It is a commonly held belief that we don't tap into the full power of our brains. Self-help gurus make millions by exploiting this belief, separating people from their money by making them think there is a secret to tapping mysterious, unused reserves of brain power.
"This is a fallacy that comes from the early days of neuroscience," said Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at the Picower Center for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Early maps of the brain only had a few things labeled because we did not know much about the rest. People falsely thought that this meant that the rest was untapped potential."