47 pages • 1 hour read
The Tell-Tale Brain
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Chapter 7-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Beauty and the Brain: The Emergence of Aesthetics”
In Chapter 7, Ramachandran introduces the concept of aesthetics, documents what is unique to humans, and establishes the nine laws of aesthetics. Ramachandran believes that many principles of aesthetics are universal across species. Art is likely unique to humans. Art involves a deliberate distortion of reality, but this distortion must capture the subject’s essence. Ramachandran uses the Sanskrit word rasa to describe this characteristic of art.
He proposes nine universal laws of aesthetics that artists and fashion designers deploy “to create visually pleasing images that more optimally titillate the visual areas in the brain compared with what he could accomplish using realistic images of real objects” (198-199). These nine laws are: grouping, peak shift, contrast, isolation, peekaboo or perceptual problem solving, abhorrence of coincidences, orderliness, symmetry, and metaphor. Ramachandran emphasizes that his theory is not complete, but it offers researchers the opportunity to begin studying beauty and aesthetics through a scientific lens.
For the remainder of the chapter, Ramachandran explores the first two laws. Discovered over 100 years ago, the law of grouping has two principles. First, objects close to one another, even if they are radically different, form groups. Second, objects in a scene that suggest a continued visual contour will also form groups. Grouping feels good to humans. There is likely an evolutionary basis for this feeling.
Ramachandran next turns to the law of peak shift. In animal learning literature, peak shift occurs when an animal is trained to discriminate between two stimuli, such as a rectangle and square. The peak response is when the animal chooses the exaggeration of the stimuli (a longer and skinnier rectangle in this case rather than the original normal rectangle). The animal learned that the stimuli is attractive through a reward system.
Ramachandran extends this concept to exaggeration in art, especially abstract and impressionist art. He believes that exaggeration allows an artist or designer to extract the essence or rasa of a subject by amplifying the characteristics that are unique to the subject. Caricatures of Richard Nixon are one example. Many of these caricatures amplify two key characteristics: his big nose and shaggy eyebrows. Since these characteristics define Nixon, art that exaggerates them captures Nixon’s essence, even compared to the original Nixon. Ramachandran also applies this concept to a statue of the Indian goddess Parvati.
Ramachandran calls this type of exaggerated stimulus an ultra-normal stimulus. He believes that the ultra-normal stimulus taps into a primitive part of the brain which causes a heightened response to the stimuli. This response is also seen in seagull chicks when they are fed with exaggerated beaks.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Artful Brain: Universal Laws”
In Chapter 8, Ramachandran discusses the other seven laws of aesthetics. Less is known about these seven laws. For this reason, Ramachandran speculates about the origin of these laws and why they appear universal.
Ramachandran begins with contrast, which juxtaposes unlike visual elements with each other. Artists consider contrast to be the golden rule. Next, Ramachandran explores isolation, which is when artists focus on a single object. Isolation seems to contradict the law of peak shift since it focuses on less, but Ramachandran believes they serve different goals. The brain is only able to pay attention to one aspect of an image. A sketch with a single object allows the brain to direct attentional resources solely to the outline. The law of peak effect is trying to capture the essence or rasa of an object. The outline is often left out or smudged so the brain focuses on color space. The law of isolation suggests that knocking out parts of the brain might open new dimensions of creativity in people. The experience of autistic individuals with art lend support to this theory.
The law of peekaboo or perceptual problem solving represents the fifth law where “you can make something more attractive by making it less visible” (227). Humankind enjoys puzzles. Perception is like a puzzle since the brain needs to put the pieces together. This relationship between puzzles and perception is possibly why people find this law visually pleasing. The brain activates a reward system when an individual is trying to solve a visual problem.
Ramachandran next turns to abhorrence of coincidences. The brain does not like coincidences. It will try to explain the coincidence with a plausible, generic alternative. Orderliness, or regularity, is the next law. The brain does not like deviations from expectations, suggesting the need for predictability is innate.
Symmetry, or balance, represents the next law. Humans are not bothered by asymmetry in large-scale scenes. However, we care about symmetry of objects. Our ancestral environment, which was filled with dangers including from predators and parasites, might help explain this preference.
Ramachandran then focuses on metaphor, or a visual image that symbolizes something else, as the final law. The Dancing Shiva or Nataraja is a powerful example of this law.
Chapter 9 Summary: “An Ape With A Soul: How Introspection Evolved”
In the final chapter, Ramachandran focuses on the nature of self, which is a uniquely human characteristic. While humans believe they have a single self, neurology suggests there are seven components of self: unity (the human feels like one person), continuity (humans are attached to their identity even though events punctuate it throughout a person’s life), embodiment (human’s feel anchored to their body), privacy (a human’s mental life is their own), social embedding (humans are highly social creatures and are linked to one another despite also wanting their privacy), free will (humans can choose between various courses of action), and self-awareness (humans think they are aware of their self). Neuroscientists do not yet know how these attributes emerged. Ramachandran believes that studying neurological conditions that fragment one’s concept of self might help answer this mystery.
For the remainder of the chapter, Ramachandran provides a series of case studies associated with neurological disorders that disrupt each of the seven components of self. He begins with embodiment. A central tenant of embodiment is that a person must feel at home in their body and that all their body parts belong to them. Neurological disorders, including apotemnophilia, somatoparaphrenia, and transsexuality distort body-part ownership.
Ramachandran next turns to privacy. A normal brain maintains equilibrium between the individuality of a person’s own body and mind as well as their ability to see another’s perspective. Damage to mirror neurons might cause disruptions to this equilibrium, which, in turn, results in several key disorders, such as out-of-body experiences, men in childbirth classes developing false signs of pregnancy, and autism.
Ramachandran focuses next on unity. Neurological disorders, including anosognosia (denial of paralysis in oneself and in others) and out-of-body experiences suggest that multiple forces create the self. Disruption of one of these forces disrupts a person’s sense of unity. Damage to the control mechanisms that stabilize the push-and-pull forces between the brain’s two hemispheres likely cause these disorders.
Social embedding represents the next component of self. Since humans are social creatures, we define our concept of self in relation to our social environment. An environment that becomes unfamiliar causes extreme distress, including when people no longer recognize faces (Capgras syndrome), believe there is now two of them (self-duplication syndrome), or believe everyone resembles a single person they know (Fregoli syndrome). Damage to either visual pathways 2 or 3 when they diverge from the fusiform syndrome appears to be responsible for these disorders.
Neurological disorders can also distort a person’s self-awareness by either causing them to believe they are dead (Cotard syndrome) or that they are one with a higher being. Damage to the frontal-lobe, including from mini-seizures, appears to be responsible for these disorders.
Memory formation and retrieval help maintain our sense of self over a lifetime. When different components of memory are compromised, such as from amnesia, it disrupts a person’s sense of continuity.
Finally, free will is key to our sense of self. The supramarginal gyrus located in the left inferior parietal lobe plays a large role in our belief that we control actions. This structure is highly sophisticated in humans compared with apes. Damage to this structure results in people no longer being able to do skilled actions, including waving goodbye. The impacted individual can no longer translate their thoughts into actions.
In sum, Ramachandran’s goal in this chapter is to show how neurological disorders can help humans understand our sense of self through observations of both outward behavioral changes as well as changes to the inner workings of the brain.
Epilogue Summary
In the Epilogue, Ramachandran summarizes his approach to neuroscience. Throughout his career, he has found neurological anomalies, conducted experiments to ensure people were not making up the anomaly, and then tried to uncover what was happening in the brain.
Ramachandran also summarizes key similarities and differences between humans and apes. The biggest difference is our ability to be aware of the human self. While we are interested in studying this concept to unlock treatments for neurological disorders, humans also have a deep-seated urge to understand ourselves.
Ramachandran ends by reminding readers that the world was not custom-made for humans. For this reason, no matter how much we study the brain, we might not fully understand our origins.
Chapter 7-Epilogue Analysis
The final section of the book focuses on higher-level human traits to elucidate The Nature of Human Uniqueness. In Chapters 7 and 8, Ramachandran shows how we can use science to study beauty and aesthetics. In Chapters 9 and the Epilogue, Ramachandran focuses on the nature of self. Humans are the only species on the planet that can produce art and think about the concept of self. Ramachandran attempts to break down these two concepts to show their evolutionary basis, the neurological disorders that distort them, and what they can tell us about the inner workings of the brain.
One example with art is that Ramachandran tries to provide evolutionary explanations for symmetry, invoking Evolution and Brain Development. First, biological objects in nature (e.g., predators and prey) have symmetry. Given the brain has limited attentional capacity, symmetry in nature might have helped grab our hominin ancestors’ attention, which kept them alive (either from being able to flee predators or catch prey). Second, symmetry might also be associated with good health, which makes for a better mate. Parasitic infestations that reduce fertility often result in the visible loss of symmetry in a person’s face. Symmetrical faces thus signal to the brain that a person is a worthy prospective mate. There is no doubt that evolution played a role in our attraction to symmetry. However, while Ramachandran’s two theories are plausible, they are extremely difficult to test with our current scientific tools. Ramachandran is clearer in this section that most of his ideas are based on hunches rather than peer-reviewed science.
Ramachandran also tries to provide the evolutionary history for our concept of self. One example is the facet of free will. He ponders whether the supramarginal gyrus, which is only found in humans and controls actions, might have evolved initially for stone tool manufacture. This hypothesis is interesting, but, once again, it is difficult to test.
Scientists and readers might find fault with Ramachandran’s many speculations on the evolutionary basis of art and the concept of self. However, Ramachandran argues that speculation is necessary to advance brain science research. Speculations inspire new experiments, which will, in turn, help make theories more coherent and testable. Plus, false starts are normal and have occurred in all the hard sciences.
The discussions in this final section are by far the most complex. Ramachandran employs several methods of popular science writing, including figures, photos, and thought experiments, to help readers grasp his main arguments, which he tends to meander from here. An especially helpful example is when he describes how the stature of The Dancing Shiva or Nataraja embodies the concept of metaphor in art. Ramachandran breaks down many of the symbols and metaphors found within the statue. By being able to compare Ramachandran’s written words with the statue itself, readers, especially those who might not be familiar with Indian art, can see Ramachandran’s perspective.
Ramachandran also continues to describe many strange neurological disorders and The Impact of Neurological Disorders on the human experience. One such disorder is apotemnophilia, where a person wishes to amputate a limb (often on the left-side of the body), finding it intrusive. From brain imaging scans, Ramachandran suggests that the neural connection between the limb and brain is missing. The limb does not show up on the brain’s body map. Thus, the brain cannot send signals to the limb. The brain has a mismatch aversion, meaning it detests anomalies. The brain views the “missing” limb as an anomaly, which is why someone suffering from apotemnophilia has such a strong reaction against the limb. The limb distorts the person’s sense of self. Fascinatingly, when people who suffer from this disorder have their limb removed, their sense of self is restored. Anomalies in the brain can truly distort human experience.
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