Scientific Definition
Brain region for planning, impulse control, and executive function.
Plain-English Definition
Brain region for planning, impulse control, and executive function.
Feynman Explanation
The last to develop. The first to go offline under stress.
Core Principle
Brain region for planning, impulse control, and executive function.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Brain region for planning, impulse control, and executive function.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Decision quality tracks PFC bandwidth — manage stress and load accordingly.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The last to develop. The first to go offline under stress.
Examples
- Adolescent PFC still maturing into mid-twenties.
- Decision quality tracks PFC bandwidth — manage stress and load accordingly.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Reduce cognitive load and threat for high-PFC tasks.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Reduce cognitive load and threat for high-PFC tasks.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Reading micro-shifts in another person's state — breath, color, micro-expression — in real time.
Tools, notebooks, and trusted others are literally part of your cognitive system — not just aids to it.
Eye movements that loosely correlate with which representational system is active — visual, auditory, kinesthetic.
The sense of the internal state of the body — heartbeat, hunger, tension.
The sense of where the body is in space.
Changing the meaning of an experience by changing the frame around it.
The fine-grained sensory qualities of internal experience — brightness, distance, volume, location.
The conditions under which a target accepts an influence attempt without scrutiny.
A controlled scenario, often impossible, used to isolate a variable and test an intuition or theory.
What we wear influences how we think and perform.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Basics first (health/finances), then depth (mastery/impact), then altruism (widening circle).