Walking increases spontaneous fluctuations in the brain

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/28/walking-and-spontaneous-fluctuations-brain/

by d4rkp4ttern • 5 years ago

265 109 5 years ago

afarrell6• 5 years ago

It would be nice if there was an app that a could let a bunch of people tune in to an audio stream hosted by a phone within 30 meters. Then, a professor could lead walking lectures without having to turn around and shout.

This would also be useful for city tours, outdoor dance parties, and churches with hard-of-hearing parishoners.

mathgeek• 5 years ago

I imagine that a silent disco setup would provide this rather well. Might need one with a better form factor for walking outside, but the technology for broadcasting locally to headsets has existed for a while now. Museums likely have these deployed already.

afarrell6• 5 years ago

The trouble is that you need to distribute headsets to people, hope they don’t get broken, and then collect them back. If there is both an android and iPhone app, then you can let people use their own earbuds. You’d merely need to tell people “open Soapbox and pick #gymnosperms. We’ll set out on the trail on 8 or so minutes”

totetsu• 5 years ago

I think this is planned for a future version of bluetooth.

pomian• 5 years ago

Brilliant idea. We have thought of that before, when in a museum, where you know there is so much more history and information than just a label. Surprised no one had done it yet.

OneTimePetes2• 5 years ago

Could we geocode the lecture-snippets, so the statements persist at location? That way, one could advance at ones own pace. Or map it to a route of ones own design, while keeping the pace..

Ericson2314• 5 years ago

A lot of tour buses catering to speakers of foreign languages do exactly this.

wil421• 5 years ago

The museum would lose revenue because you wouldn’t have to pay to rent their audio devices.

cgb223• 5 years ago

Alcatraz almost has this!

Due to the pandemic they made an app where you can follow along and listen to different parts of the tour

It’s not very “smart” I.e. not location aware to start the next prompt but honestly much better than those clunky audio tour boxes

asoneth2• 5 years ago

Bloomberg Connects[1] is an attempt to do something like this. An institution connects their CMS and then visitors can access additional text, audio, video, images using triggers in the museum space.

However, to my knowledge it does not support live synchronous audio.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.bloomberg....

atatatat• 5 years ago

...that's AM/FM etc radio.

sidpatil• 5 years ago

Yeah, this is totally doable with walkie-talkies. The biggest drawbacks I can identify would be audio quality and interference.

jt2190• 5 years ago

Yes. I think I’ve even seen this implemented.

Certainly some drive-in theaters in North America worked like this. There would be signs telling you to tune your car radio to such-and-such frequency to hear the film audio. Here’s a picture of one: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3186/2718300357_ec1b9f3f45_z.j...

bigdict3• 5 years ago

Could be accomplished with BLE broadcasting.

afarrell6• 5 years ago

This app indicates that existing Android and iPhones can already act as receivers. Can you (or anyone more familiar with the tech) verify that is true?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27294649/i-want-ble-broa...

soylentgraham• 5 years ago

I've tried using bluetooth in a museum exhibition before and noise from wifi and other equipment rendered it pretty hopeless... but may have been the modules I was using...

Flawless at home/office. Useless on site

birbs• 5 years ago

Couldn’t you use Zoom for that?

xur172• 5 years ago

Zoom isn't really setup for something like this. Ideally you want something that is one to many (broadcast), is low latency (since the participants would be able to hear the professor talking both in person and over the app), and is reliable.

y4mi2• 5 years ago

So basically a mobile hotspot with a webrtc webpage on which your headset microphone gets relayed? Participants can scan the QR-Code to join the hotspot WLAN and get directly redirected to the webrtc session

afarrell6• 5 years ago

That sounds even better than what I was thinking of because you wouldn’t need people to download an app. Also, ESPN and Sky could have a version of that which it could license to broadcast the audio of a football game at bars or pubs

bilekas• 5 years ago

This is actually a really good idea. The hotspot could just locally serve the client and server side. Some pre connected devices could be distributed also for the elderly or the disabled.

Then you could package it with a "creation studio" to create your own version for tourguides, museums, etc. Resell some hardware also as per requirements. You've got yourself a nice little business that seems useful for the business and client.

OJFord• 5 years ago

Oh boy, if ever there was a time to invoke the Dropbox comment!

Seriously though, I think it's an under-explored area. Several years ago[^] I thought it could be a fun way to do an ephemeral social networking type thing on the tube; then something a bit similar ('YikYak'?) became briefly popular (in the UK at least) but just using GPS or whatever for location, still with a central server.

I think there's plenty of interesting things you could do ephemerally, P2P over Bluetooth or mobile WLAN.

([^] edit: that's not some weird claim to fame, I mean it in the sense of I've long thought this should be good, but then, I've not bothered to do anything about it, and neither it seems has anybody else, so...)

douglaswlance• 5 years ago

You could do a group call where everyone else is on mute.

api• 5 years ago

Could be done with WiFi direct on phones that support it.

The fact that WiFi didn't originally ship with (and in many cases still does not support) simple P2P with nearby devices is just unbelievably stupid. Apple still insists on their own stupid standard instead of the actual standard too, at least on iOS devices. (I think Macs can be coaxed into the standard mode, but Macs are real computers.)

webmaven3• 5 years ago

I am lookng forward to SDR-capable hardware falling in price to the point that it becomes the default for most devices. At that point, not only do wireless protocols become field-upgradeable (including more exotic options like UWB), but decentralized mesh-network protocols become installable as well.

rahimnathwani3• 5 years ago

Why not a 'tour guide portable FM transmitter' (less than $100) and a bunch of dollar store FM radios?

afarrell6• 5 years ago

Because few people already carry FM store radios in their pocket, so relying on them requires solving a logistical problem.

tejtm2• 5 years ago

Some, many? most? cell phones have a builtin FM receiver so in many cases no additional HW should be needed

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cell+phone+FM+tuner

mro_name2• 5 years ago

Kinda near-range walkie, nice. Bluetooth transmission should do, shouldn't it?

Graffur• 5 years ago

Is this an audio guide available at lots of museums?

bserge• 5 years ago

Something like SoundSeeder (works via WiFi)

t0mbstone• 5 years ago

We already have this. Just have the professor start a Zoom call on their phone and have everyone else join it using their phones while wearing headphones and their microphones muted.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan• 5 years ago

I think the interesting bit is tying a stream to a (moving) location, and not having to scan QR codes, type in codes, or URLs to join.

pc86• 5 years ago

You just invented poorly implemented radio.

Wowfunhappy• 5 years ago

You need zero-latency for this to be comfortable if participants will be in partial-hearing range a portion of the time.

An analog solution (e.g. "walkie talkie") would work well, though.

kerng• 5 years ago

I think Crowdcast is what you are looking for.

rurban• 5 years ago

Horrible idea. I want it silent while walking around solving a complicated problem. It's only partially the walking, it's also the silence which brings out the best solutions to think over. But a good idea is to walk along a very loud river, the noise also clears your brain.

Random talkers certainly not.

johnchristopher• 5 years ago

Your comment struck me as odd but then I thought maybe you live in the US or a country like that with a language largely used by everyone. In France and Belgium and Europe it's really common for museums to offer audio guides. Which are either headset with a radio receiver that plays whatever the radio emitter is cycling or a headset with a small media player that plays tracks when you enter a room or switch a button.

LargoLasskhyfv• 5 years ago

That would be short range FM-Radio.

ralfn2• 5 years ago

Does any proof exists that humans think 'rationally' even when they are solving essentially deductive puzzles?

Im not an expert about neurological stuff, but did anyone discover any hardware in our brains that does something beyond 'induction'?

Is this notion of divergent/converged thinking based on anything objectively measurable? How do I make a machine that tells me if a given thought is convergent or divergent? Or is this all just cultural constructs similar to believe systems?

I'm especially tempted to be extra skeptical with anything that attributes a particular metaphysical superiority to human thinking over machines or animals. Is that skepsis an example of convergent or divergent thinking?

I'm sorry if my question make an actual expert cringe. But perhaps it can be an opportunity to enlighten simple minds like me further...

Jensson• 5 years ago

The evidence is that a group of humans can extremely reliably solve plenty of different classes of deductive puzzles, with error margins as close to 0 as you can find in the universe. Without that ability modern society wouldn't be possible.

webmaven3• 5 years ago

The question is whether deduction is implemented in hardware or in software (that is: is it neurological or cultural).

krona• 5 years ago

To make the case for irrationality, you must make the case using truth, objectivity and reason, and therefore you're implicitly committed to them.

OneTimePetes2• 5 years ago

I think what we call rationality is the most likely (aka most active path, when some cost timer in the brain runs out), one can restart it and train it for long periods, but usually its attention is fleeting, because attention is expensive and should be on important things, like food, group, booty and nothing.

mro_name2• 5 years ago

I doubt that humans, being the herd animals that they are, use anything other than mere perceptibility (= volume and repetition possibly weighted with the status of the speaker) to reach consensus. As usual, 10% of the population are not quite like that.

webmaven3• 5 years ago

I'll leave aside the question of deduction for the moment, but it seems quite clear that induction isn't the whole story. At the very least, we have to include abduction (ie. fuzzy pattern matching, or leaping to conclusions) in our repertoire.

karmakaze2• 5 years ago

I was pondering an extreme 'sudoku' with the fewest of possible starting numbers: one. Then I realized you could solve it by starting with any solved sudoku and shuffling columns, rows, block-columns, and block-rows, in a manner similar to learning how a Rubik's cube works. That turned it into a vastly simpler deductive problem. I would say that this was creative but not irrational.

Etheryte• 5 years ago

Just a small side note, you can solve any such sudoku in the same way you can fill a blank sudoku grid with a valid game state. Take the first 3x3 square and fill it with consecutive numbers 1,2, ..., 9. Then take the next 3x3 square and fill it with 2, 3, ..., 9, 1. Do the same for each next square and you'll end up with a valid board. To solve the one-number-only sudoku you would then simply take the 3x3 square the number is in, fill it with consecutive numbers around the given number, and then fill the rest of the board similar to the above.

Aerroon• 5 years ago

This isn't the answer to your question, but perhaps an additional point to consider.

One way humans are rational is when they "reason on paper". We write down most of the initial conditions and then use an algorithm (that's also written down) on them to get to the next step. We write down the result we got. Then we use an algorithm again on this result to get to the next step etc. This is how mathematics and science works. Obviously this is cultural - we learn to do this by learning to write, to do mathematics etc. It's not something ingrained to us.

I think humans can do something similar in their head, but it is greatly limited. The limiting factor is memory - an even remotely complex algorithm will eat up all your memory and you will forget about the results you had already got.

Eg adding 419875 + 87458284 uses the same algorithm as 356 + 472. We can easily do both on paper, but the former is difficult to do in your head, whereas the latter is fairly easy. You give someone an external memory (eg notes) and they both become easy again.

An external memory keeps our reasoning rational.

ralfn2• 5 years ago

I think this does answer some of the ambiguity I experienced with these concepts.

Your answer would suggest rational thinking does not come natural to us. That it requires a lot of discipline, external tools and culture.

That would suggest that the rational thinking itself does not take place in the brain, even when humans contribute to it.

FigurativeVoid• 5 years ago

We have had a few walking related stories on HN the past few weeks. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136 was interesting.

micromacrofoot• 5 years ago

must be some submarine pr from big walking

mshaler• 5 years ago

“Only ideas won by walking have any value.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

spookybones2• 5 years ago

I’ve noticed it’s much harder to walk in my city and generate ideas because there are spontaneous loud sounds and random visuals compared to when I lived more rurally. I’m not sure if there is a way I can reduce this … dark sunglasses and noise-cancelling headphones maybe, but that seems distracting in its own way and potentially dangerous.

the-dude• 5 years ago

We have got parks.

spookybones2• 5 years ago

Unfortunately the only park I’m near is very small, and people frequently blast music at it. I could commute to a larger park, but that wont work for daily walks.

ProjectArcturis• 5 years ago

That article had a ton of links, but I couldn't find any support for the real factual claim that walking increases spontaneous brain fluctuations. Would love to see that paper.

For the most part, spontaneous brain fluctuations are studied in the context of fMRI. Since you can't walk in an fMRI, I'd like to know how they actually measured anything.

abandonliberty• 5 years ago

I think the article/salon is optimized for clickbait. It's hard to boil down the concept into a couple words.

Dr. Huberman mentions 'Optic flow', likely the same concept:

When you move through space, whether walking, running, or driving, you’re in what’s called optic flow. Things are moving past your retina at varying speed, depending on how fast you’re moving, but your brain has knowledge of how fast you’re moving. It cancels out the movement in a way that says, okay, these objects aren’t moving past me. I’m moving past them. All of this boils down to a set of circuits in the brain and body that make it so that when we’re moving through space, it has this property of relaxing us and giving us a sensation that is somewhat rewarding. And so what this translates to is at least once a day, get out and move. Optic flow doesn’t have to be fast. It can be at slow speeds. Ideally, it’s variable speeds, but this, I believe, underlies the sensation, the both calming and invigorating and kind of replenishing feelings that we get from taking a bike ride or a long run or swimming, for that matter.

https://findingmastery.net/andrew-huberman/

superbaconman• 5 years ago

Every movement our bodies make will show up in the brain in some way or another. This study for example started breaking down brain signal "noise" and basically found that the brain and body are super tightly coupled. The feeling of the pants against your legs and the wind in your hair is gonna show up in a brain scan, so of course you're gonna see brain stimulation while walking.

When researchers studied the spontaneous activity of more than 10,000 neurons in the visual cortex of mice, they were surprised to find it to be rich with information about the animals’ seemingly irrelevant movements.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/noise-in-the-brains-vision-ar...

jvanderbot2• 5 years ago

My mental model is that the brain has some kind of pseudorandom idea generator. Like any pseudorandom generator, it needs a wide array of inputs. I bet walking around provides all kinds of muscular and sensory inputs, as well as increased blood flow and engagement of most parts of the brain which is precisely what is required for pseudorandom creativity.

65• 5 years ago

Why would it be pseudorandom? If the brain is natural, wouldn't it just be random?

bigdict3• 5 years ago

Randomness is an abstraction for "we don't know how it works".

matthoiland• 5 years ago

If the entire nervous system contributes to cognition, then you would assume that stimulating more of the body would stimulate more cognition – or "pseudorandom ideas".

AQuantized• 5 years ago

There's such a thing as overstimulation. There is probably an optinal degree of stimulation to encourage cognition without overloading it.

jvanderbot2• 5 years ago

This also explains why I need time off after hard, creative work; or why vacation is so helpful. I need to repopulate entropy.

Ozzie_osman• 5 years ago

The three times I have my best ideas are: walking, showering, or that state when I'm drifting between awake/asleep.

slothtrop• 5 years ago

I also get ideas reading. Which, really, makes me a bad reader because I get distracted.

arrow70002• 5 years ago

Yes! I get this too. It can make reading books quite difficult.

I imagine it's because reading is a much "quieter" brain activity than what I do the rest of the time, which is spending time on dynamic, interactive systems: i.e. my phone and computer, so the background "noise" has a chance to surface without being dismissed by something more dynamic and interesting.

e40• 5 years ago

I agree with the first two, but for me the latter doesn't produce much.

I will literally get a shower if I'm working on a hard problem (and a walk is not convenient). So many times I solve the problem, sometimes after having sat at the computer for hours trying to solve it.

justinzollars• 5 years ago

In college I took a lot more random walks. I'm going to try to build those into my day.

vadansky• 5 years ago

I wonder if any of the benefits of walking carry over to biking? I've basically given up walking to always biking but after reading "Deep Work" I'm starting to feel like I'm missing out by not rambling around and zoning out.

pkghost• 5 years ago

I'm curious about this, too. I love biking for the distance you can travel, the wind, the strength it builds, but I do have a distinct taste for walking, though I'd have to think about it more to have any ideas as to why.

P.S. a) It's easier to dawdle when you walk, to enjoy the particulars of the places you pass; biking is so fast by default that you have less time to savor details. b) Biking tends to be higher intensity exercise, which may actually take necessary energy away from mind-wandering; in fact, my mind wanders much less while biking than walking, so I'd guess this is the case, but maybe this isn't true for everyone. Moreover, biking forces external attention more regularly as you encounter pedestrians and traffic at a higher rate

arrow70002• 5 years ago

I've found this too. I love biking and find it exhilarating, but it doesn't let my mind wander in the same productive way it does on a walk.

qez• 5 years ago

So while my students are out on their walks, they might be mind-wandering more than in the classroom, but this is a good thing

To be a bit flippant, isn't this obvious? Who thinks that mind-wandering is a bad thing? Teachers, I guess. How is it possible to be a philosopher without mind-wandering?

In 2014, a new study showed that walking decreased rational and linear thinking and increased divergent thinking and imaginative mind-wandering

The only thing problematic here is the decrease in "rational" thinking. I think in context it means something closer to rigid, concentrated, and well-defined (ie - uninspired).

brainmapper• 5 years ago

Oh my this article is painful to read on so many levels. It treats as important many phenomena that are either inevitable or uninteresting.

(1) The fact that engaging in one task distracts attention from another task is obvious. People derive inspiration from taking a shower, swimming, biking, playing music and yes, walking. All these tasks have something in common, they are different from whatever task one was doing beforehand, and they require less cognitive focus than many of the things that we do for work.

(2) The fact that noise in the brain is 1/f is not particularly interesting. Many natural systems have 1/f amplitude spectra. This pattern occurs commonly in multi-scale systems (the brain being one example).

(3) The fact that many aspects of brain activity (both signal and noise) are affected by aging, consciousness, mental experiences, memory and so on is not particularly interesting. Assuming that one is not a dualist, every distinct mental state must be reflected by some unique pattern of brain activity.

(4) Scientists know quite a bit about where these “spontaneous fluctuations” come from. Many of them are a consequence of changes in blood pressure, which varies substantially and randomly over time (within some finite band, of course). Others are caused by mental states that are difficult to measure and model, and so are unknown to the experimenter. But just because something is noise from the perspective of the experimenter doesn’t mean that it is noise from the perspective of the brain.

m0zg• 5 years ago

Salon, so probably fake news, but anecdotally, I've had a lot of good ideas while just walking outside (or in the shower, which I suspect could have the same effect). Basically when I'd get stuck on something hard at work, I'd lock my machine, leave my phone behind, and walk around the building a few times. Usually that was enough to figure out how to get unstuck at least, if not outright solve the problem. Try this, if you're able, I'm pretty sure it's not just me.

It's kind of aggravating that this is not considered to be "work" by most people. I'd say those are some of the highest value parts of my day.

pazimzadeh• 5 years ago

Isn't writing the pen going for a walk?

giuliomagnifico• 5 years ago

Yes I agree with all the article! Sometimes also if I can’t find a solution for something regarding the computer, I go out to make a walk and usually I find the solution thinks while walking, usually with the help of the phone while walking.

Walking increases spontaneous fluctuations in the brain

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