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Perception, Performance, and Neuroplasticity: How the Brain Learns and Leads

by [email protected]
Executive Functioning, Novella Prep, Student Success
By William Canty and F. Tony Di Giacomo, Ph.D.

Modern neuroscience shows that your perception of the world is not a passive reflection – it’s an active process. In fact, the brain is constantly predicting and filtering information based on what it expects to find. This predictive process is influenced by memory, emotion, focus, and past experiences.¹

Every moment, your Reticular Activating System (RAS) helps you filter millions of sensory inputs down to what seems most important – often those that align with your existing beliefs, goals, or emotional state.² This means we don’t just see with our eyes – we interpret the world through the lens of familiarity and expectation.

The Brain as a Prediction Machine

Your prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher-order thinking and decision-making, continually matches incoming information to internal models. This process – called top-down processing – makes your perception faster and more efficient, but also more biased.³ In performance contexts, whether on the field or in the classroom, what we anticipate often shapes what we experience.⁴

This has powerful implications for students and athletes:

  • Trauma can wire the brain for heightened threat detection⁵
  • Gratitude and positive emotion can promote psychological safety and focus⁶
  • Repeated joy, success, or confidence becomes embedded as a somatic (body-based) memory⁷

Subconscious Learning and Executive Function

Much of human behavior is automatic. Studies suggest that a significant portion of our thoughts, habits, and emotional reactions are shaped by subconscious programs – learned through repetition, early life experiences, or emotionally intense moments.⁸

However, these patterns are changeable. Through consistent mental rehearsal, visualization, and reflective practices – especially during states of relaxed alertness like early morning, mindfulness meditation, or deep focus – the brain becomes more receptive to change. These states are often associated with alpha (8–12 Hz) and theta (4–7 Hz) brainwave activity, which correspond to neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself.⁹

Coherence, Resilience, and Peak Performance

Emotions influence physiology. Practices like deep breathing, reflective gratitude, or focused attention can help bring the nervous system into coherence – a state where heart rate variability (HRV), breath, and brain rhythms align.¹⁰ Research suggests this may support:

  • Improved emotional regulation¹¹
  • Reduced stress hormones like cortisol¹²
  • Increased resilience and attention¹³
  • Enhanced recovery and cognitive performance¹⁴

In these states, the brain and body become more efficient, enabling students, athletes, and professionals to learn faster, adapt quicker, and perform under pressure.

The Novella Approach

At Novella, we believe that executive function – our ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, and actions – is the key to thriving academically and personally.¹⁵ Our coaching methods integrate cognitive science, emotional wellness, and habit formation to help students build the internal systems that lead to sustained success.

We don’t just focus on what students know. We help them understand how they learn, how they lead, and how they live.

 

References

  1. Engel, A.K., Fries, P., & Singer, W. (2001). Dynamic predictions: oscillations and synchrony in top-down processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 704-716.
  2. Yeo, S.S., Chang, P.H., & Jang, S.H. (2013). The ascending reticular activating system from pontine reticular formation to the thalamus in the human brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 416.
  3. Zanto, T.P., Rubens, M.T., Thangavel, A., & Gazzaley, A. (2011). Causal role of the prefrontal cortex in top-down modulation of visual processing and working memory. Nature Neuroscience, 14(5), 656-661.
  4. Paneri, S., & Gregoriou, G.G. (2017). Top-down control of visual attention by the prefrontal cortex. Functional specialization and long-range interactions. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 11, 545.
  5. Pulopulos, M.M., et al. (2018). Association between changes in heart rate variability during the anticipation of a stressful situation and the stress-induced cortisol response. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 94, 63-71.
  6. McCraty, R., & Shaffer, F. (2015). Heart rate variability: New perspectives on physiological mechanisms, assessment of self-regulatory capacity, and health risk. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 4(1), 46-61.
  7. McCraty, R., Barrios-Choplin, B., Rozman, D., Atkinson, M., & Watkins, A.D. (1998). The impact of a new emotional self-management program on stress, emotions, heart rate variability, DHEA and cortisol. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 33(2), 151-170.
  8. Moscovitch, M. (2008). The hippocampus as a “stupid,” domain-specific module: Implications for theories of recent and remote memory, and of imagination. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(1), 62-79.
  9. Ros, T., Munneke, M.A., Ruge, D., Gruzelier, J.H., & Rothwell, J.C. (2010). Endogenous control of waking brain rhythms induces neuroplasticity in humans. European Journal of Neuroscience, 31(4), 770-778.
  10. McCraty, R., & Tomasino, D. (2006). Emotional stress, positive emotions, and psychophysiological coherence. In B.B. Arnetz & R. Ekman (Eds.), Stress in Health and Disease (pp. 342-365). Wiley-VCH.
  11. Kim, H.G., Cheon, E.J., Bai, D.S., Lee, Y.H., & Koo, B.H. (2018). Stress and heart rate variability: A meta-analysis and review of the literature. Psychiatry Investigation, 15(3), 235-245.
  12. McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., & Tomasino, D. (2003). Impact of a workplace stress reduction program on blood pressure and emotional health in hypertensive employees. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 9(3), 355-369.
  13. Thayer, J.F., & Lane, R.D. (2009). Claude Bernard and the heart-brain connection: Further elaboration of a model of neurovisceral integration. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 33(2), 81-88.
  14. Zhang, H., Jacobs, J., Kahana, M.J., Caplan, J.B., Tseng, J., Johnson, E.L., & Watrous, A.J. (2018). Theta and alpha oscillations are traveling waves in the human neocortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(24), 6347-6352.
  15. Diamond, A., & Ling, D.S. (2016). Conclusions about interventions, programs, and approaches for improving executive functions that appear justified and those that, despite much hype, do not. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 34-48.