Decision Making: It's Not What You Think

How should decisions be made? Easy, we figured that out long ago. First define the problem,
then diagnose its causes, next design possible solutions, and finally decide which is best. And, of
course, implement the choice.
But do people always make decisions that way? We propose that this rational, or thinking first,
model of decision making should be supplemented with two very different models a seeing first
and a doing first model. When practicing managers use all three models, they can improve the
quality of their decisions. Healthy organizations, like healthy people, have the capacity for all three.
Consider how a real decision was made, a personal one in this case. It begins with a call from an
aunt.
Hi, kiddo. I want to buy you a housewarming present. Whats the color scheme in your new
apartment?
Color scheme? Betty, youve got to be kidding. Ill have to ask Lisa. Lisa, Betty wants to know
the color scheme of the apartment.
Black, daughter Lisa says.
Black? Lisa, Ive got to live there.
Black, she repeats.
A few days later, father and daughter find themselves in a furniture store. They try every desk,
every chair: Nothing works. Shoppers lethargy sets in. Then Lisa spots a black stool: Wouldnt that
look great against the white counter? And theyre off. Within an hour, they have picked out
everything in black, white and steel gray.
The extraordinary thing about this ordinary story is that our conventional theories of decision
making cant explain it. It is not even clear what the final decision was: to buy the stool; to get on
with furnishing an apartment; to do so in black and white; to create a new lifestyle? Decision making
can be mysterious.
EMOTIONAL STYLE: THE CONCEPT
The word feeling has several meanings, but the relevant one gave an explanation in terms of
emotions. So we all know what it means, right? In our binary habits of thinking we know that it is
pretty much the opposite of reason, that emotions disrupt rational thought, that reasoning takes
place in the pre-frontal and cerebral cortex while emotion bursts forth from the limbic system and
the hypothalamus. Wrong, says brain researcher Richard Davidson,
A feeling permeates virtually everything we do. No wonder, then, that circuits in the brain that control
and regulate emotions overlap with those involved in functions we think of as purely cognitive. There is no
clear, distinct dividing line between emotion and other mental processes; they blur(MJEGULLOJ,
TURBULLIM) into each other. As a result, virtually all brain regions play a role in or are affected by emotion,
even down to the visual and auditory cortices.
And: What is surprising, however, is that much of the circuitry underlying the six dimensions of emotional
style lies far from the brains supposed emotion regions the limbic system and the hypothalamus.
The particular concept that Davidson has come up with is emotional style.
What is emotional style?
Ever wondered why some people are constantly cheery and others shadowed by gloom? Why
some have trouble focusing, are good with people or have strong emotional reactions to seemingly
minor occurrences?
Richard Davidson, Ph.D., says theres a reason we are who we are. Our emotions and thoughts do
not happen to us, he argues. Rather, they are routine, predictable and rooted in the structure of
our brains.
Other schemes of personality were invented without any knowledge of the brain,. This is the
first neuroscientific conception of the emotional and social variations among people, based on a
modern diagnosis of the brain.
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 Decades of lab work resulted in a hybrid discipline called affective neuroscience, or the study
of brain mechanisms that underpin our emotions. Davidson says human emotions reach far beyond
romance-novel fluff. They are central to the functions of the brain and the life of the mind.
Unlike emotional states, fleeting reactions triggered by an experience and lasting only seconds,
and emotional moods, feelings that persist for a few hours or even days, Davidson says it is
our emotional styles that shape our lives and how we respond to the world around us. Emotional style,
traced to specific brain signatures, is comprised of six dimensions. Where you fall on the spectrum
of each, he says, determines how you will feel, think and react.
Resilience: How slowly or quickly you recover from adversity, determined by signals between
the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
Outlook: How long you are able to sustain positive emotion, based on levels of activity in the
ventral striatum, a region of the brain critical for generating a sense of reward.
Social Intuition: How adept you are at picking up social signals from the people around you,
shaped by the interplay between the amygdala and fusiform regions.
Self-Awareness: How well you perceive physical signals that reflect your emotions, determined
by the insulas ability to interpret signals from the visceral organs.
Sensitivity to Context: How good you are at regulating your emotional responses depending on the
context you find yourself in, driven by activity levels in the hippocampus.
Attention: How sharp and clear your focus is, regulated by the prefrontal cortex.
Davidson explains someone thought to be agreeable is likely highly sensitive to context with
strong resilience and a positive outlook. A conscientious person has well-developed social
intuition and focused attention style, while an impulsive person may have low self-awareness and an
unfocused attention style.
There is no ideal formula for the best emotional style, says Davidson. Being low on the social
intuition spectrum might benefit a computer programmer, he notes, while someone who is
unfocused might excel in a fast-based environment where multi-tasking is critical.
The neural pathways that determine our emotions are partly genetic. Even infants seem to vary
in temperament--some curious and outgoing, others fussy and anxious. Yet Davidson says how
much genes contribute varies from 20% to 60% (versus the 100% heritability of sickle-cell disease
and the 0% heritability of religious affiliation). That means our environments and experiences can
have sweeping impact on our emotional approach.
Despite Davidsons tolerant take on different emotional styles, feelings and thoughts do affect
physical health and some more positively than others. Not being to bounce back from stressful
events and constant negativity can impede well-being and personal happiness.
Emotional style may also impact your success in different contexts. For instance, high levels of
focus, social intuition and sensitivity to context are generally assets in the corporate world.
Our default responses may be wired into us, but with time, effort and practice, you can change
your brain to transform your life. Neuroplasticity, the brains ability to reorganize, is the organ of
change, Davidson says. Thus, engaging regularly in positive activities over time will rewire the
brains neural pathways and increase your positive feelings. He recommends the following exercises
to develop your abilities in each of the six dimensions.
To Boost Resilience: For five to 10 minutes at a time, four or five times a week, visualize someone
you know who is sufferingan ill neighbor or a friend struggling in her marriage--and on each
inhalation, imagine that you are taking on that suffering. On each exhalation, imagine the suffering
is transformed into compassion, which will help ease the person's pain.
To Increase Positive Outlook: Fill your home and workspace with upbeat reminders of happy
times, like photos of your family or vacations, and change the pictures every two weeks. Find
opportunities to compliment others and make the effort to express gratitude often, by offering a
warm thank you and writing down the things you appreciate in others and in your life.

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 To Become More Socially Intuitive: When in public, watch people's body language and try to
guess what theyre talking about and what emotions they are expressing. Start to also take notice of
friends and colleague's facial cues and body language and how it corresponds to their tone of voice.
To Enhance Self-Awareness: Initiate a daily mindfulness meditation. Choose a time when you
feel the most awake and alert, sit upright, concentrate on your breathing, notice the sensations in
your body and, if you become distracted, bring your focus back to your breath.
To Better Regulate Emotional Reactions: To identify what produces a strong reaction in you,
regularly make a list of the specific events or behaviors from the day or week that triggered your
response. Then spend about 15 minutes thinking about these behaviors while breathing deeply until
you feel comfortable and more relaxed.
To Increase Focus and Attention: Spend 10 minutes every day sitting in a quiet room with your
eyes open. Focus on an object (a lamp or a piece of art), keep your attention and eyes trained on it,
and if your thoughts begin to wander, bring them back to the object.
A lot of the work that weve done on strategies to change these styles was inspired by my
relationship with the Dalai Lama, the inspiration for us taking meditation seriously, says Davidson.
Well-being is strongly related to your emotional and physical health. If your emotional style is not
working for you, the first and most important ingredient of change is awareness.
Each persons unique combination of the six dimensions together comprise emotional style
the essence of our personality and the reflection of how we live and respond to our experiences.
Each dimension of emotional style has its own distinctive neuronal pattern or brain circuit, which
can be measured in the lab. We come into the world with an emotional style; elements have been
detected in newborns. Emotional style can change quite markedly as a result of life experience, so
it matters how parents, teachers and caregivers treat children.
What emotional style is not
The smallest, most fleeting unit of emotion is an emotional state, which may only last a few
seconds. A feeling that does persist is termed a mood. A feeling that persists for years is a trait.
As mentioned, emotional style is a consistent way of responding to the experiences of our lives.
It influences the likelihood of feeling particular emotional states and moods, and of possessing a
trait.
Emotional style, by contrast, is claimed to represent patterns that emerged from studying the
data.
Leading the Emotional Brain: An Interview with Dr. Richard J. Davidson
Richard J. Davidson says that differences in how people react to stressful events have less to do
with the external circumstances and more to do with their emotional styles.
Understanding these emotional styles will empower project managers to recognize their own
overall emotional styles and the styles of those they lead.
The book is one of the first accessible and practical guides for making sense of emotions,
grounded in solid neuroscience research that project managers will find directly applicable in
understanding emotions in their projects. This is an exceptional book and I highly recommend it.
The Interview
SAMAD: Dr. Davidson the book describes your personal and professional journey to understand
why and how people defer in their responses to events in their life.
What motivated you to be interested in doing research in this topic?
Why should leaders be interested in this research?
DR. DAVIDSON: I was motivated to do research on this topic because I noticed very early on in
my career that probably the most important thing about emotion in humans is that people vary in
how they respond to adversity, how they respond to life swings and arrows. Some people are very
resilient and are able to overcome adversity quite quickly. Other people spiral downward and have
a very persistent response. Those differences struck me as being very important to human
functioning in many different domains. I was captivated by that from very early on.

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 In terms of leadership, leaders must understand the diverse emotional styles of the people that
they lead. One of the important points about the book is that there is no one style that is the
best. Theres no one formula for all. There really is an important issue in understanding why certain
emotional styles may be good for particular people and other emotional styles good for other
people. It really depends upon an individuals own environmental niche and the style that may be
optimally suited for him or her within that niche. This is something critical, I think, for leaders to
appreciate.
SAMAD: You say that emotion works with cognition in an integrated and seamless way to enable
us to navigate the world of relationships, work, and spiritual growth. The book describes six
emotional styles that drive and govern how we respond to experiences in our lives. How did you
discover these six emotional styles? How is this model different from other types of classifications
and assessment frameworks, such as Myers-Briggs, Disc, and Strengths Finders?
DR. DAVIDSON: These six styles emerge from thirty-plus years of neuro-scientific research. I
did not just sit down one day and decide de novo what the range of emotional styles must be and
propose them. They emerged over the course of thirty years of neuro-scientific research.
These styles are completely different than anything that has preceded them because none of the
classifications schemes that are available, such as from the Myers-Briggs or anything like that come
from understanding the brain. This is the first attempt to develop a classification system of this kind
based directly upon knowledge of the brain.
SAMAD: I totally agree. For the first time I find understanding of emotions based purely on
research from labs and data that is supported by scientific research. This is why I was excited about
this book for the last six months since I heard about it.
DR. DAVIDSON: Thank you.
SAMAD: Can you give us a brief overview of each of the six emotional styles and their
implications for leaders in the workplace?
DR. DAVIDSON: Certainly. The first style is resilience and it refers to how quickly or slowly a
person recovers from adversity. Some people take a long time. Other people can recover quickly, as
I mentioned earlier.
A second style is outlook. Outlook refers to the extent to which you have positive emotion that
persists. Whether you see the world through rosy colored glasses or see it in a more gloomy
way. People vary along this dimension.
A third style I call self-awareness. Self-awareness refers to how accurate you are in picking up
your own bodily cues that are associated with emotions, such as patterns of changes in physiology,
like heart rate, sweating on your skin, or muscle tension. Again, people vary along this continuum.
Fourth style is social intuition. Social intuition refers to how accurate you are to picking up
another persons non-verbal cues of emotion, such as facial expression, tone of voice, or body
posture. Again, people vary along the continuum.
The fifth style is sensitivity to context. How much do you regulate your emotional responses
based upon the context youre in. For example, a person who is having a conversation with his or
her spouse would presumable behave differently than if he or she were having a conversation with
his boss. Those are two very different contexts. Being able to appreciate context and take that into
account is important in how we regulate our emotions.
Finally the last style was attention which refers to how focused or scattered you are. It relates
to the extent to which you are distracted by cues of emotion that were surrounded with in our
environment, or whether youre able to focus and filter out those cues when you need to.
Each of these six styles refers to a continuum or dimension. We all have each of these six, but
we all differ in where we fall along each of these six. Every one of these I think is important in
leadership. You can pick any one and think about why it may be significant for a leader, but lets
just take one as an example. Social intuition, the extent to which a person is accurate or not accurate
in picking up non-verbal cues of emotion. People who have a job which depends upon interpersonal

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interaction in social relationships need to have some degree of skill at being able to pick up on non-
verbal cues of emotion. This is critical for negotiations and so forth.
For other kinds of jobs, say for someone who primarily works on developing computer code as
a programmer. They may not have to interact much with people and in fact they may find that
distracting. They may find greater pleasure and they derive greater pleasure in interacting with a
machine than they do interacting with a person. For them social intuition is not very important. I
think for a leader, being able to be able to better match the job responsibilities of an employee with
the individuals own emotional style may lead to the most optimal kind of performance.
SAMAD: You have done ground breaking research that shows the benefits of mindfulness and
long-term and short-term mediation. What are some of the key insights emerging from this research
that can inform how we think about these emotional styles?
DR. DAVIDSON: The research on mediation and mindfulness has been critically important
because these are century old strategies that really evolved to help regulate ones emotional style, to
help transform emotions in a more positive direction. They are simple strategies that can be
deployed any time. Easily deployed during the day for example, that can really help our emotions
and alter emotional styles in ways that may be beneficial. For example recovering from adversity,
which is quite a resilient style, can be very dramatically benefited by mindfulness practices.
These are simple practices that teach a person how to pay attention on purpose non-
judgmentally. The non-judgmental piece of that is very important because one of the key
mechanisms that results in negative emotion persisting is judgments that we make about adverse
events that may occur in the world. Those judgments result in these negative emotions persisting
beyond the point where it may be useful. Mindfulness is a simple kind of meditation that can be
easily learned that can help promote a more resilient emotional style.
SAMAD: Can you share with us a couple of techniques from the book that leaders can use to
change where they fall on each of the dimensions of the emotional style, or like how you put in the
book, nudge themselves in either direction along the dimensions of their emotional style?
DR. DAVIDSON: Yes. Going through all six and actually delineating techniques, I would
require far more time than we have. The book contains descriptions of simple techniques that can
be used for each of these emotional styles that I think leaders can easily deploy in the workplace.
Ive given one example of how adversity can be affected through mindfulness meditation. Ill
give you one other example. The outlook style refers to how long positive emotions persist for. This
is something very important because having a positive attitude really can help goals to be
accomplished and can provide an optimistic orientation that can facilitate all kinds of other things.
One of the ways that style can be nurtured is through another kind of meditation practice that I
talk about in the book called Loving-Kindness Arc and Passion Meditation. This is the kind of
practice where a person mentally visualizes another person. Then using some simple phrases
wishes that person be happy, be well, and be fit. You go through this in a very systematic way. You
can go through it with different people.
That can actually be used with people in the workplace where you visualize your co-workers. Its
something that can improve interpersonal relationships and lead to more positive emotions during
the day. I think through those mechanisms to improve creativity and also improve
productivity. Thats one of many simple techniques that I believe are worth trying. Theyre
inexpensive. They dont require any technology and they can easily be deployed in the workplace.
SAMAD: Dr. Davidson, in closing, what are some of the exciting projects that youre working on
these days? What is next for you?
DR. DAVIDSON: We have many exciting things going on in our laboratory ranging from basic
research to more applied, what we call translation research. Ill give you three quick examples. On
the translation, or more applied side, were doing a lot of work with children. Beginning with
preschool children, age three and four. Where we are introducing a curriculum designed to help
them better regulate their emotions and also strengthen their attention, basically to cultivate
qualities like mindfulness and kindness.
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 We are doing that in the context of rigorously assessing how these interventions changed the
brain in behavior. I think that given that we know from neuro-scientific research that childrens
brains are more malleable. We can potentially introduce healthier habits of mind earlier in life and
enable children to get off on a more positive trajectory. Thats one effort that currently ongoing.
A second is with veterans who are returning from Afghanistan and Iraq who are suffering from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We are using some simple techniques derived actually from yoga
and meditation to help them better regulate their autonomic nervous system and promote greater
calmness and relaxation to see if I can make a difference in these individuals who are suffering
greatly.
A third example is from basic research where we are for the first time examining whether
meditation practices can actually change gene expression, can alter the expression of genes in our
body which play a critical role in regulating our health. Regulating processes like information which
contributes too many chronic diseases. We can now study that for the first time and look at that in
relation to the kind of practice that people are doing and whether the changes to the brain are
mediating these changes to the gene expression. Those are three examples of current ongoing
studies.
SAMAD: Dr. Davidson I want to thank you so much for the work that you do to improve the
lives of people all over the world. I want to thank you especially for this book, like I said that I
personally have been waiting for since I learned about it about six or seven months ago. It is a book
that finally puts emotions where they naturally belong, which is front and center, especially in how
leaders manage people. I look forward to a future conversation with you.
DR. DAVIDSON: Thank you so much for your kind words. Thank you for having me. Im so
glad you found the book helpful.
Changing our brains, changing ourselves
Richard Davidson believes that understanding the neurobiology of emotion can help all of us
develop the right emotional style' to improve our lives.
How has psychologists' understanding of emotion changed over the nearly four decades you've
been doing this research?
In the mid-1970s, there was hardly any research on emotion it was hardly considered a field.
What little work there was used very coarse self-report measures. The cognitive psychologists who
were beginning to hold sway at that time regarded emotion as just something that interrupts
cognition. The idea that emotions are adaptive that they can play an important role in decision-
making and influence behavior emerged considerably later.
Closer to my own work, the idea that the cortex was involved in emotion was really heresy,
because the focus in neuroscience the little that there was was exclusively on limbic and
brainstem contributions to emotion. Emotion was very much regarded as a primitive kind of
psychological process. I think that regarding it in that way kept it in the "basement of the brain," so
to speak.
What made you think at the time that emotion might not just be relegated to the brain's
basement?
There were really two strands of evidence. One was a series of studies that were beginning to
be published on brain-damaged patients, which clearly indicated that cortical damage does lead to
disruption of emotion.
The other was simply my own observations. Being a student of behavior, it seemed very clear
to me that when we engage in making complex decisions such as "Should I have this person as
my partner?," "Should I go to this graduate school?," "Should I make this major purchase?" we
are not making them on the basis of a cold cognitive calculus. And an honest systematic observation
will, I think, convince anyone that those kinds of complex decisions require that we consult our
emotions.

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 In your book, you lay out six "emotional styles" spectra along which we all fall. What are these
six styles, and how did you develop them?
The six emotional styles emerged over the course of 30 years of neuroscientific research.
They're not obvious dimensions of emotion: They don't conform to specific discrete emotions, and
they don't conform to traditional models of valence and arousal that have figured prominently in
research on emotion.
In the book I describe the underlying brain circuits that support these styles and I also highlight
some key experiments that led to the formulation of each of them.
Can you give an example?
Sure. Take resilience all of us will at one point or another in our life be subjected to adversity.
And resilience is very important in influencing vulnerability to psychopathology, particularly mood
and anxiety disorders. Being able to recover quickly is an essential element in resilience. The
experiments that led us to the conceptualization of this style were experiments that started early in
my career. They began with studies in which we confirmed that people differ in the extent to which
the left versus the right hemisphere is differentially more activated at baseline, and those differences
are relatively stable over time. It turned out that people with greater left-side activation recovered
more quickly from negative affective stimuli in the laboratory. We were able to probe the rapidity of
recovery using physiological measures to track on a moment-by-moment basis the pattern of
activation in response, for example, to a negative picture. And then we could track after the picture
went off how long it took a person to recover. And it turns out that people with more left-side
activation at baseline recover more quickly.
We've gone on and done neuroimaging studies, and have found that the prefrontal cortex
exhibits strong connectivity with the amygdala. So what likely is happening is that increased levels
of prefrontal activation are modulating the activity in the amygdala and facilitating turning off the
amygdala once it's turned on.
Do you think that you've identified all the emotional styles, or might you find others?
I don't regard these six as the final statement on this by any means. It's really important to
underscore that this is a best guess, based on the research we have. But one of the wonderful things
about science is that it's never static and our models are always changing. I'm confident that 10
years from now we'll think about this differently, at least to some extent.
Let me just add one other point here, and that is that there's no one pattern among these styles
that is best. It really will vary for each person based on her or his unique environment. Some people,
for example, who may be very low on the social intuition style and may not be very good at decoding
nonverbal signals of emotion, are the kind of people who interact a lot with machines. They may be
a computer programmer, they may have a very successful and happy life, and in fact they prefer to
spend not very much time around others. And that's great, and we need people like that in our
society.
But it seems like there are some styles that will make your life harder if your resilience is very
low and it's tough for you to recover from adversity, for example, that seems like a difficult way to
live. So how do people know when their emotional style is the right one for them, and when it's
something that they need to change?
That's a very good question, and not an easy one to answer simply. I think that in the extreme,
a person will know. So if people are unable to cope with the expectations and demands of everyday
life, then they will likely know that whatever emotional style they're expressing is not optimal.
There's probably a large range in the middle where people may not be as cognizant as they
could be. And that is a major purpose in writing the book: helping people become more aware of
their emotional styles, because awareness is really the first ingredient in making changes.
On that point, you emphasize that these emotional styles are not set in stone we can change
where we fall on the continuum. How does that work?

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 One of my key messages is that the styles are indeed based upon specific brain circuits. And
since we know that the brain exhibits plasticity, our styles in fact can be changed through a concept
I call neurally inspired behavioral interventions. There are actually interventions around that were
developed thousands of years ago that turn out to be very good candidates for this, and they come
from the meditative traditions.
I have been very influenced by these. I tell the story in the book of my first meeting with the Dalai
Lama in 1992, which played a seminal role in my career, both professionally and personally. His
inspiration for me is the possibility that very simple methods that can be taught in a completely
secular way can be used to transform the mind and change the brain in ways which actually can
affect these emotional styles.
So just to give a couple of examples: Sticking with resilience again, there is a method of
meditation that is very popular called mindfulness meditation. And what mindfulness meditation does
is teach people to pay attention on purpose, nonjudgmentally. The nonjudgmental piece is very
important, because what happens with emotional interactions particularly negative ones is
rather than paying attention to them nonjudgmentally, we judge, and the judgments lead to
rumination and perseveration of the emotion way beyond the point where the elicitor is present.
So, for example, if we have an argument with someone close to us in the morning, some of us
keep replaying it all day. And it has a deleterious effect on our mood and behavior for many hours
after the original argument.
If we can learn to pay attention nonjudgmentally, it offers the possibility of having a quicker
recovery. Recent research is bearing that out. We've done studies, and there are other studies in
the literature, showing that simple forms of mindfulness meditation actually do facilitate recovery
from adversity and thus promote a greater resilience style, and change the brain circuits that are
associated with resilience in ways that we would predict.
What is BioNeuroEmotion?
Feelings are a psychological process. There are more than 1500 classified feelings, but
emotions are physiological processes and there are only five.
The basic emotions are: joy, fear, disgust, anger, and sadness. These are the five ancient
biological emotions. Such emotions posses a fully adaptive function, and we share them with the
animal kingdom. Thanks to them, we have survived for thousands of years.
Emotions are a physiological process that produce specific chemicals. These chemicals
are linked to information that we have received from a particular experience, allowing us to adapt to
the situation. Therefore, these chemicals are responsible for reinforcing our neurological responses,
guiding us to take action when facing a specific event.
Emotions do not make any distinctions between real or imaginative circumstances, and are
much stronger than reason. There arent good or bad emotions; all of them are adaptive. The
imbalances arise when we do not know how to manage them. Learning to recognize our emotions
and becoming aware of what we feel in every moment can help prevent many emotional disorders,
and power our general well-being.
We need to experience emotions in order to feel alive, but normally we are use to feeling those
of discomfort more, since those are the ones that are programmed in us. This happens because
throughout so many years of human history, men have been living in constant danger: predators,
starvation, natural disasters, etc. Learning how to process emotions and empower the ones that
make us feel good will aid us in facing daily conflicts in a better way.
Its important to understand the difference between emotions and feelings. Feelings are
psychological processes. There are as many feelings as people. Feelings are the way that people
interpret whatever they believe that the emotions are making them feel. There are more than 1,500
classified feelings in contrast with the five basic emotions that exist, driving us to take action in order
to survive and find safety. The problem is that when we do not recognize them, we prolong their
effects and do not take action. In this case, we end up being sick, as a consequence of the chemicals
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that our body releases pushing us to take action. The human body does its best to protect you, and
if it thinks that you are in danger, it will do everything to keep you safe.
1- Joy allows us to reproduce: Its a winning emotion that will repeat all the things that make
us feel good. This emotion does not generate disease, and its the one that we need to watch over
in order to feel the rest of them less. (Remember that we need to experience emotions in order to
feel alive, at least until we figure out that the peace we all look for is the absence of emotions).
2- Fear allows us to protect ourselves from danger: Real danger makes us run, but when
the danger is imaginary, we wont recognize it and will not do anything about it since we have been
taught that being afraid is for cowards.
3- Disgust makes us move away from danger: In ancient times, disgust was meant to protect
us from poisonous or spoiled food. Today, it moves us away from emotional toxicity.
4- Anger makes us face danger: There are belief systems that DO NOT allow us to hate or
attack. Its not socially acceptable, so we often suppress this emotion or keep it inside to express
later on. An example of this is when we have a conflict with our boss, a colleague, or a friend. We
do not express ourselves in the moment, and when we go home, we take it out on the people that
we love or trust the most (parents, partners, children, siblings). Another option would be that we wait
until theres a soccer game, and we can let go of our emotion by expressing it against the opposing
team.
5- Sadness allows us to isolate ourselves so we can cope with loss:
Losses such as unprocessed mournings, denied or unrecognized loss, death of our loved ones,
losing our job, or losing a business or a property, could bring us sadness. If we accept and embrace
this sadness, we will free ourselves from it in a faster, more efficient way.
To recognize and express what we are feeling in every situation is the key to avoid
emotional blockages in our bodies that in time, may produce physical illness.
As I said before, we need to experience emotions to feel alive. Sometimes, we even need to
watch horror movies, get involved in risky sports, or ride a roller coaster. The important thing is to
feel something so one can feel alive.
With this awareness, I encourage you to empower your feeling of joy and your sense of humor.
You could watch comedies or even play like a child, or like an actor whose role is happy and joyful.
In time, and with practice, these emotions will become automatic and we will be happier. In
experiencing these emotions, our problems will become easier to resolve.
What is BioNeuroEmotion?
BioNeuroEmotion (BNE) is a technique used to identify the underlying hidden emotion behind a
symptom. The term symptom refers to the existence of an undesirable situation that needs to be treated.
Some symptoms are physical and some are behavioral. Examples of physical symptoms are illnesses, injuries,
inability to conceive, physical pain etc. Examples of behavioral symptoms are antisocial behavior, violence,
addictions, ADD, behaviors that lead to financial hardship, inability to find a partner, etc.

When we come to understand that 95% of our mental processes are unconscious and that we manifest
our reality based on the contents of our unconscious mind, the importance of becoming aware of the
contents of our unconscious mind becomes apparent. Through the application of BNE techniques one begins
to understand that the unconscious mind is full of toxic programs, which many times are inherited by our
ancestors, and that such programs are manifesting themselves through the display of symptoms. The
purpose of BNE is to help open the door to our unconscious mind thereby finding the root of the symptom
we are experiencing. In other words, one finds the hidden emotion and exposes it to consciousness
mind. Once the hidden emotion is detected, we have an opportunity to express it for the first time and
healing begins to take place. In this way the Collective Mind begins to heal as well.
The Collective Mind refers to the concept that our mind is part of one whole. In other words there is only
one mind, not millions. You and I are connected through that one mind we call the Collective Mind. You and
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I are influenced by that one mind as well, so when the collective mind becomes toxic, this toxicity affects us
all. To help heal the Collective Mind, we do so one person at a time.
BNE utilizes different techniques to find the origin of the hidden emotion and to change any negative
perception of the events that gave birth to such emotions. The emotional information may be stored in
various cerebral archives that can be accessed through the following studies:
Chronology Age Study: This is the study of all the emotional conflicts lived by the person beginning from
birth to current age. Here, the emphasis is on the moment when the symptom first appeared and the trigger
situation.
The Study of the Unconscious Parental Projection Period: This is the period ranging from nine months before
conception to three years of age. Here, the importance is in finding the emotional conflicts lived by both
parents surrounding the conception of the person consulting.
The Study of the Family Tree: The importance of this study is to find the inherited program that triggered
the symptom and the ancestor linked to that program. This is achieved by linking family members whose
date of birth, date of conception and date of passing are similar to those of the person consulting.
In addition to the studies above mentioned, BNE utilizes several techniques to help the consulting person
become consciuslly aware of their emocional conflict:
The Biologic Meaning of the Symptom: When the symptom is physical, BNE studies the meaning of the
symptom. In other words, a physical symptom is a biologic solution (the solution given by the body) of an
emotional conflict that has not been resolved.
In general, BNE studies the relationship between unconscious emotions, their impact in our body and
the resulting quality of life.
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming): Through NLP the perception of painful memories are modified and
in this way the person is relieved from the pain and suffering related to such memories.
Ericksonian Hypnosis: This is a therapeutic tool to help people access memories, heal and grow. Unlike
traditional hypnosis which uses commanding language, Ericksonian hypnosis uses indirect suggestions such
as stories or metaphors.BNE aspires to integrate all the sciences to help people achieve greater conscious
awareness which ultimately translates into a greater state of well being. Greater well being is the result of
greater physical and emotional health. Therefore, the understanding of physics and chemistry are important
for BNE, as both sciences interact with biology; our biology. In BNE we also use principles from psychology
as it is the study of the mind and the mind influences our emotions, our behavior, and also our
body. Through the study of epigenetics we learn how we inherit information from our ancestors though our
DNA, how such information influences the way we perceive life and how such perception ultimately
determines our quality of life. Through quantum physics, we learn how information is transmitted and how
we influence the outcome of events in our life by our observation and our perception. It is through the
unification of all these areas scientific study that we conclude that we are ultimately responsible for creating
our reality. With this understanding comes a sense of responsibility and ultimately a change in paradigm
were we go from believing that we are victims of our circumstances to understanding that we are the
creators of our reality. In this way we acknowledge our true power to create a different reality, one that is
free from pain and suffering.

The human brain is the source of our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, actions, and memories; it confers
on us the abilities that make us human, while simultaneously making each of us unique. Over recent years,
neuroscience has advanced to the level that we can envision a comprehensive understanding of the brain in
action, spanning molecules, cells, circuits, systems, and behavior. Understanding the brain is a riveting
intellectual challenge in and of itself. We believe this to be a moment in the science of the brain where our
knowledge base, our new technical capabilities, and our dedicated and coordinated efforts can generate
great leaps forward in just a few years or decades. Like other great leaps in the history of sciencethe

10
development of atomic and nuclear physics, the unraveling of the genetic codethis one will change human
society forever. Through deepened knowledge of how our brains actually work, we will understand ourselves
differently, treat disease more incisively, educate our children more effectively, practice law and governance
with greater insight, and develop more understanding of others whose brains have been molded in different
circumstances. To achieve this vision, our nation must train and support a new generation of trans
disciplinary brain scientists and provide the resources needed to unleash their creative energies for the
benefit of all.
Foundational Concepts: Neural Coding, Neural Circuit Dynamics, and Neuromodulation
Neural coding and neural circuit dynamics are conceptual foundations upon which to base a mechanistic
understanding of the brain. At the microscopic scale, the brain consists of vast networks of neurons that are
wired together with synaptic connections to form neural circuits. In an active brain, each neuron can have
electrical and chemical activity that is different from that of its neighbors; thus some neurons can play
specialized roles in different tasks. Yet the activity of each neuron also depends on that of the others in the
circuit, through the synaptic connections that define the circuits architecture. Synaptic connections can
change strength as a result of recent activity in the circuit, meaning that circuit architecture is constantly
modified by experience. A thinking brain can therefore be viewed as an immensely complex pattern of
activity distributed across multiple, everchanging circuits.
Neural coding refers to how information about the environment, the individuals needs, motivational
states, and previous experience are represented in the electrical and chemical activity of the neurons in the
circuit. In a familiar example, the neural code for color vision begins with just three basic detectors in the
eyethe cone photoreceptors. Circuits in our brains combine patterns of cone activation with other inputs
to discriminate over a million different colors. More sophisticated, and poorly understood, neural codes
enable us to recognize instantly the voice of a friend or the dramatic light of a Rembrandt painting.
Elucidating the nature of complex neural codes and the logic that underlies them is one goal of the BRAIN
Initiative.
As different neurons become silent or active in a thinking brain, the pattern of activity shifts in space
and time across different circuits and brain regions. These shifting patterns define what is known as neural
circuit dynamics. A key to understanding how the brain works is to determine how the neural dynamics
across these vast networks process information relevant to behavior. For example, what is the form of neural
dynamics in a circuit that makes a decision? What are the dynamically changing patterns of activity for
speaking a sentence or imagining a future action? To probe the mechanics of the brain more deeply, we
must learn how the biophysical properties of neurons and the architecture of circuits shape dynamic
patterns of neural activity and how these patterns interact with incoming sensory information, memory, and
outgoing motor commands. In the same way that the basic electrophysiological properties of single neurons
are common across brain areas and species, it is likely that many fundamental forms of neural dynamics will
generalize as well. Accompanying this rapid flow of information that drives cognition, perception, and action
are slower modulatory influences associated with arousal, emotion, motivation, physiological needs, and
circadian states. In some cases, these slower influences are associated with specialized neuromodulatory
chemicals like serotonin and neuropeptides, often produced deep in the brain or even in peripheral tissues,
that can act locally or globally to change the flow of information across other brain circuits. In effect,
neuromodulatory modifications of synaptic efficacy can rewire a circuit to produce different dynamic
patterns of activity at different points in time.
The Brain and Behavior
The purpose of the brain is to generate adaptive behaviorpredicting, interpreting, and responding to
a complex world. As foreshadowed in the preceding section, some of the most riveting questions in
neuroscience revolve around the relationship between neural circuit structure, neural dynamics, and
complex behavior. Objectively measureable behavior is an indispensable anchor for the field of

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neuroscienceit defines the set of phenomena that we ultimately seek to explain. We benefit in this respect
from the rich traditions of experimental psychology, psychophysics and neuroethology, but new innovation
is needed in the analysis of behavior. Dobzhansky once said that Nothing in biology makes sense except in
the light of evolution, and it is no exaggeration to say that nothing in neuroscience makes sense except in
the light of behavior. Thus a primary theme of the BRAIN Initiative should be to illuminate how the tens of
billions of neurons in the central nervous system interact to produce behavior. Mental life can flourish within
the nervous system, even if the behavioral link to the observable world is tenuous.

A Brief Introduction to Brain-Based Learning Theory

Implications for teaching

The research highlights a number of brain-based implications for the teaching and learning environment. The literature
points toward establishing learner-centered environments within the school and classroom settings. Learner-centered in this
context refers to focusing on the what, why, and the learning output. Examples include: filling classroom space with interesting
visual stimuli, providing lots of examples, and helping students to see how lessons may fit into a larger pattern of work. This
concept of immersing learners in complex and interactive environments is a key aspect that is helping to drive significant
investments by higher education in the areas of gaming and simulations.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary science that is concerned with the study of the structure and function of the nervous
system. It encompasses the evolution, development, cellular and molecular biology, physiology, anatomy and
pharmacology of the nervous system, as well as computational, behavioural and cognitive neuroscience. The scientific
study of the nervous system has increased significantly during the second half of the twentieth century, principally due
to advances in molecular biology, electrophysiology, and computational neuroscience. This has allowed neuroscientists
to study the nervous system in all its aspects: how it is structured, how it works, how it develops, how it malfunctions,
and how it can be changed. For example, it has become possible to understand, in much detail, the complex processes
occurring within a single neuron.
Major branches
Modern neuroscience education and research activities can be very roughly categorized into the following major
branches, based on the subject and scale of the system in examination as well as distinct experimental or curricular
approaches. Individual neuroscientists, however, often work on questions that span several distinct subfields.
Branch Description
Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms involved in emotion, typically
Affective neuroscience
through experimentation on animal models.[29]
Behavioral neuroscience (also known as biological psychology, physiological psychology,
Behavioral biopsychology, or psychobiology) is the application of the principles of biology (viz.,
neuroscience neurobiology) to the study of genetic, physiological, and developmental mechanisms of
behavior in humans and non-human animals.
Cellular neuroscience is the study of neurons at a cellular level including morphology and
Cellular neuroscience
physiological properties.
This consists of medical specialties such as neurology and psychiatry, as well as many allied
health professions such as speech-language pathology. Neurology is the medical specialty that
Clinical neuroscience works with disorders of the nervous system. Psychiatry is the medical specialty that works with
the disorders of the brainwhich include various affective, behavioral, cognitive, and
perceptual disorders. (Also see note below.)
Cognitive neuroscience is the study of the mechanisms underlying cognition with a specific
Cognitive neuroscience
focus on the neural substrates of mental processes.
Computational neuroscience is the study of brain function in terms of the information
Computational processing properties of the structures that make up the nervous system. Computational
neuroscience neuroscience can also refer to the use of computer simulations and theoretical models to study
the function of the nervous system.
Cultural neuroscience is the study of how cultural values, practices and beliefs shape and are
Cultural neuroscience
shaped by the mind, brain and genes across multiple timescales.[30]
Developmental neuroscience studies the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the
Developmental
nervous system and seeks to describe the cellular basis of neural development to address
neuroscience
underlying mechanisms.
Evolutionary Evolutionary neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific research field that studies the
neuroscience evolution of nervous systems.
Molecular neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience that examines the biology of the nervous
Molecular neuroscience system with molecular biology, molecular genetics, protein chemistry, and related
methodologies.

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 Neuroengineering is a discipline within biomedical engineering that uses engineering
Neuroengineering
techniques to understand, repair, replace, or enhance neural systems.
Neuroethology is an interdisciplinary branch that studies the neural basis of natural animal
Neuroethology
behavior.
Neuroheuristics (or Neuristics) is a transdisciplinary paradigm that studies the information
Neuroheuristics processing effected by the brain as an outcome of nurture versus nature, at the crossing of top-
down and bottom-up strategies.
Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the
Neuroimaging
structure and function of the brain.
Neuroinformatics is a discipline within bioinformatics that conducts the organization of
Neuroinformatics
neuroscience data and application of computational models and analytical tools.
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the
Neurolinguistics
comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
Neurophysics investigates the fundamentally physical basis for the neurons, neural networks
Neurophysics
and the brain.
Neurophysiology is the study of the functioning of the nervous system, generally using
Neurophysiology physiological techniques that include measurement and stimulation with electrodes or optically
with ion- or voltage-sensitive dyes or light-sensitive channels.
Neuropsychology is a discipline that resides under the umbrellas of both psychology and
neuroscience, and is involved in activities in the arenas of both basic science and applied
science. In psychology, it is most closely associated with biopsychology, clinical
Neuropsychology
psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology. In neuroscience, it is most
closely associated with the cognitive, behavioral, social, and affective neuroscience areas. In
the applied and medical domain, it is related to neurology and psychiatry.
Paleoneurology is a field which combines techniques used in paleontology and archeology to
Paleoneurology
study brain evolution, especially that of the human brain.
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological
Social neuroscience systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and
methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior.
Systems neuroscience Systems neuroscience is the study of the function of neural circuits and systems.
A (Very) Brief History of Neuroscience
The great Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle believed that our consciousness, imagination and memory was
rooted in the human heart. It was a belief he shared with the ancient Egyptians, whose Book of the Dead endorses
carefully preserving the heart of a mummy, but recommends scooping out and discarding the brain. Today, the supreme
role of the heart lives on only as a metaphor for our intuitive, emotional selves.
__ There is evidence, however, that at least some Egyptians knew about the importance of the brain. The Edwin Smith
Papyrus, dating back to 1700 BC, is the earliest known medical text in history. The papyrus discusses the brain, the
meninges, the spinal cord and cerebrospinal fluid. It contains details of 48 medical cases, including seven that deal
directly with the brain, which indicate that the Egyptian author knew the brain controls movement. However, the serious
cases of brain injury are described in the papyrus as untreatable.
__ We have come a long way since ancient Egypt. We now know the parts of the brain responsible for many of its
functions; we can operate successfully on the brain, and use medication to effectively treat many neurological disorders.
__ Getting to this point hasnt been easy. Have you ever heard of trepanation? Its the once popular belief that cutting
a hole in your skull would relieve pressure on your brain and lead to enlightenment. Or how about phrenology, popular
in the 1800s? Phrenologists thought that you could learn everything you needed to know about someones character
by measuring the shape of his or her skull.
__ These missteps aside, neuroscience has advanced like most sciences: one small step after anotheruntil the 20th
century, when it flies into a sprint.
170 BC: the Roman physician Galen, whose day job was fixing up gladiators, insists that a persons temperament and
bodily functions are controlled by the brain. His theories are dominant for the next 1200 years.
1000 AD: The great Islamic surgeon Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi describes several treatments for neurological disorders
in his 35-volume encyclopedia of medical practices, the Kitab al-Tasrif.
1543: The first true medical textbook to deal with neuroscience, On the Workings of the Human Body, is published by
Andreas Vesalius.
1649: The French philosopher Ren Descartes comes up with the influential idea that while the brain may control the
body, the mind is something intangible, distinct from the brain, where the soul and thought resides. This concept is still
with us, much to the chagrin of many neuroscientists.
1664: Thomas Willis publishes Anatomy of the Brain, which describes reflexes, epilepsy, apoplexy and paralysis. He
uses the term neurology for the first time.
1791: Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani proposes that nerves operate through electricity.
1837: J.E. Purkinje is the first man to describe a neuron.
1862: Paul Broca pinpoints the part of the brain necessary for speech, henceforth known as Brocas area.
1878: William McEwen performs the first successful modern neurosurgery.

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1911: Aptly named British neuroscientist Henry Head publishes Studies in Neurology.
1929: Hans Berger invents the EEG, a device that measures electrical activity in the brain.
1932: Lord Edgar Douglas Adrian and Sir Charles S. Sherrington win the Nobel Prize for describing how neurons
transmit messages.
1938: Isidor Rabi discovers nuclear magnetic resonance, facilitating the development of magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI). Rabis discovery would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1944.
1950: Karl Spencer Lashley determines that memory relies on several sites in the brain working together.
1970: The Society for Neuroscience is established.
1973: Candace Pert discovers opiate receptors in the brain.
1974: A mouse is the subject of the first nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) scan.
1974: The first Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner is invented, providing visual information about brain
activity.
1987: Prozac is introduced.
1990: George H.W. Bush declares the last decade of the 20th century as the Decade of the Brain.
1992: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is first used to map activity in the human brain. Neuroscience
booms.
The rapid pace of developments in neuroscience facilitated by modern imaging techniques is astounding. Yet many of
the most important questions regarding the brain have yet to be answered. Why do we sleep and dream? How does the
chemical and electrical activity in the brain result in consciousness? These and other questions will fuel neuroscience
in the 21st century.
What is intelligence ?
What do we mean when we say someone is intelligent and is there any scientific basis for defining intelligence? These
questions have been at the center of a more than century-old debate in psychology. Intelligence is, first and foremost,
a judgment. Hes intelligent, hes not intelligent, those are quick ways of saying that some behaviors of an individual
observed in the past somehow predict how brilliant his next actions will be. Intelligence is an estimate of the quality that
we attribute to the decision-making and abstract thinking of people around us. Although it may be practical for people
to think of intelligence as something that exists, whether science should consider intelligence and how it would define it
remains very controversial.
Intelligence is defined as general cognitive problem-solving skills. A mental ability involved in reasoning, perceiving
relationships and analogies, calculating, learning quickly etc. Earlier it was believed that there was one underlying
general factor at the intelligence base (the g-factor), but later psychologists maintained that it is more complicated and
could not be determined by such a simplistic method. Some psychologists have divided intelligence into subcategories.
For example Howard Gardner maintained that it is comprised of seven components: musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Other definitions are: Intelligence is
what you do when you don't know what to do. Intelligence is a hypothetical idea which we have defined as being
reflected by certain types of behavior.
In 1905, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon devised a system for testing intelligence, with scoring based on average
mental levels for various age groups. However the German psychologist L. Wilhelm Stern was the first to coin the
term intelligence quotient (IQ), a figure derived from the ratio of mental age to chronological age. Although Stern's
method for determining IQ is no longer in common use, the term IQ is still used today to describe the results in several
different tests. Today, an average IQ score is considered to be 100, with deviations based on this figure. Intelligence
tests do not measure creativity, character, personality, or other important differences among individuals, nor are they
intended to. While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure the same intelligence. Some use words
or numbers and require specific cultural knowledge (like vocabulary).
Einstein said, "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." Socrates said, "I know that I am
intelligent, because I know that I know nothing." For centuries, philosophers have tried to pinpoint the true
measure of intelligence. More recently, neuroscientists have entered the debate, searching for answers about
intelligence from a scientific perspective: What makes some brains smarter than others? Are intelligent people
better at storing and retrieving memories? Or perhaps their neurons have more connections allowing them to
creatively combine dissimilar ideas? How does the firing of microscopic neurons lead to the sparks of inspiration
behind the atomic bomb? Or to Oscar Wilde's wit?
Uncovering the neural networks involved in intelligence has proved difficult because, unlike, say, memory or
emotions, there isn't even a consensus as to what constitutes intelligence in the first place. It is widely accepted
that there are different types of intelligenceanalytic, linguistic, emotional, to name a fewbut psychologists
and neuroscientists disagree over whether these intelligences are linked or whether they exist independently from
one another.
The 20th century produced three major theories on intelligence. The first, proposed by Charles Spearman in
1904, acknowledged that there are different types of intelligence but argued that they are all correlatedif people
tend do well on some sections of an IQ test, they tend to do well on all of them, and vice versa. So Spearman
argued for a general intelligence factor called "g," which remains controversial to this day. Decades later,
Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner revised this notion with his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which set
forth eight distinct types of intelligence and claimed that there need be no correlation among them; a person could
possess strong emotional intelligence without being gifted analytically. Later in 1985, Robert Sternberg, the
former dean of Tufts, put forward his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, which argued that previous definitions of
intelligence are too narrow because they are based solely on intelligences that can be assessed in IQ test. Instead,
Sternberg believes types of intelligence are broken down into three subsets: analytic, creative, and practical.
Dr. Gardner sat down with Big Think for a video interview and told us more about his Theory of Multiple
Intelligences. He argues that these various forms of intelligence wouldn't have evolved if they hadn't been
beneficial at some point in human history, but what was important in one time is not necessarily important in

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another. "As history unfolds, as cultures evolve, of course the intelligences which they value change," Gardner
tells us. "Until a hundred years ago, if you wanted to have higher education, linguistic intelligence was important.
I teach at Harvard, and 150 years ago, the entrance exams were in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. If, for example, you
were dyslexic, that would be very difficult because it would be hard for you to learn those languages, which are
basically written languages." Now, mathematical and emotional intelligences are more important in society,
Gardner says: "While your IQ, which is sort of language logic, will get you behind the desk, if you dont know
how to deal with people, if you don't know how to read yourself, youre going to end up just staying at that desk
forever or eventually being asked to make room for somebody who does have social or emotional intelligence."

1. What is intelligence?
Various lengthy definitions have been proposed, and I dont think I can do much better than any of those. But my
quick and dirty interpretation would be something like A set of abilities required to acquire, process, synthesize
and to put to effective use of knowledge and abilities. However, I think insights into the nature of intelligence
will come from the gradual accumulation of knowledge rather than single, unifying, perfect definition.
2. What do IQ tests measure?
IQ tests give an estimate of a wide range of positively correlated abilities that together summarize an individuals
ability to synthesize and purposefully use knowledge and reason. Although IQ-tests certainly dont capture
everything about cognitive abilities, or even about human intelligence, they can be useful for certain purposes.
However, we should always be wary of putting too much faith in strict boundaries or cut-off criteria: Even within
a person there is measurement error and considerable fluctuation over time, so it is dangerous to try to capture
all of someones cognitive ability in a single number.
3. How important is mental speed for intellectual functioning?
Assuming mental speed is interpreted as the time it takes to process and distribute information, I think mental
speed is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for (high) intelligence. The ability to balance and
synthesize a lot of information is dependent on different kinds of information being available to simultaneously
access and process. However, it is of course only one element of intelligence, and singular explanations havent
fared well historically. Every proposed simple explanation or substrate or intelligence I know of has led to funny,
but insightful, counterexamples. For instance, in several mental tasks, including some concerning
working memory and mental speed, we loose, badly, to chimpanzees on both speed and accuracy. And in terms of
the cortex-to-body ratio, humans are behind several species of rodents and some species of fish. The lesson to
take from this is that there are, simply, no simple answers to understandingintelligence. Or, conversely, that we
are consistently underestimating the intelligence of rodents and fish...
4. Where is intelligence in the brain?
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I dont think intelligence is somewhere in the brain, in the same way that athletic ability is not in some particular
place in your body, and the top speed of a car isnt somewhere in your car. Firstly, intelligence reflects differences
between people, so it cant really be in a person. Secondly, although intelligent behavior is ultimately dependent
on the function of the brain, and perhaps more so on certain aspects of brain functioning than on others, I think
attempting to locate intelligence somewhere is asking the wrong questions. We can learn a lot from studying the
brain, but we cant just peer in and hope for a clear, simple answer.
5. What do you think of current approaches to understanding the neural basis of g?
Traditionally, studies have looked for correlations between individual neurological measures and g. This was
useful initially, but also inherently limited. Increasingly, the field is moving towards combining different kinds of
data, and I think this is a good thing. Recent attempts have started to integrate both functional and structural
data, to get a grip on the relationship between brain function and structure with regards to intelligence and
intelligent behavior. Most importantly, there is an increasing realization that we need to focus on the dynamics
of intelligence. For instance, the field of network analysis has been gaining popularity. These studies look at the
dynamics and changes of brain activity, how these relate to intelligent behavior, and how these vary across people.
For example, recent large-scale collaborations are moving towards studying groups of people as they develop
and change over time, both behaviorally and neurologically. Such studies allow researchers to study the
development of intelligence and the brain during childhood and adolescence, and during aging later in life. This
is especially important, as it allows us to get a grip on the dynamical changes over time. We know already that
this is not a simple, linear process, but the interaction of a range of abilities. In the past, intelligence research
has learned a lot by studying changes over long periods of time, as this showed that every generation scores
considerably higher on IQ-tests, the so-called Flynn-effect. The hope is that similar gains in understanding will
be possible by being able to track and model the development of intelligence and the brain during childhood and
old age.
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6. What do you think of the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT)?
Although the scope of the effort is both admirable and useful in collating a large body of research, it is ultimately
not satisfying. Firstly, the P-FIT theory isnt very specific, and the brain regions discussed include most of the
cortex. As the authors themselves state, this same network has also been found to underlie cognitive functions
related to perception, short-term memory storage, and language. Then again, this may simply be the way it is, but
then we should perhaps ask more specific questions. For instance, my main problem with the P-FIT model is that
it combines evidence from both the inter-individual study of intelligence (how do people differ from one another
in terms of intelligence and/or brain structure?) and the intra-individual study of intelligence (what happens in
peoples brains when they perform complex tasks?). Although these are both very interesting questions, they are
also very different questions. Taking them together as intelligence and the brain is perhaps a partial explanation

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of why the network they identified is so broad: It summarizes a range of answers to two complex, but distinct,
questions.
7. Describe your latest research.
Generally, my research is concerned with using statistical tools to better understand the relationship between
psychological behavior and the brain [paper]. For instance, one of the things we are looking at currently is
integrating psychometric models to study what happens when people try to solve complex problems, both
behaviorally and in terms of brain function. To really be able to understand this process, we must carefully take
into account both differences between people and differences between different tasks, in terms of difficulty. Only
then can we study the similarities and differences in strategies when solving complex reasoning tasks. We use
certain psychometric (Rasch) models to take into account these differences, and so hope to better understand the
similarities and differences in how people solve complex reasoning problems.
8. How does your own research move the field forward and overcome some prior limitations of studying
the neural basis of intelligence?
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We hope to add something by emphasizing the importance of using measurement models to the study of
intelligence and the brain. Although a lot of research has looked at the correlations between intelligence and
certain neurological properties, such as brain volume or gray matter, we dont really know whether these different
brain correlates covary together, either within populations or within individuals over time. Is it simply the case
that some people have globally better brains than others, or are there far more complex differences between,
and within, people? I think the latter, but to get a grip on such questions, we need psychometric models. We use
Structural Equation Modeling in much of our research, which has the benefit that the proposed hypotheses can
be represented visually, and contrasting models can be compared in terms of how well they explain the data.
So far, we have looked mostly at general intelligence, to show that using such models are useful. However, we
are currently applying these models to more detailed cognitive abilities, to see if the models that work best for
general intelligence are different to those that work best for, say, working memory capacity. Ultimately, we can
then, hopefully, graphically represent this hierarchy of relationships.
9. What are the practical implications of your research? How would school psychologists benefit from
reading your research?
Ultimately, I believe that increased understanding can, and often does, yield unexpected practical benefits, so
furthering understanding in and of itself is a worthwhile goal. For instance, the detailed study of patterns of brain
activity and how to best measure these patterns has recently led to the, rather striking, ability to communicate
with people who were thought to be in a vegetative state. This was hardly envisioned when people were developing
fMRI-techniques.
The research we do doesnt have a direct link with school psychology, but I think there are indirect links. Research
done by my colleagues aims to shed light on the developmental trajectory of intelligence, which may have practical
benefits in different ways. For instance, the mutualism model of intelligence, proposed by van der Maas, shows
that if you assume that different, unique, cognitive abilities positively influence each other over time, you would
expect exactly the pattern of intelligence we currently observe. This means that an increase in, for instance,
working memory ability at a certain time may, over time, benefit a much wider range of (school) skills. These
beneficial interactions have potential practical implications: It suggests that improvement of generally applicable
skills, such as working memory ability or verbal ability, may have benefits far outside the realm of the that specific
skill. This could be tested empirically by studying changes over time: It would imply that improvements in a certain
skill at a certain time leads to improvements in other, related, skills, even without training on those specifically.
Again, the comparison to athletic ability is apt: Many athletes train specific skills, such as individual muscles, to
achieve better performance, over time, on some other, more general athletic skill. Conversely, improving overall
stamina allows you to go on for longer, which leads to improvements on more specific skills or abiities. Better
understanding of how cognitive abilities and properties of brain function affect each other over developmental
time has, I think, the most promise for practical applications in the future. But, much more research is needed
before such tentative findings can be translated into clear practical advice.
10. What does your research suggest about the malleability of intelligence?
My research so far has focused on cross-sectional studies of intelligence, that is, the study of a single population
at a single time, so I cannot make any claims regarding the malleability of intelligence. But, there is tantalizing
evidence that the brain is, at least to a certain extent, malleable. For instance, studies have suggested that intense
behavior, such as learning to juggle or to pass a taxi exam, may change the structure of the brain. It is hard not
to imagine your education as a much longer, more intense version of this behavioral manipulation. This is very
relevant for intelligence research. We know that intelligence changes over lifetime, and we know that the brain
changes over lifetime, but we know very little concerning the co-occurrence of these changes. Are they
simultaneous, or does neurological change occur prior to behavioral performance, as is the case in Alzheimers
disease? Recent research has shown how incredibly important it can be for healthy aging to keep engaging in
even relatively modest cognitive activities. Even getting a slightly better grip on these changes may be very useful.
These are very complex questions, but understanding them better may possibly provide insights into how
intelligence develops, and how to cope with aging.
11. Will we ever be able to make drugs to make us smarter?
Thats not really my area of expertise, but I dont think there will be a pill that will simply add a bunch of IQ
points. This is because intelligence isnt a single, monolithic ability. However, I wouldnt be surprised if it turned
out to be possible in a more modest sense, for certain aspects of cognitive function, such as alertness, or perhaps
even specific aspects of memory. For instance, everyone has experienced that you feel less smart early in the
morning, or at the end of a long day. Reversing these local and transient effects may achievable with medication
such as coffee. For example, coffee, for regular drinker like me, quite literally is a way to make me slightly smarter

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 (or slightly less dim) in the morning. However, intelligence as a whole is far too complex and multifaceted for a
single-pill solution. I think education is the best, and most sensible, way to make us smarter.
12. Does your psychological research have any implications for philosophy of mind?
I think the literature on philosophy of mind has much to tell empirical cognitive neuroscience, mainly in two ways.
Firstly, it makes clear which assumptions underlie our thinking in relating the brain to behaviour, and whether
these assumptions are tenable and sensible. More importantly however, different theories have different
explanations and descriptions concerning the relationship between the brain and behavior.
In our work, we aim to take these different explanations and think about possible predictions that follow from
such theories, and may allow us to compare them against one another [paper]. It turns out that theories such
as identity theory, supervenience and emergence can be very useful in thinking about how to model brain
measurements and behavioral measurements together. Although philosophy traditionally deals with questions
outside of the realms of empirical testability, it can be very useful to inspire new ways of thinking about behavior
and the brain. Ultimately, this is one of the most complex challenges for all of science: How can it be that this
blob of cells in my head somehow gives rise to my ability to experience, think, perceive and feel? To get a grip on
such questions, we need all the help we can get, and philosophy of mind certainly is one of the branches that can
be insightful in this respect.
2012 by Scott Barry Kaufman

IN THE PAST TODAY

Students learned about the language (grammar)
Teacher-centered class
Focused on isolated skills (listening, speaking, reading,
and writing)
Coverage of a textbook
Using the textbook as the curriculum
Emphasis on teacher as presenter/lecturer
Isolated cultural factoids
Use of technology as a cool tool
Only teaching language
Same instruction for all students
Synthetic situations from textbook
Confining language learning to the classroom
Testing to find out what students dont know
Only the teacher knows criteria for grading
Students turn in work only for the teacher
Students learn to use the language
Learner-centered with teacher as facilitator /collaborator
Focus on the three modes: interpersonal, interpretive, and
presentational
Backward design focusing on the end goal
Use of thematic units and authentic resources
Emphasis on learner as doer and creator
Emphasis on the relationship among the perspectives, practices,
and products of the culture
Integrating technology into instruction to enhance learning
Using language as the vehicle to teach academic content
Differentiating instruction to meet individual needs
Personalized real world tasks
Seeking opportunities for learners to use language beyond the
classroom
Assessing to find out what students can do
Students know and understand criteria on how they will be
assessed by reviewing the task rubric
Learners create to share and publish to audiences more than
just the teacher

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