•	This report explores the proposition that teaching effectiveness can be enhanced by accommodating the key differences between two complementary and deeply engrained modes of reality testing, each predominantly centered in different hemispheres of the brain.    •	(1) Correspondence involves “reality-testing” of a percept, the cerebral representation of an experience in the world.  •	(2) Coherence involves “textualizing”,  that is, reality-testing of a percept by how easily it relates to previous and ongoing parallel and collateral experiences.   •	Confidence in the validity of any percept throughout development is related to the interplay of these key processes.  •	As organisms develop, the “reference base” of previous experiences is enlarged and refined.  •	Motivation to enlarge the “reference base” is more or less intentionally energized by two variables: developmentally: an initial intrinsic desire to explore followed by the real or apparent need for additional experience and, ecologically, the costs and benefits of obtaining that experience

Greenberg, Neil

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University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Trace

University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Ecology and Evolutionary Biology January 2010 The Biology of Reality Testing - Implications for Cognitive Education Neil Greenberg University of Tennessee - Knoxville, ngreenbe@utk.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_ecolpubs  Part of the Behavioral Neurobiology Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Liberal Studies Commons, Medical Sciences Commons, and the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Greenberg, Neil, "The Biology of Reality Testing - Implications for Cognitive Education" (2010). Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_ecolpubs/3 This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. Neil GreenbergUniversity of TennesseeKnoxville, TN USAThe Biology of Reality Testingand its implications for cognitive educationFebruary  5, 2010Roger Bacon (1268)“…through argument and experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them,but does not cause certainty nor remove the doubtsin order that the mind may remain at rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.”We derive our beliefs…Kant:  "The senses cannot think,  the understanding cannot see.”Traditional Paths to “Truth”• FEELING– Emotion, autonomic arousal• AUTHORITY – social referee; more knowledgeable other• REASON– “understanding cannot see”; apparent coherence; textual integrity; external validation • SENSORY PERCEPTION– “senses cannot think”; correspondence; internal validation– Felipe Fernádez-Armesto …….TRUTH is a BELIEFBelief is the psychological state in which an individual is more-or-less confident in the validity of a proposition. (confidence can translate into biological fitness)Validity can be more-or-less internal (limited generality; e.g., individual enhances self-confidence) or external (broad generality; e.g., enhancing social confidence)VALIDITY• INTERNAL VALIDITY  (narrow context)• Confidence in percept can be increased by consistent reconfirmations of personal experiences; highly reliable repetitions….  Private; enhances self-confidence• EXTERNAL VALIDITY  (broad context)• Confidence in percept requires that it is perceived to be of enlarged generality, applicable to comparable situations in other individuals or contexts…. Social, shared experience; enhances social confidenceHOW IS BELIEF ESTABLISHED?This report explores the proposition that teaching effectiveness can be enhanced by accommodating the key differences between two complementary and deeply engrained modes of reality testing, each predominantly centered in different hemispheres of the brain.CorrespondenceCoherenceHOW IS CORRESPONDENCE ESTABLISHED?• Establishing CORRESPONDENCE involves matching perceptions of world based on sensory input – to the “real world.”• A cascade of error-detecting mechanisms exists from neuromuscular reflexes through intentional consciousness, involving expectations • For example, “error-related negativity” in brain waves are detectable before consciousness awareness  of an error (Falkenstein)• Establishing COHERENCE involves categorizing percepts, creating narrative flow in context withprevious and ongoing parallel and collateral percepts (a wholly internal process)• We have a capacity to assemble multiple specific percepts into plausible, coherent sequences • For example, left hemisphere “interpreter,” assembling  wholes from fragments (Gazzaniga 1999; Turk et al. 2003)HOW IS COHERENCE ESTABLISHED?OPTIMIZATION comes in to play when the real or perceived COST of assimilating or accommodating new percepts is greater than the real or perceived BENEFITMOTIVATION for ESTABLISHING CONFIDENCEREALITY-TESTING becomes progressively urgent as dissonances are revealed between a percept and the experience base.  As the experience base expands personal beliefs must be reconciled with shared beliefs throughout socialization.  DISORDERS of BELIEF?Distinguishing remembered or imagined experiences from ongoing experience is not trivial• The neurophysiological substrate of memory and imagination are almost identical• “Flashback” can appear to be a new experienceDISORDERS of BELIEF?Acceptance of experience that doesn’t correspond to external reality: kinds of hallucinations; Bonnet’s Syndrome (filling in scotoma); dismorphic body; pareidolia. (False positive (confident match with memories); Type I Error; overly trusting, gullible)Denial of experience that corresponds to external reality: agnosias: eg, visual (left occip), associative, anasognosia (denial of dysfunction / right cerebral cortices), prosopagnosia (faces) (False negative (failure to match with memories); Type II Error; overly skeptical, wary)For example: dream content can be taken for reality until the enlarging experience base creates a crisis of belief : “it must have been a dream.”   OR new highly validated experience can redintegrate older invalidated experiences that were “meaningless at the time” … a kind of novelty blindness  HOW IS CONFIDENCE ESTABLISHED?Reality testing becomes progressively urgent as the experience base expands and personal beliefs are reconciled with shared beliefs throughout socialization.  RECALLED IMAGINATION, IMAGINED MEMORIESEpisodic memory and plausible personal imagination share a consistent network of associated brain regions connected in a distributed network of neural modules…some of which may support self-schema and familiarity processes, and contribute to the brain's ability to distinguish real from imaginary memories.Hassabis et  al., 2007Confidence in the validity of any percept throughout development is related to the interplay of these key processes. As organisms develop, the experiential “reference base” of previous percepts is enlarged and refined. Motivation to enlarge the “reference base” is more or less intentionally energized by two variables: the real or apparent NEED for additional experience and the COSTS AND BENEFITS of obtaining that experience.REVIEW and LIMITATIONMetaphoric asideLIKE GENES, percepts can be individual or clusters;They are pleiotropic (individuals serve multiple functions)The narratives they contribute to are polygenic (have multiple inflowing streams of information)They can compete with each other for expressionThey are enabled or disabled by epigenetic interactions with the present environment, including stressorsAlbert CamusCOHERENCE is COMFORTING“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world.  But on the other hand, in a universe divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. . . .”A “predictable” world is much less stressfulThese two domains – one rooted in the past, the other in imagination– collaborate in creating a “sense of confidence in a belief,” not least, one’s self.  Increasing the degree of confidence in the validity of a belief enhances biological fitness … ecologically,  there is an “optimal”  cost/benefit ratio for a given level of  confidenceOrganisms often continue to try to increase confidence depending on perceived urgency and resources …   and can become addictive (“search and solve” is pleasurable)correspondence and coherenceevidence and theory past and futureOur inner world, umwelt, of necessity provides an abstraction at best.• Experience and neuroplasticity are limited• Seven +/- two items in short-term memory• Neuronal activity recycling time • Lateral inhibition … extrapolation and interpolation … a neurological “confirmation bias”An Aside on Chance and Necessity: the intrinsic imperfection of knowledgePHYSIOLOGYAutonomic, affective, and cognitive integration of feedback representations of arousal:• anterior cingulate cortex is implicated in generating autonomic changes, while • insula and orbitofrontal cortices may be specialized in mapping visceral responses. • ventromedial prefrontal cortex is recognized to support processes of internal (self-) reference that predominate in states of rest and disengagement and which putatively serve as a benchmark for dynamic interactions with the environment. (Critchley 2005) ..PHYSIOLOGYSTRESS RESPONSES are evoked by REAL or PERCEIVED challenges to an organism’s ability to meet its needsSUBCLINCAL STRESS is evoked by modest challenges to homeostasis, including COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, an apparent mismatch between internal perceptions and external reality; challenges to the narrative that confers biologically valuable confidence.Stress modulates neural functionSTRESS is a coordinated suite of responses to real or perceived challenges to an organism’s ability to meet its needsAs Camus observed, a predictable world is less stressfulNovelty evokes more or less stress depending on the perceived urgency of its challenge: information is ASSIMILATED or ACCOMMODATED by an organism’s world model.Stress modulates neural function• It is of interest that the system specialized for establishing CORRESPONDENCE is localized in the RIGHT HEMISPHERE, also associated with selective activation by novel percepts.• SUCH NOVELTY is uniquely associated with activation of autonomic functions (affect, stress) that proactively ALERT to novelty and reactively COPE with novelty, seeking to return to equilibrium with as little cost as possibleAre beliefs more important than truth?TRUTH and STRESSSELF-DECEPTION serves a vital function (Daniel Goleman’s  use of Ibsen’s term: “Vital Lies” 1985)“You can’t handle the truth!” (Jack Nicholson  in In “A Few Good Men,” 1992)DENIAL ---The more-or-less “…willing suspension of disbelief…” (Wordsworth) – is that the function of art?… to provide a safe zone for exploring the otherwise troubling, stress-evoking truth? Or of myth?  (“theory used to be an “enchanted circle”)LEFT HEMISPHERECoherence: creates a  consistent belief system –works to “save appearances”(Ramachandran 1998)Probabilistic reasoning(Osherson et al 1998)Abstract object recognition(Marsolek 1999)Activated by familiar    percepts(Goldberg 2001)RIGHT HEMISPHERECorrespondence: “skeptical,” tests reality and if damaged, confabulation runs rampant(Ramachandran 1998)Deductive reasoning(Osherson et al 1998)Specific object recognition(Marsolek 1999)Activated by unfamiliar percepts(Goldberg 2001)"Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens"--Ralph Waldo EmersonTake-home• Establishing correspondence and coherence are separate but complementary processes with unique neurological substrates• Neurological substrates are differentially subject to real or perceived stressors and are enabled and impaired by different levels of stress.• Stress profiles of “controllable” vs.  “uncontrollable “stress have different dynamics.Can we handle the truth?

The Biology of Reality Testing - Implications for Cognitive Education

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The Biology of Reality Testing - Implications for Cognitive Education

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