Brains On Purpose™

Experts in Emotion: Listen to Kevin Ochsner talking about emotion regulation

Click to listen to Columbia University's neuroscientist Dr. Kevin Ochsner talking about emotion regulation. (The interview is a part of a Yale interview series.) Among other topics, he talks about reappraisal and reframing, generating emotions, and using cognitive control. One of the processes he studies is using high-level thoughts to adjust the amygdala response; he explains in this interview.

I am glad to hear that he recommends emabracing the complexity because nothing about the brain can be reduced to sound bites!

While you are at the link, listen to many other interviews in the series Experts in Emotion, including James Gross, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Roy Baumeister.

Visual vocabulary: Some tips for your pictograph path

We've looked at the brain-friendliness of visual communication in past posts. Today I am creating a very short post just to give you a couple of resources you may find helpful on that pictograph path™—if you decide to follow the visual way.

First, a blog post on building your visual vocabulary: "Sketchnote building blocks + visual vocabulary" (Cheryl Lowry). This post links to another (from Sacha Chua) on building your visual vocabulary, too.

Second, an article that includes some benefits of drawing: "Don't stop doodling, it's good for you" (New Zealand Herald).

Have you been drawing? Doodling? Scribbling? If you get a moment, please let me know about your pictograph path™.

Filters and frames: Mediation is all about the viewfinder

Our brains are vigilant, hyperaware of any sensed change to see if it represents danger. Partly because they use a lot of our energy, our brains seek to deal with new information quickly and easily. So, rather like a photographer, the brain applies filters and frames. The filters shift, accentuate, and diminish what is seen. And the frames limit what is viewed to certain boundaries.

Changing the filters and the frames can make the shot new, fresh, and different. Perhaps the picture is improved—more clear, with a clarity that brings high resolution.

In a conflict, each party has a viewfinder; typically the views found are diverse, disparate, and sometimes painfully discordant. The less attention paid to those viewfinders, the more remote effective and satisfactory resolution becomes. In contrast, attention can bring a solution into focus.

By applying apps, filters, and frames below, I can display several versions of the same scene. (Please click on the pictures to see them full-sized; the quality is reduced by importing them into Typepad.) Do the different shots remind you of any dispute you have mediated? Any conflict in which you and another person have disagreed?

Conflict resolution can be as simple as becoming aware that our viewfinders are individual and often contrasting. Once in a while, coming to a resolution can even be a snap if we pay full attention to the fact that our views may be as different as a photo is from its negative.

When in conflict, it can help to snap to attention!

Conflict concert? Dispute ditty? Mediation minuet? Can the speech of angels lead to agreement?

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite. --Thomas Carlyle

It's been a while since I last blogged about the role of music in conflict resolution. But I was reminded of its potential by a recent piece of research done by Daniel Levitin. Dr. Levitin and his colleague Mona Lisa Chanda analyzed many scientific papers and derived some conclusions about the benefits of music. The abstract of "The neurochemistry of music" (Cell):

Music is used to regulate mood and arousal in everyday life and to promote physical and psychological health and well-being in clinical settings. However, scientific inquiry into the neurochemical effects of music is still in its infancy. In this review, we evaluate the evidence that music improves health and well-being through the engagement of neurochemical systems for (i) reward, motivation, and pleasure; (ii) stress and arousal; (iii) immunity; and (iv) social affiliation. We discuss the limitations of these studies and outline novel approaches for integration of conceptual and technological advances from the fields of music cognition and social neuroscience into studies of the neurochemistry of music.

Obviously reward, motivation, pleasure, stress, arousal, and social affiliation are basic ingredients in dispute resolution. This is why many of us believe in the strong potential of music in the management or resolution of conflicts.

For more about the research, read "Can Music Be More Effective Than Drugs?" (io9). Excerpt:

According to a new analysis of 400 published scientific papers, the old adage that “music is medicine” may literally be true. Canadian psychologists from McGill University have shown that the neurochemical benefits of music can boost the body’s immune system, reduce anxiety, and help regulate mood. The time has come, say the researchers, for doctors and therapists to start taking music much more seriously.

Mediators, too?

What is the biggest, scariest mediation monster of all?

Before I venture an answer to the question in the title of this post, let me put forth a definition of monster, one of which I am particularly fond:

Monster derives from the Latin word monstrum, which in turn derives from the root monere (to warn). To be a monster is to be an omen.

--Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears

Then let me tell you what got me thinking about monsters in the context of mediation. Recently I found an article written about a mediation training at which I assisted back in 1988. The lead trainer was Gary Friedman whom I had invited to New Mexico to conduct the seminar. In reading the article written so long ago, I was reminded of what is often missing in the mediation of today.

The article included several principles of the mediation model being taught at this Santa Fe seminar:

• "The most important aim of mediation, Friedman said, is 'empowering the parties.' He encouraged mediators to resist every attempt by parties to burden the mediator with the responsibilities that the parties themselves need to assume."
• "The voluntariness of mediation is one of its most empowering aspects, he said. The fact that either party may leave at any time is crucial to the process."
• "'Bringing in law relevant to a particular case requires the mediator to walk a thin line between, on the one hand, viewing law as determining outcome, and, on the other hand, viewing it as irrelevant,' he explained." The role it will play is up to the disputants.
• "The mediator needs 'inner freedom' to help the parties, Friedman indicated. That freedom is achieved by the mediator's awareness of his or her own reaction and biases." Both introspection and self-awareness are very important to the skill of a mediator and the success of the process.

Click to read the whole article: "Mediation Course for Lawyers Stresses Empowerment Of Parties" (BNA's ADR Report).

These four factors—party empowerment; voluntariness; law as, at the most, only one factor to be considered in resolution; and mediator self-awareness—probably have not increased in the field of mediation since 1988. In fact, there are many who would say they have decreased, and that the process has become more

Another clue that brain locationism is likely wrong or misleading: Why is the location concept sticky as glue?

Locationism is when people talk about the brain as if its activities or functions happen or are governed in just one location. For example, someone may say, "Here is the place in the brain for talking and the location for balking and the place for walking." I have blogged about this misperception before, e.g, here, here, and here. For some reason, I guess because it makes explanations easier and the brain simpler, the notion hangs on and on and on.

Related to a different, alternative theory—that a brain function results from the brain working as a team and not at a single location—is this new research. From "‘Brain waves’ challenge area-specific view of brain activity" (KU LEUVEN):

Our understanding of brain activity has traditionally been linked to brain areas – when we speak, the speech area of the brain is active. New research by an international team of psychologists led by David Alexander and Cees van Leeuwen (Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics) shows that this view may be overly rigid. The entire cortex, not just the area responsible for a certain function, is activated when a given task is initiated. Furthermore, activity occurs in a pattern: waves of activity roll from one side of the brain to the other.

The brain can be studied on various scales, researcher David Alexander explains: "You have the neurons, the circuits between the neurons, the Brodmann areas – brain areas that correspond to a certain function – and the entire cortex. Traditionally, scientists looked at local activity when studying brain activity, for example, activity in the Brodmann areas. To do this, you take EEG's (electroencephalograms) to measure the brain’s electrical activity while a subject performs a task and then you try to trace that activity back to one or more brain areas."

Click to read the rest.

Coming to DC in May? April 1 is the last day for early bird rates

Want an opportunity to learn from many of the top psychologists and neuroscientists, and at a reasonable cost? Then sign up now for this year's annual conference of the Association for Psychological Science. I attended in 2011, and will do so again this year. It's a terrific learning experience, a way to keep up on many areas of science related to conflict resolution.

Speakers include Michael Gazzaniga (I saw him last time I attended and look forward to hearing him again), Elizabeth Loftus (click to read a new article by her on memory and the legal system), Elizabeth Phelps, James Gross, Roy Baumeister, Daniel Kahneman, Rebecca Saxe, and many more.

Will you be there?

Want to improve visual communication? Here are 10 principles

We have looked at the pictograph path in past posts and considered the benefits of visual communication in conflict resolution (or in almost any situation when you want thoughts and feelings better understood). I recently discovered a terrific resource to help us communicate with pictures. It's a book with the title Picture This: How Pictures Work.

In this delightful book, you will read, and see illustrated, 10 principles of design and picture composition. 

The first four:

• Smooth, flat surfaces, horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm.
• Vertical shapes are more exciting and more active. Vertical shapes rebel against the earth's gravity. They imply energy and a reaching toward heights or the heavens.
• Diagonal shapes are dynamic because they imply motion or tension.
• The upper half of a picture is a place of freedom, happiness, and triumph; objects placed in the top half often feel more spiritual.

In addition to appreciating the practical guidance in the principles, I find them inspiring as metaphors. Makes me want to live in the top half of my picture of life with some vertical shapes living with me.

For the other six principles, and to see illustrations from the book, click here. The principles are also here and many other places on the 'net.

Lessons from Poe: Detecting the Inner Mediator—Join us this May in Baltimore

I will be presenting three programs in Baltimore on May 2 and 3. They are being offered by the ADR Section of the Maryland Bar Association at Westminster Hall, site of the Edgar Allan Poe crypt. Below is the description of the day-long program being held on May 2. I will also give a keynote that evening.

And, if 20 people register by April 1, we will have a practicum on May 3 based on the day-long program from the day before. More information and registration for May 2 here. If you are interested in the practicum, please email David Simison. [Note added April 3: We are no longer taking sign-ups for the practicum.]

I hope to see many of you there!

Lessons from Poe: Detecting the Inner Mediator

Poe is acknowledged by many as the genius who invented the detective story and inspired the genre of science fiction. Over 150 years after his death, we can still learn much from the imagination of this author and poet.

A skilled mediator is a supreme detective. The foremost, primary, and threshold mystery to solve: What method of mediation is best suited to the individual conflict professional, the parties, and the conflict. We will use an assessment approach to facilitate that first solution.

The clues a mediator must be able to read with precision involve self-awareness and self-knowledge, discovery of purpose, theory of mind (or discovering what's in the minds of other people), and razor focus on solutions, not problems. We will take our magnifying glasses to those topics and sharpen those skills.

What's science fiction have to do with mediation? Currently conflict resolution training is full of neuroscience that is fiction. We will separate the facts from the fiction and hype. We'll look at

Learn about your brain from a comic book? Yep, this one's from an artist/neuroscientist team

Soon you will be able to read a neurocomic, a book created by a comic artist and a scientist who studies the brain. Click to learn more and watch a short video (The Verge) about the forthcoming graphic novel.

More about the book in this video from The Guardian.

The Future of Emotion Regulation Research: Capturing Context

Abstract from "The Future of Emotion Regulation Research: Capturing Context" (Perspectives on Psychological Science):

Emotion regulation has been conceptualized as a process by which individuals modify their emotional experiences, expressions, and physiology and the situations eliciting such emotions in order to produce appropriate responses to the ever-changing demands posed by the environment. Thus, context plays a central role in emotion regulation. This is particularly relevant to the work on emotion regulation in psychopathology, because psychological disorders are characterized by rigid responses to the environment. However, this recognition of the importance of context has appeared primarily in the theoretical realm, with the empirical work lagging behind. In this review, the author proposes an approach to systematically evaluate the contextual factors shaping emotion regulation. Such an approach consists of specifying the components that characterize emotion regulation and then systematically evaluating deviations within each of these components and their underlying dimensions. Initial guidelines for how to combine such dimensions and components in order to capture substantial and meaningful contextual influences are presented. This approach is offered to inspire theoretical and empirical work that it is hoped will result in the development of a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the relationship between context and emotion regulation.

Concluding Remarks:

In this review, I proposed an approach to the systematic study of contextual factors in emotion regulation. Such an approach consists of specifying the components that characterize emotion regulation (i.e., the organism carrying out the regulation; the emotion-eliciting stimuli; the selection and implementation of strategies; and the types of outcomes considered) and then systematically evaluating deviations in the dimensions underlying these components. In this way, context is operationalized in relative terms. I provided initial guidelines for how to combine such dimensions in order to capture substantial and meaningful contextual variability. It is my hope that this approach will inspire theoretical and empirical work that will contribute to the development of a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between context and emotion regulation. As the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume said, “the passion, in pronouncing its verdict, considers not the object simply, as it is in itself, but surveys it with all the circumstances, which attend it” (Hume, 2004, p. 224). The time has come for emotion regulation researchers to systematically survey those circumstances and develop a more sophisticated understanding of this fascinating process by which heart and mind are constantly seeking to influence each other.

Walking down the pictograph path again: Let pictures carry your message

I have a longstanding goal. I'd like to give a presentation using only visual messages: pictures, images, colors. Why? The brain-friendliness of visual communication is one reason, one about which I have already blogged. I also believe that doing so will cause me to finely hone my message, to seek a new degree of precision.

In my imagination, the discussion among the attendees would have a different quality, too—a depth not provoked by my spoken or written words.

And, as I often have said before, the pictograph path can be a helpful one to walk during conflict, leading us towards solutions.

To move me closer to my goal of visual messages, I have been gathering and absorbing oodles of resources. For example, many of you probably already know of the work of the uniquely wonderful Lynda Barry. Click to follow a class she is offering. On the 'net just today I bumped into Molly Bang, and learned of her book Picture This: How Pictures Work (at Amazon). Click here to see many of her principles of graphic storytelling.

As I have time, I plan to add here at this post links to the resources I am discovering. Any suggestions?