How Your Mind Works
Explore the mechanics of your own mind, from how you remember a face to why you make the choices you do. Learn to observe, manage, and sharpen your thinking processes.
Like Duolingo, but for How Your Mind Works. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
95 levels across 8 sections, about 190 minutes end to end, roughly 38 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Your Mind in Action, Filtering the World, The Architecture of Memory, The Tools of Thought, Solving Problems, Biases and Shortcuts, Mastering Your Own Mind, and The Context of Thought. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How Your Mind Works
- Thinking includes automatic processing like language comprehension and sensory filtering
- The brain handles complex motor and spatial calculations 'under the hood'
- The brain remains active in a 'default mode' even during rest
- Conscious awareness is only the 'tip of the iceberg' of total mental activity
- Cognition occurs continuously to maintain your sense of self and environment
- Subconscious processing allows us to perform multiple cognitive tasks simultaneously
- Thinking is a constant background process, not just a deliberate act.
- Most mental work happens without you ever noticing it.
- The brain uses past experiences to guess what should be there
- Novel tasks and heavy decision-making consume more glucose and mental effort
- Perception is a construction based on incomplete sensory data
- Thinking is a constant background process
- Routine habits require less conscious cognitive energy
- The brain is a prediction machine
- Cognitive capacity is a limited daily resource that needs replenishment
- Thoughts are temporary mental occurrences, not permanent traits
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How Your Mind Works the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
When you step over a puddle while talking, how does your brain handle the movement?
Get it right to open this lesson and 94 more in the app.
How to learn How Your Mind Works, step by step
Go in order. 95 short levels across 8 sections, about 3 hours 10 minutes in all, five minutes a day.
- 1
Your Mind in Action
- The Invisible Work of Thinking
- Automatic vs. Effortful Thought
- 2
Filtering the World
- The Spotlight of Attention
- How Perception Shapes Reality
- The Myth of Multitasking
- 3
The Architecture of Memory
- The Short-Term Holding Pen
- Building Long-Term Storage
- Why We Forget and How We Remember
- 4
The Tools of Thought
- Mental Imagery and Visualization
- Categorizing the World
- How Language Structures Thinking
- 5
Solving Problems
- Trial, Error, and Algorithms
- The 'Aha!' Moment of Insight
- Framing the Problem
- 6
Biases and Shortcuts
- Mental Shortcuts (Heuristics)
- The Trap of Cognitive Biases
- Emotion's Role in Logic
- 7
Mastering Your Own Mind
- Metacognition: Watching Your Thoughts
- Managing Mental Load
- Developing Cognitive Flexibility
- 8
The Context of Thought
- Thinking with Others
- The Body's Influence on the Mind
- The Physical Hardware of Thought
- The Journey of Cognitive Growth
8 sections · 24 units · 95 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Questions about How Your Mind Works
How do I learn How Your Mind Works?
Go in order: start with Your Mind in Action, then Filtering the World, then The Architecture of Memory, then The Tools of Thought, and 4 more sections after that. On Tomo that's 95 short levels, about 3 hours 10 minutes in all, played five minutes a day. Start free and play the first level in under a minute.
Is there a Duolingo-style app for How Your Mind Works?
Yes. Tomo works like Duolingo: short daily lessons, streaks and quick quizzes. How Your Mind Works is one of its free courses, and you can type any other topic to get a course of your own.
Is the How Your Mind Works course free?
Yes. How Your Mind Works is playable on Tomo's free plan, which doesn't expire. No credit card, no waitlist. Download the app and start your first lesson.
How long does it take to learn How Your Mind Works?
95 levels across 8 sections, about 3 hours 10 minutes of play in total. It's built for five minutes a day, so you finish it a little at a time instead of all at once.
Do I need any background to start How Your Mind Works?
No. It's pitched at a beginner level, so it starts where you are and builds up. If you can tap a phone, you can start.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How Your Mind Works is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How Your Mind Works today.
Download Tomo, search How Your Mind Works, and play your first lesson in under a minute.