Another reason not to hold meetings

It’s true: Meetings can dull the mind.

A recent study by Virginia Tech’s Carilion Research Institute showed that “small-group dynamics” can slow brain functioning.

“When we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems,” said Read Montague, the director of the study.

Montague, who is the director of the Carilion Institute’s Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, said: “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they make you act brain dead as well.”

Another participating scientist, Kenneth Kishida, said the results show that “social dynamics affect not just educational and workplace environments, but also national and international policy-making bodies, such as the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.”

- Philip Walzer

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.