We’ve all been there, which may have been what made Rick Perry’s gaffe during Wednesday night’s televised Republican debates extra grimace-inducing. In a media interview on Thursday morning, the Texas governor defended his failure to recall the name of the third government agency he wanted to abolish – a glitch punctuated by an embarrassing “oops” – by pointing out that “All of us make mistakes. I’m a human being.”
Mark Fenske, an associate professor of neuroscience and cognitive science at the University of Guelph, says that brain farts can often be attributed to how stress and a narrow focus affect the brain.
When our brain becomes narrowly focused – as Perry’s brain was when it was suggested that the name of the forgotten agency was the Environmental Protection Agency – it becomes even more difficult to perform these more analytical functions and incorporate information from a variety of sources.
“With Perry, he gets two of his three things that he’s trying to remember and he gets a miscue and can’t remember,” Dr. Fenske says. “And then even worse, someone gives him EPA as a target so now he locks onto that, further inhibiting the correct one he’s trying to bring to mind.”
So what to do if you find yourself mangling an all-candidates debate? Dr. Fenske says forget continuing to search for the answer – your best bet is to move on to another subject. “If you’re Rick Perry, redirecting and talking about something else for a little while will allow that information to come back, instead of continuing to try to think about it.”
Jaclyn Tersigni
