Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  The intellectuals of ancient Greece searched for universal regularity with a great, almost religious, passion that yielded numerous practical rewards. This spiritual Golden Age is the basis of the outlook according to which our world is just a pale reflection of the real world of phenomena. The path toward the world of universal truths goes in the way of pure intelligence according to the heart-stirring fable by Plato, “Allegory of the Cave.”

  The fable describes a group of prisoners who were locked up in a cave when they were infants. They were tied in chains so that they could look only at an internal wall of the cave that was full of shadows. Outside voices were heard by them as echoes rolling inside the cave. The prisoners of the shadow cave can be seen as prisoners of their own consciousness, which was forced by circumstances to be based upon shadows and echoes rather than on reality as it is.

  We must always walk along the cautious path which winds from healthy skepticism regarding the information that is not perceived by our senses to the knowledge that even the information that is perceived by our senses and processed by the organizing framework of our brain will always be incomplete. In this sense, we are all prisoners of the shadow cave of our skull, witnessing the pale shadow of world manifestations and using them to create our image of reality.

  Yesterday’s News

  When we look at the sky’s lantern that illuminates our nights—the moon—we actually see it as it was a little more than one second before we looked at it. (Its distance from planet Earth is about 384 thousand kilometers. The light speed that reaches our eyes is about 300 thousand kilometers per second). When we look through a telescopic lens at the Andromeda Galaxy, we actually witness it as it was 2.9 million years ago when our forefathers were still Hominidae and their brain was significantly smaller than our brain size. We experience the world of phenomena in the past tense. There will always be a delay (of different time gaps) between the time of actual occurrence and the point when our brain perceives the phenomenon and interprets it.

  Relative Perception Eclipse—the Blind Mole Fable

  The blind mole lives throughout its entire life in splendid isolation, in dark burrows, except for one instance that occurs once a year when it knocks on the walls of its burrow in order to find a mate, of the same species, for the annual lovemaking episode. We probably consider it an animal that suffers from severe perception eclipse, since it is not aware of other species of animals and plants, or the existence of the sun, for that matter. But, we are all “blind mole” with respect to certain aspects of reality.

  The selective blindness pattern with respect to certain aspects of reality is, inter alia, age-dependent. In various seasons of our life we tend toward different interpretations of the same sensory input. Thus, most children looking at the drawing Love Poem of the Dolphins by Sandro Del-Prete will see only the dolphins. Their conceptual eyes do not notice the couple making love, although the visual pattern is visible to the “material eyes.” On the other hand, “standard” grown-ups usually notice the outline of the man and woman in the midst of making love, and, most of the time, they will notice the dolphins only after they are instructed to look for other figures in the picture.

  In the human existence and the multiabled cerebral universe, there is built-in ability to reflect only partial reality. Complete reflection and understanding of the world are beyond our grasp.

  Thus, we must be humble and suspicious regarding concepts that claim absolute truths.

  A partial understanding of the internal and external world of phenomena is built in within the function and structure of our brain. Since we cannot overcome the limitations of our senses, we will never be able to perceive all the layers of the external world of phenomena directly. On the other hand, the perception framework in our brain that relates to internal events is also limited, and it seems that some functions of our brain will remain hidden from the eye of our consciousness forever.

  The concept of reality in our perception, as the concept of truth, exists on a spectrum—a changing mix of fictional and true reality. In the best-case scenario, it is a partial truth (with respect to its suitability to reality manifestations). We can say that “subreality,” which is information-limited, is the concept that describes our worldview.

  Context-Dependent Correction of Input Impressions

  Since we are limited by the nature of our perception and can only perceive partial aspects of experiences, our brain completes information pieces that fit the spirit of the overall interpretation it gives to a certain event. Our brain initiates this addition and often does it unconsciously.

  Information representation maps are adjustable whenever there are changes in the input for various reasons. These maps can compensate for the disruption of the input using a pattern of overall context-dependent correction.

  For example, people who suffer from retinal injury might develop visual distortion called “fish eye,” which is actually “rounding” of the peripheral visual input image. The distortion is clearly shown while focusing on single objects. When we look at a sight that is rich in details, such as multicolored scenery, however, the visual distortion gradually decreases and eventually vanishes as a result of our brain’s ability to correct the input through “overall context-dependent correction” of the experience.

  The above example supports the assumption that our brain enforces “reality sight” on the raw sensory input as it sees it and as it is expected by it. And, in this case, the cerebral-perception mechanism improves our reality perception and creates a better suitability to world manifestations as is. Our brain serves as perceptual glasses that correct the visual impairment of the eyes.

  An example of the function of this mechanism in relation to the perception of audio input can be found at times when there is an impairment of the cochlea (the hearing organ within the inner ear), which converts sound vibrations into the language of neural potentials (bioelectrical signals). Following an exposure to intense noise, the function of the hair cells within the cochlea, the ability to experience sounds within the particular frequencies range of the intense noise the ear was exposed to, is damaged. The impairment is especially evident while listening to single sounds, but while listening to a familiar musical piece the impairment is much less evident. It is due to the brain’s ability to “bridge the gaps” through “predicted but fabricated input by self-production.”

  “Filling the gap” with respect to audio input was also part of an experiment in which normally hearing subjects listened to a soundtrack of familiar music. Throughout the experiment, the music was stopped for short periods of time. Many subjects experienced the melody as continuous despite it being interrupted several times, since their familiarity with the music made their brain fill in the gaps of the missing sounds unconsciously.

  The ever-changing world manifestations and their reflection as constant change in the sensory input pattern change the calibration of the maps of sensory input consecutively and enable the function of the context-dependent correction mechanism.

  The mechanisms in charge of filling the perception gaps and the correction of the perceived perceptual impairment depend on another mechanism. Here we use compensating information from another sensory channel. For instance, people who suffer from retinal injury that causes the “fisheye” distortion might see the outline of a standard pencil as wavy. When the subjects also drag their finger along the pencil, however, the tactile sense enforces straightening of the lines, and, for a moment, the pencil “becomes straight.” Nevertheless, the visual impairment reappears the moment the tactile input ends.

  New Knowledge Changes our Interpretation of the Past and the Future

  New knowledge acquired in the present constantly changes the way we look at the past and the future. A “heavenly” example of that is the acquired embarrassment felt by Adam and Eve with respect to their nudity right after they bit the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. A more “earthy” example is a child who has learned to read and will never be able to see
the alphabet as enigmatic ink configurations again.

  The Genetic Conditioning of Perception

  Different sensory organs create different worldviews in the brain of different animals. Each animal lives in its unique ecological niche. In this sense, human beings, who are spread out over multiple climate zones, are an exception. Animals are required to have unique “world knowledge,” which maximizes their survival ability within the specific ecological niche that is their natural territory. Unique sensory organs were created in accordance with the information required for survival. These organs mediate information transfer in a selective manner. Thus, the keyholes through which different animals sample the world are characterized by different diameter and coverage range by which their owners sample the all-embracing panorama of the world’s phenomena. The genetically built-in memories also vary among different species.

  Each species has its own basic framework of patterning the world. The species are different from each other with respect to the levels of freedom to change the patterning encoded in their DNA.

  Our worldview is partially a “genetic dictation.” As the toad sees only moving objects and static objects missing from its world’s image, We are also driven by certain genetic dictations that provide guidelines to our “worldview.” Our brain, which was shaped in the course of “natural selection,” makes us organize reasons and processes in regulated frameworks of cause and effect.

  The representations of world manifestations in our brain mainly derive from our biology and evolution. A fortifications line of a priori suppositions stands between our perception of the world and the world as it really is.

  Our inherent perception habits enforce preconditions. We are used to thinking that nouns are usually selected randomly (Juliet tells Romeo “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”). It seems, however, that at least part of the connections between audio input and visual input rely on a universal platform of a tendency toward certain linkage—a wired, structural linkage that is partially not culture dependent. It was illustrated by the “Bouba-Kiki effect,” which was first demonstrated by psychologist Wolfgang Kohler in 1929. Kohler introduced two shapes to his subjects. The outlines of the first shape were round, and the outlines of the second shape were sharp. The subjects were also introduced to two meaningless words: “Bouba” and “Kiki.” The subjects were asked to match the “words” to the shapes. The absolute majority of subjects chose to match the “word” Bouba to the shape with the round, subtle outlines, and the “word” Kiki to the hedgehog-like shape.[9] This experiment showed that sounds tend to create in our mind configurational outlines that “match” these sounds more than others. This is a sort of synthesis that is built into our perception. A study conducted in 2001 supports the findings of the previous study and showed that this tendency to link between soft sounds and a shape with a “soft” outline and, on the other hand, to link guttural, more difficult-to-pronounce sounds to sharp outlines is cross-cultural. A 95-percent correlation was found in the responses of English-speaking subjects from the United States, and among Tamil speakers in India. The absolute majority related the sound “Bouba” to the soft shape and the sound “Kiki” to the sharp shape.

  A possible assumption deriving from these experiments is that we have an “inherent” perceptual platform for a human language that includes a built-in preference for certain sounds as nouns representing certain objects. It might be seen as a “soft onomatopoeia” (onomatopoeia is a word that describes an object, and it is the sound that the object makes). The findings found in the Bouba-Kiki experiment also reflect a natural tendency to prefer a certain sound-shape linkage to another.

  The same inherent tendency to prefer certain sounds as representatives of certain objects, determined by their outline and overall shape, challenges the hypothesis related to the totally random correlation between sounds and objects in human languages—although it seems that this hypothesis is justified most of the time.

  A Difficult-to-Pronounce Danger

  A study found that nutritional supplements whose names were difficult to pronounce were perceived as more risky to one’s health compared to those that had easy-to-pronounce names. It was true also for attractions at amusement parks. The difficult-to-pronounce attractions were perceived as more dangerous, yet more desirable. In the case of nutritional supplements, the danger was perceived as negative; when it came to amusement parks, it also had an attractive component.

  The Perfect Picture: Water in Blue

  Some claim that we all have, regardless of our cultural background, an inherent tendency to prefer certain artistic features. So, for example, most people from various cultures tend to prefer scenery pictures that include water over other themes, and there is a clear preference for various shades of blue. Thus, even when it comes to visual aesthetics, we share some kind of universal tendency that is reflected in preferring certain color and shape features over others.

  Brain Interpretative Bias

  Admissible Evidence at the Brain Court

  The Evolution sets “reality testing” with regard to the authenticity of facts, which might be defined as “a fact is not a fact until the brain determines that it is a fact.” In order to determine the admissibility of a certain fact in the brain court, expert witnesses are summoned. These experts are, in fact, a collection of insights that are etched in our brain as patterns that derive from past experiences of the brain’s owner. The accused are the impressions of the senses and the interpretation offered for them by the organizing system of our perception.

  An interpretation of perceptual record will be accepted as a “fact” and admissible evidence at the brain court according to its compatibility to the testimonies of the “expert witnesses,” and, alternatively, according to the “strength of the evidence.” In case of a contradiction between the witnesses’ testimony and the “new evidence,” the burden of proof will be on the shoulders of the “new evidence,” and it will be quite a heavy burden. The brain court is not impartial—it is biased, and its policy is always to prefer evidence that matches experts’ testimonies, which are actually encoded patterns derived from past experiences. The reason for this is that many of the past patterns were acquired through sweat and tears, and sometimes through blood as well, and they have accumulated “seniority” with respect to the interface with reality. It can be connected to the spirit of an old saying: “If you worked hard and found something, believe in what you found.” Acceptance of evidence that contradicts the witnesses’ testimonies will create a perceptual shaking and will require a perceptual change that involves changing, updating, or upgrading the core patterns that no longer match reality.

  The human brain is doomed to slip over cognitive banana peels, some of which have universal characteristics. The multilayered reality enables fastidious gatherers to select only the aspects that match their initial assumptions. Thus, as in an illusive magic cycle, truths seem as if they are supported by an infrastructure of evidence. For example, when we think about past events, we tend, in retrospect, to undermine the importance of factors that do not match the final result and overestimate the importance of the factors that match it. This biased thinking is called “creeping determinism.”

  Our brain often acts according to an approach of preferring the plausible over the certain. The brain’s interpretation (in our brain inasmuch as in animals’ brains) of the impressions of the senses tends to prefer proximity over accuracy. A statistical proximity suffices to win support. A plausible, somewhat teleological, explanation for that preference might be that a quick decision based on probability is preferred to a slow decision based on complete certainty. The time gap between the plausible diagnosis and the certain diagnosis might turn out to be the difference between life and death. For instance, in an attempt to determine the specific type of a snake we come across, certain identification might take too much time and become our last experience of applied taxonomy. In this case, and in so many other cases, a rapid selection of the preferr
ed reality interpretation is highly crucial. The amygdala—the structure in the brain that induces the sense of panic in light of reality manifestation that might be interpreted as threatening, restarts a very fast response pattern. The operational philosophy structured in the amygdala is based on the assumption that only the paranoids survive.

  In stressful situations, when our heart misses a beat, our brain usually does not miss a beat of thinking. On the contrary, the dwarfs of thinking are hurrying in the burrows of our unconsciousness and activate a rapid response.

  All is Relative

  Interpretive bias that derives from a known truth is that human beings are more sensitive to relative levels of change than to absolute levels of change. There is a famous experiment in which the subjects are asked to dip their hands in iced water and immediately after in cold water. The result is that they perceive the cold water as warm. This experiment shows that past experiences directly affect the perception of the present (a situation that can be called “the recalled present”).

  In negotiations, we encounter bias derived from the “anchoring effect.” The information fed into our brain becomes an anchor to be used in the future. The minute that a certain piece of information acquires a foothold in our brain, it becomes a reference point. For example, during a business negotiation between two parties, the party that makes the first offer has an advantage, since that offer is the basis for discussion.

  An example of intended misleading of the cerebral interpretation mechanism is reflected in an experiment, conducted in the Netherlands, intended to improve road safety. As part of the experiment, the researchers creatively used trees that were planted at intervals and became shorter and shorter on both sides of a highway. The intervals between the trees became shorter and shorter as one approached a dangerous junction, and this created in our “tree-counting” consciousness an illusive perception that speed was gradually increasing. As a reaction to this illusive perception, many drivers slowed down as they approached the junction.