It may simply be that those who have the wherewithal to cook at home--or who earn sufficient income to support a wife who cooks at home or to hire a servant to do it--tend to be those with the cognitive ability to handle the complicated task of managing a healthy and balanced diet.

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In terms of attention to the work, my own experience tells me that when people are together in the same room, they pay attention and focus on the task at hand with much of their cognitive capacity.

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The task management and organizational features on smartphones are helpful for people with cognitive impairments and autism.

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Before beginning the study, participants were given standard cognitive tests, many involving executive-function tasks such as concentration and shifting from one mental task to another.

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When all the students tackled the same problems a second time, those who had done a simple, boring task during a break had more creative ideas than those who were assigned a tough cognitive puzzle, those who rested, or those who didn't take a break, says the study, co-authored by Jonathan Schooler, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

WSJ: Tactics to Spark Creativity

Finally, in a recent post on his blog, Sam Liles, an associate professor at the National Defense University, takes cyber strategists to task for focusing too much on the technological infrastructure of cyberspace and not enough on the social and cognitive aspects.

FORBES: DOD Cyberspace Strategy is Too Narrow, Too Negative