I’ve recently experienced a resurgence in my long-dormant interest in psychology/cognitive science, probably as a result of a few life experiences lately which have caused me to wake up from what can only be described as a sleepwalking fugue state and to really start to attend to what is going on in my head. Reading up on buddhism has let to a profound interest in the pivotal role of emotions in influencing and/or determining brain function and indeed perception of the world. By trying to practise ‘mindfulness’ and not identify wholly with every emotional state which passes through me, I am starting to see just how mindless and deterministic we can all be, and how much sway emotions, as opposed to intellect and rationality, have on how we behave. Of course, the buddhists have known this for thousands of years, and have developed an extremely sophisticated and practical systematic psychology, and at last western mind science seems to be catching up. There is, happily, a fruitful dialogue between eastern spiritual traditions and western science, as described in the book Destructive Emotions, by Daniel Goleman, which reports on the Mind Science series of conferences in which the Dalai Lama and various researchers in cutting edge western brain science get together to see what they can learn from each other. Other recent books focussing on the centrality of the emotions include Emotional Intelligence, also by Daniel Goleman (which I am currently reading), Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damasio, and The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux.
Add to that list Steven Johnson (of Emergence fame), who has a new book coming out soon called Mind Wide Open, subtitled “Your Brain, Neuroscience, And The Search For The Self “. Looks interesting. Steven ponders the idea that “undestanding how thinking works will surely change the way we think”. Again, this is what the buddhists have been saying for the last 2500 years, but it will sure be interesting to get a neuroscientific perspective as well.
Mr. Johnson also links to a great test of your ability to read emotions in others, just from their eyes, devised by British psychologist (and uncle of Ali G) Simon Baron-Cohen. I scored a very average 25, I’m sorry to report. It does seem amazing that one can score even that well from blurry black and white photos of eyes - we must be unconsciously attending to extremely subtle nuances. Psychologist Paul Ekman is the world’s leading researcher into the display of emotion and his new book Emotions Revealed might help me get a higher score next time. Here is an interesting interview with Dr. Ekman. And finally, in the same vein, an article by Malcolm “Tipping Point” Gladwell called The Naked Face, asking, “Can you read people’s thoughts by just looking at them?” Yup. To a degree. And it is skill which can be learned. Fascinating stuff, eh?
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