Antonio Damasio: This Time With Feeling

Antonio Damasio, noted researcher and professor of neuroscience at USC, talks with The New York Times' David Brooks about emotions and the science of being human. He describes the difference between emotions and feelings, and explains why emotions are one of humanity's most important survival mechanisms.



Partner: Aspen Institute // Event Date: 07.04.09 // Speakers: David Brooks, Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California; he is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes memory, language, emotions, and decisions. He has written several best-selling books, including Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 2003) and Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1994). Damasio has received many awards, including the 2005 Asturias Prize in Science and Technology and the 2004 Signoret Prize. Damasio is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Social Intelligence: Daniel Goleman discusses his book "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships"

For more from Daniel Goleman, visit http://www.morethansound.net. This event took place on August 3, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

Redes 373: Paul Ekman sobre las expresiones humanas y las emociones

Parte 1




Parte 2




Ekman desarrolló una lista de emociones básicas a partir de investigaciones transculturales en individuos destacados de la tribu de Papúa Nueva Guinea. Observó que los miembros de una cultura aislada de la Edad de Piedra son capaces de identificar con un alto grado de confiabilidad las expresiones emocionales al observar las fotografías tomadas a personas de culturas con las que ellos no han estado familiarizados.
También eran capaces de adjudicar ciertas expresiones faciales a las descripciones de situaciones específicas. Con esa información, llegó a la conclusión de que algunas expresiones son básicas, o biológicamente universales, en la especie humana. La siguiente es la lista elaborada por Ekman (1972) de las emociones humanas:
repugnancia
felicidad
ira
miedo
sorpresa
tristeza
Sin embargo, en la década de 1990 Ekman amplió esta lista de expresiones básicas a quince, e incluyó un rango más extenso de expresiones positivas (Ekman, 1999).
________________

Cuando hablamos de sentimientos, de emociones, casi nunca pensamos en la ciencia. De hecho, hasta hace poco la ciencia renegaba de ?lo sentimental? y su estudio se relegaba a la poesía. Pero esta situación ha cambiado y antropólogos, psicólogos, neurocientíficos e incluso investigadores de inteligencia artificial se han sumado al estudio de las emociones aportando nuevas piezas con las que completar el rompecabezas.

Cuando nos quedamos en blanco ante un examen, cuando nos ruborizamos frente a una persona que nos gusta?todos en más de una ocasión hubiésemos querido no emocionarnos y actuar de forma más racional. Por ello es inevitable preguntarse: ¿para qué sirven las emociones? ¿por qué nos emocionamos cuando lo hacemos? ¿qué desencadena las emociones? ¿podemos controlarlas para, por ejemplo, evitar emocionarnos en situaciones destructivas?

La ciencia nos dice que las emociones son mecanismos cerebrales seleccionados para ayudarnos a sobrevivir y que sería muy difícil explicar la evolución humana al margen de las emociones. En esta edición de REDES daremos un paseo por la ciencia de la emoción en compañía de Paul Ekman, uno de los mayores expertos del mundo en cómo expresamos nuestros sentimientos. Con él debatiremos sobre los tres tipos principales de emociones que nos gobiernan: las básicas, que son innatas y universales, las superiores, como el amor, y las que se desarrollan y manifiestan en determinadas culturas. Además, explicaremos cómo se forma en nuestro cerebro la ?base de datos? emocional que determina cómo nos comportamos y analizaremos las expresiones faciales de las distintas emociones y sus aplicaciones en nuestra vida cotidiana, o los patrones de expresión que se usan en animación para expresar las emociones de los personajes.

On Human Face, Emotions and Human Communication: Conversation with Paul Ekman

Psychologist Paul Ekman joins Harry Kreisler to talk about his scientific work on the human face. They discuss what is now known about the role of the face in human emotions and the implications of these insights for human communication, self understanding and national security.

Series: "Conversations with History" // 4/2004 // Public Affairs // Humanities // Show ID: 8637

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From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman)

Ekman's work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of psychologist Silvan Tomkins. Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. Findings on contempt are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized.
In a research project along with Dr. Maureen O'Sullivan, called the Wizards Project (previously named the Diogenes Project), Ekman reported on facial "microexpressions" which could be used to assist in lie detection. After testing a total of 20,000 people[6] from all walks of life, he found only 50 people that had the ability to spot deception without any formal training. These naturals are also known as "Truth Wizards", or wizards of deception detection from demeanor.[7]
He developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize every conceivable human facial expression. Ekman conducted and published research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but also to observation of the rest of the body.

Antonio Damasio "Brain and mind: from medicine to society" - Neuroscience and Psicology

Conferència "Brain and mind: from medicine to society", a càrrec d'Antonio Damasio, catedràtic de Neurociència i de Psicologia i premi Príncep d'Astúries de Ciències l'any 2005.

Acte organitzat per la UOC i per la Conselleria de Salut del Govern de la Generalitat.
24 de maig de 2007, auditori del Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona.





Research Topics
The neurobiology of mind and behavior, with an emphasis on emotion, decision-making, memory, communication, and creativity.
Research Overview
Antonio Damasio is an internationally recognized leader in neuroscience. His research has helped to elucidate the neural basis for the emotions and has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making. His work has also had a major influence on current understanding of the neural systems, which underlie memory, language and consciousness. Damasio directs the newly created USC Brain and Creativity Institute.
Source and more info: http://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/faculty/profile.php?fid=27

Neuroplasticity: "The Brain that Changes Itself". Norman Doidge, M.D., psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

"The discovery of neuroplasticity, that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains, even into old age, is the most important breakthrough in our understanding of the brain in four hundred years."

"It is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain’s basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging. The brain is not, as was thought, like a machine, or “hardwired” like a computer. Neuroplasticity not only gives hope to those with mental limitations, or what was thought to be incurable brain damage, but expands our understanding of the healthy brain and the resilience of human nature.

Norman Doidge, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher, set out to investigate neuroplasticity and met both the brilliant scientists championing it and the people whose lives they’ve transformed.

The result is this book, a riveting collection of case histories detailing the astonishing progress of people whose conditions had long been dismissed as hopeless. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, a woman labeled retarded who cured her deficits with brain exercises and now cures those of others, blind people learning to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, painful phantom limbs erased, stroke patients recovering their faculties, children with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully, entrenched depression and anxiety disappearing, and lifelong character traits altered.

Doidge takes us into terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy. Scientists have developed machines that can follow these physical changes in order to read people’s thoughts, allowing the paralyzed to control computers and electronics just by thinking. We learn how people of average intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and perception in order to become savant calculators, develop muscle strength, or learn to play a musical instrument, simply by imagining doing so.

Using personal stories from the heart of this neuroplasticity revolution, Dr. Doidge explores the profound implications of the changing brain for understanding the mysteries of love, sexual attraction, taste, culture and education in an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at human possibility and human nature.

Dr. Norman Doidge introduces principles we can all use to overcome brain limitations and explores the profound brain implications of the changing brain in an immensely moving book that will permanently alter the way we look at human possibility and human nature."

Source: http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge/ABOUT_THE_BOOK.html





An interesting fragment:
"Plasticity requires that we re-examine culture, too. Most think the relationship between the brain and culture is a simple one: The human brain produces culture. In fact our culture also moulds our brains. Just as children with learning disorders can develop new processors, different cultures cultivate different kinds of brains, en masse. The Sea Gypsies, a tribe off the coast of Thailand, learn to see clearly underwater, diving 10 metres in their hunt for food — an example of a whole culture that has developed a super-sense.

As Richard Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought, when Asians look at still life pictures they see the relationships between the objects very clearly, but the main object less clearly. Westerners see the opposite. These perceptual differences are not based on a difference of opinion about what to focus on, but on involuntary, unconscious brain processing wired into the subjects by their culture, and alterable by emigration. Thus many of the differences between cultures and civilizations need not be seen as based on either genetic (biological) or 240603_f260experiential differences. Cultural experience shapes biology, and no doubt biology shapes cultural experience. These discoveries promise to reshape, in the most profound way, our understanding of cultural acquisition, conflicts, immigration tensions and even the rates at which we, in a globalized world, can expect each other to change."

What is REALLY the "unconcious"? Wat makes us act as we do? Interview with John A. Bargh

His lines of research all focus on unconscious mechanisms that underlie social perception, evaluation and preferences, and motivation and goal pursuit in realistic and complex social environments. That each of these basic psychological phenomena occur without the person's intention and awareness, yet have such strong effects on the person's decisions and behavior, has considerable implications for philosophical matters such as free will, and the nature and purpose of consciousness itself.



"We discovered a new vein of research — the relation between physical and social or psychological concepts — that we came to by taking evolutionary principles seriously and applying them to psychology. We weren't using evolutionary psychology, which has largely been focused on mating and reproduction. Our focus, rather, was in terms of evolutionary biology and the basic principles of natural selection: and that field makes clear that humans must have had these kinds of mechanisms or these processes to guide our behavior prior to evolution or emergence of consciousness."

Who is John A. Bargh?
Professor of social psychology at Yale University and director of the ACME (Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation and Evaluation) Lab. In 2007 he received the Donald T. Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology for distinguished contributions to social psychology, and later that year received the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/bargh.html

Full Interview and transcript:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bargh09/bargh09_index.html

Redes 40: Educación emocional desde el útero materno

¿Somos conscientes de que el estrés de la madre llega hasta su bebé y tendrá consecuencias en el desarrollo emocional y psíquico del niño (p.e. síndrome del déficit de atención o su coeficiente intelectual)?

Nueve meses de embarazo con controles regulares a la madre y al feto… pero ¿alguien tiene en cuenta el estado emocional de la embarazada? ¿Somos conscientes de que el estrés de la madre llega hasta su bebé? Eduardo Punset descubre, de la mano de la investigadora en psicobiología perinatal del Imperial College London, Vivette Glover, la estrecha relación entre las emociones y la vida en el útero materno.

http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/1292/redes/2009/redes40-educacion-emocional-desde-el-utero-materno

EPIGENETICS: The Ghost in your Genes - BBC Horizon

The Ghost in your Genes // BBC Horizon

Biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics hidden influences upon the genes could affect every aspect of our lives.
At the heart of this new field is a simple but contentious idea that genes have a 'memory'. That the lives of your grandparents the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself. And that what you do in your lifetime could in turn affect your grandchildren.
The conventional view is that DNA carries all our heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be biologically passed to their children. To many scientists, epigenetics amounts to a heresy, calling into question the accepted view of the DNA sequence a cornerstone on which modern biology sits.
Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans.

Source
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml

Redes 57: Cambiar el cerebro para cambiar el mundo

Redes 57: “Cambiar el cerebro para cambiar el mundo” // Fechas de emisión: 25 y 28/04/10

Estamos programados, más que cualquier otro animal, para cambiar, para aprender y para dejar que nuestro entorno moldee el sustrato de nuestros pensamientos: el cerebro. Si queremos mejorar nuestro comportamiento con los demás y con nuestro entorno natural habrá que trabajar en ello desde los primeros años, como hacemos para aprender a hablar o a tocar un instrumento. Hoy en Redes escucharemos propuestas del neuropsicólogo Richard Davidson para mejorar la educación y con el psicólogo Daniel Goleman descubriremos cómo consumir en el futuro para ser unos mejores huéspedes de este planeta.

Fuente:

http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/2700/redes/2010/redes-57-cambiar-el-cerebro-para-cambiar-el-mundo

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson presents his research on how social and emotional learning can affect the brain

The Heart-Brain Connection: The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning – Neuroscientist Richard Davidson presents his research on how social and emotional learning can affect the brain.

“The brain is plastic, built to change in response of experience.”
“Plasticity occurs all our lifes.”
“The preftrontal cortex is key and is aconvergence zone for affect and cognition: negative emotion will interfere with cognitive prefrontal function.”
“Social-emotional learning is an empirically verified strategy to improve skills of emotions regulation and social adaptation.”
“As such, social-emotional learning likely produces beneficial brain changes.”
“Education literally shapes the child’s brain and likely produces alterations that lay the foundations for all future learning, emotion regulation and social functioning.”

From:
http://www.danielgoleman.info/video/

Redes 56: “Mentes conectadas sin brujería”

Redes 56: “Mentes conectadas sin brujería” // 18 y 21/04/10

Desde cómo aprendemos a hablar, a escribir o a conducir, hasta por qué se revuelve nuestro interior cuando vemos el sufrimiento de otra persona… siempre están detrás las neuronas espejo, uno de los grandes descubrimientos de las últimas dos décadas. Podríamos verlas como una red invisible que une a todos los seres humanos entre ellos y con sus predecesores, al permitir la conexión entre las mentes y la transmisión de conocimiento y cultura mediante el aprendizaje. Junto al neurocientífico Marco Iacoboni, de la Universidad de California, Eduardo Punset repasará los fantásticos poderes de las neuronas espejo.

Más información:

• neuronas espejo
• Marco Iacoboni

http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/2644/redes/2010/redes-56-mentes-conectadas-sin-brujeria

"Viso e carattere. Iniziazione alla morfopsicologia" Per Louis Corman (Google Books)

In italiano, il libro dal fondatore della disciplina de la Morfopsicologia, Louis Corman.

Viso e carattere. Iniziazione alla morfopsicologia
Louis Corman
Edizioni Mediterranee, 2003
ISBN 882721514X, 9788827215142
296 pagine

Genética y epigenética: como nuestro ambiente y nuestra actitud hacia la vida modifican nuestro ADN (Redes 31)

"La idea que tenemos sobre nuestro planeta y el universo, o sobre la complejidad del cerebro humano ha evolucionado extraordinariamente en los últimos años. Lo mismo está sucediendo ahora con el concepto de gen y con el rol del ADN en la constitución de un ser vivo. El genetista Tom Gingeras participa en el proyecto Encode, destinado a definir las auténticas unidades funcionales del genoma humano.

Eduardo Punset trata en este programa, de la mano de este investigador del laboratorio Cold Spring Harbor, en Nueva York, de transmitirnos los puntos esenciales de la nueva genética. Es sin duda el inicio de una era en la comprensión de los códigos de la vida."

Para ampliar:

• “Now: The Rest of the Genome”, artículo en el New York Times.
  
• “El genoma humano induce a replantear el concepto de gen”, artículo en El País.
• “El genoma humano no es como se creía”, artículo en El País.
• “The 1 Percent Genome Solution”, noticia en la Scientific American.
• “’Junk’ DNA makes compulsive reading”, noticia en NewScientist.
• “Rewriting Darwin: The new non-genetic inheritance”, artículo en el NewScientist.
• “Scientists and Philosophers Find That ‘Gene’ Has a Multitude of Meanings”, artículo en el New York Times.
  
  

http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/384/redes/redes-31-los-dos-codigos-que-gobiernan-la-vida-29-minutos