Brain research and folk psychology.

there is good news for intellectual romantics--those people who look back longingly, even enviously, to historical periods when significant intellectual revolutions were blossoming. How fascinating, how exciting it must have been to be a part of the great paradigm shifts in our conception of the world that we associate with such influential thinkers as Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein. It is easy to get the feeling that our current understandings are essentially complete, that all major revolutions in our view of the universe have passed us by, and that we in the contemporary world must be satisfied with the vicarious joys and excitement of intellectual awakenings provided by history books, since we will never experience them personally. But in fact--and here is the good news--we are now at the beginning of what may be the most exciting, the most dramatic intellectual revolution of them all: a revolution in our understanding of that most salient part of our universe, the human mind.

A confluence of disciplines today is forming a science of the mind that promises a major advance in our understanding of behavior and mented phenomena. What is emerging from this effort is a conception of the mind so foreign to common notions, so at odds with the view of the average person, that this idea has been called "the astonishing hypothesis" by Nobel laureate Francis Grick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix. Research and theory from such fields as neuroscience, philosphy, cognitive psychology, modern physics, computer science are converging to provide a bold new picture picture of the mind as a physical component of the natural world, subject to scientific laws, accessible to experimentation, and therefore open to understanding, prediction, and control. The mind, it turns out, is not the elusive, fuzzy, noncorporeal, and transcendent entity imagined for thousands of years but, rather, a pure property of brain activity.

As with all academic endeavors, there are legions of pub fished accounts of this new science appearing regularly in scholarly journals. However, quite unlike most academic endeavors (which are given little attention within the popular culture), summaries of the new discoveries are often reported to the general public via the popular media: television, news papers, magazines, and the like. Herein lies a significant--and, to date, unaddressed--problem. Ironically, although the new mind science is receiving more popular attention than any other academic research, an important distortion of information regularly occurs as ideas are passed from scholar to public. The popular media reflect and interpret these scientific ideas through a lens clouded by erroneous assumptions about mind and bahavior, and the resulting conclusions inaccurately portray the true meaning and implications of the intellectual revolution we are now experiencing.

the revolution

From the classic nineteenth century case study of Phineas Gage, the railroad worker whose frontal lobe was pierced by a metal rod, to the colorful glimpses of brain functioning produced by modern positron emission tomography, brain research has provided increasingly remarkable insights into the mysteries of behavior and mental phenomena. Following his accident, Gage showed behavioral and personality changes which may have been unexpected in 1848 but today are recognized as typical results of damage to the frontal lobe. His and similar case studies initiated the development of new research into the physical representation of personality and emotions in the brain which is only now reaching fruition.

The 1990s have been declared "The Decade of the Brain," and neuroscientific research is occurring at an unprecedented rate; indeed, more has been reamed about the brain in the last twenty years than in all the previous years of human history. Moreover, modem researchers are not restricted to case studies of the unfortunate victims of brain damage. In addition, they are using technically advanced methods that can even probe individual brain cells or map neural circuits in a project similar to the Human Genome Project (the mapping of the "addresses" of each gene on all forty-six human chromosomes). The goal is to construct a detailed map of the human brain, chart its intricate webbing of cells, and identify the corresponding mental, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experiences. To date, neuroscientists have pieced together an impressive (albeit still incomplete) understanding of brain anatomy and functioning and, in the process, have stimulated widespread collateral research and speculation.

Computer scientists are simulating brain functions using virtual reality and "neural networks" that perform intelligent, humanlike operations. For example, programs have been created to convert print to speech for the blind, simulate the reading disorder dyslexia, construct an artificial human eye, create a simulated man on video ("Virtual Jack"), and even provide a computer psychotherapist. Likewise, cognitive psychologists have developed new technologies for research and, consequently, have made cognitive psychology an integral component of the new mind science. These and related efforts remind us that brain research is developing an ever increasing diversity of branches and that the new science of mind is truly multidisciplinary. Contemporary neuroscience also presents a provocative opportunity for advancing practical solutions to many social and personal problems. This potential--together with the fact that study of the brain is so fascinating--probably accounts for the attention that the new mind science has received from the popular media.

the problem of translation

To make the information accessible to the general public, the popular media must translate the technical terminology and idiosyncratic constructs of neuroscience into everyday nonscientific language. This would be fine if all that were being translated were the technical specifics, but there is something much more corrupt going on. The news summaries are unintentionally altering the philosophy, the conceptual foundation, and the interpretation of neuroscience to conform not only to every day language but also to it erroneous, commonly accepted notion about mind and behavior. The media inadvertently bias the translation to reflect their own assumptions, ideas, and philosophical points of view, resulting in understandings and conclusions which are inaccurate not only in terminology but in the very deepest meaning of how mind and behavior work.

This problem of translation occurs because news reports are developed within a framework of everyday, "common sense" assumptions about mind, brain, and behavior that are deeply ingrained in our society. These common sense views were referred to as vulgar by such eighteenth-century philosophers as George Berkeley and David Hume, and today are termed folk psychology by modern philosophers. In ha book Neuro-philosophy (1986), philosopher and neuroscientist Patricia Smith Churchland proposes the sensible idea that a satisfactory understanding of mind and behavior would be much facilitated by--and perhaps even requires--a closer cooperation between the empirical findings of neuroscience and the logical, analytical concepts and reasoning of traditional philosophy. It would behoove brain researchers to become familiar with philosophy, Churchland argues, and philosophers to ground their propositions firmly in scientific research. (And, we can add here, it would also behoove journalists reporting on the new neuro-science to become familiar with both.) Unfortunately, folk psychology is itself poor philosophy, and thus it interferes with a clear understanding of neuroscientific research.

folk psychology

Each person has a "theory" about the motives and influences of human behavior. These "theories" are deeply held and largely unnoticed. Ironically, although individuals believe their own ideas are unique (and, of course, correct), their communication with others is based upon the assumption that we all agree on certain unspoken, fundamental principles of psychology. In fact, there is tremendous common ground in what people assume to be true about the mind and behavior. These congruences make up folk psychology and are unwittingly passed on to each new generation. To some extent, folk psychology concepts may even arise and persist because of how brains work.

To find a specific example, we need only look at one favorite topic of the popular media these days: the study of gender differences. Every week we are inundated with such articles: for example, a recent Associated Press report noting that a brain imaging study had found certain differences in brain functioning between men and women which were associated with observed behavioral differences. Rationally, of course, it would be some sort of miracle if we did not find brain differences between any two individuals or groups who showed significant differences in behavior, since there is no good rational or factual reason to believe that behavior and mental phenomena are produced by anything but the brain.

Yet media reports routinely state that such research pro vices evidence as to whether such differences in behavior are "physical" or "learned" In fact, it should be obvious that such studies provide no evidence at all about the source of such differences. Brain physiology is influenced by an extremely wide range of interacting phenomena, both within our bodies and through our experiences with the outer environment. Contrary to media assertions, therefore, a study which merely identifies differences does not provide evidence for how these differences came about.

But what is even more problematic is the assumption that physical and learned are two separate things. Although this dichotomy is an invariable part of folk psychology, it is completely without empirical foundation. Neuroscientists have made good progress in identifying the exact physiological brain events associated with the learning process.

Consider the following statement that appeared in an article about sex change surgery: "Medical researchers them selves are divided as to whether transsexualism is a mental disorder or biologically based" Notice the folk psychology assumption that mental disorders are not biologically based- that mental and biological are two separate, mutually exclusive categories. This idea is often expressed when people ask whether some characteristic is mental or physical or psycho logical or biological; but, in fact, mental is a subset of biological. Even psychiatrists made this error for years, finally correcting it in 1994 in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-IV discards the term organic disorders, stating that it "incorrectly implies that non organic mental disorders do not have a biological basis"

To further emphasize the point, DSM-IV is also critical of the term mental disorders itself, noting that such a term implies a distinction from physical disorders, even though mental events are physical (biological) events. This is because our experiences within the environment cause biochemical events to occur within our brains. When a person learns, the brain changes. When a person talks, moves, sees, hears, feels, loves, hates, or wants, these experiences are the result of physiological brain processes. All mental and emotional states, all our thoughts and feelings, are determined by physiological brain operations; in this respect, psychology is a part of biology.

To take but one possible example, Alzheimer's disease illustrates how changes in the brain can dramatically influence mental and cognitive experiences. Dr. Oliver Sacks and other practicing neurologists have reported extensive case studies of people who have experienced very odd and specific mental peculiarities associated with damage to precise areas of the brain. The distinction between mental and physical is purely and distinctly a false one.

Even brain researchers are sometimes seduced by the concepts of folk psychology and fall prey to these errors in reasoning. Neuroscientist Simon LeVay, upon finding that there are brain differences between homosexual and heterosexual men, once wrote, "This finding . . . suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate." Later, in his book The Sexual Brain, LeVay corrected his error, explaining: "By that {statement}I was implying that there are some aspects of mental life that do not have a biological substrate--an absurd idea . . . even the most nebulous and socially determined states of mind are matters of brain chemistry"

inborn or learned?

A similar false dichotomy that repeatedly appears in news reports is the distinction of inborn versus learned. This is really two errors: the first is the implication that characteristics which are present at birth (inborn) could not have been learned and, conversely, that learning is unrelated to inborn qualities. But this is false. Learning can influence prenatal development (for example, prenates have been conditioned to respond to sounds), and inborn qualities can certainly influence learning (consider dyslexia). All aspects of our biology were initially formed and molded by the environment through the process of evolutionary selection. We may reason that our eyes see red because the world contains ripe red fruit, but it is equally valid to say that the world contains red fruit because our eyes see red. The flower will be pollinated if it has proper ties a bee can sense, and, likewise, a bee will survive if it has the ability to sense certain properties of flowers. There is an intricate interaction between biological and environmental variables.

The second error is in substituting inborn for inherited. This is terribly imprecise, since these are two distinctly different ideas--as is apparent in the cases of fetal alcohol syndrome or thalidomide babies. What is present at birth (inborn) is not necessarily influenced by heredity because a baby has already experienced nine months of an intrauterine environment before birth. Moreover, even what is genetic is not necessarily inherited. Chromosomal problems such as Down's syndrome, Turner's syndrome, or Klinefelter's syndrome are not inherited in the sense that a parent must either have the condition or be a carrier of the corresponding genes; rather, such conditions result from errors in the transmission of genetic material. Clearly, then, some conditions that are inborn (that are present prenatally, even from the moment of conception) and some that are genetic (for example, chromosomal errors) are not inherited in the usual sense of that term.

We should not even treat inherited and learned as completely separate processes. There is good conceptual and expert mental evidence to suggest that they overlap and interact with each other. This becomes more readily apparent if we consider just what is meant by inherited. For example, we say that eye color is inherited; but if inherited means we get something in the sperm or egg, then this is obviously wrong. We do not inherit eye color or any other traits or characteristics; what we inherit are strands of DNA organized into sequences of chemicals called genes which act like recipes guiding the actions of proteins.

But even if we find that the presence or absence of certain genes accounts for variations in eye color and then say that eye color is inherited, this is still a poor use of the term. First, it ignores the fact that sometimes, even in traits which are highly influenced by heredity, variations may occur due to non inherited factors (for example, a person may have two differently colored eyes because something has interfered with the fulfillment of the genetic recipe). Second, it ignores recessive genes which a person may inherit but not exhibit. Third, it discourages the search for environmental events that might influence the expression of the genetic code. And fourth, like calling a recipe a cake, it is just plain wrong. To be scrupulously accurate, we should not say that any trait is inherited, because all traits, behaviors, and development are produced by genetic and nongenetic factors interacting in a myriad of complex ways. The interaction is what counts.

For example, during stress the body's glands secrete hormones which may contribute to anxiety, mood disturbances, diseases of various body organs, and a shorter lifespan. Stress often originates from circumstances we have "learned" to interpret and react to in certain ways, although the specifics of the reaction are also undoubtedly influenced by "inherited" factors which were, in turn, shaped by environmental, evolutionary processes. The secretion of hormones, triggered by stress, is controlled by the brain and based upon programming from a complex interplay between both learning and heredity. But these are not separate categories, or even polar ends of a continuum; rather, they are a kind of shorthand in our language for a complex interaction of forces which our words, at present, can only imperfectly express.

brains and brain research

Professor Marvin Minsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has referred to the brain as a "meat machine." In fact, the brain is a type of computer: instead of silicon chips, the brain computes information using living cells called neurons. Early in this century, Santiago Ramon y Cajal was the first to recognize the importance of neurons, which he called "the butterflies of the soul." Neurons act like little batteries, changing electrical charge from negative to positive over and over again, each time squirting out a chemical transmitter that influences the structure, biochemistry, and electrical firing of other neurons. The brain has billions of neurons, each making perhaps a thousand connections (synapses) with other cells. In essence, the brain is a biological computational machine that transmits information by both electrical and chemical means.

Neuroscientists can study the brain by using imaging techniques in living subjects. The electroencephalograph (EEG) gives a graphic picture of the electrical firings of the brain, while computerized axial tomography (the CAT scan) is a kind of sophisticated X ray. The more recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) gives an even more detailed look at brain structures. But the most exciting new imaging techniques--such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional MRI--can show which areas of the brain are functioning during certain mental and behavioral tasks and thus can pinpoint the specific locales associated with those experiences. Through the use of these advanced techniques, we can see that thinking of a word, hearing a word, seeing a word, and speaking a word are activities represented in different, specific areas of the brain.

Neuroscientists are also investigating the molecular changes occurring in the brain. Cellular research has given us a good beginning in under standing the microscopic events which occur in the brain when an organism learns. Similarly, studies of a part of the brain called the hippocampus have provided a preliminary sketch of how one type of memory is encoded. People with hippocampal damage are unable to learn and store any new information; they still retain their old memories but are unable to create new ones. Studies of such people have revealed that memory is not one process but many, and that there are physiological and anatomical brain differences representing different types of memories.

the locus of mind

Perhaps the most corrupt and far reaching error of folk psychology is the idea that our emotions, as well as certain porperties of our minds such as will and attitude, are qualities which are partially or wholly segregated from physical brain operations. A common idea in the ancient world was that the mind and emotions emanated from the heart, not the head. Even today, we commonly see references to this notion in such phrases as learn it by heart and in the tradition of giving loved ones a picture of a heart on Valentine's Day. The ancient Egyptians held the brain in such low regard that they scooped it out and discarded it while mummifying a body in preparation for the afterlife; brains were not needed in heaven but hearts certainly were! After hundreds of years this anatomical error was gradually corrected, although we still cling metaphorically to the heart as the seat of the emotions.

Unfortunately, a similar error has persisted in folk psychology. In the modern world, "wants" and "feelings" are treated as if they exist in some separate, transcendent reality that can magically interact with brain neurochemistry. But "wants" and "feelings" are brain processes, pure and simple, and are influenced by the same forces that influence other brain processes- namely, the internal biochemical environment and experiences from the immediate external world. It is very disconcerting to hear experts lament that certain goals could be achieved if only people had the "will"-as if the "will" were some mystical essence to be imposed on the brain from without. In fact, it is quite easy to influence the "will," as is repeatedly demon strafed in popular culture, most notably by advertisers (with results that have not always been welcomed). Attitudes, per venalities, the "will,' even the mind itself--all are produced by brain processes and should not be viewed as somehow separate or apart from them.

confabulation 

The tendency to view the mind (as opposed to the brain) as the ultimate source of our actions is intriguingly demonstrated in studies of people who have had their brains split surgically. Surgeons cut the corpus callosum--the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres--in rare cases of epilepsy in order to prevent seizures (short circuits in the electrical firing) from spreading. Experiments on these split brain patients show that each half brain appears to have a mind or consciousness of its own. If the left hand touches an object, the right hemisphere becomes aware of it and can later point it out; but the person claims not to know what the object is because the left hemisphere controls speaking and it receives no information from the left hand. So the left hemisphere truthfully says that it does not know what the left hand has touched.

More to the point, however, when the two hemispheres in split-brain patients produce conflicting behavior and the person is then asked to explain why he or she has behaved in this fashion, the left hemisphere will confabulate a reason based on its own limited information. So, for example, if the left hemisphere in a female split-brain patient is shown a chicken's claw, her right hand will point to a chicken. If her right hemisphere is shown a snowy scene, her left hand will point to a shovel. But when she is asked why she has pointed to two different things, her answer will not be that she doesn't know or that her two hemispheres were shown different things; rather, she will say that she pointed to the chicken because she saw the claw and--here's the good part--that she pointed to the shovel because shovels are used to clean out the chicken shed! In reality, of course, her left hand pointed to the shovel because her right hemisphere was shown the snowy scene, but her speech controlling left hemisphere doesn't know that. So it confabulates a reason related to what it knows it did see--in other words, the chicken.

What does all this mean? Michael Gazzaniga, who has studied split brain patients for years, suggests that it may be a major role of the left hemisphere to interpret behavior in order to integrate our experiences and make them comprehensible to us. Nearly a century ago, Sigmund Freud also took note of this important human proclivity. In The interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud wrote:

When one of these {hypnotized patients} carries out a

post hypnotic suggestion and is asked why he is acting

in this way, instead of saying that he has no idea, he

feels compelled to invent some obviously unsatisfactory

reason.

The point here is not the fact (interesting in itself) that brains have an "interpretive" disposition but, rather, that the explanations offered by people for their behavior are invented ones and that these invented explanations will inevitably reflect the folk psychology notions about behavior and its causes which are current within a culture. It is a safe bet that the ancient Greeks or citizens of the Middle Ages would have confabulated quite different reasons for their actions than do modern subjects. Even today, people of different cultures might explain their actions by invoking evil spirits, psychic powers, emotional intuition, or other reasons that would reflect their differing folk views of the causes of behavior.

consciousness and the emotions

Researcher Benjamin Libet has at tempted to mea sure the signals produced by the brain at the exact moment that a person makes a conscious decision. What surprised many people was that Libet found regular and consistent brain signals occurring just prior to a person's awareness of making a decision. This finding is puzzling only if we accept the folk psychology notion that making a decision is not a physical event but, rather, an immaterial, purely "mental" one. We might ask ourselves: from whence cometh the mental decision, if not from the physical operations of the brain? It should not seem surprising that brain activity precedes mental awareness; in fact, it must!

Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his book Consciousness Explained (1991), has criticized Libet's study for harboring an even more obscure notion of folk psychology: that conscious decision making takes place at a particular moment in time. Dennett argues that consciousness is an ongoing process that has no precise moment of occurrence because there is no central location in the brain where it occurs. He quite rightly points out that there is no "Cartesian theater" in the brain that "watches" or "looks over" the brain's functioning; that is a folk psychology illusion with neither rhyme nor reason.

Admittedly, the specifics of how the brain creates a unitary consciousness are not yet known. Scientists refer to this as the binding problem and have suggested answers involving the timing of cell firing or brain wave synchronicity. "Mind" is not a place in the brain, much less some transcendent observer, but is apparently the result of a complicated set of computitional processes between and among brain cells. The renowned philosopher Gilbert Ryle once told of a visitor to Oxford who, after seeing all the buildings, was disappointed because he had wanted to see the "university" Just as there is no "university" other than the buildings, people and their interactions, likewise there is no "mind" or "consciousness" other than the brain's various constituent parts and their interactions.

Just as folk psychology assumes that mind is the proverbial "ghost in the machine;' so, too, are emotions conceived as states produced by, but not a part of, the human brain. This illusion is probably caused by the fact that we cannot feel or sense those brain activities which produce emotions and desires themselves. Thus we conceive emotions as the most elusive and nebulous of all mental states--purely immaterial feelings somehow separate from the physicalness of the brain. This stubborn folk psychology concept is also gradually being de bunked by the new brain research.

Although emotions have been investigated less intensively than the higher cognitive states, neuroscience has still made some significant progress in untangling their physical represensation in the brain. For example, Antonio and Hanna Damasio at the University of Iowa have been using sophisticated imaging techniques to study patients in whom specific brain damage is related to various problems in emotional expression and the ability to detect emotion in others. In his recent book, Descartes' Error (1994), Damasio argues that emotions are an essential part of the process of rational reasoning and should not be segregated from cognitive functions and treated as a separate domain.

A more molecular look at the emotions is taken by Dr. Joseph LeDoux of New York University. Through the careful study of rat brains, LeDoux has been able to trace the neural pathways of an emotional memory. His research supports other findings that the amygdala and the hippocampus are involved in memory storage and that emotional memory is anatomically different than declarative memory (the conscious awareness of prior events). Such research is inexorably providing a brain paradigm for the emotions that will require significant changes in our popular ideas.

In all too many in stances, our modern view of the world has outgrown the expressions we habitually use--antiquated words and phrases which were created long ago to convey archaic beliefs. (When a person says the sun will set at a certain time, for example, we are not meant to take it literally.) The problem with folk psychology is that its antiquated words and phrases about the mind are still accepted literally even though they represent ideas that are many centuries old and are clearly without logical or even meaningful support.

Modern neuroscience has offered us many exciting insights into the mechanics of how mental states, emotions, and behavior are physically produced by the brain, as well as what factors influence brain functioning and the details of such psychological processes. It is not helpful or useful, therefore, to perpetuate false dichotomies or mystical explanations for quite reasonable, measurable, and predictable functions. We must avoid the seductive errors of folk psychology and learn to rely more heavily on clear, sound, scientific understandings and interpretations. To this end, a more careful use of language and more thoughtful and accurate reasoning would be a wise beginning.

Bruce Hinrichs is a professor of psychology and humanities at Century College in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. He is a recent recipient of a Unit One residency at the University of Illinois and is currently completing a book on cognitive neuroscience entitled Mind as Mosaic: The Robot in the Machine, from which this article was adapted.