Idiot Brain (28 page)

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It may seem wasteful or lazy, but repetition is a very important process in science because repeating an experiment and getting the same results helps make sure that the findings are reliable, not just due to luck or sneaky manipulation. This is a particularly big problem in psychology, given the unpredictability and unreliability of the human brain. It even thwarts attempts to study it, which is another annoying property of it.

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Group hug!

How the brain is influenced by other people

Many claim to not care what anyone thinks of them. They will say this often, and loudly, going to great lengths to behave in ways that make it absolutely clear to anyone who'll listen. Apparently, not caring what people think of you isn't valid unless people, the ones you supposedly don't care about, know about it. Those who shun “social norms” invariably just end up as part of a different recognizable group. From the mods and skinheads of the mid-twentieth century to goths and emos today, the first thing someone does when they don't want to conform to normal standards is to find another group identity to conform to instead. Even biker gangs or the Mafia all tend to dress alike; they may have no respect for the law, but they want the respect of their peers.

If hardened criminals and outlaws can't fight the urge to form groups, it must be quite deeply rooted in our brains. Placing a prisoner in solitary confinement for too long is considered a form of psychological torture,
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demonstrating that human contact is more a necessity than a desire. The truth is, odd as it may seem, much of the human brain is dedicated to and formed by interactions with other people, and we grow to depend on people as a result, to a surprising extent.

There's the classic argument about what makes a person who they are—nature or nurture?
Genes or environment? It's a combination of both; genes obviously have a big impact on how we end up, but so do all the things that happen to us as we develop and, for the developing brain, one of if not
the
main source of information and experience is other humans. What people tell us, how they behave, what they do and think/suggest/create/believe, all of this has a direct impact on a still-forming brain. On top of this, much of our selves (self-worth, ego, motivation, ambition and so on) is derived from how others think and behave towards us.

When you consider that other people influence our brain's development, and they are in turn being controlled by their brains, there's only one possible conclusion:
human brains are controlling their own development!
Much apocalyptic sci-fi is based on the idea of computers doing exactly this, but it's not as scary if it's brains doing it because, as we've seen repeatedly, human brains are quite ridiculous. As a result, so are people. And thus we have large portions of our brains dedicated to engaging with others.

What follows are numerous examples of how bizarre this arrangement can end up being.

Written all over your face

(Why it's hard to hide what you're really thinking)

People don't like it when you have a miserable facial expression, even if there's good reason for it, like having had a big fight with your partner, or realizing you've stepped in dog poop. But, whatever the cause, it's often made worse by
some random stranger telling you to smile.

Facial expressions mean other people can tell what someone is thinking or feeling. It's mind reading, but via the face. It's actually a useful form of communication, which shouldn't come as a shock as the brain has a surprisingly extensive variety of processes dedicated to communicating with others.

You may have heard the claim that “90 percent of communication is non-verbal.” The “90 percent” claim varies considerably depending on who's saying it, but in truth it varies because people communicate differently in different contexts; people trying to communicate in a crowded nightclub use different methods from those they'd opt for when trying to communicate while trapped in a cage with a sleeping tiger. The overall point is that much or most of our interpersonal communication is conducted via means other than spoken words.

We have several brain regions dedicated to language processing and speech, so the importance of verbal communication should go without saying (ironically). For many years, it was all attributed to two brain regions. Broca's area, named for Pierre Paul Broca, at the rear of the frontal lobe, was believed to be integral to speech formation. Thinking of something to say and putting the relevant words in the correct order, that was Broca's area at work.

The other region was Wernicke's area, identified by Carl Wernicke, in the temporal lobe region. This was credited with language comprehension. When we understand words, their meanings and numerous interpretations, this was the doing of Wernicke's area. This two-component set-up is a surprisingly straightforward arrangement for the brain, and indeed the language system of the brain is actually considerably more
complex. But, for decades, Broca's and Wernicke's areas were credited with speech processing.

To understand why, consider that these areas were identified in the nineteenth century, via studies of people who had suffered damage localized to these brain regions. Without modern technology such as scanners and computers, aspiring neuroscientists were reduced to studying unfortunate individuals with just the right sort of head injury. Not the most efficient method, but at least they weren't inflicting these injuries on people themselves (as far as we know).

Broca's and Wernicke's areas were identified because damage to them caused aphasias, which are profound disruptions to speech and understanding. Broca's aphasia, aka expressive aphasia, means someone cannot “produce” language. There's nothing wrong with their mouth or tongue, they can still understand speech, they just can't produce any fluid, coherent communication of their own. They may be able to utter a few relevant words, but long complex sentences are practically impossible.

Interestingly, this aphasia is often evident when speaking,
or writing
. This is important. Speech is aural and conveyed via the mouth; writing is visual and uses hands and fingers, but for both to be equally impaired means a common element is disrupted, which can be only the language processing, which must be handled separately by the brain.

Wernicke's aphasia is essentially the opposite problem. Those afflicted don't seem able to comprehend language. They can apparently recognize tone, inflection, timing and so on but the words themselves are meaningless. And they respond similarly, with long, complex-sounding sentences, but instead of “I went to the store, bought some bread,” it's “I
wendle to the do the store tore todayhayhay boughtage soughtage some read bread breed”; a combination of real and made-up words strung together with no recognizable linguistic meaning, because the brain is damaged in such a way that it cannot recognize language, so also can't produce it.

This aphasia also often applies to written language, and the sufferers are generally unable to recognize any problem with their speech. They think they are speaking normally, which obviously leads to serious frustration.

These aphasias led to the theories about the importance of Broca's and Wernicke's areas for language and speech. However, brain-scanning technology has changed matters. Broca's area, a frontal lobe region, is still important for processing syntax and other crucial structural details, which makes sense; manipulating complex information in real-time describes much frontal lobe activity. Wernicke's area, however, has been effectively demoted due to data that shows the involvement of much wider areas of the temporal lobe around it in processing speech.
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Areas such as the superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus and “deeper” areas of the brain including the putamen are all strongly implicated in speech processing, handling elements such as syntax, the semantic meaning of words, associated terms in memory, and so on. Many of these are near the auditory cortex, which processes how things sound, which makes sense (for once). Wernicke's and Broca's areas may not be as integral for language as first assumed, but they're still involved. Damage to them still disrupts the many connections between language-processing regions, hence aphasias. But that language-processing centers are so widely spread throughout shows language to be
a fundamental function of the brain, rather than something we pick up from our surroundings.

Some argue that language is even more neurologically important. The theory of linguistic relativity claims that the language a person speaks underlies their cognitive processing and ability to perceive the world.
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For instance, if people were raised to speak a language that had no words for “reliable,” then they would be unable to understand or demonstrate reliability, and thus be forced to find work as a real estate agent.

This is an obviously extreme example, and it's hard to study because you'd need to find a culture that uses a language with some important concepts missing. (There have been numerous studies into more isolated cultures that have smaller ranges of labels for colors that argue they are less able to
perceive
familiar colors, but these are debatable.
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). Still, there are many theories about linguistic relativity, the most famous of which is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
*

Some go further, claiming that changing the language someone uses
can change how they think
. The most prominent example of this is neuro-linguistic programming, NLP. NLP is a mishmash of psychotherapy, personal development and other behavioral approaches, and the basic premise is that language, behavior and neurological processes are all intertwined. By altering someone's specific use and experience of language their thinking and behavior can be changed (hopefully for the better), like someone editing the code for a
computer program to remove bugs and glitches.

Despite its popularity and appeal, there's little evidence to suggest that NLP actually works, putting it in the realms of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. This book is filled with examples of how the human brain does its own thing despite everything the modern world can throw at it, so it's hardly going to fall in line when faced with a carefully chosen turn of phrase.

However, NLP does often state that the non-verbal component of communication is very important, which is true. And non-verbal communication manifests in many different ways.

In Oliver Sacks's seminal 1985 book
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
,
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he describes a group of aphasia patients who cannot understand spoken language, who are watching a speech by the president and finding it hilarious, which is clearly not the intent. The explanation is that the patients, robbed of their understanding of words, have become adept at recognizing non-verbal cues and signs that most people overlook, being distracted by the actual words. The president, to them, is constantly revealing that he is being dishonest via facial tics, body language, rhythm of speech, elaborate gestures and so on. These things, to an aphasia patient, are big red flags of dishonesty. When coming from the most powerful man in the world, it's either laugh or cry.

That such information can be gleaned non-verbally isn't a surprise. As previously stated, the human face is an excellent communication device. Facial expressions are important: it's easy to tell when someone is angry, happy, fearful and so on because their face takes on an associated expression revealing this, and this contributes greatly to interpersonal communication. Someone could say, “You shouldn't have,” while looking
happy, angry or disgusted, and the phrase would be interpreted very differently.

Facial expressions are quite universal. Studies have been conducted where pictures of specific facial expressions have been shown to individuals from different cultures, some of which were very remote and largely untouched by Western civilization. There is some cultural variation, but by and large everyone is able to recognize the facial expressions, regardless of their origins. It seems our facial expressions are innate, rather than learned, “hard-wired” into the human brain. Someone who grew up in the deepest recesses of the Amazon jungle would pull the same expression if something surprised them as someone who'd lived their entire life in New York.

Our brains are very adept at recognizing and reading faces.
Chapter 5
detailed how the visual cortex has subsections dedicated to processing faces, hence we tend to see them everywhere. So efficient is the brain in this regard that an expression can be deduced from minimal information, which is why it's common to now use basic punctuation to convey happiness :-) sadness :-( anger >:-( surprise :-O and many more. These are just simple lines and dots. They're not even upright. And yet we still perceive specific types of expression.

Facial expressions may seem a limited form of communication, but they're extremely useful. If everyone around you has a fearful expression, your brain instantly concludes there is something nearby that everyone considers a threat, and primes itself for fight or flight. If we had to rely on someone saying, “I don't want to alarm you, but there appears to be a pack of rabid hyenas heading right for us,” they'd probably be on us before the end of the sentence. Facial expressions also aid social interactions; if we're doing something and everyone has
a happy expression, we know we should keep doing it to gain approval. If everyone looks at us and appears shocked, angry, disgusted or all three, then we should stop what we're doing rather quickly. This feedback helps guide our own behaviors.

Studies have revealed that the amygdala is highly active when we're reading facial expressions.
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The amygdala, responsible for processing our own emotions, is seemingly necessary for recognizing emotions in others. Other regions deep in the limbic system responsible for processing specific emotions (for instance, the putamen for disgust) are also implicated.