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It was 'instinctive' to
help when I saw her manipulating the bag with some difficulty. I would not walk
her home if she had no bag and would not help if an able-bodied man carried the
load. The recognition that an elderly person was uncomfortable drew my
attention and it made sense to help. There were a few underlying reasons why I
volunteered to carry that bag of groceries, among them my love for my
grandparents, and perhaps recognition that it would be morally wrong to not
intercede for this person.
Scientists today may
attribute my service to mirror neurons, nerve cells in our
brain that map the pictorial description of actions from the higher order
visual areas onto my motor counterpart. That is, (a) I saw the wiggly movement
of the bag in her arms, the strained look on her face, and concluded that she
was uncomfortable. (b) I knew how overloads can be awkward because my motor
cortex has a memory of
struggles maneuvering heavy objects. (c) It led to feelings of empathy and the decision to
provide assistance. The mirror neuron system, for
instance, is activated when after observing a friend yawn, you do likewise. It
is part of the cognitive engagement process.
Neurophysiologists in
the early 1990s at the University of Parma in Italy discovered mirror neurons originally in monkeys when electrodes in
the somatosensory cortex region of the brain
fired as they moved their arms to pick up an object. What put them in the
context of 'mirror' neurons occurred accidently when a researcher picked up
that object and the monkey's neurons fired. In other words, the part of the
brain that fired when the monkey used a set of muscles also fired when the
monkey saw a human perform the task. A subsequent cluster of studies confirmed
that humans have mirror neurons.1,2
What is the connection
between mirror neurons and attention? For one, it accounts for the capacity to
observe and then replicate an action such as a dance because the movement we
observe is already coded in the motor region of our brain, most likely because
we did a similar gyration in our past. If not a match when we try, the
performance is perfected with practice. Think of all the athletic moves we see
daily by ballplayers, the coaching that improves upon the models to make the
execution perfect, along with video reviews by athletes to fine tune their
skills. Children imitate what they observe from televised ballgames or
playmates in their neighborhood.
Another implication of
the mirror neuronal system is empathy, what I experienced
when the woman lugged the bag off the bus. Observing suffering animals and
children on infomercials prompt us to donate funds to organizations that
relieve suffering. Propping a door open at a shopping center for the people
behind us is another example of the empathy mechanism in action
– we are saving a person the exertion required to open the door or prevent its
sudden closure. It is the reason we are captivated by movies because actors
trigger emotions within our empathetic memory, even to the
point of crying or laughing.
In addition, the mirror
neuronal system helps us
understand gestures and their emotional
context.3 The musculature of our face is capable of many
configurations and the basic gestures of anger, happiness,
sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust is universal. We may not comprehend them
as young children but recognize the emotional connection as we age and is a
vital element in human communication. For example, consider the ramifications
when another person engages you with eye contact and smiles, setting
off the endorphin flow that makes you
happy: that person's gesture activates your visual cortex, sets off the mechanism via mirror neurons to trigger the
feeling and generate a return smile.
Essentially, then, the
same region of the brain is activated whether you are seeing or making a facial
expression. Also, people with well-developed mirror neuronal systems are better
at interpreting gestures and prosody and
therefore have greater perceptive and empathetic qualities. Hall and Cook believe
that schools and parents that foster validation build a more
powerful internal locus of control in children,
making the cerebral world more understandable at the emotional level and able
to relate to others empathetically. Children with a better internal locus of
control "think optimistically, manage time, and find meaning" in
order to "increase their sense of happiness."4(p. 49)
They
tend to be less impulsive as well. People were instructed on how to interpret
human gestural and vocal signals during the assertiveness movement of the
1970s applying conflict resolution and dignified conversations to express
feelings, aspirations, and goals in a tone that was not threatening. It is a
process where you become attuned to your own emotional triggers and regulate
behavior accordingly.
Not only are the visual
and motor cortices involved in the mirror neuronal network but the prefrontal
lobes, too. The elucidation of body language and expressions becomes part of
your long-term memory, which also manifests reasoning, moral judgment, and planning. (That is perhaps why I helped that woman
with her groceries rather than go directly home.)
Given that there is an
interplay between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala that mediates fear and
calm, the maturation of facial recognition might be a critical component in an
individual's ability to work with others in an engaged manner to complete
tasks.
Human Interaction
Studies
The following brain scan and physiology studies
reveal how communication is amplified during verbal and face-to-face encounters.
Talking and
listening
One example of how
human attentiveness has ramifications in
the brain was done by Greg Stephens and Uri Hasson, Professors of Psychology at
the Princeton University. They used fMRI to scan the spatiotemporal brain activity of a
person as they read a story into a
tape recorder. They then scanned another person who listened to the recorded story. There was no face-to-face interaction in this
experiment. They found the listener's brain pattern mirrored the speaker's,
with a slight time delay. In some cases, it coincided perfectly, as if the
listener was anticipating the words from the speaker. The listener was tested
for comprehension after they heard the story and demonstrated greater
comprehension or high neural coupling.
Comprehension,
therefore, is facilitated by predicting upcoming words, and successful
communication requires the active engagement of the listener. Furthermore, the
coupling crossed many brain areas "aligning with phonetic, phonological,
lexical, syntactic, and semantic representations as well as processing social
information crucial for successful communication, including, among others, the
capacity to discern the beliefs, desires, and goals of others".5
For instance, if you go
to a restaurant and say: "Coffee, two sugars" a thought process
transpires in the waiter: Go to the brewing machine, grasp the coffee
urn, pour until it reaches within half-inch of the top of the mug, add two
cubes of sugar, stir until dissolved, and bring it to the patron at table
sixteen before his egg and toast order is ready (but only after I attend to the
orders at tables seven and ten).
Face-to-face
versus back-to-back
Face-to-face interaction was
examined by a team from Beijing Normal University using Functional
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), which
looked at a region in the frontal cortex to compare synchronization under
different settings. Four male–male pairs
and six female–female pairs were scanned during four task sessions sitting: (1)
face-to-face with dialog, (2) face-to-face with only one speaker, (3)
back-to-back with dialog, and (4) back-to-back with only one speaker. They were
videotaped as well, and the researchers examined interactions for turn-taking behavior including body language: orofacial
movements and gestures.
They found neural
synchronization at a maximum in the left inferior frontal cortex only in the
face-to-face dialog scenarios.
They concluded that: "multimodal sensory information integration and turn-taking
behavior between partners may
underlie successful face-to-face communication."6 They add that
the human brain is designed for face-to-face communication and has important
neural features that other types of communication lack (email and text
messaging), and recommend that people take more time communicating face-to-face.
Eye contact
The amygdala as discussed earlier
receives a vast array of sensory signals from the environment and evaluates
their potential to threaten the safety of an individual. More specifically, it
processes another's gaze as the first line of information about external cues
such as objects, events, individuals, and internal cues like emotions, beliefs,
desires, and intentions. Primates are social entities
and make eye contact to communicate
emotions and gather information about the intention of others.7
By targeting three
hundred eighteen neurons in the amygdala of three Rhesus
macaques, Katalin Gothard, a neurophysiologist at the University of
Arizona in Tucson, and her team, noted twelve percent selectively changed their
firing rate when the subject fixated on the eyes of monkeys in movies – sort of
a brain boost when eye contact is established. In
this study Gothard found that amygdala neurons are
affected, and specifically when monkeys make eye contact with other monkeys. In
other words, identity-selective cells in the amygdala distinguish facial
expressions that lead to the emotional response behavior to another individual.
The idea that,
in the amygdala, the most socially salient stimuli elicit the highest firing
rates holds true: at the population level, neurons that signal eye contact elicit the highest of firing rates, similarly
to threatening faces that elicited higher firing rates than neutral and
appeasing expressions.8
Gothard is telling us
that eye contact raises the level of
engagement in primates, a vital element in communication, and when coupled with
facial expressions, provides social and emotional information. People routinely
search eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs and respond based on
that information. Comments about eye contact:
-"One
of the basic elements of the social system, forming a significant part of
individual socialization and experience gaining throughout one's lifetime."9
-"The
gold standard of communication and the most efficient and informational
one."10
-"Engages
more human senses than mediated communication."11
-"Is
the best form of teaching".12
Laughter
In-services are a nice
break because you have a pause in your day-to-day teaching, a chance to hear
outside speakers and touch base with colleagues. I take the opportunity to
organize my laboratory and sort files, time permitting. I walk into them a bit
lethargic at eight a.m., however, anticipating long, drawn out talks and lots
of sitting. In fact, on one occasion we were told that the school enlisted an
educational psychologist from a nearby university to speak about lesson plan
organization. We expected a real yawner but was surprised by his humor, tying content to funny anecdotes and puns. I enjoyed his
presentation and experienced a surge of energy and mental alertness, apparently
setting off a series of hormonal reactions that affected my mood for an
extended period. There were many instances when a joke or smile livened my
disposition during a school day.
I was a teacher that
desired approval from students and worried about boring them, and incorporated
humor in my lessons,
usually weird anecdotes about my high school and college days. The kids loved
the stories as reflected by their smiles and laughs, and even played tape-recorded segments of popular
comedians from the radio. I was trying to get the attention of my entire class
to prevent the slumping or socializing that were common in my first year of
teaching, finding laughter a way to interact
with my students and raise their engagement level.
Humor should be part of
the classroom, not sarcasm, but spontaneous anecdotes or even a
joke from time to time. Humans are the only species that laugh, and there are neurological explanations why humor is
beneficial. Depending on the type of joke, the prefrontal cortex, an area associated with judgment and planning, is
activated, particularly in the areas of language processing and ambiguity
resolution.
Laughter has
neurological and physiological consequences
Peter Derks, professor
of psychology at the College of William and Mary, in 1997 exposed people to
humorous material and evaluated their brain's response using
electroencephalograms (EEG). He found that
pulses traverse broad regions across the cortex, the frontal lobes, and the midbrain. Humor is thus complex
because the incidental sensory stimulation, whether visual, auditory, or even
touch (tickling) sets off intellectual, emotional, as well as visceral
responses. Is it funny? Is it a laugh aloud or giggle or smile joke?13,14
We touched base earlier
with the important interplay between the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain (hippocampus and amygdala) as they pertain to motivation, reward, and fear. The laughter mechanism then
employs the neurotransmitter dopamine, which targets the
nucleus accumbens to sustain attention
to complete tasks. There is the effect of the hormone oxytocin, too, that is involved in social bonding and even the
pleasurable feeling that follows monetary gain or addictive drugs. Derks adds
that funnier content increases blood flow to the nucleus accumbens as part of the
neural circuitry of human socialization and mood, encompassing friendship,
love, affection, and perhaps anger.
In his book A Better High: laugh, help, run, love…and
other ways to get naturally high! Matt Bellace states:
When something
is perceived as funny, the reward center of the brain is activated, the same
area that is activated during cocaine-induced highs. I'm not going to argue
that laughing is a more intense high than cocaine, but the
brain knows how to balance a natural high.15
The dopamine released during a
laughing high does not damage the brain but cocaine negatively affects the
neurotransmitter chemistry of the
brain. Cultural anthropologist
Mahadev Apte concerning the work or school environment states: "Laughter
occurs when people are comfortable with one another, when they feel open and
free. And the more laughter, the more bonding within the group."16
Ed Dunkelblau, Director
of the Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning, comments:
In the present
environment of high stakes testing, budgetary challenges, increased demands on
educators and competition for student attention, everyone in the school
benefits when humor is part of the
pedagogy. Humor is a unique behavior that builds a learning
relationship through the joyful confluence of head and heart. But most of all,
it brings a sense of pleasure and appreciation and
creates a common, positive emotional experience that the students share with
each other and the teacher. Laughter then is the assertive (biochemical)
response to an interpreted stimulus.17
Add humor to your classes
-Put humorous items
such as quotes, icons, or jokes on tests, homework or class assignments.
-Have a bulletin board
for humor quotes and post them as well as the
students'.
-Maintain a cartoon
file and display a few each week.
-Establish Joke Friday
where students bring in their favorites.
-Have a weird hat day,
or wrong paired socks day, or some other dress up theme.
-Bring a joke book to
class and either read them yourself or have students find their favorite.17
-Personal anecdotes
about your own life are appreciated.
|
Q: Want to hear a joke
about sodium?
R: Na
Conclusion
Research institutes
have delineated regions in the brain that fire during face to face
interactions, identifying the heightened neurological and physiological effects
of an assortment of communication scenarios in humans targeting those regions
as well as chemical responses throughout the body that occur via voice,
positional, eye contact, and laughter.
Interactive lessons have an affirming effect on cognition.
It is in this scenario that students experience engagement, as student-led
discussions and well-structured team-based assignments set off neurological
effects that maximize retention and productivity.
In the socialization,
we generate what Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter call flow activities that stretch their skills.
Moreover, a balance between teachers and student presentations will generate
the biochemical response that raises achievement and engagement of the full
spectrum of personalities in the classroom.
References
1. Di Pellegrino, G.; Fadiga, L.;
Fogassi, L.; Gallese, V.; Rizzolatti, G (1992).
Understanding motor events: a neurophysiological study. Experimental Brain Research 91: 176–180.
2. Gallese, V.; Fadiga, L.; Fogassi,
L.; Rizzolatti, Giacomo (1996). Action
recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain
119 (2): 593–609.
3. Enticott P., Johnston P., Herring
S., Hoy K., Fitzgerald P., (2008). Mirror neuron activation is associated with
facial emotion processing, Neuropsychologia;
46(11):2851-2854.
4. Hall, K., Cook, M., (2011), The
Power of Validation: Arming Your Child Against Bullying, Peer Pressure,
Addiction, Self-Harm, and Out-of-Control Emotions, New Harbinger Publications
5. Stephens, G. J., Silbert, L. J.,
& Hasson, U. (2010).
Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 107(32), 14425–14430. From
http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1008662107
6. Jiang, J., Dai, B., Peng, D., Zhu,
C., Liu, L, Lu, C., (November 2012). Neural
Synchronization during Face-to-Face Communication, The Journal of Neuroscience, 7, 32(45): 16064-16069.
7. Emery, N., (2000). The eyes have it:
the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 24
8. Mosher, C, Zimmerman, P., Gothard,
K., (2014). Neurons in the Monkey Amygdala Detect Eye Contact during
Naturalistic Social Interactions, Current
Biology, Vol.24(20), 2459-2464
9. Adam Kendon; Richard Mark Harris;
Mary Ritchie Key (1 January 1975). Organization of Behavior in Face-To-Face
Interaction. Walter de Gruyter. p. 357. ISBN 978-90-279-7569-0. Retrieved 4
June 2013.
10. Bonnie A. Nardi; Steve Whittaker
(2002). The Place of Face-to-Face Communication in Distributed Work. In
Pamela J. Hinds; Sara B Kiesler. Distributed Work. MIT Press. p. 83. ISBN
978-0-262-08305-8. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
11. Jorge Reina Schement; Brent D. Ruben
(1 January 1993). Between Communication and Information. Transaction Publishers. p.
436. ISBN 978-1-4128-1799-8.
12. Trevor Kerry (26 August 2010). Meeting
the Challenges of Change in Postgraduate Education. Continuum International
Publishing Group. p. 113.
13. Derks, P., Gillikin, L.,
Bartolome-Rull, D., Bogart, E., (1997). Laughter and electroencephalographic
activity. Humor: International Journal of
Humor Research, Vol 10(3), 285-300.
14. Goel V., Dolan R. J. (2001). The functional anatomy of humor: segregating
cognitive and affective components. Nature
Neuroscience, 4(3), 237-8.
15. Bellace, M., (2012). A Better High: laugh, help, run, love…and
other ways to get naturally high! Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing,
16. Apte, M., (1985). Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach, Cornell University
Press.
17. Retrieved from:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/using-humor-in-the-classroom-maurice-elias
