possible to tell if the person is a man or woman by looking at the gait, and a couple dancing provides an especially amusing display.
Can we exploit our laws to heighten this effect? Two psychologists, Bennett Bertenthal of Indiana University and James Cutting of Cornell University, mathematically analyzed the constraints underlying biological motion (which depend on permissible joint motions) and wrote a computer program that incorporates the constraints. The program generates a perfectly convincing display of a walking person. While these images are well known, their aesthetic appeal has rarely been commented on. In theory it should be possible to amplify the constraints so that the program could produce an especially elegant feminine gait caused by a large pelvis, swaying hips and high heels as well as an especially masculine gait caused by erect posture, stiff stride, and tight buttocks. You’d create a peak shift with a computer program.
We know the superior temporal sulcus (STS) has dedicated circuitry for extracting biological motion, so a computer manipulation of human gait might hyperactivate those circuits by exploiting two aesthetic laws in parallel: isolation (isolating the biological motion cues from other static cues) and peak shift (amplifying the biological characteristics of the motion). The result might end up being an evocative work of kinetic art that surpasses any Calder mobile. I predict that STS cells for biological motion could react even more strongly to “peak-shifted” point- light walkers.
CHAPTER 8 THE ARTFUL BRAIN: UNIVERSAL LAWS
1. Indeed, peekaboo in children may be enjoyable for precisely the same reason. In early primate evolution while still primarily inhabiting the treetops, most juveniles often became temporarily occluded completely by foliage. Evolution saw fit to make peekaboo visually reinforcing for offspring and mother, as they periodically glimpsed each other, thereby ensuring that the child was kept safe and within a reasonable distance. Additionally, the smile and laugh of parent and offspring would have mutually reinforced each other. One wonders whether apes enjoy peekaboo.
The laughter seen after peekaboo is also explained by my ideas on humor (see Chapter 1), that it results from; a buildup of expectation followed by a surprising deflation. Peakaboo could be regarded as a cognitive tickle.
2. See also Note 6 of Chapter 3, where the effect of altering type to match the meaning of the words was discussed— there from the standpoint of synesthesia rather than humor and aesthetics.
3. To these nine laws of aesthetics we may add a tenth law that overarches the others. Let’s call it “resonance” because it involves the clever use of multiple laws enhancing each other in a single image. For example, in many Indian sculptures, a sexy nymph is portrayed languorously standing beneath the arched branch of a tree which has ripe fruits dangling from it. There are the peak shifts in posture and form (for example, large breasts) that make her exquisitely feminine and voluptuous. Additionally, the fruits are a
CHAPTER 9 AN APE WITH A SOUL: HOW INTROSPECTION EVOLVED
1. Two questions may legitimately be raised about metarepresentations. First, isn’t this just a matter of degree? Perhaps a dog has a metarepresentation of sorts that’s richer than what a rat has but not quite as rich as a human’s (the “When to you start calling a man bald” issue). This question was raised and answered in the Introduction, where we noted that nonlinearities are common in nature—especially in evolution. A fortuitous coemergence of attributes can produce a relatively sudden, qualitative jump, resulting in a novel ability. A metarepresentation doesn’t merely imply richer associations; it also requires the ability to intentionally summon up these associations, attend to them at will, and manipulate them mentally. These abilities require frontal lobe structures, including the anterior cingulate, to direct attention to different aspects of the internal image (although concepts such as “attention” and “internal image” conceal vast depths of ignorance). An idea similar to this was originally proposed by Marvin Minsky.
Second, doesn’t postulating a metarepresentation make us fall into the homunculus trap? (See Chapter 2, where the homunculus fallacy was discussed.) Doesn’t it imply a little man in the brain watching the metarepresentation and creating a meta-metarepresentation in
The telephone syndrome, which Jason had, has been studied by Axel Klee and Orrin Devinsky.
2. I recall a lecture given at the Salk Institute by Francis Crick, who with James Watson codiscovered the structure of DNA and deciphered the genetic code, thereby unraveling the physical basis of life. Crick’s lecture was on consciousness, but before he could begin, a philosopher in the audience (from Oxford, I believe) raised his hand and protested, “But Professor Crick, you say you are going to talk about the neural mechanisms of consciousness, but you haven’t even bothered to define the word properly.” Crick’s response: “My dear chap, there was never a time in the history of biology when a group of us sat around the table saying let’s define life first. We just went out there and found out what it was—a double helix. We leave matters of semantic distinctions and definitions to you philosophers.”
3. Almost everyone knows of Freud as the father of psychoanalysis, but few realize that he began his career as a neurologist. Even as a student he published a paper on the nervous system of a primitive fishlike creature called a lamprey, convinced that the surest way to understand the mind was to approach it through neuroanatomy. But he soon became bored with lampreys and began to feel that his attempts to bridge neurology and psychiatry were premature. So he switched to “pure” psychology, inventing all the ideas we now associate with his name: id, ego, superego, Oedipus complex, penis envy,
In 1896 he became disillusioned once again and wrote his now famous “Manifesto for a Scientific Psychology” urging a neuroscientific approach to the human mind. Unfortunately he was way ahead of his time.
4. Although we intuitively understand what Freud meant, one could argue that the phrase “unconscious self” is an oxymoron since self-awareness (as we shall see) is one of the defining characteristics of the self. Perhaps the phrase “unconscious mind(s)” would be better, but the exact terminology isn’t important at this stage. (See also Note 2 for this chapter.)
5. Since Freud’s era there have been three major approaches to mental illness. First, there is “psychological,” or talk therapy, which would include psychodynamic (Freudian) as well as more recent “cognitive” accounts. Second, there are the anatomical approaches, which simply point out correlations between certain mental disorders and physical abnormalities in specific structures. For example, there is a presumed link between the caudate nucleus and obsessive-compulsive disorder, or between right frontal lobe hypometabolism and schizophrenia. Third there are neuropharmacological interpretations: think Prozac, Ritalin, Xanax. Of these three, the last approach has paid rich dividends (at least to the pharmaceutical industry) in terms of treating psychiatric disease; for better or worse, it has revolutionized the field.
What is missing, though, and what I have attempted to
