by S. Todd Stolp MD
©December 2007
New brain imaging discoveries are surfacing each day, providing us with astonishing new insights into our thinking machines. One of those insights has to do with how we communicate. It turns out that many of our perceptions are constructed automatically from data that is collected and analyzed even before we realize that our brains have actively participated in the act of interpretation. Creatures have an uncanny capacity to interpret body posture and facial expressions as an integral part of our communication skills, even before we realize that we have drawn conclusions from our observations of each other. It might be worthwhile to consider this compulsion for practicing amateur sociology as we prepare to join our family members over the holidays to share meals and revelry.
As is often the case, our understanding of our capacity for communication has been boosted by our observations of individuals in whom this capacity has malfunctioned or been delayed. Recent attention has been focused upon the condition of autism, in which there is a deficiency in the ability to interpret social cues from the faces of other people. In severely autistic patients, the ability to recognize a human face is diminished even in infancy. While the cause of autism remains a mystery, brain imaging has clarified that autistic patients have abnormalities in how social information is physically processed by the brain.
If any doubt exists about the magnitude of our drive for gathering social signals, consider the success of televised game and reality shows. The camera seems to linger for entire seasons on the magnified faces of preoccupied game show participants to satisfy our voyeuristic interests. While maintaining vigilance in our interpersonal data-gathering can be exhausting, ratings for televised international poker championships remain high.
Consider the mind boggling success of Facebook, YouTube and the multitudes of other social media networks. The notion of employing electrons to facilitate interactive written communication was agonizingly simple. However, our hard-wired compulsion to communicate has required the remodeling of a bewildering network of satellites and the commitment of some of our most sophisticated technology. It is perhaps a positive commentary on humanity when we do so for the sake of communication rather than for other less constructive purposes.
Even the smorgasbord of downloadable music on the internet is further evidence of our insatiable appetite for communication. As musical tastes become increasingly intercultural and international in scope, boundaries between peoples stand to be blurred and mutual understandings at least potentially facilitated. The biological roots and community benefits of rhythm and music are undeniable, even among species other than humans.
And so it seems that given such an innate ability to communicate, and with such a demonstrated devotion to facilitating conversation, we ought to attempt to make our interactions worthwhile. While some degree of our ability to communicate effectively across the dinner table is learned and some inherited, maximizing our enjoyment takes some effort – sometimes considerable effort. A secret among clinicians is to verbally acknowledge perceived social cues, so that misinterpretations have an opportunity to be corrected. Ultimately, holiday gatherings provide one of our greatest opportunities to exercise our talents for listening, singing, laughing, asking questions, challenging, debating, and simply expressing ourselves. Here is to hoping we all do so with joy.