Constantly feeling anxiety is a major part of the every day life for millions of individuals. The prognosis for anxiety disorders is among the worst within the diverse families of psychopathology. From a medical perspective, treatment typically consists of prescribing benzodiazepines (e.g., lorazepam, clonazepam, diazepam), which yield substance dependence and chemical
tolerance. These medications relieve the symptoms but leave the causes untreated. From a pure psychotherapy perspective, the
prognosis for anxiety is just as bad; Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, the most employed technique nowadays, targets specific ideas that trigger feelings of anxiety, but this is ineffective because of the nature of anxiety. Unlike phobias -
fears tied to specific triggers - anxiety results from persistent
fear that has lost its triggers, spreading throughout the brain. If you manipulate some ideas by frequent repetition, the anxiety resurfaces elsewhere, again because the causes are not being treated.
The following technique is not well known, but it works like a charm. You will have to stand up and adopt what I call the "Receptive Position". This position is a variant of the so-called Anatomic Position, as shown below.
So here are the instructions for how to relax in 10 seconds with the Receptive Position:
Step 1: Stand up straight, shoulders back but relaxed.
Step 2: Raise your shin a little (as in a "proud" emotional stance).
Step 3: Drop your arms to your side and completely relax all tensions that might be hiding there.
Step 4: Make your palms face forward and try again to relax your arms. (This is the hardest part of the exercise; if it causes you some pain, you may slightly make them face a little bit towards you, so long as they are still mostly facing forward and not towards your body.)
Step 5: Make sure your body is as free of tension as you can possibly get it to be.
Step 6: Close your eyes.
Step 7: Breathe deeply, counting in silence every exhalation until you reach 10. (If you are extra stressed, breathe and count each exhalation until 15.)
Step 8: Upon counting 10 (or 15), immediately open your eyes.
Do it! After finishing, ask yourself - How do you feel at that precise moment?
If you are so anxious that your first attempt caused you some physical discomfort, please just do the exercise one more time. This really does work for everyone.
Once you've learned how to do this easy procedure correctly, you know that you can always repeat it whenever anxious or overly stressed if you can find a place where you enjoy some privacy.
I hope that this exercise has provided you immediate relief.
BONUS: You can check how anxious you are via elevating yourself by getting on the tips of your toes as you inhale, then lowering yourself during exhalation. Be careful! If you are anxious, you will feel that you are falling as you get on the tip of your toes (a vertigo-like feeling). In contrast, if you are not anxious, elevating yourself in this way will not cause you any feeling of discomfort.
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,...
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent:
All are needed by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white quire;
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet Truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,—
I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Above me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;—
Beauty through my senses stole,
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
A large part of understanding ourselves is being aware of the history that underlies the structures, symbols, and institutions that surround us, that we actively internalize (even if unaware), and that continually condition us to be a certain way and not another. If you have some idea of how the brain works, you also know that the way us human beings presently behave is due in large part to the cultural evolution that has given way to the contexts that engulf us.
Our world would not be as it is without the Punic Wars having gone the way that they did. These massive, epic wars were fought between a Roman Republic that didn't yet control even all of Italy and a Carthage, settled by Phoenicians, that had an Empire that stretched through half of the north African shore, southern Spain, and the many islands just west of the Italian peninsula.
The following four short, animated videos provide an engaging account of all the elements that make the Punic Wars so engaging and so important. Enjoy!
WARNING: Do not stare at these images for longer than 5 minutes. Staring at one for 15 minutes will change your color perception for several months. This may make you curious, but please DON'T DO IT. See the McCollough Effect for more information.
Human perception is fragile and all-too-flexible because of the way neural connections work, mainly their speed and the velocity of any (and every) neural network's rate of change.
As we live in rigidly structured societies, with thousands of clear and unbreakable rules that cannot be ignored (e.g., get naked in public and see what happens! No, I'm kidding....please don't!), there are some basic human truths, truths of nature, that can barely be stated and, when they are expressed, they must be hidden deep within metaphors. The following is a clear example:
"Know Thyself" was inscribed at the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Visitors to Delphi looking for advice from their Oracle, the greatest oracle that has ever existed, would find this message along their way. I strongly urge you to follow it --- Know yourself!
A little known fact about the Oracle of Delphi (which sheds light into the reality of psychics) is that visitors to it were made to wait for days before they finally entered to hear the advice they were seeking. The visitors almost always left the Oracle baffled, perplexed, and astounded by the quality of the advice they received. What they didn't know is that the Oracle of Delphi would send out scouts immediately when a person arrived to gather as much information as they possibly could about that person. There was nothing magical about the psychics at all. It was their due diligence and long training and experience that made the Oracle of Delphi the most sacred and most influential oracle that has ever existed.
In the words of Walt Whitman:
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Published in Leaves of Grass, Final "Deathbed Edition", 1892.
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The solve is this, that thou dost common grow.
Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity.
Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.
Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.
It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.
Geniuses are very singular.
If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.
If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.
If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.
If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.
If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.
But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.
An Enneagram of Personality is a typology of nine interconnected personality types. An Enneagram Personality test is similar to the Myers-Briggs Personality Test with the exception that it views the types as connected to one another in specific ways. Like the Myers-Briggs, it is often used in business for recruiting purposes in order to build teams with members that complement one another instead of overlap and also to reduce conflict within the team.
The Enneagram of Personality looks like this:
There are different types of Enneagram tests. The following link leads to one of the simplest and most fun versions of the test. Enjoy!
a psychological defense mechanism classified as pathological
I have provided below a link to an abbreviated version of the DSQ available online. Your scores will appear next to a "mean" based on a large sample of college students that have taken the test.
When looking at your results pay attention to:
How each of your scores compare to each of the means
How the sum of your scores compare to the sum of the three means
Do you have more defenses or less defenses than what is typical?
Analyzing the scores in this way will provide you with a fairly accurate portrayal of whether you are a more defensive than average or rather a less defensive person. It will also show you what the character of your ego is, as you may be well-adjusted, neurotic, or just immature.
To learn what defenses the "mature", "neurotic", and "immature" classifications include, please refer to Vaillant´s categorization of defense mechanisms. Note: The DSQ does not measure pathological defenses as a separate category. It includes pathological defenses in the immature category.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most comprehensive personality test currently available. Using 567 true or false questions, it rates the tester on 130 categories (validity scales included). Once validity of the results are established, a profile is created employing the 10 Clinical Scales: hypochondriasis (Hs), depression (D), hysteria (Hy), psychopathic deviate (Pd), masculinity/femininity (Mf), paranoia (Pa), psychathenia (Pt), schizophrenia (Sc), hypomania (Ma), and social introversion (Si). Each of these is in itself composed of various other sub-scales.
Please note that the MMPI-2 produces T-Scores and Raw Scores. What you will be paying attention to are the T-Scores, not the Raw Scores, unless otherwise specified. T-Scores are not percentages, but may be translated into percentages. Usually, anything above a 75 T-Score denotes a very high ranking on that scale, that is, within the top 1% of the population. Likewise, anything above a T-Score of 65 falls outside the normal range (among the top 3 to 5% of the general population). On the lower bound, any T-Score below 35 would not be considered normal. This general guideline notwithstanding, keep in mind that these point ranges do not apply rigidly, that is, some scales accept certain T-Scores as normal while other scales consider the very same scores abnormal.
Given this complexity, you may find the task of interpreting your own MMPI-2 results overwhelming. I have written this instruction manual with the aim of being as exact, as exhaustive, yet also as simple as possible, such that anyone can do it and fully understand what they are doing.
How to interpret your own MMPI-2 results?
Step 1: Verify that your results are valid, and identify what bias these contain, if any.
Step 2: Once determined valid, see how your profilecompares to the rest of the population onthe 10 Clinical Scales, and analyze your strengths and weaknesses on each scale by looking at its components.
Step 3: Pinpoint your dominant psychological defense mechanisms.
Step 4: Use the supplementary scalesto better understand yourself and your current psychological tendencies.
This article explores in-depth how to carry out Step 1, arguably the most important step because the accuracy of all future steps depends directly on Step 1 being carried out correctly.
Step 1: Verifying Validity
Are your test results valid, and what do the validity scales say about you?
These are the Validity Scales in the order presented in the results:
? = Cannot Say VRIN = Variable Response Inconsistency TRIN = True Response Inconsistency F = Infrequency Fb = Backside F Fp = Infrequency Psychopathology L = Lie K = Correction S = Superlative Self-Presentation
Each of these is described below in detail. Nonetheless, the most important validity scales are F,L, and K.
If L and K score higher than F, it is likely that the test taker attempted to appear healthier than is really the case. This is known as "Fake-Good". However, this pattern by itself does not make the profile invalid. It might be that the pattern describes a moralistic conformist whose strong defenses allowed them to adapt successfully to the world. Thus, the pattern must be supplemented with further information to determine whether "Fake-Good" actually took place. How to do this is explained below, along with all the scales.
Probable "Fake-Good" slope.
The evaluating entity will treat
your results as overcompensations,
at best, or as outright misrepresentation,
at worst, thus relying on their own view.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if F scores higher than L and K, it is possible that the subject tried to appear worse than what they are, which is known as "Fake-Bad". Once again, more information is needed to establish "Fake-Bad" behavior. It could be the case that this person described their current situation sincerely, and perhaps needs professional help.
Probable "Fake-Bad" slope.
The interpreter is likely to believe
that you are acting to gain some benefit
and will treat your results as if they
were manipulative, relying on their own
perception of you for what is deemed true.
? = Cannot Say
This scale adds how many questions were left unanswered. A high amount of blank responses may signal confusion, resistance to taking the test, or simply that they did not finish. More than 10 omitted answers risks rendering invalid the totality of the results. If 6 or more questions weren't answered, it would be wise to look at which items these were because there may be a pattern in the topics addressed that may reveal the respondent's level of comfort with an issue or with a psychopathology that they may be unwilling or unable to address.
Some problematic combinations (if the scales listed have a T-Score above 60):
? + L = Person is trying to appear in a favorable light but uses a crude strategy to do so.
? + L + F + K = Suggests highly-generalized, intense negativism.
? + F = The profile is invalid, be it because of reading comprehension problems or mental confusion.
? + K = Test taker is very defensive.
VRIN = Variable Response Inconsistency
Measures the tendency to respond inconsistently. There are questions in the MMPI-2 that repeat using different wording. This scale scores the consistency of the answers. On the one hand, an elevated VRIN and F indicate that the person answered questions at random; thus, the profile is invalid. On the other hand, a normal VRIN coupled with a high F suggests one of two scenarios: either the person has serious psychological issues that probably require professional attention, or they are simply "Faking-Bad", that is, trying to appear worse than what is actually true. Though a very low VRIN may be good and indicate outstanding memory and focus, were those traits untrue such a score may suggest that the person is being very careful about lying or portraying themselves as someone they are not. Given the length of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, some response inconsistency is bound to happen to anyone.
TRIN = True Response Inconsistency
Scores whether the respondent answered all true or all false at random. A T-Score above 65 is suspicious. A TRINT-Score of 80 or more indicates that the profile is invalid. This scale needs to be considered along with other scales; it means little alone unless above a T-Score of 80.
F = Infrequency
This very important metric quantifies how much a person's responses deviate from the general population; hence, how infrequent the answers are when compared to everyone else. In a non-clinical setting (if you are taking the test at home under no supervision, you are in a non-clinical setting), a T-Score above 80 on this scale probably evidences the existence of a severe psychopathology. To make sure that this is the fact, check that the VRIN and TRIN scores are normal, and also compare the F T-Score with that of Fb for further confirmation. If F and Fb aren't both elevated, it is almost certainly an instance of "Fake-Bad" behavior, that is, of trying to appear worse than one is.
A 65 T-Score on F is not uncommon; furthermore, being involved in unusual religious, political, or social groups can raise F as high as 75. Nonetheless, a score of 80 or above, once proven valid, is a clear indication that the test taker is having unusual thoughts and experiences that most likely require professional attention. (In clinical, outpatient settings, a score of 75 is already considered abnormal; in inpatient settings - i.e., in a psychiatric institution - a score of 65 suffices as evidence of abnormality.) An F T-Score above 100 will elevate all clinical scales (a.k.a., the profile) and is indicative that the person is reacting to everything because he or she is unable to pinpoint a particular problem area, as would happen to a confused mind in the midst of a severe psychosis.
On the flip side, a low F score denotes a person that is relatively free from stress or major psychological issues, who is dependable, sincere, and may be considered conformist (unless the K and/or L scales suggest a case of "Fake-Good"). Lastly, it should be noted that minorities tend to get higher scores on this scale, and also that it is quite common for creative people to score within the 60-70 range without that entailing psychological issues that must be addressed.
Some problematic combinations:
Moderately high L and K + really high F = Test may have been answered mostly at random; the profile is likely invalid.
Similarly, high L + F + K = Responses recorded without considering the questions; profile is invalid.
Invalid profile. The elevations
of L, F, and K together go beyond
anything realistic. Interpretation of results
would be unnecessary and a waste of time.
High F + L = "Fake-Bad", that is, the person is attempting to appear worse off than what is true, making the profile likely invalid.
High F + K = Individual contradicts himself by responding in a self-enhancing and self-deprecating manner at the same time. Lack of insight, confusion, or difficulties understanding the nature of the test may be to blame. The profile may be valid or invalid depending on which of the aforementioned reasons is true.
High F + Sc (Schizophrenia) = Subject may have a tendency towards withdrawal. Profile is valid.
High F + Ma (Hypomania) = May have mania or be undergoing a manic episode. Profile is valid.
Fb = Backside F
This scale is the same as F except that it compiles information from the last third of the questions on the MMPI-2. It is mostly used: 1) to confirm the validity of F by observing that Fb T-Scores match F more or less, and 2) to detect test takers that answer at random because F and Fb will show significant disparity.
Fp = Infrequency Psychopathology
This scale was specifically constructed to identify people who are faking a severe psychopathology. A T-Score above 100 on Fp almost certainlyrenders the profile invalid. Though not necessary,when such a score is accompanied by a VRIN T-Score of 80 or more, the profile is invalid, no ifs or buts about it. The FpRaw Score (which is different from the T-Score but is listed alongside it in the results) ought to be 6 or less for an optimal psychological profile to be constructed with the 10 Clinical Scales. This scale is composed of items that not even people with severe psychopathology would assent to. L = Lie
Lie measures whether an individual is trying to look good or rather is willing to own up to basic human vulnerabilities. A high score means that the subject is claiming socially correct behavior the unreal nature of which is common sense to everyone else. T-Scores above 60 are rarely seen on this scale. A T-Score of 55 or more may suggest a presentation of moral righteousness. A high L may signify a naive nature, ill-prepared to deal with difficulties or problems as these surface in real-time.
Profile indicative either of a hysteric
trying to look on the bright side
or of an individual whose psychological
defense mechanisms no longer work.
An elevated L with a moderately high Hy (Hysteria) suggests a character that looks to the bright side, attempting not to think badly about themselves or about other people. Similarly, simultaneous elevated readings on L, K, and Hy points to highly defensive people that may not even be aware of the anomalous degree of their own defensiveness. A high L can be expected to be accompanied by lower readings on the 10 Clinical Scales profile of the MMPI-2, and, therefore, the results should be interpreted with that bias in mind. If, however, the scores on the 10 Clinical Scales are not all consistently low or in the normal range, this indicates that the person's preferred psychological defense mechanisms are not working well enough to keep a lid on their problems. In contrast, low L scores are associated with higher levels of education, non-righteousness, and a more relaxed mind.
K = Correction
This scale measures defensiveness in a much more subtle way than Lie. Correctly interpreting K scores isn't easy as the background of the subject and the conditions under which he is taking the MMPI-2 must be taken into account. College students, for example, typically display T-Scores between a 55 and 70, which signifies that they are competent in managing their lives; if their score is a little higher, it may be that they are on guard because they do not trust their professor or because the reason why they are taking the test wasn't fully or convincingly explained to them. A drop from that scoring range implies that the student is undergoing a stressful time in their lives. Outside of a well-educated population, high K scores indicate defensiveness. This is true, for example, for job applicants forced to take the MMPI-2; as a result of that peculiar situation, applicants attempt to appear as decent as possible, for obvious reasons, resulting in validity scale charts that typically follow the pattern of the image below.
Typical slope of a job applicant
trying to look better than is actually true.
Though the profile is valid, K-corrections
ought to be applied in order to see what is
more likely the case. Employer should reject
the job applicant, regardless of the K-corrected scores.
In contrast, a low T-score of 45 or less hints that a psychopathology is probably present (and sometimes this is the only hint that the interpreting psychologist gets when all the profile scales fall within normal bounds). Interestingly, a really low K of 35 or less correlates with a poor prognosis because it signals that the test taker does not have the tools or the psychological strength to respond well to traditional (no-drugs) therapies, most likely lacking sufficient Ego-Strength (Es). On the flip side, a really high score also suggests a poor therapy prognosis as the psychological defenses could be so strong that they prevent any internal change or therapeutic progress. Thus, this scale measures how intact the existing psychological defenses are. A corollary of a high score on K, therefore, is a marked fear of emotional intensity along with an avoidance of intimacy.
Some problematic combinations:
Elevated L + K + Hy (Hysteria) + R (Repression) = Too defensive to look at the bad in others or see the problems in himself.
A high K is associated with the psychological defense mechanisms of repression and rationalization.
When very high Ks co-occur with high scores on one or more of the clinical, profile scales, it is all-too-likely that these individuals will refuse to look at the problem, seeing themselves as having no problems at all.
If both K and Es (Ego-Strength) record T-Scores of 45 or less, the person will tend not to feel good about themselves and will feel that they lack the skills necessary to tackle their problems.
When K is below 45 yet F scores below 60, the individual often believes that life has been rough on them because they didn't have the advantages that were available to others. This belief is probably true as this combination usually occurs with people from impoverished or otherwise disadvantaged backgrounds.
Moderately elevated K + F + Hy (Hysteria) + Sc (Schizophrenia) = Conventional people overly concerned with being liked and accepted into a group, unrealistically optimistic even when the facts do not merit it, have difficulty expressing and receiving anger, and find themselves unable to make decisions that would be unpopular within their group.
High K + Ma (Hypomania) = An organized, efficient person living with consistent hypomania.
Moderately high K + high F = People with longstanding psychological issues that have learned to cope with them and adapt to the world successfully, resulting in validity charts patterns like the ones below.
Validity profile of individuals
with persistent psychopathologies
who have nevertheless learned
how to cope and live a normal life.
S = Superlative Self-Presentation
Highly correlated with K, this scale is defined by five characteristics: Belief in Human Goodness, Serenity, Contentment with Life, Patience and Denial of Irritability and Anger, and Denial of Moral Flaws. A high score on S is positively correlated with Ego-Strength (Es).
If the results appear normal and that of a fully-functional human being but S has a T-Score less than 65, consider that the subject is "Faking Good"; thus, at worst the profile is possibly invalid and at best the profile presents a significant bias that ought to be taken into account when interpreting the rest of the MMPI-2 results.
Overview
Congratulations! If you have read and applied the many rules and concepts described above, you ought to have been able to not only verify the validity of your MMPI-2 results but also identify what biases, if any, permeate the rest of your results so that you may compensate for these accordingly in your interpretation of the scores that follow.
I know the task at hand has not been easy... far from it. But I have good news --- you are in luck! Step 1: Verifying Validity is the most important of the steps; and it is also the hardest (and most technical) by far. If you managed to complete this step successfully, the rest will be a breeze.
--------------- Other psychological personality tests you may enjoy:
Semiotics is often divided into three branches: Semantics, Syntactics, and Pragmatics. This division owes its existence to the philosophers John Locke and Charles Saunders Peirce. Semiotics explores the history of signs and symbols as a significant way of communication; in contrast to linguistics, however, semiotics also studies non-linguistics sign systems.
As you may deduce, the study of semiotics is essential to branding. What about your logo, brand, or signs is causing a catalyst-stimulus to act in the minds of your clients, and what is that stimulus?
Though most psychiatrist disagree on the efficacy of color therapy, for the sake of marketing and branding I will describe what marketers agree upon regarding which colors produce what emotional reaction in our psyche.
As you can see in the picture above, different brands would like to convey different moods in people's heads. Dell has chosen a sky blue that shows that they are dependable and trustworthy. Their slogan, "Dell, purely you", shoots for what most people want to feel when they buy a new computer, myself included.
Colors have always been a key part of the Internet; however, as the Internet has evolved into a massive business, strict color combinations or patterns have taken over and are being used in precise locations to herd you unconsciously into the direction of action and greater consumption.
Why would Blogger chose their button in orange? Apart from the obvious answer that their logo is in
orange. Could it be that, when you publish, they want you to be confident and cheerful about publishing?
The compose button on your Gmail account is hot red. Hopefully you will hit that happy trigger in your head and do it over and over again, since by composing and writing many emails you are utilizing their services.
As you may notice above, Coca-Cola, Barbie, McDonalds, and Blogger are using vibrant colors. Vibrant colors create a sense of impulsivity in your brain. There is no mystery as to why Budweiser also chose to go with vibrant color cans for sale at music festivals. The more impulsive you get, the more you drink and buy their product.
It is simple to ask: why is this ad in this light blue color? The more you become aware, the less the ads will affect you. Or, better yet, you will start to realize whether you are reasoning based on an emotional pull or on an actual sound decision. Below, Microsoft is taking advantage of your poor understanding of emotional optics to make you jump at the idea of owning this computer. But you've got to do it soon! (The green button is a clear subliminal message that it would be healthy for you to do it as soon as possible.)
For the skeptics in the crowd that believe they are immune to the emotional effects of color, I ask you to take this Color Quiz. This test will not make you feel a certain way; it actually functions the opposite way: the colors you chose will allow the algorithm to discern how you feel at this very moment.
Since we are ball of perceptions, we must learn to pay attention to what we are up against. We are living in a world awash with corporations, a world in which corporations are actively conditioning us towards their own purposes, and these corporations ultimately want profit. There is a science to branding and it is not necessarily what looks good. There are studies conducted on the impact of human behavior and colors. How colored environments influence performance, behavior, negative and positive perceptions, moods, and emotions has been studied in-depth and is well-understood for the most part. But the prevalent use of the psychology of colors for corporate purposes need not make us saps or simple movable parts; we can become aware and resist the conditioning process.
Apart from resisting the constant flow of conditioning triggers, you can use the color wheel below to market your own products as efficiently as possible, by eliciting the responses you would like from your customers or clients. Once you've taken the Color Quiz, color profiling may make more sense to you.
To entrepreneurs, use color psychology to your advantage in your own business, or avoid it altogether at your own peril. Likewise, to individuals, it would be wise for you to understand how you are being subliminally pulled in different directions, which may shed some light into your own consumer habits, or you may simply ignore the subject making it easier for marketers to target you towards their desired actions.
The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.
Uninnocent, these conversations start,
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to.
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense;
until a name
and all its connotation are the same.
The transition from sensations to perceptions is commonly referred to as sensory integration. The importance of this process is such that it led the Rodney A. Brooks and the robotics team at MIT to postulate it as an ‘alternative essence of intelligence’ (Brooks et al. 1998) during their first attempt at building a humanoid robot, appropriately named Cog.
Sensations are modality-specific; perceptions are not, even though we can attempt to dissociate the different sense streams and partially succeed in doing this. As evidence, consider two phenomena: sensory illusions and synesthesia.
Sensory illusions can be uni-modal (involving one sense modality like the images above and below), multi-modal (involving two or more sense modalities; see, e.g., Turatto, Mazza & Umiltà 2005), or a sense modality and some piece of standing knowledge. As remarked by Fodor (2003), early 20th century Gestalt psychologists were more than justified in offering sensory illusions against their current-day empiricist counterparts. David Hume, and the tradition that ensued, granted an individual privileged access to his sensations. But, as the Gestalt psychologists would argue, perceiving involves construction, not just passive reception. Sensations decay— what persist are perceptions flowing through ideas.
(Just in case you thought the above illusion was due to the surroundings, see the image below.)
Hume’s agglomeration of impressions and ideas into the bucket of perceptions (classifying both impressions and ideas as types of perceptions), and his implacable loathing of skeptics, led him straight to an erred view of the mind. By compromising with the skeptic and contemporary cognitive scientists, it is possible to recognize the ephemeral character of sensations and identify perception with sensory integration, which necessarily involves active construction as is the activation of learned mental representations. This move does not undermine the core tenet of empiricism (i.e., there are no innate ideas); rather, it just delineates a point where bottom-up and top-down processing converge in the constant and continuous process of real-time experience.
Synesthesia is less well-known. Synesthesia is a very rare condition that has its onset in early development and for which there is no treatment. Up until recently, very little research and funding had been directed towards the study this condition, mainly because it only rarely impairs a person’s productiveness and its incidence is quite low, around 1 in every 1150 females and 1 in every 7150 males (Rich, Bradshaw, & Mattingley 2005; however, Sagiv et al. 2006 has challenged the existence of a male-female asymmetry). These numbers are still under revision as the incidence of this condition is widely debated since synesthetes rarely see their condition as a problem, rather as a gift, and hence do not seek professional counsel.
A synesthete has two or more modalities intertwined, usually uni-directionally, such that some features in one modality reliably cause some unrelated features in another modality (Cytowic 1993, Cytowic 1995, Rizzo & Eslinger 1989, but see Knoch et al. 2006, who argue that even in clear uni-directional cases there is some bidirectional
activation; also Paffen et al. 2015). The patterns of association are established early during development and are stable throughout the lifespan. Moreover, no two synesthesias are alike. On the one hand, not only are many modality combinations possible, such as colored hearing, tasting tactile textures, or morphophonetic proprioception, but also, though it is extremely rare, more than two modalities can become entangled. On the other hand, even synesthetes who belong to the same class, like colored hearing, have completely different patterns of feature association. For example, colored-alphabet synesthesia involves person-specific ‘color - written letter’ mappings where each letter always appears in a specific color.
Karen's Colored Alphabet
Carol's Colored Alphabet
But colored alphabet synesthesia is among the least invasive. In colored hearing synesthesia, certain sounds can trigger beams of colorful light situated in a personal space extending 1 meter in front of the face of the synesthete. The fact that colored hearing synesthesia typically involves a personal space is indicative of associations that were made very early on during development, as infants cannot see much past such a space. Indeed, the associations must have been made so early on as to be incorporated in the base perceptual code of the individual, a fact that illustrates not only the distinction between a sensation and a perception, but also the effect that ideas have in delimiting perception, and is firmly evidenced by the reality that, as of yet, no person with synesthesia has ever been found that remembers a time when they did not have their particular anomalous perceptions. As such, synesthesia ought to be deemed paradigmatic for any empiricist cognitive architecture because it not only shows (in an exaggerated manner) that sensory integration—perception—implies active construction, but also hints at how individual differences are the rule, rather than the exception, in the conformation of representational capacities, which would be indicative that these capacities are not innate.
In fact, synesthesia might be paradigmatic of cognition in general, so much so that it has led researchers (Baron-Cohen 1996, Maurer 1993) to seriously explore the Neonatal Synesthesia Hypothesis, which states that “early in infancy, probably up to about 4 months of age, all babies experience sensory input in an undifferentiated way. Sounds trigger both auditory and visual and tactile experiences” (Baron-Cohen 1996). Since neonatal nervous systems are in the process of approximating environmental properties and specializing in domains of processing, experience to the infant might just be one constant synesthetic flow. By adopting this view, synesthesia can be explained as a derailment of an early process of modularization that the brain undergoes as a function of neural competition in the processing of the input stream during development.
There is a second, competing explanation for synesthesia, what might be called the perceptual mapping hypothesis. According to this view, synesthesia occurs not so much as a function of modularization (although this process may still be relevant), but rather as a function of early induction of the associated pairs and subsequent entrenchment of these pairs into the base perceptual code of the individual (i.e., during some critical period; see Rich, Bradshaw, & Mattingley 2005). Since for most synesthetic associations, there is no clear source of what the target ought to be other than the input itself, the individual can go a prolonged time without knowing that their perceptions are irregular, and by then the association might be so entrenched in the representational system that it might either be too late for it to be corrected or it might be too dangerous because changing the base code would negatively affect all other cognitive capacities that are built upon it. Which account is correct is ultimately a scientific question that needs to be experimentally approached; nonetheless, either explanation affords support to present-day empiricism based on connectionism and dynamical systems theory (Beer 2014, Rumelhart 1989, van Gelder 1999).
The neuropsychological and ontological question underlying both sensory illusions and synesthesia is where to draw the line between a sensation and a perception. In the journal Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Shimojo and Shams (2001) of the California Institute of Technology go as far as to argue that there are no distinct sensory modalities, since the supposed sensory systems modulate one another continuously as a function of the transience of the stimuli. They reach this radical conclusion by considering a wealth of recent findings in neuropsychology that include the plasticity of the brain and the role that experience has on determining processing localization (i.e., emergent modularization). And they are very likely correct; sensory integration is the rule rather than the exception, even in adult ‘early’ cortical sensory processing. This claim is echoed by Ghazanfar & Schroeder (2006), who argue not only that there are no uni-modal processing regions in the neocortex at all but also that the entirety of the neocortex is composed of associative, multi-sensory processing.
So what is the difference between a sensation and a perception? Succinctly, a sensation becomes a perception when it is mediated by an idea. When a mental representation intervenes in the flow of a sensation, when it delineates its processing, the process of construction and integration begins.
2. Aspects of the Nature of Emotions
Damasio (1994) claims that what sets the stage for heuristic, full-blown human reason are limbic system structures that code for basic emotions and that help train the cortical structures on top of these, through experience, which then code for complex emotions. His somatic marker hypothesis states that emotional experiences set up markers that later guide our decision-making processes. It is a well-known fact that when we try to solve a problem we do not consider all the alternatives, only the tiniest fraction. These markers of past bodily state set up in our brain allow our minds to discard the vast majority of possibilities before we can even consider the vast array of options, and what is left is a small set that we may manage to ponder. Such training mechanisms are patently fruitful from an evolutionary standpoint, as illustrated by the following Artificial Life simulation.
Nolfi & Parisi (1991) simulated the evolution of agents made up of artificial neural networks whose only task was to find food in a simulated world. Two distinct types of evolution were explored. In the first, the networks that were most successful at finding food in each generation were allowed to reproduce, which meant that new neural networks would begin with similar, though not exact, connection weights. What evolves, in this scenario, is the solution to the problem of navigation and food localization. Over several generations, the resulting agents have no problems at finding food at birth, so to speak. This is the equivalent of evolution hand-coding the solution into the neural connections, that is, of evolution installing truly innate ideas. For complex organisms, however, this kind of pinpoint fixation is untenable. The second type of evolution involved agents that were made up of two distinct networks. The first network handled the navigation, as the agents in the first simulation did, and the second neural network was in charge of helping train the navigating network (that is, it did not navigate at all). In this simulation, the first network was a tabula rasa in every generation, and what was allowed to evolve were the connection weights for the training network. Upon comparison of the two end-state types of agents, Nolfi & Parisi found that the auto-teaching networks consistently performed better at the task than the agents that had the solution to the problem hard-wired at birth.
It strikes me as altogether probable, if not entirely undeniable, that tastes and emotions serve to guide the inductions of the tabula rasa toward specific ends, the same as Nolfi & Parisi’s teaching nets served the blank nets to solve the issues of their existence. Tastes and emotions are fundamental—even at birth, these instruct as to what is food and as to what can kill you. However, taking Nolfi & Parisi’s simulations at face value would mean that emotions would come preset in specific connection configurations, which are a means of mental representation. If, as has been claimed here, all mental representations are ideas, then such a solution would lead to an as-of-yet unseen kind of rationalism (an emotional rationalism - how bizarre!). But there are other ways in which nature might have implemented the mechanism. It simply might have implemented it into the brain through something other than the patterns of connections, for example, they could result from the global effects of neurotransmitters (see, e.g., Williams et al. 2006, Hariri & Holmes 2006), instead of their specific transmission, as suggests the fact that both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs, like Prozac and Zoloft) and MDMA (street name: ecstasy; mechanism: makes neurons fire vast quantities of the serotonin available) affect mood significantly. Whereas with SSRIs, emotion is attenuated, with MDMA the user feels pure love, a sense of empathy that is unmatched by any drug on the market. The aforementioned hypothesis, however, is an open empirical question on which I take no stand.
For our purposes here, it might be enough to note that emotions have traditionally been included within the realm of sensations as inner sensations. As of yet, I’ve seen no evidence that even remotely challenges this ancient view. For all we know, evolution might have simply implemented a non-representational domain of sensation that serves to guide learning. Such a domain need not be innately represented in the brain because it may be induced from the body itself. This claim lies behind Schachter & Singer’s (1962) classic Attribution of Arousal Theory of Emotion, which claims that emotions are the product of the conjunction of a bodily state and an interpretation of the present environment. In fact, Antonio Damasio and his team have been hard at work attempting to figure out where basic emotions come from. In an admittedly preliminary finding (Rainville et al. 2006), they managed to reliably identify basic emotion types (e.g., fear, anger, sadness and happiness) with patterns of cardiorespiratory activity. Similarly, Moratti & Keil (2005), working independently out of the University of Konstanz in Germany, found that cortical activation patterns coding for fear depend on specific heart rate patterns (see also, e.g., Van Diest et al. 2009). Should these findings pan out, it would be indicative that emotions are a sensory modality. As a sensory modality, emotions permeate experience, leading to emotion recognition being widely-distributed (Adolphs, Tranel, & Damasio 2003) because these become intertwined in the establishment of ideas.
In the end, if emotions are sensations, they are not innate ideas. Ideas are formed from these sensations as a function of their being perceived, a process that could, in principle, account for fine-grained emotional distinctions (Damasio 1994). Be it as it may, it is clear that emotional experience lies at the base of all of cognition, even reasoning, since as a sensory modality its mode permeates directly or indirectly all other processing everywhere and always.
3. Corollaries & Implications
Contrary to what it may seem upon first inspection, there is an underlying feature that is shared by both rationalist classical cognitive architecture (Fodor & Pylyshyn 1988, Newell 1980, Chomsky1966, Chomsky 1968-2005) and traditional empiricist cognitive architectures like John Locke's and David Hume's, mainly that both suppose there is a domain of memory that constitutes a thorough and detailed model or record of states of (the body in the) world. This feature is part of a modern tendency, illustrated somewhat indirectly in the previous section, of overcrowding the mind with what it can get—and does get—for free from the body in the world. In classical architectures, this feature more prominently takes the form of sensory memory, constituting a complete and detailed imprint of the world, only part of the information of which will travel to working memory for further processing. On the empiricist side, this feature takes on a more insipid form.
Think of Hume’s use of the word impression as opposed to, for example, sensation. Whereas the term sensation emphasizes both the senses and what is sensed, the term impression mostly accentuates what is imprinted, rendering perception mainly a passive receptor (a photocopier, if you will) upon which states in the world are imprinted. Also, and more importantly, the process of imprinting in Hume’s cognitive architecture does not stop with impressions because ideas, given how he defined these, are nothing more than less lively copies of imprints of states (of the mind) in the world. Moreover, since these ideas record holistically (i.e., somewhat faded yet still complete), as opposed to Barsalou’s (1993, 1999) schematic perceptual symbols, the resulting view is a mind overcrowded with images, sounds, tastes, smells, emotions—full of all of the experiences that the body in the world ever imprints on the mind.
It is important to highlight the active character of perception by identifying perception with the real-time integration of fading sensations with lasting mental representation. Both sensory illusions and synesthesia are evidence of the active nature of perception because both phenomena illustrate the impact that ideas have upon sensations and the fact that what we perceive is not just an imprint of the world. In this respect, what must be emphasized is the character of neural networks as universal approximators of environmental properties (see How You Know What You Know for a review), allowing neural networks to get their representational constraints for free, from the information being processed. Moreover, as these approximations become entrenched in the processing mechanism, they partially delineate the processing of incoming stimuli.
The resulting view is of a mind primarily full—not of sensory impressions but—of self-organizing approximations to the patterns implicit in such sensations, approximations that serve to anchor further representations through association. These self-organizing approximations aren't just the substrates of "higher-order" processes—higher order reasoning carry their biases, their limitations, as well as their benefits, like speed and elasticity, as ongoing research on reasoning keep finding. Human beings are not logical or rational animals. We can become more logical by learning logic and more rational by learning argumentation and how to spot formal and informal fallacies when these are used (van Gelder 2005, 2002).
For centuries, the supposition that human thinking follows logical rules has permeated and biased explorations into our cognitive capacities. The view that we are endowed with innate ideas that underpin our thinking, that allow us to learn syntax and to think logically, has been the cornerstone of Rationalism in every epoch including our own. But this is a far-fetched fantasy. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, logic doesn't teach you how to think, it teaches you how not to think.
Cognitive Science is gradually overcoming the rationalist bias that was set at the moment of the discipline's creation. The more evidence mounts, the more it becomes clear that mental processing follows the associative rules of the brain. With this realization, the computer metaphor (that mind is software to the brain's hardware) slowly but surely unravels.
Perhaps this is how dualism finally dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
