Transcript the adaptive (cognitive) unconscious

COMN 2111
THE MIND IN
COMMUNICATION:
THE ADAPTIVE (COGNITIVE)
UNCONSCIOUS
Lecture 5a
A Review
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In the lectures on Culture we discussed the essential
“sharedness” at the heart of talk.
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(1) Common perspectives – ways of seeing – regarding
what’s real; what’s good or bad;
(2) Shared repertoires of meanings for words and
gestures;
(3) Shared schema – outlines of attributes for people and
behavioral and emotional scripts for situations – so we
know what they mean and how to act (or speak) we we
are in them
Questions: How do we learn all this and call it up
instantly when we need it - everyday
Always Learning
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We have always needed to know
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In the womb, our body-mind silently answered these questions as it grew.
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What’s going on and,
What’s going to happen next.
the information was built into the bio-chemical exchanges that went on in the blood
flow
So, life was good and then we got born!
The cord was cut, we were on our own with a collection of face, body and vocal
gestures that didn't seem like much on the surface…
But …the body mind…the Cognitive Unconscious - was continuing to answer the key
questions of life for us
It was paying attention to incoming stimuli and how they affect our body…and developing a set of
connections between our external efforts and our internal states so we could survive and grow.
We’ve already explain the development of nerual networks-schema.
We simply don’t consciously recognize this. Conscious is based on
words This is learning that starts before we can talk – and goes on
in a part of the mind where there are no words
It’s Not Words: It’s
Information Processing
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As individuals, once we acquire language we think conscious thought does
everything. But it doesn’t.
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As a society, we used to think that thinking made us human - no
words, no mental processing - wrong.
Changed our mind about the mind – not a word storage place but a
computer - an info processor
We now know the mind processes 11 million bits of information per
second..
The conscious mind process only about 40 bits per second.
In his book, Strangers to Ourselves, Tim Wilson asks the obvious
question, “so where did the other 10 million 999 thousand 960 bits
go?”
All that information enters the mind below the level of
consciousness into a place without words - the neural netwoks of
the unconscious mind
We Have Two Minds
Conscious Mind
Cognitive
Unconscious
Mind
We Have Two Minds
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Adaptive (Cognitive) unconscious
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older, in evolutionary terms, than
consciousness
Consciousness
more recent acquisition than nonconscious processing
 Each have different functions
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The Conscious Mind
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Works best when there is
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Rational thought and problem-solving is work. It’s effortful, slow,
controllable and flexible.
Neuroscientists say the conscious mind is seated in frontal lobes of the
cerebral cortex – the last part of the brain to develop - right behind
the forehead.
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Enough time,
Not too much data and.
The decision matters to us – we have to be motivated to do the work.
That’s the location of the brain's speech, reflective thought, and executive functions.
It works in the “there and then” or “what if” mode.
To make time for problem solving work in the repetitious, low demand
situations of daily life – the conscious mind shifts a good deal of the
“here and now” thinking – some pretty high-level, sophisticated stuff to the other mind - the cognitive unconscious.
The Conscious Mind
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Now the conscious mind can work in the “here and now” 1. If we choose to focus for a while. Like studying for the exam.
2. If it is focused by a dramatic turn of events - in an emergency for
instance.
 But it works best in this kind of situation when it’s repeatedly trained
with routines and protocols for handling emergencies before they
actually happen.
When an airline suddenly completely loses power during its ascent after
takeoff. The pilot has about a minute to successfully land the plane . He
instantly has to call up his training - all those hours in the simulator to help
him through but his thinking had to be very flexible and extremely quick in
this situation - changing by the second. These are not optimal conditions
for conscious mind.
Too much data, too much going on and to really make effective decisions not enough time. He has to sense the feel of the aircraft and the changing
feel of the situation. He had to respond quickly, without much reflection.
He calls on the other mind - the second mind - the cognitive unconscious to help him save the day.
The Other Mind At Work
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This was Capt. S. Sullenberger’s description after he successfully crash landed his Airbus 320
in New York’s Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009, after a double bird strike cut off both engines.
His unthinking skill saved all on board
The Adaptive (Cognitive) Unconscious
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It works in completely different ways than the conscious mind.
Its automatic, its fast, it works effortlessly and is rigid. It “sees and
acts.” No creative reflection here just pattern detection and action.
It works in the here and now and, unlike your conscious brain, it’s
always paying attention –always on.
Every waking second as we grow, the cognitive unconscious is processing
incoming data, looking for patterns in the information flows from the
rest of our bodies or from the environment around us and remembering
them.
How does it remember? It adds emotional markers to them. Called
“somatic” markers - changes in the body caused by little nano-surges
of positive or negative energy creating what are called non-conscious
preferences – it uses these to talk to the conscious mind through the
body.
The Adaptive (Cognitive) Unconscious
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The core of it is in the mid-brain, the limbic system of the brain.
It stores these deep emotional memories.
It’s the “always on” sampling and matching - part of the Adaptive (cognitive)
Unconscious
Constantly dipping into the stream of incoming info and comparing “thin
slices” of these huge inputs to our established non-conscious preferences.
We first learned about non-conscious preferences, and how easily they could
be developed in the research of Robert Zajonc – early 1980’s.
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He had people watch a list of items go by open a small screen, items that had no meaning for
them – nonsense syllables or elements of the Chinese alphabet, a list of 30 of them. He didn't tell
the participants that each of them was actually paired with a happy face or a sad face that
flashed at the same time but so quickly the conscious mind could not register it.
At the end he simply asked people what syllables or ideograms they preferred, they were easily
able to do so. They listed the ones with the happy faces. They had created instantaneous nonconscious preferences.
With brain scanning we can now see visual system “look” at the subliminal flashes that the
conscious mind can’t see
The Adaptive (Cognitive) Unconscious
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Stores our deeply learned neural networks – our schema – for people
and behavior - patterns of visual and oral cues that trigger
predictions of future action for “what's going to happen next?”
It permits us to enact a necessary human attribute – A “Theory of
Mind” - automatic mind reading, anticipation of what another is going
through or is intending to do.
Again each pattern comes with preferential surges of positive or
negative emotional energy attached to it. These act as non-verbal
messages – somatic signs - to our conscious mind - to take action
when needed.
This permits us to interact with others smoothly – without hesitation
- since we don’t have to consciously think about what we’re going to
do next.
Real Life Example
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In 2008, Alex Pentland and his colleagues at MIT published an
overview of their research Using a very small device – about the size of a credit card – that
is worn like an ID badge – called a sociometer - to continuously
measure various nonverbal aspects of people's interactions
He calls them honest signals: They happen quickly – in
milliseconds – they’re hard to fake and they tell the mind
something important about whether an emerging relationship will
end momentarily or continue.
As an observer, consciously perceiving the subtle variations in
behavior that mark immediate states of interest in a
relationship would be a difficult task at best, but it’s impossible
to do while participating in the conversation yourself.
Real Life Example
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The non-conscious mind does it for you.
Pentland’s sociometer data show us what it notices in the person you are talking
with:
1. Activity levels – small movements in the body; changes in posture – lean
towards or away; changes in tone of voice (not words); talking starts and stops.
2. Mimicry – when people’s movements and speech patterns automatically begin
to imitate another’s – beginnings of empathy and trust.
 There’s been a lot of research in past decade…on pathways in the brain
called mirror neurons.
 They are distributed throughout the brain and they trigger off micro
imitations of other’s behaviors in our bodies at the muscular level.
 It’s how we learn to feel how others feel – the basis of empathy
3. Interest and attention - If two people are talking together and each one is
anticipating when the other will pause and jumping in exactly at that point and
leaving no gaps, then they're paying a great deal of attention to each other.
4. Influence – shown by the “extent to which one person causes another to
match their speech patterns.”
Real Life Example
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This happens every time we meet someone.
 Sociometers at a speed dating event:
 Each man and woman spent 5 min. chatting with 10 members of
the opposite sex. At the end of every encounter, each of them
secretly wrote down whether or not they wanted to exchange
numbers and handed in a form to an organizer. If they both said
yes, organizers passed on numbers at the end of the night.
The common assumption is that men will say yes to almost anyone
whereas women are far more selective. This turns out to be wrong.
Men only said yes to women that they somehow knew were also going to
say yes.
The sociometer data patterns predicted 71% of the mutual exchanges
(far better than the 20% achieved by guessing).
 Since the women’s responses were a secret until the end of the
night…how could the men know after only 5 minutes?
Real Life Example
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The men picked up on what Pentland calls women’s “exploring
displays” at the non-conscious level.
When the women had high activity levels (interest and
excitement) and openness to influence - shown by a strong
variation in vocal emphasis and rhythm as they unconsciously
matched their speech flow to the man’s.
This pattern accurately predicted the woman’s decision about
whether or not to trade phone number.
Their conscious decisions may have been kept secret until the
end of the evening, but women’s unconscious signaling had
already delivered their decisions loud and clear.
The Adaptive or cognitive unconscious process data so quickly
that we just “seem to feel” the interaction – or not!
Next Lecture
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The Adaptive or Cognitive Unconscious
allows us to “feel” what’s going on and
anticipate “what’s going to happen next?
in interaction
Next we’ll review other functions our it
serves in our communication.
COMN 2111
THE MIND IN
COMMUNICATION:
THE ADAPTIVE (COGNITIVE)
UNCONSCIOUS
Lecture 5b
It Provides Instant People
Perception
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As we said earlier the Adaptive or cognitive unconscious is
“Always On” making assessments of the people we meet
You can see how this works in the flow of a speed dating moment
 First time situations – have element of quick, under stress
decisions - dealing with new people, - non-conscious mind “thin
slices”
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Ambady’s research
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Todorov’s research on “gut reactions” to pictures of candidates
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University teacher clips - 10 sec. then 2 sec. clips
Dr. - patient clip - 40 secs.
Look of competence…predict winnings in 70% of US senate races
Keep this in mind in our lectures on the perception processes of
the conscious mind in communication.
Helps Us Make Conscious
Decisions
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Anthony Damasio writes a breakthrough book – Descartes'
Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994 in
which he elegantly assembles historical and contemporary
case studies and research on folks whose neo-cortex frontal lobes - had been disconnected from the mid-brain
by accident or surgical error.
Even though they could speak extremely well and their
analytical thought was fully functional their lives fell apart
because they couldn’t make the simplest decisions.
Patient gave him the insight – Couldn’t make up his mind about
anything but also seemed to have no emotional reaction to his
terrible situation.
Helps Us Make Conscious
Decisions
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Damasio’s breakthrough insight was that the cognitive unconscious
uses its emotional preference patterns to nudge the conscious mind
through the data and the many small choices that it must make to
come to a fully conscious decision.
As we said the cognitive unconscious has no words, so it has to
communicate through the body itself to get the conscious mind’s
attention.
“Gut feelings”, “knowings”, headaches, sweaty palms, changes of
mood – at every choice point – these somatic markers - we
referred to earlier - appear in the body and give the conscious
mind a sense of which way it should choose to go.
Since the time of Aristotle we have believed that the conscious did
all the work of deciding…and now we know that without the support
of the Cognitive Unconscious we simply can’t make decisions at all.
Downside: Automatic Thinking
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We are effort-minimizers - use auto thought
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Adopt simplest and least effortful strategy
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It provides us short cuts - Simple heuristics (learning tools):
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Accessibility: ease with which something comes to mind
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Representativeness: How Similar Is A To B
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Taking Things At Face Value: If you believe info is valid
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As long as our decision satisfies the minimal contextual requirements
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Keep this in mind in the upcoming lectures on cognition.
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Particularly when our view of reality is confronted, our unconscious mind compels us to
ignore the “reality” of the current situation and think/speak only in judgment about the
situation (from the top of the inference ladder)
Can Act Instantly in
Difficult Situtions
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The Cognitive Unconscious can move the body without talk - but,
if necessary, can find indirect ways of communicating with the
conscious mind to get through three kinds of situations.
 No threat situation, medium threat situation and high threat
situations. Let me just give you a quick example of each of
these.
No threat – It works with your conscious mind.
 Who’s driving the car?
High threat perceived - no choice – the Unconscious takes
over from your conscious mind - for direct action…
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the oncoming car situation.
Can Act Persistently in
Medium Threat Situations
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Medium-level threat situations – The Cognitive Unconscious let’s you know
indirectly what’s going on.
Iowa gambling game
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Two decks of cards - red and blue.
You turnover cards - get payoffs - make $.
Red decks are dangerous - big payoffs at first but then big losses.
Blue decks are safer. They generate steady smaller payoffs but also
smaller losses.
After 50 cards folks get hunch about red deck problem, but can’t explain why –
when asked by the researcher.
At 80 cards they can explain it. Explicit or conscious learning has occurred.
Can Act Persistently in
Medium Threat Situtions
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Thoughts and decisions bubble up from our unconscious
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Thin slicing - snap judgments- very quick
But body sends messages through body
Headaches, sweaty palms, back pain, ringing in the ears,
“knowings”, “gut feelings”
The researchers measured the sweat-on-the-skin - responses
to stress.
This “galvanic skin response” rises dramatically by the 10th
card – the unconscious - knows the danger in the red deck
when it sees it.
Without speech it can’t tell the conscious mind what to do, so
instead it creates hesitations. Without realizing it players
did begin to pick gradually fewer red cards from the 10th
card on, even though by 50 cards, they still couldn’t explain
what was going on.
Unconscious Affects Our
Talk
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Positive Effects
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We simply couldn’t talk effectively without its speed,
automaticity.
Deep learning of:
 The language and of the order of words - syntax.
 Conversational schemas: what we should do first,
next.
 Which allows us to talk fluently – to automatically
invoke the “normal conversation” schema we
discussed in the lecture on culture.
Unconscious Affects Our
Talk
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Positive Effects
 And without the instantly invoked patterns of people and their
talk, that is:
 Stereotypical schema of others’ performance, including their
nonverbal emotional displays and of situations – where and
when are we talking:
 We couldn’t display our theory of mind, that is,
 Uncover word meanings with little hesitation.
 Read the meaning of the others’ nonverbal displays as
the words are being spoken.
 This high speed processing of conversational flow allows
us to know “what going to happen next.”
Our cognitive unconscious helps us to do this very quickly and with
great certainty.
Unconscious Affects Our
Talk
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Negative effects
Let me be very clear, the cognitive unconscious isn’t perfect and
when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong.
It can suddenly turn against us if the external situation changes
rapidly from positive to negative.
Unlike “first responder” professionals, we are not deeply trained to
handle difficult situations before they happen.
If someone actively disagrees with us, and it comes as a surprise,
or is done in a way that seems to diminish our sense of self - the
cognitive unconscious reads it as a threat.
We said it was rigid - it can’t tell the difference between a
psychological threat to your self-esteem and a physical threat.
And it’s fast – it’s already “on” before your conscious
mind knows it.
Unconscious Affects Our
Talk
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Negative effects
The cognitive unconscious is paying attention to the changing
feelings displayed in the face and body behavior of your
critic - before the words even appear.
It’s already running a “compare and contrast” analysis of
emotional expression to anticipate what’s going to happen
next.
Before our conscious mind can react, it’s running its bodycentered threat response schema – speeding up your heart,
increasing sweat on the palms, raising the hairs on the
forearm, tightening your neck or throat muscles, forcing the
blood out of your gut to your limbs – anything to let you
know “IT’S COMING”- get ready to fight or flee.
Unconscious Affects Our
Talk
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I want you to keep all this in mind when we discussion of
emotions in communication. This is the basis for real
communication catastrophe – an amygdala hi-jack.
We will cover this in detail in emotion lectures.
After 30 years of research we know more now about the
brain – and the two minds – than we’ve learned in the
previous 3000 years.
The conscious and unconscious minds operate in close harmony
– can’t do without each – but they can suddenly be “out of
balance” – and when that happens our communication can go
very poorly. Over these next few weeks I hope you will learn
something how our two minds operate and what you can do to
maintain their delicate balance.