Cortical Skipping or ," How The Hell Did You Think of That?"

Ok, so I made up the term to describe something that we all do all the time. Here is an example from this morning as I thought of things:

Old George – botany faculty- names-Joe Reidhart-mycologist-Couch-puffball-Calvatia-Calvarium?-

The question is how do you get to puffballs and skull from Old George, and the answer is above: cortical skipping.

I puzzled over the connection between the genus for the giant puffball and the name of the top of the skull, and what connection there might be. Bingo!!! Got it!!! Giant puffballs really look like bleached skulls when they are fresh, and thus were named after the Latin name for skull

Well, this is an example of what I call “cortical skipping”. The phenomenon where you can trace a current thought backwards to a seemingly impossible starting point, but the connections between jumps are logical. I am sure in the lingo of psychology or brain study this process has its own name, but what the hell? Thinking is a cortex function, and skipping from one thought to another is a basic human activity, so logically it should be called cortical skipping. See? You learned something new this morning. And, if you are really lucky, you will find a nice fresh puffball, slice same and sauté in butter. Yummmmy. 

Image: http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/22823/wm/pd2933311.jpg