Normally, we recognize that we've messed up only after it's a bit too late. But according to studies, brain farts are detectable by head scans up to 30 seconds before the occurrence of the mistake.
So why do our brains betray us in such awkward, embarrassing ways? Seth Slater, M.F.A., who's a former dolphin trainer for the U.S. Navy, thinks it is because our routines are easy to disrupt.
"Context shifts – really just simple changes in circumstances – can throw the best of us for a loop," Slater wrote.
"We are often especially prone to the disruptive influence of a context shift when we are attempting to perform a chained behavior – one in which completion of each individual behavioral link becomes the cue to perform the next behavior in the series."
When our behaviors are well established, they often fall into well-worn neural grooves.
Familiarity signals to the brain it can downshift as an energy-saving measure, which makes us susceptible to glitches born of inattentiveness.
However, Slater reassured us that we humans are not alone in fouling things up when a brain fart lets fly.
"In teaching tasks to animals in my former career as a dolphin trainer, I regularly witnessed the behavioral backstepping that is a normal and predictable part of any learning process. No one learns overnight, dolphins included," he said.
"But even fully trained dolphins who had become experts at performing all sorts of tasks occasionally experienced mental glitches. Interestingly, dolphins react to such moments with as much surprise as we humans do to ours."
Slater explained that when making a misstep during a series of routine behaviors, dolphins often pause mid-task, clearly aware they’ve done something odd.
Some of them even whistle or squeak in acknowledgment of the awkward moment! Others might slap a pectoral fin against the surface of the water in mild frustration. And a great many of them slip beneath the waterline to expel a cloud of air from their blowhole in what looks, truly, like a world-class brain fart of epic proportions.
