1 00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:09,000 Speaker 1: What are emotions? Are they something that happened to you? 2 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: Or are they bodily signals that we interpret? Does everyone 3 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:18,040 Speaker 1: show emotions in the same way? Are there particular markers 4 00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:21,680 Speaker 1: of the face or body that always mean anger or 5 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: sadness or joy? And what does this have to do 6 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,040 Speaker 1: with Charles Darwin or the truth about facial expressions or 7 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:35,559 Speaker 1: the movie Inside Out. Welcome to enter Cosmos with me 8 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:39,240 Speaker 1: David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford 9 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,560 Speaker 1: and in these episodes we sail deeply into our three 10 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:46,520 Speaker 1: pound universe to understand why and how our lives look 11 00:00:46,560 --> 00:01:12,399 Speaker 1: the way they do. Today's episode is about emotions. Now, 12 00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:16,680 Speaker 1: to set this up, let's think about emotion versus cognition. 13 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:21,000 Speaker 1: In the past half century, neuroscience has been buzzing with 14 00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:25,720 Speaker 1: discoveries about cognition, like how we perceive information, how we 15 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:28,880 Speaker 1: decide that sort of thing, and this has all been 16 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:33,240 Speaker 1: enhanced by all the recent advances in artificial intelligence. So 17 00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:37,920 Speaker 1: cognition is all about acquiring and using knowledge, recognizing patterns, 18 00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:43,920 Speaker 1: storing and retrieving informations, creating mental representations, but real neural 19 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: networks the ones living inside organisms. They operate in a 20 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:55,000 Speaker 1: very different context. Organisms are driven by needs and motives 21 00:01:55,080 --> 00:02:02,280 Speaker 1: and pain and emotions. Without these driving all the cognitive 22 00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:05,840 Speaker 1: processes like learning and representing and taking action. 23 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:09,320 Speaker 2: These would lack purpose or direction. 24 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:13,239 Speaker 1: In other words, if nothing matters to an organism, there's 25 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:17,280 Speaker 1: no reason for it to learn or do anything. This 26 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:21,880 Speaker 1: is why understanding the brain requires us to include emotion, 27 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:26,360 Speaker 1: not just cognition, and this consideration has given rise to 28 00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:30,240 Speaker 1: a field that we call affective neuroscience, in other words, 29 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,280 Speaker 1: the neuroscience of emotions as a complement to the field 30 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:36,360 Speaker 1: of cognitive neuroscience. 31 00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:37,520 Speaker 2: So what is. 32 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,359 Speaker 1: Different about these two fields, Well, at least traditionally, neuroscience 33 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:47,839 Speaker 1: thinks about cognition as representational and involving symbols and computation 34 00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,880 Speaker 1: and degrees of accuracy in how well it reflects the world. 35 00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:57,959 Speaker 1: But emotions they don't fit that model. Take something like fear, 36 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:01,720 Speaker 1: it's not exactly about rep presentation or symbols that it 37 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:07,320 Speaker 1: doesn't have accuracy, but instead it varies in intensity. If 38 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:12,120 Speaker 1: emotions are like forces that rise and fall, or they mix, 39 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:15,320 Speaker 1: or they remain pure, then cognition is maybe more like 40 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: an encyclopedia, something structured and informational. Now These metaphors are imperfect, 41 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:23,920 Speaker 1: but I'm just using these to tee up the divide 42 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:29,600 Speaker 1: between cognition and emotion in conventional thinking. Now, why has 43 00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:34,119 Speaker 1: cognition received all the attention in the laboratory. 44 00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 2: Well, it's because we. 45 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:41,240 Speaker 1: Can build models or artificial neural networks to tackle cognitive 46 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:45,240 Speaker 1: tasks like chess and go and math problems. It's a 47 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:50,880 Speaker 1: lot harder to set up clear experiments with emotions, and 48 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:54,240 Speaker 1: so these have traditionally received a lot less attention in 49 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:56,400 Speaker 1: the research world. But the thing to note is that 50 00:03:56,440 --> 00:04:00,400 Speaker 1: emotions are much more ancient and at least here to 51 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:04,680 Speaker 1: span the animal kingdom, while chess games do not, so 52 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:10,160 Speaker 1: emotions may be more fundamental in brain wiring. So how 53 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:14,360 Speaker 1: do emotions get studied? Let's start with Charles Darwin. In 54 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:19,080 Speaker 1: his book The Expression of the Emotion in Man and Animals. 55 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:20,200 Speaker 2: Which he published in eighteen seventy. 56 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:25,360 Speaker 1: Two, Darwin proposed that emotions are biological phenomenon. They're deeply 57 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:28,719 Speaker 1: rooted in our evolutionary history. So he argued that our 58 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:33,480 Speaker 1: facial expressions of joy or sadness, or anger or fear 59 00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:39,640 Speaker 1: they evolved to communicate essential information to ourselves and others. 60 00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:42,880 Speaker 1: So for example, it makes sense, he argued, for a 61 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,320 Speaker 1: person who is angry to stand tall and loom large 62 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:49,640 Speaker 1: and glare and tense their muscles. 63 00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,360 Speaker 2: These actions prepare them for physical. 64 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:56,039 Speaker 1: Action, and these actions can also just serve as a 65 00:04:56,520 --> 00:05:00,440 Speaker 1: visual threat of action. So Darwin proposed that he motions 66 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:04,880 Speaker 1: are survival tools passed down through the generations, like well 67 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 1: oiled machinery. 68 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:06,360 Speaker 2: Although its a. 69 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:11,160 Speaker 1: Side note, he did mention that this appropriateness hypothesis can't 70 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:13,360 Speaker 1: be the whole story, since a lot of things didn't 71 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:16,760 Speaker 1: seem to fit, like a person who is sad moping 72 00:05:16,839 --> 00:05:20,720 Speaker 1: around and recreating conversations in his head and feeling drained. 73 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,440 Speaker 1: But we'll come back to this. So the general thing 74 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:28,359 Speaker 1: that Darwin emphasized is that certain emotions prepare our body 75 00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:31,159 Speaker 1: to do the next thing, and he suggested this was 76 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:35,520 Speaker 1: universal across the animal kingdom. He said, look, expressions are 77 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:40,400 Speaker 1: essentially the same across mammalian species, and things can even 78 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,720 Speaker 1: look a little similar between mammals and reptiles and birds, 79 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:49,279 Speaker 1: like when the animal is afraid or angry or showing 80 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:55,080 Speaker 1: parental love. So Darwin said, the core emotional operations relevant 81 00:05:55,080 --> 00:06:01,280 Speaker 1: to behavior are evolutionarily highly conserved, so fast forward to 82 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:05,320 Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and this research gained momentum with researchers 83 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:08,320 Speaker 1: like Paul Ekman. Ekman went around the world and he 84 00:06:08,680 --> 00:06:18,800 Speaker 1: concluded that he could identify six basic emotions. There was happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, 85 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:23,440 Speaker 1: and surprise. And these six emotions, he argued, are universal 86 00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,840 Speaker 1: whether you are in New York or New Guinea. A 87 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,640 Speaker 1: smile means joy, and if you have a furrowed brow, 88 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:34,159 Speaker 1: that means worry and so on. And this model of 89 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:38,400 Speaker 1: basic emotions that are universal, we see this framework everywhere 90 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:42,600 Speaker 1: around us. You've probably seen the Pixar movie Inside Out, 91 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:45,920 Speaker 1: which brought emotions to life. You had the characters of 92 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:50,839 Speaker 1: joy and sadness and anger and fear and disgust, and 93 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:55,080 Speaker 1: each one was personified as a little being running the 94 00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,800 Speaker 1: control panel of a young girl's mind. And it was 95 00:06:57,839 --> 00:07:01,080 Speaker 1: a great movie and it captured the publicma because it 96 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,800 Speaker 1: felt sort of true. Right, these emotions seem like individual 97 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:09,680 Speaker 1: entities living inside us. They're always there, They're waiting to 98 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:12,640 Speaker 1: surface and take charge of the control panel. But what 99 00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 1: if I told you that everything you just heard about 100 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,840 Speaker 1: Darwin and Eckman and Inside Out is not really the 101 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:24,320 Speaker 1: full story about emotions. What if emotions aren't actually universal? 102 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,600 Speaker 1: What if they're not hardwired programs that move us like 103 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:34,480 Speaker 1: a marionette, but instead something we create and interpret. So 104 00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:38,320 Speaker 1: the story of the neuroscience of emotions really started taking 105 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 1: a turn with the work of one neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett. 106 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:45,320 Speaker 1: She's a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and she 107 00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:49,840 Speaker 1: wrote a book called How Emotions Are Made. Over the years, 108 00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:52,880 Speaker 1: Barrett's work has really challenged everything we thought we knew 109 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:58,280 Speaker 1: about emotions. In her view, emotions aren't universal biological reflexes. 110 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:04,840 Speaker 1: They are constructed experiences, shaped by our brains, by our past, 111 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:07,600 Speaker 1: and by our culture. So I called up Lisa to 112 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:10,000 Speaker 1: join us here today, and as we're about to see 113 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:13,840 Speaker 1: her research flips the script. It suggests that your brain 114 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:18,400 Speaker 1: doesn't feel emotions as much as it predicts them. So 115 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:22,360 Speaker 1: that wave of joy or that stab of anger, it's 116 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:27,640 Speaker 1: not a reaction, it's your brain interpreting the signals of 117 00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:31,760 Speaker 1: your body in the context of your situation and your 118 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:39,760 Speaker 1: life experience. So Lisa, first I want to ask you 119 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:43,160 Speaker 1: what the classical view is of emotions, and then we're 120 00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:46,520 Speaker 1: going to transition into how you see it and what 121 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:48,720 Speaker 1: your research has revealed. 122 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:50,720 Speaker 2: So let's start with the classical view. 123 00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:53,520 Speaker 1: What is any student can learn in their psychology or 124 00:08:53,559 --> 00:08:55,600 Speaker 1: neuroscience textbook about emotions. 125 00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:58,520 Speaker 3: Right, So you open up an intro textbook, or you 126 00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:03,040 Speaker 3: could even open up a Harvard Business Review or often 127 00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:05,959 Speaker 3: even read the newspaper, and what you see is a 128 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:14,520 Speaker 3: view that humans are born with six somewhere between six 129 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:19,160 Speaker 3: and some I don't know, twelve fifteen circuits, one for 130 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:22,800 Speaker 3: each type of emotion, Anger said, fear discussed. You know, 131 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:26,520 Speaker 3: the different scientists disagree on how many there are, but 132 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:30,200 Speaker 3: the ideas that you have these inborn emotions, something happens 133 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,920 Speaker 3: in the world triggers one of them, and you make 134 00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:40,360 Speaker 3: a universal facial expression to express the state. Your body 135 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:45,680 Speaker 3: changes to express the physical state that is characteristic of 136 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:50,640 Speaker 3: that emotion, and you are likely to perform a specific behavior. So, 137 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:56,439 Speaker 3: for example, if your fear circuit is triggered, you'll make 138 00:09:56,480 --> 00:09:59,440 Speaker 3: a wide eyed, gasping face, which is supposed to be 139 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:02,600 Speaker 3: universe soul. Everybody around the world is supposed to make 140 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,000 Speaker 3: that face when they're afraid, and recognize that as an 141 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,080 Speaker 3: expression of fear. Your heart rate is supposed to race, 142 00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:14,120 Speaker 3: and you're supposed to be likely to flee or freeze 143 00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:17,480 Speaker 3: or make some kind of characteristic movement. 144 00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:20,160 Speaker 4: So that's a bit of a caricature, but not that much. 145 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:23,400 Speaker 3: That's that is actually the view that a lot of 146 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:25,640 Speaker 3: people still hold. 147 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:29,840 Speaker 1: Actually, And when you started graduate school, I assume you 148 00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:32,480 Speaker 1: felt that was the right model as well. That's what 149 00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:35,800 Speaker 1: you were taught, and so you started doing some research 150 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:37,000 Speaker 1: and what happened there? 151 00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:40,400 Speaker 3: Yeah, So I wasn't even doing research on emotion, David. 152 00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:44,560 Speaker 3: I started graduate school doing research on something else. But 153 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,120 Speaker 3: I had to measure emotion, and I was measuring emotion 154 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,160 Speaker 3: the way a lot of psychologists do, which is to 155 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:54,840 Speaker 3: ask people, how are you feeling? And what I did 156 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:59,959 Speaker 3: was I, instead of, you know, analyzing what people say, 157 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:03,959 Speaker 3: I looked at the statistical structure of what they said. 158 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:06,600 Speaker 3: So instead of just averaging the ratings and saying, oh, 159 00:11:06,640 --> 00:11:11,480 Speaker 3: this person is, you know, reporting sadness or fear, I 160 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:13,480 Speaker 3: looked at the whole pattern of their reports. And I 161 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:18,560 Speaker 3: found people on average don't distinguish between feelings of sadness 162 00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:21,440 Speaker 3: and fear and discuss. They basically group like all the 163 00:11:21,480 --> 00:11:27,400 Speaker 3: negative emotion words together to report I feel terrible and 164 00:11:27,559 --> 00:11:30,400 Speaker 3: all the positive words to I feel great, So I 165 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:34,280 Speaker 3: feel good, I feel bad, I feel comfortable, I feel uncomfortable. 166 00:11:34,679 --> 00:11:37,120 Speaker 4: That's generally, on average, what it looked like. 167 00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:40,600 Speaker 3: And I thought, well, everybody knows there are universal expressions 168 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:45,479 Speaker 3: for emotion, and everybody knows that there are these physical patterns, 169 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:49,880 Speaker 3: you know, for different emotion categories, and eventually, you know, 170 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:52,600 Speaker 3: everyone knows there are different circuits in the brain. So 171 00:11:52,679 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 3: I should be able to objectively measure somebody's emotional state 172 00:11:56,880 --> 00:11:59,400 Speaker 3: and then I can compare that to their reports. Because 173 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:01,160 Speaker 3: it turned out but when I looked a little closer, 174 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:04,080 Speaker 3: I could see that actually, on average, it looks like 175 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:06,920 Speaker 3: people aren't distinguishing, but some people distinguish pretty well, and 176 00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:10,480 Speaker 3: other people, you know, use anger said and fearful to 177 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:13,000 Speaker 3: mean are synonyms. So I thought, well, I can just 178 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:16,360 Speaker 3: figure out like who's reporting accurately and who isn't. And 179 00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:20,360 Speaker 3: I thought, you know, not being an expert in emotion 180 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:25,160 Speaker 3: and also having the exuberance and unrealistic expectations of a 181 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:28,640 Speaker 3: graduate student, I thought, oh, this will just take me 182 00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:30,280 Speaker 3: a couple of months, Like, I'll figure it out and 183 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:32,880 Speaker 3: then I'll be able to objectively, you know, measure emotion 184 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:34,280 Speaker 3: I'll move on and it'll be great. 185 00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:37,720 Speaker 4: And that is not what happened. 186 00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:39,400 Speaker 2: So what did you find. 187 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:45,320 Speaker 3: I've went to the literature because like probably you and 188 00:12:45,640 --> 00:12:49,440 Speaker 3: almost everybody I know, we were all taught that each 189 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:53,720 Speaker 3: emotion category that is anger, is a category of instances. 190 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:57,120 Speaker 3: So we were taught that there are certain categories that 191 00:12:57,200 --> 00:13:02,520 Speaker 3: are universal and should have objective markers. So I started 192 00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:07,360 Speaker 3: with the face because everyone knows that Charles Darwin. I 193 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:09,720 Speaker 3: mean when I say everyone, I mean you know, scientists 194 00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:13,680 Speaker 3: know Charles Darwin wrote a book called The Expression of 195 00:13:13,679 --> 00:13:17,360 Speaker 3: the Emotions in Man and Animals, and he claimed that 196 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,559 Speaker 3: there were these universal expressions. And so I went to 197 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:22,720 Speaker 3: the literature and I started to read, and what I 198 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:26,600 Speaker 3: discovered was that if you just read the introduction of 199 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:30,280 Speaker 3: papers and you read the discussion section of the papers, 200 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,880 Speaker 3: there are lots of claims about universal expressions. 201 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:36,839 Speaker 4: But if you actually look at. 202 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:40,319 Speaker 3: The results and you read you sort of dig into 203 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:45,760 Speaker 3: the results, you don't see anything which looks like universal expressions. 204 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:48,840 Speaker 3: Actually what you see is real variations. I'll give an 205 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:51,679 Speaker 3: example of a recent meta analysis. So this is a 206 00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:56,280 Speaker 3: statistical summary of you know, hundreds of studies. Right, people 207 00:13:56,360 --> 00:14:01,800 Speaker 3: on average scowl when they're angry. Scowling is the supposed 208 00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:07,440 Speaker 3: universal expression of anger. People scowl when they're angry about 209 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:12,079 Speaker 3: thirty five percent of the time, so that's more than chance, 210 00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,760 Speaker 3: and therefore it will get you a good publication if 211 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,440 Speaker 3: you report that finding. But that means sixty five percent 212 00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:22,480 Speaker 3: of the time people are doing something else that is 213 00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:28,080 Speaker 3: meaningful with their face when they're angry, and other research 214 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:30,600 Speaker 3: suggests that about half the time when people scowl, they're 215 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:34,760 Speaker 3: not angry. They're feeling something else, and oftentimes it's not 216 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:35,320 Speaker 3: an emotion. 217 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:37,320 Speaker 4: And if you combine that with. 218 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:43,160 Speaker 3: Evidence from people who live in remote cultures who have 219 00:14:43,400 --> 00:14:49,280 Speaker 3: less access to Western values and norms for emotion, what 220 00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:52,960 Speaker 3: you see is that there's nothing that looks like universality 221 00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:56,120 Speaker 3: for anger or for any category that's ever been studied. 222 00:14:56,480 --> 00:15:01,440 Speaker 3: So scowling and anger is certainly one set of facial 223 00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:05,680 Speaker 3: movements that people make in the West when they're angry, 224 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:09,359 Speaker 3: but it doesn't come anywhere close to having the reliability 225 00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:12,680 Speaker 3: or specificity that we would need to see for a 226 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:16,280 Speaker 3: universal expression. And I'll just say that in my lab, 227 00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:21,760 Speaker 3: we were very fortunate to be able to visit Tanzania 228 00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:26,720 Speaker 3: and work with members of the Hudsa hunter gatherer culture. 229 00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:32,800 Speaker 3: And we basically took six emotion categories that don't exist 230 00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:37,200 Speaker 3: in English. They don't exist in Hadzane either. They have 231 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,840 Speaker 3: never been claimed to be universal, and then we just 232 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:43,800 Speaker 3: made up expressions for them, like literally, we sat around 233 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:47,680 Speaker 3: a table just made up expressions for them. We pretested 234 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:51,800 Speaker 3: them with American subjects. To make sure that American subjects 235 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:56,240 Speaker 3: thought these were reasonable expressions of these emotions, we had 236 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 3: to tell them what the emotion was, you know, like 237 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:01,880 Speaker 3: there were one emotion category it was gigle, which is 238 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:05,880 Speaker 3: the desire to squeeze a baby's cheeks, you know, like 239 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,240 Speaker 3: when you see a really cute baby and you just like, 240 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,560 Speaker 3: So there was and then we plopped it into the 241 00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:16,720 Speaker 3: method that everybody uses when they do these cross cultural studies, 242 00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:21,160 Speaker 3: and the method produced evidence that five of the six 243 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:25,560 Speaker 3: of these categories were universal. So what I'm saying here 244 00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:30,520 Speaker 3: is that there's a method that scientists are using that 245 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:36,920 Speaker 3: basically is teaching people what the right answers are. But 246 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,480 Speaker 3: the basic answer here is that for every claim of 247 00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:45,560 Speaker 3: a universal marker or signature for emotion, if you just 248 00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:48,400 Speaker 3: look closely and you start to poke a little bit 249 00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:51,520 Speaker 3: at the research. You know, it's like a house of cards, 250 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:53,720 Speaker 3: it sort of falls apart, and instead what you see 251 00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:59,320 Speaker 3: is that variation is the norm, meaning you, David, probably 252 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:03,359 Speaker 3: do many things when you're anger. You probably sometimes feel unpleasant, 253 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,320 Speaker 3: and sometimes you probably might even feel pleasant. You know, 254 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:10,040 Speaker 3: your body probably does many things in anger. It's not random. 255 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:13,720 Speaker 3: It's structured by the situation, and that leads us to 256 00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:16,479 Speaker 3: ask a whole set of different questions about emotion. 257 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,760 Speaker 1: So when we think about an emotion like anger, it's 258 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:35,639 Speaker 1: not that there's one thing going on. It's not as 259 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:39,640 Speaker 1: though I have an anger circuit. So instead, there are 260 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:42,960 Speaker 1: lots of ways that I might express that based on 261 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,440 Speaker 1: the context that I'm in. Can you give an example 262 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:47,720 Speaker 1: of that? Sure? 263 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:49,240 Speaker 4: Have you ever laughed in anger? 264 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:52,360 Speaker 1: I don't remember if I've ever laughed at anger. It's 265 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:55,720 Speaker 1: possibly what would be a situation where someone might do that. 266 00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:56,920 Speaker 4: I think. 267 00:17:58,280 --> 00:18:02,880 Speaker 3: People laugh in anger when they're insulted in some way, 268 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:08,679 Speaker 3: and they cry in anger. I've certainly cried in anger. 269 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:14,359 Speaker 3: People sit stoically in plot the demise of their enemy. 270 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:18,199 Speaker 3: In anger, they make no expression whatsoever. I mean, you know, 271 00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:20,280 Speaker 3: I'm sure you've been in a faculty meeting where you've 272 00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:23,880 Speaker 3: done that. I certainly have had my moments. I think 273 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:26,040 Speaker 3: if you look to the literature, what you see is 274 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:28,640 Speaker 3: that people do all kinds of things in anger. Heart 275 00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:30,879 Speaker 3: rate can go up, it can go down, blood pressure 276 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:33,800 Speaker 3: can go up, it can go down, it can stay 277 00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:36,679 Speaker 3: the same. There's not a single pattern. And when it 278 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,760 Speaker 3: comes to the brain, there is no single circuit for 279 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:42,639 Speaker 3: anger or sadness or fear. It's not even like there 280 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,000 Speaker 3: are multiple circuits. What you see in the brain is 281 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:50,800 Speaker 3: that there are ingredients or components that work together. So 282 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:55,720 Speaker 3: anger is a whole brain state. It's not a single circuit. 283 00:18:55,840 --> 00:18:59,320 Speaker 3: In fact, any research that claims to have identified a 284 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:04,679 Speaker 3: distinct circuit for an emotion is usually equating an emotion 285 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:08,359 Speaker 3: with a specific action. So when you read research that 286 00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,760 Speaker 3: talks about the fear circuit, they mean the circuit in 287 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:17,400 Speaker 3: animals when the animal freezes. Really careful research shows, for example, 288 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:20,440 Speaker 3: if you place a rat in a testing box and 289 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:25,679 Speaker 3: you expose the rat to us tone and then a 290 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:29,880 Speaker 3: foot shock, eventually the rat will come to freeze when 291 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:33,119 Speaker 3: it hears the tone. This is what scientists refer to 292 00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:38,240 Speaker 3: as learned fear, so they're equating a freezing behavior to fear, 293 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:41,520 Speaker 3: and then they look for the circuit for that freezing behavior, 294 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:44,240 Speaker 3: and then they call it the circuit for fear. The 295 00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:48,320 Speaker 3: really interesting thing is that recent research, for example, will 296 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,919 Speaker 3: train a rat in the way that we just discussed, 297 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:58,440 Speaker 3: mark the neurons that increase their firing, and then reactivate 298 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:04,440 Speaker 3: those neurons opt genetically with light, and then they look 299 00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:08,080 Speaker 3: throughout the entire brain, Well, what else is being so 300 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,840 Speaker 3: not just looking at the you know, the circuit, like 301 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,119 Speaker 3: let's say the little subcortical circuit that they might be 302 00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:15,840 Speaker 3: interested in, but they look at through the whole brain 303 00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:17,680 Speaker 3: and what you see is that there's actually a whole 304 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:22,640 Speaker 3: brain ensemble of neurons which are increasing their firing. Two 305 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,080 Speaker 3: interesting things to me in this body of work. Oftentimes 306 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:29,680 Speaker 3: scientists think the fear circuit is in neurons in this 307 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,359 Speaker 3: little area called the amygdala, which is deep inside the 308 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:39,399 Speaker 3: temper lobe of a vertebrate brain. If you reactivate the 309 00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:42,439 Speaker 3: neurons in the amygdala and you bring up this whole 310 00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:46,400 Speaker 3: brain wide ensemble of neurons, but you interfere with the 311 00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:50,520 Speaker 3: firing of the other neurons, including in the cerebral cortex, 312 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:55,719 Speaker 3: you don't get freezing behavior. So it's the whole ensemble 313 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:59,720 Speaker 3: that's producing that behavior, not just the neurons in the 314 00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:03,320 Speaker 3: But even more so, what's interesting is that if you 315 00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:07,480 Speaker 3: put the animal in a different box, one that doesn't 316 00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:11,280 Speaker 3: look very much like the box in which it learned 317 00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,920 Speaker 3: to freeze, those neurons that you've activated are part of 318 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:21,880 Speaker 3: a different ensemble, and no freezing behavior happens. So you've 319 00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:25,400 Speaker 3: got this situation where the neurons in question are clearly 320 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,159 Speaker 3: doing something, but whatever they're doing, they're working in a 321 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:33,080 Speaker 3: larger group, So their psychological meaning is related or relational 322 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:38,160 Speaker 3: or dependent on that group. And it's very context sensitive, 323 00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:44,080 Speaker 3: and it's just explaining freezing behavior. It's not explaining all 324 00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,399 Speaker 3: the other things that animals do in fear. This is 325 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:50,600 Speaker 3: just one thing they do in a particular kind of context. 326 00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:53,000 Speaker 1: So when you look in a movie like Inside Out 327 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: and you've got these different emotions and they hit a 328 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,840 Speaker 1: button and cause some behavior, what your research has shown 329 00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,280 Speaker 1: for a few decades now is that it doesn't seem 330 00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,399 Speaker 1: to be the right explanation for emotion. Why do you 331 00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:10,080 Speaker 1: think that view is so popular? And more importantly, what 332 00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:12,840 Speaker 1: is your theory about constructed emotions? 333 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:13,840 Speaker 2: Explain that to us. 334 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:16,359 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, first, can I just say about Inside Out. 335 00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:18,760 Speaker 3: I have to say I've seen both movies and I 336 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,200 Speaker 3: love them. I think they're totally fun. They have really 337 00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:27,600 Speaker 3: really clever metaphors that I love, and I think in 338 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,000 Speaker 3: the second movie, I particularly loved on Wei. 339 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:31,880 Speaker 4: I just love that character. 340 00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:35,760 Speaker 3: But what I'll say is that I also really like 341 00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,679 Speaker 3: Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote cartoons, but I don't think that 342 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,399 Speaker 3: I can learn physics from it. So the idea that 343 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,200 Speaker 3: you could learn neuroscience, the neuroscience of emotion from a cartoon, 344 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:51,280 Speaker 3: and particularly from Pixar that can put emotions into cockroaches 345 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,560 Speaker 3: and cars, and you know, they're so clever, right. I 346 00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,639 Speaker 3: think there's nothing wrong with what Pixar did. It's it, 347 00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,960 Speaker 3: but the marketing is is pretty problematic. 348 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,080 Speaker 4: And I also want to point out that you just 349 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:05,439 Speaker 4: watch any single one. 350 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:10,400 Speaker 3: Of those characters, anger or embarrassment, any of them, and they. 351 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:10,920 Speaker 4: Show a rate. 352 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:14,480 Speaker 3: They have a range of emotions, they display a range 353 00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:17,680 Speaker 3: of expressions. If they only ever did their one thing, 354 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,560 Speaker 3: it would be a really boring movie. 355 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:25,159 Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell us about your theory of constructed emotion 356 00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,000 Speaker 1: and what the right way is to think. 357 00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:30,160 Speaker 3: About this, Well, I don't know if it's the right way, 358 00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,199 Speaker 3: but it's certainly a different way, and I think a 359 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,399 Speaker 3: way that's more justified by the available evidence. And so 360 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,520 Speaker 3: I'll say that for a long time I didn't have 361 00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:44,320 Speaker 3: a theory. I just was trying to learn. You know, 362 00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,480 Speaker 3: we're faced with a paradox, really, and that is that 363 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:53,520 Speaker 3: there's no single biological marker or pattern of biological markers 364 00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:59,120 Speaker 3: that like, no biomarkers for any category of emotion. Yet 365 00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:05,080 Speaker 3: when I I'm angry, I feel angry, and I don't 366 00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:09,399 Speaker 3: feel sad or happy or you know, I have an 367 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:14,120 Speaker 3: immediate reaction and I don't think about why I'm having 368 00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:15,560 Speaker 3: it or which one I'm having. 369 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,040 Speaker 4: And pretty much. 370 00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,560 Speaker 3: People, you know, that's their experience. They feel like emotions 371 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:26,040 Speaker 3: happen to them. It feels like something's being triggered. So 372 00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:31,240 Speaker 3: you've got the subjective experiences of certainty. 373 00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:33,320 Speaker 4: And then on the other hand. 374 00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,040 Speaker 3: You've got this biological question of like, well, they're no 375 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:42,399 Speaker 3: markers anywhere. Plus what you have is tremendous variation across cultures, 376 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,520 Speaker 3: just even in the categories that exist. So not all 377 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,480 Speaker 3: the categories that we think of as basic in English 378 00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,960 Speaker 3: actually exist in other languages, and there are many other 379 00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:55,160 Speaker 3: categories that are basic for other languages that don't exist 380 00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,679 Speaker 3: in our language. So how do you account for all 381 00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:01,200 Speaker 3: of this in one theory? This this was a puzzle 382 00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,480 Speaker 3: to me for a really long time. So what I 383 00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,000 Speaker 3: did is I started to study brain evolution. So how 384 00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:10,320 Speaker 3: did brains evolve and how are they structured? And how 385 00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:13,560 Speaker 3: do they work? So instead of doing what most scientists 386 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,919 Speaker 3: do is they say, okay, well, I'm I'm really interested 387 00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,040 Speaker 3: in anger, fear, sadness, so I'm going to go looking 388 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,520 Speaker 3: for the physical basis of those emotions in the brain 389 00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,240 Speaker 3: or in the body. I started with the brain and 390 00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,040 Speaker 3: body and said, okay, well, to the best of our knowledge, 391 00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,400 Speaker 3: how did a brain like ours evolve, How does it work, 392 00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,960 Speaker 3: how is it structured, what's its anatomy? And then how 393 00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,480 Speaker 3: is it, you know, communicating with the body. And then, 394 00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:39,880 Speaker 3: given that we have that kind of biology, how could 395 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,800 Speaker 3: it be creating the instances or the events that we 396 00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,479 Speaker 3: experience as emotion. And I came up with a really 397 00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,680 Speaker 3: different set of hypotheses that required a really different way 398 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,560 Speaker 3: of doing science. And it's a little more complicated. Then 399 00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:57,399 Speaker 3: you've got a circuit in your brain that you were 400 00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,960 Speaker 3: born with the triggers and then produces a you know, 401 00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:05,680 Speaker 3: an emotion, prototypical motion, and the theory goes something like this, 402 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,760 Speaker 3: Your brain's most important job is regulating your body. It's 403 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,919 Speaker 3: not to think or feel or see even it's to 404 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,480 Speaker 3: regulate the systems of your body in a metabolically efficient way. 405 00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:23,040 Speaker 3: That's actually the basis of everything your brain does, and 406 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,600 Speaker 3: anything you see or feel, or hear or think is 407 00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:28,280 Speaker 3: in the service of that regulation. 408 00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,280 Speaker 4: So that's the first piece. Your brain is part of 409 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:34,000 Speaker 4: this regulation. 410 00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:38,960 Speaker 3: It's always receiving signals from the body and signals from 411 00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:43,040 Speaker 3: the world. So every experience you have, every action you take, 412 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,960 Speaker 3: is some combination of what's inside your brain and what's 413 00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,800 Speaker 3: outside your brain coming to the sensory surfaces of your body. 414 00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,119 Speaker 3: So your brain's always regulating your body. Your body is 415 00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,359 Speaker 3: always sending sensory signals back to your brain to report 416 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:03,240 Speaker 3: on the sensory constantquences of those movements inside your body, 417 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,960 Speaker 3: your heart beating, your lungs expanding, whatever. But also you're 418 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:12,800 Speaker 3: always receiving sensory signals from the surfaces, sensory surfaces that 419 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,080 Speaker 3: we think of as exte receptive signals The interesting thing 420 00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:21,439 Speaker 3: is that these signals from the brain's perspective are ambiguous 421 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,800 Speaker 3: because the brain is trapped in a dark, silent box 422 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,239 Speaker 3: called your skull, and these signals are the outcomes of 423 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,199 Speaker 3: some set of changes in the body and in the 424 00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,119 Speaker 3: world that the brain has no access to. Right So, 425 00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:40,080 Speaker 3: like a loud bang could be a door slamming, a 426 00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,720 Speaker 3: car backfiring, or a gunshot, what your brain will do 427 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,399 Speaker 3: to keep itself alive and well is very different in 428 00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,760 Speaker 3: those circumstances. So how does it know? And the answer 429 00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,680 Speaker 3: is it has to guess. This is what what philosophers 430 00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,439 Speaker 3: call an inverse problem. And you know where you receive 431 00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:58,359 Speaker 3: the outcome, but you don't know the cause. You have 432 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,480 Speaker 3: to guess at the cause. And what does the brain 433 00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:05,239 Speaker 3: used to guess? It uses past experience. It's remembering, and 434 00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,960 Speaker 3: you don't experience yourself remembering. But basically your brain is 435 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,399 Speaker 3: remembering a bunch of instances from the past that are 436 00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,120 Speaker 3: similar to the present. A bunch of things which are 437 00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,399 Speaker 3: similar is called a category. 438 00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:18,920 Speaker 4: So your brain's. 439 00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:24,280 Speaker 3: Basically using the past to construct categories in the moment 440 00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,760 Speaker 3: that will allow it to prepare action. The interesting thing 441 00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:34,600 Speaker 3: is that research suggests the brain is functioning predictively, which 442 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:39,200 Speaker 3: means the guest starts before the sensory signals arrive. So 443 00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,640 Speaker 3: if we were to stop time right now, your brain 444 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,880 Speaker 3: is modeling that what it believes to be the sensory 445 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,200 Speaker 3: state of your body and the sensory conditions of the world, 446 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,440 Speaker 3: and based on that it's remembering. It's reinstating a bunch 447 00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:58,080 Speaker 3: of partial representations a category that's similar to the present 448 00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,040 Speaker 3: as a way of preparing the regulation of the body, 449 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,840 Speaker 3: anticipating the needs of the body, and preparing to meet 450 00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,000 Speaker 3: those needs before they arise, so that movements can occur 451 00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,480 Speaker 3: like eye movements or muscle movements, and the consequences of 452 00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:18,600 Speaker 3: those movements are the predicted sensory inputs that are arriving 453 00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,360 Speaker 3: from the sensory surfaces, and so the brain is comparing 454 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:28,920 Speaker 3: those and the result is your experience. So what's interesting 455 00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,640 Speaker 3: about this perspective is a couple of things. One is 456 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,400 Speaker 3: that it's not like you see something and then react 457 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,840 Speaker 3: to it and then move Perception is a consequence of 458 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,600 Speaker 3: movement preparation, not the other way around. The brain is 459 00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:46,600 Speaker 3: functioning predictively, even though it creates experiences of the world 460 00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,600 Speaker 3: as if it's reacting to the world. So it's there's 461 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,680 Speaker 3: a real puzzle here, which is why would a brain 462 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:59,360 Speaker 3: function predictively but create experiences of reactions. Nobody knows the 463 00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,160 Speaker 3: answer to that question. And the way that emotions are 464 00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,480 Speaker 3: constructed are the way that every psychological feature is constructed. 465 00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:13,040 Speaker 3: There's no specific set of mechanisms to emotion that would 466 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,480 Speaker 3: be different from cognition or perception or attention or what 467 00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:16,920 Speaker 3: have you. 468 00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:17,600 Speaker 4: Do. 469 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:21,280 Speaker 1: You think of emotion as being sort of a wider 470 00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,680 Speaker 1: angle lens on a situation. So when I think about cognition, 471 00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,440 Speaker 1: it feels like, Okay, what's the next chess move I'm 472 00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:29,680 Speaker 1: going to make, and I'm really focused on something. Emotion 473 00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,320 Speaker 1: sometimes feels to me like, you know, give me the 474 00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:34,680 Speaker 1: wider view of what's happening here. Is this a good situation? 475 00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:35,640 Speaker 1: This is a bad situation. 476 00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,520 Speaker 3: I think that things like cognition and emotion and attention 477 00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,400 Speaker 3: and perception are features of a brain state. I think 478 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,240 Speaker 3: if there are features that happen to be very salient, 479 00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,680 Speaker 3: then we call the event a thought or a memory, 480 00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,440 Speaker 3: or an emotion or a perception. But I think about 481 00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:02,280 Speaker 3: the brain holistically as a dynamical system, a system of 482 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:07,920 Speaker 3: neurons and other bits and bobs that moves from state 483 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,520 Speaker 3: to state to state, and or you could say traverses 484 00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,120 Speaker 3: of state space, you know, like it always is in 485 00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,200 Speaker 3: a state and the nature of the state changes. So 486 00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:22,160 Speaker 3: I think about emotions as you know, for example, your 487 00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,080 Speaker 3: brain is always regulating your body, or you'd be dead. 488 00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,600 Speaker 3: So it's always regulating the body. Body is always sending 489 00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,760 Speaker 3: signals back to the brain. It's very infrequently that you 490 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,960 Speaker 3: will experience those signals as your heart pounding or your 491 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:40,080 Speaker 3: lungs expanding. You never feel, you know, your liver excreting 492 00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,800 Speaker 3: chemicals or hormones, like, you just don't experience those things. 493 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,200 Speaker 3: The brain's tracking it, but it's not making that information 494 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,880 Speaker 3: available to itself. Instead, what we feel is affect We 495 00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,680 Speaker 3: feel pleasant, we feel unpleasant, we feel calm, we feel 496 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:59,320 Speaker 3: worked up. Those are really simple feelings there that are 497 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,920 Speaker 3: with us all all the time, in every waking moment 498 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,719 Speaker 3: of life. So they're really properties of consciousness. When they 499 00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,080 Speaker 3: get really intense, those are the moments that we experience 500 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,160 Speaker 3: them as emotions, but they're always there, even in moments 501 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,680 Speaker 3: of cognition or perception for example. I also want to 502 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,440 Speaker 3: say that there are many cultures in the world that 503 00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:23,360 Speaker 3: don't distinguish cognition from emotion, Like, that's not how people 504 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,840 Speaker 3: in certain cultures experience themselves in the world. They don't 505 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:33,360 Speaker 3: make that distinction. That's a very Western distinction. And I 506 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,760 Speaker 3: think we have to have a theory of brain function 507 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:44,080 Speaker 3: that accommodates everybody's experience, not just certain people's experience. Because 508 00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,480 Speaker 3: we happen to be the ones with the money and 509 00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,600 Speaker 3: who are in control of the journals. 510 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:53,080 Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting. I mean, what's your experience. 511 00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,240 Speaker 1: I feel like when I'm concentrating on something very specific, 512 00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,200 Speaker 1: like the chest move, that feels different to me than 513 00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,320 Speaker 1: if I'm just feeling generally happy or sad or something. 514 00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,040 Speaker 3: It does, but so does in one instance of happiness 515 00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:10,880 Speaker 3: can feel entirely different than another feeling of happiness. So 516 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,880 Speaker 3: my point the question we would ask, is there something 517 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,280 Speaker 3: similar to the brain state for lots of different instances 518 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,000 Speaker 3: of happiness. So we took all the instances where you 519 00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,120 Speaker 3: were deciding on a chess move, would those brain states 520 00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,840 Speaker 3: look more similar to each other than if we looked 521 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,200 Speaker 3: at all the brain states you had for chess moves 522 00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:34,640 Speaker 3: and happiness. And the answer is not so far. There's 523 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:39,920 Speaker 3: just structured variation. So when you're happy, that's not the 524 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,040 Speaker 3: same state for you all the time. You know, people 525 00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,240 Speaker 3: do lots of things when they are happy. They express 526 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,440 Speaker 3: in different ways. They have their menta mental features of 527 00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,960 Speaker 3: their experience can change, their physical state can be different. 528 00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:59,479 Speaker 3: It's not random. It's structured by the situation that they're in, 529 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:04,400 Speaker 3: including the physical condition of their body and their metabolic state. 530 00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:11,160 Speaker 3: And there's nothing objectively more similar about those instances of 531 00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:17,839 Speaker 3: happiness than is objectively different between happiness and instances of 532 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,160 Speaker 3: planning a chess move. And the interesting question there is 533 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,440 Speaker 3: why it feels that way to us. It's a question 534 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,960 Speaker 3: of consciousness, it's not a question of objective brain function. 535 00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,280 Speaker 2: What is your take on that answer? 536 00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,759 Speaker 1: Why it feels different, Why we have a distinction, let's say, 537 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,759 Speaker 1: in the West, between let's say, cognition on one end 538 00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,040 Speaker 1: of the spectrum and emotion on another end of the spectrum. 539 00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:42,640 Speaker 3: I don't know exactly why we have categories for cognition 540 00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:44,759 Speaker 3: and emotion that are so entrenched, but I will say 541 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:48,720 Speaker 3: that they derived not out of a theory of brain function, 542 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,400 Speaker 3: but of a theory of morality. In ancient Greece, so 543 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,919 Speaker 3: that's how old they are. That you have an inner 544 00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:00,719 Speaker 3: beast of emotions and instincts, and that inter beece has 545 00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:07,000 Speaker 3: to be kept in check by cognition, by rationality. And 546 00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,239 Speaker 3: if you keep that inner beast in check, you know 547 00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:15,439 Speaker 3: you're a moral person and you're a healthy person. And 548 00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:24,000 Speaker 3: if you don't, then you're either immoral, or you're immature, 549 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:29,480 Speaker 3: or you're mentally ill. This idea of that your mind 550 00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,960 Speaker 3: is a battleground between cognition and emotion is a very 551 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,439 Speaker 3: old idea. You can see it in Plato's writings, and 552 00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,759 Speaker 3: it's embedded in the law, it's embedded in economics. It's 553 00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,480 Speaker 3: just a pervasive idea that has no evidence to support 554 00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:46,320 Speaker 3: it in brain evolution or brain function. 555 00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,439 Speaker 2: I have a question, though, I'm not sure. 556 00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,239 Speaker 1: I think that's the distinction that I feel about, you know, 557 00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,120 Speaker 1: keeping the beast in check. It's more like, if I'm 558 00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,640 Speaker 1: planning my next let's say, chess move, then I'm thinking 559 00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:01,440 Speaker 1: about steps. 560 00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:03,920 Speaker 2: I can do it in a very clear, rational way. 561 00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:06,879 Speaker 1: But if I'm at a party and I'm thinking, Wow, 562 00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,719 Speaker 1: I'm having a great time at this party, or oh, 563 00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,600 Speaker 1: I don't really like this party so much, or something 564 00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,080 Speaker 1: I just you know, I have some feeling about it. 565 00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,880 Speaker 1: I might not be able to specify the details of why, 566 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,680 Speaker 1: but nonetheless I'm you know, I'm a wash in some feeling, 567 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,799 Speaker 1: some emotion about this. And that's the distinction that I 568 00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:29,279 Speaker 1: intuitively feel. I'm curious if you if you see that 569 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:32,640 Speaker 1: as a as a meaningful spectrum. 570 00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,040 Speaker 3: So I would say it's a meaningful question about consciousness. 571 00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,640 Speaker 3: It's not a meaningful question about brain structure or brain 572 00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,480 Speaker 3: function in the sense that intuition, our intuitions, our experiences 573 00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:50,160 Speaker 3: of the world in general are very bad explanatory guides 574 00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,640 Speaker 3: for how the world works. And this is also true 575 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,120 Speaker 3: when the brain, when brains are trying to explain themselves, right, 576 00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,360 Speaker 3: So I would say, yeah, I mean, there are probably 577 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,680 Speaker 3: times when you're planning a chess move that you're really frustrated, 578 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,279 Speaker 3: and there are probably times when you're really happy that 579 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,600 Speaker 3: you're thinking about strategically, how can I meet that person 580 00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,200 Speaker 3: or how can I get away from this person? Or 581 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,799 Speaker 3: so I think that this is a question of which 582 00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,200 Speaker 3: mental features are in the focus of attention and which 583 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,200 Speaker 3: ones are in the background. Like right now, for example, 584 00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,160 Speaker 3: if you are sitting, are you sitting. 585 00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:28,160 Speaker 2: Or stating I'm sitting. 586 00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:32,720 Speaker 3: Okay, So right now, for example, you're probably not concentrating 587 00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,560 Speaker 3: on the press of the chair against the back of 588 00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,600 Speaker 3: your thighs until now that I just said it, you 589 00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,120 Speaker 3: probably are thinking about that for a minute, right. So 590 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,200 Speaker 3: there are features of experience that are available to you 591 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:45,640 Speaker 3: that are not in the forefront of your experience, but 592 00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,279 Speaker 3: you can move them in and out pretty easily. And 593 00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,480 Speaker 3: that's really how I think about it. So, for example, 594 00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,760 Speaker 3: the next time that you find yourself being really really hungry, 595 00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,000 Speaker 3: take a moment and focus your attent on your stomach. 596 00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:05,399 Speaker 3: Are you hungry or are you tired? Because if you're 597 00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,680 Speaker 3: tired and you need some energy, your first reaction will 598 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,920 Speaker 3: be to eat, because you have a history of learning 599 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,279 Speaker 3: that energy comes from, Like the feeling of having more 600 00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,000 Speaker 3: energy happens after you eat. But a lot of the 601 00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,200 Speaker 3: time when we're tired, we should be drinking water, not eating, 602 00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,640 Speaker 3: because dehydration is fatigue. 603 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:27,279 Speaker 1: You know. 604 00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,560 Speaker 3: Research shows, for example, that when you drink a whole 605 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,720 Speaker 3: glass of water. Drink a glass of water, your thirst 606 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,880 Speaker 3: is immediately quenched, but actually it takes twenty minutes for 607 00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,719 Speaker 3: the water to make its way into your bloodstream. To 608 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,560 Speaker 3: change the osmolarity of your blood to get to the 609 00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,759 Speaker 3: brain to tell the brain that now you are hydrated. 610 00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,799 Speaker 3: So the brain is constructing experience. It's predicting what the 611 00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,160 Speaker 3: sensory consequences of actions will be, and you start to 612 00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:59,560 Speaker 3: experience the consequences well before the actual input arrives to 613 00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:05,280 Speaker 3: the brain to confirm those So I wouldn't go looking 614 00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,919 Speaker 3: for distinctions between cognition and emotion because people have looked 615 00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,279 Speaker 3: for those distinctions for years and years and years, and 616 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,239 Speaker 3: the one thing that we've learned from all of that 617 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:19,280 Speaker 3: research is that it's the wrong question to be asking. Instead, 618 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:23,520 Speaker 3: it's a question about experience and the way the brain 619 00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:29,560 Speaker 3: is constructing experience lived experience, and that's where we should 620 00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,640 Speaker 3: be asking those neuroscience based questions. 621 00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:52,239 Speaker 1: I think, could the concept of constructed emotions tell us 622 00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:56,240 Speaker 1: something about AI and the future of machines being able 623 00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,959 Speaker 1: to simulate or understand our. 624 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:06,640 Speaker 3: Everything from evolutionary biology and neuroscience tells us that the 625 00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:12,080 Speaker 3: core of brain function is rooted in the regulation of 626 00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:19,359 Speaker 3: the body. There are metabolic constraints and selection pressures that 627 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,440 Speaker 3: give us the kind of mind we have, and that 628 00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:30,800 Speaker 3: means that there's this sort of imperative that is largely hidden, 629 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:35,800 Speaker 3: but that scaffolds everything we see and feel and think. 630 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,759 Speaker 4: AI doesn't have that. I'm not saying an AI has 631 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 4: to have a body. 632 00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,840 Speaker 3: I'm saying it has to have a set of really 633 00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:48,200 Speaker 3: complicated systems that it has to regulate, because that's actually 634 00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:54,920 Speaker 3: at the basis of our human minds, actually of any 635 00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:59,759 Speaker 3: mind of any living creature. I'm not reducing everything to 636 00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:03,560 Speaker 3: metabolism or bodily regulation, but it's a hugely important piece 637 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,960 Speaker 3: that we all overlook because we are not aware of it. 638 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,640 Speaker 3: Right now, You and I and every listener has a 639 00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,920 Speaker 3: whole drama going on inside each of us that we 640 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,920 Speaker 3: are I mean, I hope we're largely unaware of because 641 00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:21,000 Speaker 3: whenever we become slightly aware of that drama, we're usually 642 00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,800 Speaker 3: really uncomfortable and we can't pay attention to anything outside 643 00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:29,400 Speaker 3: in the world. So I think that that's a huge 644 00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:34,200 Speaker 3: piece of what it means to have a human mind. 645 00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:40,880 Speaker 3: Evolutionarily and structurally and functionally, at the core of your brain, 646 00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,319 Speaker 3: it's predictive regulation of the body. So exactly the same 647 00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:49,719 Speaker 3: brain regions, exactly the same neurons in certain cases that 648 00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:56,680 Speaker 3: are regulating the body are also implicated in attention or memory, 649 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,879 Speaker 3: or emotion or vision. Right, So the hippocampus. People think 650 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:07,520 Speaker 3: of this structure as being for memory or for spatial navigation, 651 00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,799 Speaker 3: but it has more endocrine receptors than any other part 652 00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:11,560 Speaker 3: of the brain. 653 00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:12,760 Speaker 4: Except the hypothalamus. 654 00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:18,960 Speaker 3: It is clearly a hub for the predictive regulation of 655 00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,919 Speaker 3: the body, but that's not how people think of it 656 00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:28,240 Speaker 3: because they're more concerned with understanding the other functions which 657 00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:33,560 Speaker 3: result from that regulation, like memory or spatial navigation. 658 00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:35,560 Speaker 2: How does your theory. 659 00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,280 Speaker 1: Of emotion change the way that we think about mental 660 00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,640 Speaker 1: health treatments like depression or anxiety. 661 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,400 Speaker 3: The way the brain regulates metabolism is that it's running 662 00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:47,520 Speaker 3: a budget for the body, and I would say depression 663 00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:50,759 Speaker 3: is a bankrupt body budget. The brain believes that there's 664 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:55,040 Speaker 3: a metabolic problem somewhere in the body, and so it's 665 00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,920 Speaker 3: reducing energy output. And the way the brain reduces energy 666 00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:06,480 Speaker 3: output is by reducing movement, reducing sensitivity to the outside world, 667 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,520 Speaker 3: and inducing feelings of fatigue so that you won't move 668 00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,840 Speaker 3: very much. So you get context insensitivity, which is a 669 00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:20,640 Speaker 3: major symptom of depression. You also get fatigue and motor retardation, 670 00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,200 Speaker 3: so people don't move as much, They move more slowly, 671 00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:28,319 Speaker 3: so the brain is attempting to reduce energy output. And 672 00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,400 Speaker 3: the clincher for me is that a couple of things. 673 00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:37,160 Speaker 3: One is that there's a test biological tests for depression 674 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:42,200 Speaker 3: that involves looking at cortisol levels, which is a chemical 675 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:46,560 Speaker 3: that people call a stress hormone. Cortisol is a is 676 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:52,160 Speaker 3: a glu It regulates glucose metabolism, So if you have 677 00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:57,560 Speaker 3: problems with glucose metabolism, then you will very likely have 678 00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:03,320 Speaker 3: depressed mood. And serotonin actually evolved as a metabolic regulator. 679 00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:07,760 Speaker 3: Serotonin uptake reaptake inhibitors are not happiest drugs. They're drugs 680 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:12,440 Speaker 3: that influence metabolism, and whatever affective consequences they have are 681 00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,319 Speaker 3: because they are regulating metabolism. 682 00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,920 Speaker 1: So, Lisa, tell us some practical takeaways from your research 683 00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,399 Speaker 1: that listeners can think about when they're thinking about how 684 00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,080 Speaker 1: to manage their own emotions. 685 00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:26,440 Speaker 3: The first thing I would be doing is asking yourself, like, 686 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,960 Speaker 3: when you feel like crap. Feeling like crap doesn't mean 687 00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,800 Speaker 3: that something's wrong. It could mean that you're just doing 688 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,680 Speaker 3: something really hard, or that you didn't get a good 689 00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:41,279 Speaker 3: night's sleep, or that you're dehydrated in some way, so 690 00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,840 Speaker 3: it doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with your life 691 00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,319 Speaker 3: or something is wrong with you. In our culture, we 692 00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,600 Speaker 3: believe that thoughts cause feelings, but actually, if you look 693 00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,239 Speaker 3: at the predictive functioning of the brain, it suggests that 694 00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,799 Speaker 3: the signals which give rise to feelings also. 695 00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:00,880 Speaker 4: Give right to thoughts. 696 00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,320 Speaker 3: So if you feel like shit, you're probably going to 697 00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,120 Speaker 3: feel it's going to feel to you like you're a 698 00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:11,239 Speaker 3: horrible person and that the world is terrible, or you 699 00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,360 Speaker 3: need to divorce your spouse or your kids are you know, 700 00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,799 Speaker 3: misbehaving or whatever. We have a tendency to see the 701 00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,160 Speaker 3: world through affect colored glasses because of how we're wired. 702 00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,600 Speaker 3: So the first thing that I do when I feel 703 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,920 Speaker 3: like the world is ending, you know, because lots of 704 00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,759 Speaker 3: bad things are happening, The first thing I ask myself 705 00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,239 Speaker 3: is did I get enough sleep last night? Have I 706 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,360 Speaker 3: had enough water to drink? Is it better for me 707 00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,239 Speaker 3: to have a bath and go to bed and get 708 00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,480 Speaker 3: up tomorrow and things will look different even in the 709 00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:48,080 Speaker 3: worst of circumstances. That's always a good strategy. 710 00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:57,960 Speaker 1: That was Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor at Northeastern University and 711 00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,080 Speaker 1: one of the world's experts on emotion, and I'll just 712 00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,560 Speaker 1: mentioned she's one of the top one percent of the 713 00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:04,760 Speaker 1: most cited psychologists in the world. 714 00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:07,359 Speaker 2: So to summarize what we. 715 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:12,239 Speaker 1: Saw today, for decades there was a research avalanche suggesting 716 00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:16,000 Speaker 1: that emotions are the same across all people. And we 717 00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,440 Speaker 1: had Darwin's universal expressions of emotions, and we had Paul 718 00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,200 Speaker 1: Ekman's suggestion that there were a handful of basic emotions, 719 00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,520 Speaker 1: and we had pixars inside out. There seemed to be 720 00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,879 Speaker 1: a clear map of the emotional landscape that was coming 721 00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,560 Speaker 1: into focus. But as we saw, Barrett and her lab 722 00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,799 Speaker 1: came to very different conclusions. She became skeptical that there 723 00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,440 Speaker 1: was universality of emotional expression, like what she mentioned about 724 00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,560 Speaker 1: the assumption that people scowl when they're angry. But it 725 00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,600 Speaker 1: turns out when you study this carefully, sixty five percent 726 00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,399 Speaker 1: of the time people do something else when they're angry. 727 00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:52,200 Speaker 2: They don't scowl. 728 00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,359 Speaker 1: And also when you do see a scowl, it's only 729 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,359 Speaker 1: a fifty percent chance that this has to do with 730 00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:02,000 Speaker 1: anger versus something else. So Barrett argues that emotions are 731 00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:07,759 Speaker 1: not universal reflexes. They are instead constructed. They're shaped by 732 00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:11,920 Speaker 1: the brain's predictive power, and our cultural context and our 733 00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:16,839 Speaker 1: individual experiences. In other words, her framework highlights the role 734 00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:21,680 Speaker 1: of the brain's internal model in interpreting sensations from the 735 00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:26,239 Speaker 1: body what's called introception, and signing meaning to those sensations, 736 00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:30,720 Speaker 1: creating what we label as emotions. It's a paradigm shift 737 00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,560 Speaker 1: that invites us to reconsider not only what emotions are, 738 00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,960 Speaker 1: but what they mean. If emotions are constructed, then they're 739 00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:43,279 Speaker 1: not simply happening to us, they're happening with us. So 740 00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,200 Speaker 1: take a minute to think about some moments in your 741 00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:51,440 Speaker 1: life when you felt something deeply love or rage, or 742 00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:56,440 Speaker 1: despair or hope. Barrett's framework suggests that in those moments, 743 00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,839 Speaker 1: your brain was hard at work pulling together past experiences 744 00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:05,760 Speaker 1: in bodily sensations and environmental clues to create the emotion 745 00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:09,600 Speaker 1: that you felt. It wasn't a reflex, it was a narrative. 746 00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:13,320 Speaker 1: And if emotions are readouts from the body, then maybe 747 00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,360 Speaker 1: we can get just slightly more agency over them. Not 748 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,600 Speaker 1: in the sense of controlling our feelings, they're too complex 749 00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:24,120 Speaker 1: for that, but in shaping how we interpret and respond 750 00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:24,560 Speaker 1: to them. 751 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:25,879 Speaker 2: Take something like. 752 00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:29,600 Speaker 1: Anger in the classical view anger is a red hot reaction. 753 00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:32,160 Speaker 1: It's the little guy with fire coming out of his head. 754 00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:36,920 Speaker 1: It's beyond our control. But if anger is constructed, maybe 755 00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,560 Speaker 1: we can probe it a bit. What is my body 756 00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:43,759 Speaker 1: telling me? Why does the situation feel threatening? How can 757 00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:48,400 Speaker 1: I reframe this moment? Because emotions appear to be not 758 00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:52,439 Speaker 1: something we simply have, but something we make, not pre 759 00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:58,000 Speaker 1: programmed reactions, but dynamic constructions, shaped by our past and 760 00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:02,080 Speaker 1: our brains predictions of the future. Understanding this can change 761 00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:06,200 Speaker 1: potentially how we see ourselves and others. Are moments of 762 00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:11,520 Speaker 1: joy and fear, and love and anger. They're not fixed, 763 00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:15,680 Speaker 1: but they're flexible. They're a reflection of the stories that 764 00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:20,440 Speaker 1: our brains create, and perhaps in knowing this, we can 765 00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,359 Speaker 1: maybe learned to shape those stories a little better, not 766 00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:33,200 Speaker 1: as readers, but as authors. Go to Eagleman dot com 767 00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,520 Speaker 1: slash podcast for more information and to find further reading. 768 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,160 Speaker 1: Send me an email at podcast at eagleman dot com 769 00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:43,480 Speaker 1: with questions or discussion, and check out and subscribe to 770 00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,600 Speaker 1: Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each episode and 771 00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:48,000 Speaker 1: to leave comments. 772 00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:49,080 Speaker 2: Until next time. 773 00:49:49,200 --> 00:50:06,160 Speaker 1: I'm David Eagleman, and this is Inner Cosmos.