mind”.

I loved a concept the author shares in the acknowledgment, where Stephen Kosslyn says we can engage another as a “social prosthetic” and gain the capacity to make you more effective, filling in for your lack and you become a different person by your interaction. That intelligence is a fluid interaction between the brain and its outer world, how to control this and use it makes up the body of this book, how to use these “extensions” by offloading information, making it into something real and by altering our state are examined and explored with practical ways to adopt the skills and use them to solve problems more effectively.

A great book that shows how meditation or people who are in tuned with their minds and bodies can build resilience, enhance memory, and how the body’s instincts can be more accurate than ‘thinking too hard’.

This book touches on topics such as Mind over matter-resilience, and How bodies and minds learn and remember.
This book explains in simple language studies related to such topics.

The most interesting part is where the Memory Palace is explained.
I really enjoyed reading this book.

THE EXTENDED MIND by Annie Murphy Paul is another book about thinking, more specifically about how we should leverage "the feelings and movements of our bodies; the physical spaces in which we learn and work; and the other minds with which we interact – our classmates, colleagues, teachers, supervisors, friends." Paul's exploration of "The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain" is one which I wish we had had available prior to the pandemic and the necessity of remote learning. Clearly, that time could have had different outcomes if we had made proactive efforts to encourage students to move more, to be conscious of their study spaces, and to be more socially engaged in Zoom classes. Paul herself refers to the "gentle push in a more productive direction that this book seeks to offer its readers" and shares her own insights as well as quotes from a range of philosophers and researchers (Daniel Kahneman among them). Plus, she references numerous studies; in fact, almost a third of the book is devoted to notes and index. One key point raised by Paul is how mindful meditation helps enhance awareness of body sensations and she describes conducting a body scan, an exercise we have done with advisory and health students. In subsequent chapters, she describes the value of contact with nature, but of greatest interest to me were several other possible applications for students (e.g., using gestures to help remember second language vocabulary) and group work (e.g., the "active learning" advocated by Carl Wieman at Stanford). Paul notes that "we think best when we think socially" and she extols the value of social interaction to generate hypotheses, design experiments, and analyze data. In addition to promoting a Scout Mindset next year, THE EXTENDED MIND reinforced my desire to provide greater opportunities for our researchers to teach their peers about the topic they are exploring. As Paul says, "our ability to think outside the brain has been left almost entirely uneducated and undeveloped."

This is an absolutely fascinating book that combines slick prose, scientific studies, and engaging anecdotes, to explore many aspects about the way we think that were unknown to me before.

The chapters on nature and physical spaces and the way they can impact our thinking were truly inspiring to consider.

Here is my blog post on the book:

The Extended Mind, by Annie Murphy Paul
Why I read it –
My education hero, and fellow Crystal Palace fan, Doug Lemov, tweeted that the excellent Annie Murphy Paul was looking for people to read her book in its run up to publication. A combination of Doug’s recommendation, plus the fascinating subject matter of the book, made this an easy decision and Annie kindly accept my request to read The Extended Mind. Due to lots of work commitments, I got behind on my review, but I’m delighted to share my thoughts now and hope you’ll take the time to read the book, too.

In summary
Annie Murphy Paul argues that countless studies have been conducted on how thinking happens ‘only inside the brain’, and that much less attention has been paid to the way people use the world to think. The Extended Mind is the term used to describe how we interact with things beyond our mind in order to aid its thinking and growth. Examples include how physical places can have an effect on how we think or feel, in addition to movements and gestures, working in groups, and using imitation.
Each idea is explored in turn, with the author using studies and anecdotes to demonstrate the benefits of understanding the extended mind, or in other words to ‘take better advantage of the world outside our brains’.

Key takeaways
1. Gestures can support understanding and learning: Paul refers to studies, and a fascinating anecdote about a maths teacher, to demonstrate how gestures can be matched with words or terms to help understand or memorise them. When the teacher in question, Brendan Jefferys, noticed that students were struggling with complex terms, he assigned each one a certain gesture. The theory is that the gestures are essentially ‘load lightening’, taking away cognitive strain to focus on the learning at hand.
2. Room with a view: studies found that working in a room with a natural view allowed call-centre workers to handles calls 6-12% faster, while they scored 10-25% higher in mental function and memory recall tests. This is not good news for my office without any windows!
3. The power of nature on our brains: it’s not just having a view that helps: we are wired to thrive outdoors, and we don’t just enjoy being in nature more, it actually helps us to think better! Paul states that being in natural, outdoor environments helps to relieve stress and balances our equilibrium, which in turns makes our thinking more effective. There are countless examples in this section of the book about studies which prove how these natural spaces help us to thrive, for example a study showing that people who spent 90 minutes outdoors became less preoccupied with the negative aspects of their lives, compared to those who didn’t. I could name 5 other insights about the power of nature on our brains – what an excellent chapter of the book.
4. Belonging in a space: when sports teams play at home, their testosterone rises with the ownership of their home turf. But in workplaces, too, if we feel a sense of belonging, safety, and ownership in our usual patch; workers experience themselves as more capable and confident, and they are more efficient. One fascinating example is that those who negotiate deals on their home turf claim 60-160% more than the visiting party. Paul quotes Professor Benjamin Meagher and his theory that our brains associate our usual, preferred spaces with the memories of what we’ve learnt and achieved there before; in Paul’s words, our brains get an ‘assist from the structure embedded in its environment’. In Meagher’s, ‘our cognition is distributed across the entire setting’.
5. The Imitation Game: Studies show that imitation is an effective method to succeed in a variety of ways. Paul looks at a variety of benefits of imitation, from looking at examples from others to filter out a variety of options, to avoiding common pitfalls, to saving time, effort, and resources that are requited to innovate.

Favourite quote
‘The respite from insistent cognitive demands that nature provides gives our supply of mental resources an opportunity to renew and regenerate. These resources are finite and are soon exhausted – not only be the clamor of urban living, but also by the stringent requirements of academic and professional work.’

Question and reflect
• How often do we think about the world around us: how spaces and places can affect not only how much we enjoy thinking, but also improve our thinking drastically. Equipped with this knowledge, how can we create spaces in our lives that help our brains to thrive?
• Dual coding is popular in teaching at the moment – from reading the chapter on our bodies and physical gestures helping us to think, how could we apply this to something we are teaching or learning?


Read this if…
You are interested in how we think or learn

In a culture that values rugged individualism (“I do it all on my own!”), it’s enlightening to realize that our knowledge, creativity, and intelligence depends on so much more than what happens in our brain. Our bodies, our environments, our peers, and our experts also contribute to exactly what and how we think.

This book has inspired me to develop my ‘extra-cranial’ intelligence and thought. I’m trying to be more aware of my embodied intelligence, and more open to productive disagreement as a way of thinking with others to make better decisions.

The world is complex, I’m going to use every bit of intelligence I can find in it.

Written for the laypeople rather than neuroscientists, this book goes through all the current neuroscience on how we use our brain, and instead of focusing solely on the brain, looks at how our other forms of knowledge - from our body, from our environment, from other people - come into play.

For me, this was a book that confirmed some of what I already do (but didn't realise the importance of); and gave me other methods of thinking outside the brain.

It's a book to take your time with, to spend time reading, thinking and practicing, rather than reading straight through. And I think it's a book you will come back to again and again, for further or deeper insights,.

Highly recommended.

Annie Paul translates the science into sentences that those of us who are not social and neurological scientists can understand. Well written and engaging it has me thinking about what my mind and body know about the world, and how I can take advantage of understanding those processes. The implications for how informal learning institutions (think museums) are great, as we better use the world to teach understanding.

The Extended Mind is a new book by Annie Murphy Paul, a science writer who specializes in cognition and learning. The book is divided into three parts, with a total of nine chapters. The general idea is that there is more to how the brain functions than just the physical brain itself, and learning to become more in tune with these external components can be helpful in achieving your goals.

Paul starts by discussing the ways that people have talked about the brain over the years. She cites examples of the brain being thought of as a computer, a few years after the development of computers; or later the brain being compared to a muscle that gets stronger the more that you use it. Paul instead proposes the analogy of thinking of the brain as a magpie; magpies use whatever they can from the surrounding environment to construct their nests, and so too the brain uses whatever “extra-neural” resources are available to help construct thoughts.

The chapters delve into specific ways to optimize this “Extended Mind” through various methods. The first couple chapters focus on paying attention to bodily signals, and jump-starting our thought processes through physical activity. The next few chapters mention spending time outside, and designing your interior spaces to promote creativity. The last few chapters focus on collaboration with other people to introduce new ideas.

This book has quite a few interesting suggestions, and rather creative ways of thinking about thinking itself. A few of the suggestions did seem like common sense, and occasionally the book dips into a realm of philosophical musings that seemed a little less practical or helpful; but overall I enjoyed the read. Paul's creativity and obvious enthusiasm for these ideas shines through, and I will look forward to reading more books from her in the future.

Annie Murphy Paul is easily one of the best science writers I have read. The Extended Mind is an absolutely fabulous read that I recommend for anyone in Learning and Development. Actually, I should say if you want to know how to get better at thinking, then this is the book I recommend. I particularly enjoyed the section on how to leverage one's peer group, network and experts to get the brain to expand its abilities. It is much like using an external drive to store your laptop data.
Some of the ideas she suggests are counter-intuitive. For example copying experts could be a great way to build skills. Our society frowns on this time tested method. From the stock market traders to artists many people have tried copying experts and improved. Building Cognitive Apprenticeships, inviting peers to audit your processes ... I could go on about the terrific ideas this book offers.
Absolutely must read. Strongly recommended.

This book will change the way you think about thinking. The brain is just one part of the nervous system, and our entire bodies contribute to how we think. I've long known that I think better when I'm moving (in fact, when I'm lost in thought, I naturally start walking—at least outside of a work environment). This book compiles a large body of evidence on how we can perform better by incorporating parts of the body outside the conscious mind in our thinking process.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This book is incredible! I learned a great deal about consciousness and I think that this book Will appeal to science readers and new age readers alike.

The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul shows readers that the mind isn't just in our brain, but in our body, surroundings, and relationships. As an educator, I'm familiar with active learning, but I discovered many practical tips that can be implemented by both teachers and students.

Annie Murphy Paul’s new book, The Extended Mind: The power of thinking outside the brain, is an enlightening exploration of how we use extra-neural resources to “focus more intently, comprehend more deeply, and create more imaginatively.” Drawing from theories and research around embodied cognition, situated cognition, and distributed cognition, Paul explains and illustrates the ways that our bodies, our surroundings, and our relationships play a huge role in facilitating knowledge and skill acquisition and ensuring we have access to more than what we know in our brains. It is full of important ideas backed by research studies and illustrated by intriguing stories. You’ll find yourself relating to the ways we reach beyond our brains for thinking and learning, and you’ll be struck by the implications when you put it all together. It contains quite a bit of nuance about the extended mind that defies quick summary but is worth considering as guidance for designing learning strategies and work environments.
The Extended Mind is an important contribution toward our understanding of how the mind works and what is necessary to increase out capabilities for addressing 21st century challenges. It pulls together a vast and diverse body of research to help us to learn better and think more clearly. Highly recommended.

The brain is not a telephone switchboard, and it is not a computer. It is a kingdom unto itself, ruled by the prefrontal cortex. The PFC contains the giant lobes above the eyes, behind the forehead. It takes 21 years for it to fully grow out, and when it does, it takes control. The result is we only see what it wants us to see, and make connections that it allows us to make. It is what takes away our childhood wonder and excitement, and filters out (what it considers) irrelevant and unfocused factors. Humans uniquely spend their adult lives trying to overcome their own PFC’s harsh administration, mostly with alcohol.

Into this intriguing scenario, Annie Murphy Paul has written a book called The Extended Mind. Without her saying so explicitly, it is about the tricks and tips humans need and continue to refine to overcome the capacity limits set by the PFC. As it goes on, it becomes the model for why readers need a PFC to filter out the irrelevant and the unfocused.

It starts out well enough, with discussion of how using the hands in speaking adds information and ideas that speech alone does not convey. The same goes for writing things down and sketching. Adding perspectives adds to creativity and analysis. Errors and solutions appear in models where the mind alone could not imagine them.

Breaking up a long sit with a walk outdoors does wonders for resetting the PFC and inspiring new thoughts. Paul quotes famous scientists and writers who say things like all their best thinking takes place during a walk. Radiologists notice far more in X-rays when they examine them while moving around, and even on a treadmill. They can also accurately analyze far more of them while running in place. Many times as many, and far more accurately too. Sadly, observation and creativity are otherwise a child’s domain.

Also sadly, only 26% of children today play outdoors, missing out on the golden years of thinking and observing without being restricted by the PFC. Their parents are too busy, or they fear kidnappers, or just plain old injury. Far better to keep the kids indoors and have them watch television or computers. It goes against half a million years of evolution.

The high point of the book, at least for me, came very early on, where Paul writes about dementia and Alzheimer’s victims. She says the endless so-called mind exercises, graphic novels, word games and photo albums are pointless; they do nothing to stimulate the brain back to a healthy state. It simply continues to deteriorate. What they (and everyone) needs is real physical exercise. That is what causes the brain to stay functional or even rejuvenate. The walk outdoors is far more than a change of pace; it is the solution. A workout in the morning leaves people energized, awake and with more capacity to think things through. Exercising after work is not unhealthy, but a waste of the good and the potential it can deliver if done earlier.

She goes on about how students need to move around to absorb lessons. The whole institution of sitting quietly all day, facing the front and not fidgeting is completely wrong. It is the most inefficient way to educate. And it shows. In study after study. Recess does more for the mind that all the classes that precede it every day.

The other extreme is the noise. Studying while wearing earbuds and with the tv on simply does not work. The brain is not capable of separately absorbing those three streams of data in parallel. Worse, it is highly attuned to the human voice. People talking on tv, and singers singing their lyrics all detract from whatever the reader is meant to be absorbing, which rates a much lower priority in the brain than speech does. It is being called the Attention Draining Effect and it results in far less progress than would be otherwise achieved.

There is also an early chapter on how the brain itself tries to circumvent the PFC, pushing signals out elsewhere. Paul focuses on professional stock traders, who use their gut instinct to make split second buy and sell decisions. The stomach speaks to the mind with cramps. The hands speak with sweat. Heeding these signals, she says, can extend the mind beyond just the brain, which is not only overloaded but also restricted by the PFC. (It also leads to the discovery there are two kinds of people in the world: those who hear their every heartbeat, and those who don’t.) She implies that paying attention to these sorts of communications is a path to success, when that is so obviously untrue (or we’d all be trillionaires by the age of 30). You have only to know that for four years, President Donald Trump ignored all intelligence reports and relied totally on his “gut”, which he explained, was never wrong. And how many traders have taken down entire billion-dollar companies and even national economies by relying on their gut reaction? This was my first disagreement with The Extended Mind, but far from the last.

The book itself degenerates into a seemingly endless list of trivial facts and studies on how scientists can trick the brain into absorbing more data. Most of the book is about that, a kind of self-help manual. Worse, Paul overexplains everything, going on endlessly in totally skippable paragraphs where nothing new is transmitted, but the same point is hammered in again. Studies show that making students teach others forces them to understand the topic better themselves. Privacy screens allow workers in open office setups to be more productive. Surveillance cameras inhibit. Figuring things out in the mind is less thorough than also using the eyes and the hands. Personal meetings transmit more data than electronic contact.

I like to think we know all this. That’s my gut reaction.

But then the silliness starts. People who dine together in restaurants or even just in a conference room sign contracts that are 12% more profitable than those who simply negotiate a deal. Profitable for whom? How would anyone know? What was the Control? The people who sign the deals don’t do the actual work to make the profits; the number of factors involved is infinite. Signing a deal that comes out of dinner means not signing a similar deal with no dinner with that same partner, so there’s nothing to compare.

But when Paul gets into groupthink at the end, her arguments go totally off the rails. She cites a scientific paper authored by 5,154 scientists and academics as proof that groupthink can move mountains. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is an unfortunately common trick to win the game of Publish Or Perish. Getting one’s name on a published paper is a neverending goal. Those 5,154 scientists did not all run the same experiment. They did not all devise the same study or discover the same theory. They did not each contribute their own two or three words to the text of the paper. Five thousand people did not hold a three day conference to interpret the data and decide the findings together.

The actual authors allowed the rest to co-author the paper for two very good reasons: there is safety in numbers, and they will want the favor returned when another of them actually researches and writes a paper of their own. It happens all year long and it’s just a game to keep their name in lights (and sometimes their jobs if it is school policy). It has nothing whatever to do with the amazing power of groupthink to overcome the limitations of one brain alone. It was infuriating to read this as if it were evidence of neuroscience in bloom.

Then there’s the problem of what Paul missed. She never goes into the explanation of the prefrontal cortex as rigid censor and director, which is remarkable because she talks endlessly about the effects.

She never shows how alcohol, psychedelics and other mind-altering drugs target the PFC, disconnect it and thereby restore the ability to make infinite connections in the mind. How innumerable studies show that even just alcohol leads to far more creativity and innovation than working alone in an office. Drinking extends the brain far more than cubicle dividers or a walk in the park.

Some of the tips on learning more and better might inspire some readers. But The Extended Mind is not definitive and not a revelation.

David Wineberg

The Extended Mind is so good, it needs to be read twice to truly savour all that it offers. This is essential reading for HR people, Learning & Development, Educators or anyone involved in designing workplaces for the future of work.

Amazingly, the author has interweaved evidence based research with storytelling, history and culture into this thought provoking book. It is heavily laden with so many nuggets I am going to buy the paperback version after reading the online version.

The Extended Mind provokes thought and creates insights on how we utilise our environment, creating spaces that impact on how we teach, learn, memorise, collaborate, be innovative and creative.

THE EXTENDED MIND: THE POWER OF THINKING OUTSIDE THE BRAIN by Annie Murphy Paul is a powerful read, inviting readers to look more extensively at how we can best use sources outside of our brains, such as our environment and movement, to focus our attention, extend our memory, actuate creativity and more. I found the author's findings and claims throughout the book to not only be intriguing but well-supported with extensive research and studies that she intersperses her analysis with.

Paul divides the book into three equally page-turning parts: Part 1: Thinking With Our Bodies; Part 2: Thinking With Our Surroundings; Part III: Thinking With Our Relationships. She uses historical anecdotes of scientists, authors and artists who've previously studied brain function to preface current research on how we can extend our brain capacity using outside sources. As an educator, I completely appreciate the new practical advice she gives on such items as channeling anxiety when taking tests, using small movements or gestures to aid memory or understanding, how design of a room affects cognition and more. And as a lifelong fitness enthusiast, I enjoyed reading the positive affirmations for exercise and its effect on our brain capacity. The author's writing style is easy to follow while presenting theories we can connect to our every day lives. When she talks about, for instance, how we think differently socially than when we think non-socially, she gives specific examples coupled with current research. Overall, I found this book to be useful for me professionally and personally. I'll be recommending this book to my colleagues and friends and look forward to getting my hands on a hard copy when it is released. I enjoyed and am thankful for the opportunity to review this helpful book.

It's so important for teachers, therapists and parents to understand that being in the world is a complex process. While none of us can expect to master and keep in mind all the subtleties of learning and individual experience, Paul's book is an important primer for anyone who wants an introduction to the research in these fields.

The Extended Mind describes human capacities that interconnect with and enhance cognitive ability. She calls this outside-the-brain thinking. What makes Annie Murphy Paul’s writing engaging is her specificity, clarity and focus on explaining her principles in coherent detail. I loves how she brings each principle back in her conclusion. Reading this book sparked connections for my own learning and for applying to my teaching both elementary school and adult learners.

Think outside the box is an old mantra. This is finally a book that goes int this subject, without reverting to the old cheesy example of the usual business handbooks. Thinkinkg outside the box is actually very hard. The human brain is limited in its ability to pay attention, limited in its capacity to remember, limited in its facility with abstract concepts, and limited in its power to persist at a challenging task.
The author shows how things we normally do not associate with thinking are in effect an important aspect to consider, like gestures or movement, and how thinking is dependent on the environment or on the interaction we have with others.
A very interesting read, absolutely recommended.

This is an excellent overview of research related to thinking, learning, and improving understanding. Wholly accessible to the lay person, and especially useful for people managers who are struggling to re-create the in-person creativity and problem-solving for a virtual world. I got tons of ideas for helping my team make our thinking visible to one another in ways that have been challenging to do in the Zoom era. Highly recommended, and thoroughly enjoyable.