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Neurobiology and Behavior, Week 13
Welcome to the on-line forum associated with the Biology 202 at Bryn Mawr College. Its a way to keep conversations going between course meetings, and to do so in a way that makes our conversations available to other who may in turn have interesting thoughts to contribute to them. Leave whatever thoughts in progress you think might be useful to others, see what other people are thinking, and add thoughts that that in turn generates in you.
As always, you're free to write about whatever thoughts you add this week. But if you need something to get you started, how good is the "bipartite brain" story? Does it usefully summarize observations? Raise new questions that open new avenues of exploration?
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A Random Walk
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Storytelling
Levels of Precision
I suppose the most thought-provoking thing we discussed last week for me was that Dr. Grobstein insisted that psychotherapy was the most precise method of altering the mind, followed by drugs, and then surgery. I was wondering why this hierarchy is inherently so?
One anecdote I can relate with is being drugged up on valium (prescribed pain-killer) before getting my wisdom teeth out about 4 or 5 years ago. That experience (initiated by a drug, perhaps also partially constructed by my I-function recognizing that I was on a mind-altering substance) was pretty powerful and I would argue mind-altering. Moreso, I would argue that this experience was more powerful (precise?) than many psychotherapy-type conversations I have had over the years. So, does precision = potency here? What exactly does Dr. Grobstein mean by 'precision'. Is precision identifiying one of those boxes and being able to isolate it from the network of other ones? Indeed that is a difficult task and I would like to hear a rationale for why this hierarchy of precision exists.
The unconscious and self awareness
I am interested to know if there is a connection between self awareness and unconscious thought. Does a high sense of self awareness also mean an ability to comprehend unconscious thought? I think we have to ability recognize unconscious thought by thinking about why we make certain actions and decisions. Currently, researchers are trying to measure "unconscious bias" by analyzed test subjects' responses to varying situations. After the experiment the test subjects can become aware of their unconscious biases based on race, gender, and age.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18tier.html?_r=1
This leads me to wonder how unconscious thoughts become conscious?
week 13
Thoughts on the Bipartite Brain
Overall I can understand the bipartite brain story and accept it. I recently wrote a paper about how the unconscious part of ourselves affects our likes and dislikes, such as our favorite things. Sometimes when people are asked why their favorite movie, book, or painting is their favorite, they respond with, “I don’t know, it just is”. Are these preferences fueled by the unconscious emotion that the conscience is not fully aware of? I think so for the most part.
One hypothesis I’ve heard of that was proposed by Damasio was the Somatic Marker Hypothesis. It says that emotions can guide behavior especially when it comes to decision making. If emotions and the unconscious can play a huge role in behavior, is this the answer to the Harvard Law of Animal Behavior? Animals are not robots that have a specific output to specific inputs but they have emotions that contribute to their behavior and since emotions are unpredictable, so is behavior.
However, just because I accept the theory of the bipartite brain, it doesn’t mean I’m completely comfortable with it. It makes me wonder how many secrets my brain is hiding from me. In a way, it makes studying the nervous system more intriguing and fascinating. At the same time, it seems a little frightening living with this knowledge even though I know that so far my brain hasn’t harmed me by making up some things and that this may be an evolutionary benefit.
story teller
sci fi reality?
I have been watching the new show Dollhouse. The premise of the show is that people are programmed with different people's personalities and that they pull from this person's memories and personality. The idea is that when these people are not programmed with their personality they are blank slates, possessing enough base information to function, but lacking any sense of individuality or personality. It seems like this concept of being able to program someone's personality is more science fiction than reality, at least in the way it is described in the show. It doesn't seem possible to just program a personality because it functions as such a complex interaction between different boxes in the brain, indeed it is a fluid construction of the brain that doesn't seem easily removable or transferrable.
I was reminded of one scene from the show after our discussion in class on Thursday. The story about the hypnotized man walking around the table because of a subconscious instruction that the table was there. In the show there is a "sleeper doll" who is both programmed with a personality and programmed defensively to a verbal cue. I think it is possible to program this type of information into a person so that they respond to a stimulus, but don't know or consider why they are responding to it.
The idea of memory and the
The idea of memory and the I-function as a storyteller is very interesting. The idea that it functions as a way to "fill-in" the blanks brought a lot of ideas and helped to understand a lot.
I always thought that people viewed stories or events in different ways based upon their cultural influences and other factors but the I-function is part of the reason why I may see an event one way and someone else in another sense. For example two people may remember seeing a car and identify the model the same way but if the color is a vague recollection, the I-function will fill in that blank resulting in the observance or recollection of the same car but in two different colors? I think this is interesting because often times my friends and Ihave argued about things like these andboth ended up with the wrong answer.
This is a very interesting topic that I think should be studied even more.
language and the story teller
From what we learned in
What can we ever touch?
I enjoyed reading people’s posts about how personality affects cognitive conscious part of the brain beause whatever information is coming from the unconscious, it will interpret partly based on the personality trait the person has.
My question is,
What determins the range of every individual’s unconscious?
Is it the childhood experience?
Is there a way to control the range of possibilities of the cognitive unconsicous?
I see cognitive unconscious ingredients of some dish and conscious as a cook. Depending on the cook’s skill and preference, the dish might turn out as Korean, American fusion, or French. But can we somehow not buy certain ingredients from the beginning?
All I could think of for example is meditation. By thinking only positive things and allowing positive energy flow throughout the body and the brain, a person can direct his/her unconscious temporarily.
As we grow and age, which part of the biparte brain is evolving?
What can we touch?
storyteller and deja vu
I find the idea of a
I found the connection
Looking back on class this
week 13
The cognitive conscious (story teller) and the cognitive unconscious are two different groupings that we have identified in the brain. I’m still thinking about the differences between the two (as in the difference between feelings and emotions for example) and how this affects our lives. How do things end up in the conscious or unconscious? Which part of the brain chooses where the information goes and which part is more important? I understand that there is no complete control of any singular part of the brain but I still wonder how the coordination between the different parts leads to a specific result. What is the combination of factors that leads to an output? Can we say that the conscious factors are more important in certain situations? What situations? I also thought it was interesting how we stumbled onto similar discussions in terms of meaning (leading back to the question of whether something is there if there is no one to experience it) as we did earlier in the semester. I’m curious to talk more about culture and the example of the bipartite brain.
I understand the idea of an
I understand the idea of an object not holding any meaninguntil it is given meaning. I think many of the differences that exist betweencultures arise because of differences in the meanings that we place on certainobjects or concepts. This is also the reason that it can be so easy to offendsomeone. For example, certain religious groups put a lot of value and meaningon certain animals that may hold no special meaning for other groups. When anindividual is not aware of the religious significance of the animal, it may beeasy for them to offend the religious group by eating or harming the animal insomeway. The individual never learned to put any significant meaning on theanimal, so it is difficult for her to understand why the religious group isoffended. This is why I believe that education about differentcultural/religious groups is so important. Humans don’t have the inheritability to understand and except every aspect of all cultures. In order to live peacefully with everyone, weneed to have the ability to see an object in many alternative ways.
I also found our discussion of memory very interesting. Thediscussion made me think of a situation that happened to a childhood friend.She had a dream when she was 5 years old of being taken hostage by an armedrobber in a store but somehow she remembered this dream as reality. For over 10years, she completely believed that this event had happened until she wroteabout it in a college essay and her mother confronted her about the incident.If the I-function is the storyteller and controls and shapes our memory, whywould it choose to remember a terrifying experience that didn’t actually occur?I also wonder how common it is for individuals to have a dream or see a movieand ultimately interpret these stories as fact? It makes me leery about some ofmy own memories, did they actually occur?
the bipartite brain
What is a liar?
a conscious lie...
Recently, I lied to my trainer, telling her that I had ridden my pony and she was lame. One the day in question, I had clean out my pony's hooves with a hoof pick, walked her on the driveway, and deduced from her behavior that she was in pain. I guessed that she would begin limping sooner or later. My trainer responded by lying to me that she had jogged my pony earlier that same day and found her sound. The next day, the farrier came, checked my pony's hooves, jogged her, and decided she was definitely unsound. The vet took x-rays and confirmed a problem in her hooves. So my question is: should I feel guilty about lying to my trainer?
My story was consistent with the story told by the farrier and the vet. Since it was not disproven, does that disqualify it from being a lie? Could anyone have known that I was lying in the absence of this confession?
Week 13
Story telling, psychoanalysis, and writing
I am interested in the connection between our calling the I-function a storyteller and Freud's conception of the "talking cure" which involves a patient being treated through the construction of a personal narrative. This form of psychoanalysis depends upon a patient actively playing the role of storyteller. What I realized in class, however, is that a person is always a storyteller. It seems that Freud wants the patient to include more of the information in the cognitive unconscious in the storytelling. In other words, storytelling, when performed in a sort of deliberate, introspective way, can be a vehicle for uncovering and making sense of the cognitive unconscious. Freud seemed to believe that a person's sense of self and psychological state depends upon their story...the way they've integrated and woven their experiences together into a kind of coherency.
As a writer, I was also interested in the idea that storytelling is an inherent part of humans. Writers seem to also tell stories on a conscious level. In addition, writers construct a believable fictional narrator by creating a storyteller that seems real and psychologically reasoned. This idea only affirmed my sense that creative writing requires an enormous amount of psychology.
Finally, as a writer, I was interested in how the subjectivity and inconsistency of memory relates to the genre of memoir. It made me realize that memoir is only nonfiction in the way that it represents the author's current self. The memories of the past are dependent upon the writer's contemporary storyteller. It seems that the most valuable part of memoir is not in the recount of past experiences but in the expose of a person's "storyteller."
Memory
I was very interested in the discussion on memory today, both because it was a new idea I hadn't put much thought to before and because it seemed plausible. I watched an interview with a woman who "could not forget," (hyperthesmia, I believe) -- I was astounded as she rattled off small factual tidbits from twenty years previous. During class, I tried to apply this to the concept of memory telling a 'story.' It seemed, by observation, that this woman was able to pull newly acquired sensations and apply them to sensations she had 'learned' years ago. Perhaps there is an "extra" or enhanced connection between this woman's cognitive unconscious and storyteller that allows her to apply/recreate (in effect) information learned in cognitive unconscious many years ago when prompted by her storyteller in the present (when cued by some input/sensory information)?
Post class conversation: objectivity and subjectivity
filling in the blanks
While talking about the story teller we learned that it has a strong tendency to make things complete and coherent; this applies to the blind spot in our eyes. It compensates for missing areas in our mind without us even being aware. This seems to beg the assumption that we can go through our lives being completely fooled by aspects around us. We have very different perceptions from someone standing mere feet away. This aspect of our brains causes a significant amount of variation among us, which ties into our discussion of earlier in the year when we were discussing how many brains it is possible to have. This adds another layer to that already intricate web of information.
This is assuming that the excuses our brains come up with can differ from person to person, like the man looking at the pictures on the wall in the class example. That being said, does our brain fabricate different stories depending on our personality or tastes? Would I use a different excuse for walking around the table then the man in the experiment? I feel like it would reflect our personalities rather than having a normal response, which would be the reason for variations. Are there other possible differences between the story teller in two people?
I am intrigued by the idea
I am intrigued by the idea of how personality affects a person's story teller. I know it is true that personality does affect how people interpret an event or interaction they have because I remember learning this in my personality psychology class. In this course we learned that people with different personalities will interpret the same situation in different ways. For example, someone who is neurotic may interpret the event of not receiving a response from someone they said 'hi' to as they were passing by as that person not liking them whereas someone who is extraverted may just think that the person did not hear them and accidentally did not respond. Thus, it seems as if our personalities do play a big role in what kind of story we tell.
This leads me to wonder whether personality is part of the cognitive unconcious or cognitive conscious. I don't think we really control our personality and sometimes aspects of our personalities manifest in ways we are not conscious of (like in the example above, I doubt the people are consciously aware that their personalities are altering how they interpret the event). Yet, we are aware that we have a personality, and have a general idea of what it is like. If personality is part of the cognitive unconscious, this means that the unconscious shapes the conscious as personality shapes what kind of story we tell to ourselves...which is an interesting idea. Are the two really seperable then?