22. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions, especially fear and disgust, according to a new study published in the online version of the journal Neuropsychologia. As part of the investigation, Olivier Collignon and a team from the Université de Montréal Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC) demonstrated that women are better than men at processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions.

While women have long been thought to outperform men in neuropsychological tests, until now, these findings were inconsistent. To obtain more conclusive evidence, the Université de Montréal researchers did not use photographs to analyze the reaction of subjects. Instead, the scientists hired actors and actresses to simulate fear and disgust. “Facial movements have been shown to play an important role in the perception of an emotion’s intensity as well as stimulate different parts of the brain used in the treatment of such information,” says Collignon, who also works as a researcher at the Université catholique de Louvain’s Institute of Neuroscience in Belgium.

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The study found that women were superior in completing assessments and responded quicker when emotions were portrayed by a female rather than a male actor. Compared to men, women were faster at processing facial and multisensory expressions.

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Autism and emotions

In 2002, researchers Baron and Cohen put forth a controversial theory stipulating that autism and Asperger’s syndrome are an extreme in male interpersonal behavior that’s characterized by impaired empathy and enhanced systematizing. “Seeing as our results show that men identify and express emotions less efficiently than women, it supports this theory to a certain extent,” says Collignon.

Differences between men and women

Are women natured or nurtured to be different? Biology may play a role, since there are few opportunities for socialization to shape such gender differences. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that females, because of their role as primary caretakers, are wired to quickly and accurately decode or detect distress in preverbal infants or threatening signals from other adults to enhance their chances at survival.

For full article, please click here.

At some level, this feels like ‘Well, duh, of course women identify and express emotions more quickly and accurately.’ However, this is not something that has been scientifically proven beyond doubt. This study helps to swing the pendulum in the direction of females being more tuned in to the emotions of fear and disgust.

Cheers,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Alexithymia, Managing Anxiety, Men's emotions, Emotion & learning, Danville CA, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Dr. John Schinnerer, Measuring emotions, Life coach, Anxiety, Nature vs. nurture, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »

22. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

From ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Although we assume we can see everything in our field of vision, the brain actually picks and chooses the stimuli that come into our consciousness. A new study in the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology’s Journal of Vision reveals that our brains can be trained to consciously see stimuli that would normally be invisible.

Lead researcher Caspar Schwiedrzik from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany said the brain is an organ that continuously adapts to its environment and can be taught to improve visual perception.

“A question that had not been tackled until now was whether a hallmark of the human brain, namely its ability to produce conscious awareness, is also trainable,” Schwiedrzik said. “Our findings imply that there is no fixed border between things that we perceive and things that we do not perceive — that this border can be shifted.”

1.      Schwiedrzik et al. Sensitivity and perceptual awareness increase with practice in metacontrast masking. Journal of Vision, 2009; 9 (10): 1 DOI: 10.1167/9.10.18

For full article, please click here.

I have done a number of presentations on visual attention, perception and mindfulness. It never ceases to amaze audiences when they miss obvious stimuli, such as a unicycling clown, right in front of them.

There are many powerful exercises to demonstrate to audience members that their visual attention is a limited capacity. In other words, we are not consciously aware of everything that comes in through our five senses.

We miss a lot of ridiculously obvious things depending on what we are attempting to do with our attention. For instance, if we are focusing on looking for grammatical errors (proof-reading), we may miss contextual or factual errors. If we are in an angry mood, we look for information that perpetuates that anger.

 There is a great Frank & Ernest cartoon that provides a nice metaphor for this phenomenon.

‘ When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail.’  To put it another way, when you’re angry, everything looks to reinforce that anger (via your perception of things).

The other extension of this is ‘When you’re a nail, everything looks like a hammer.’ That is, when you’re in a sad funk, everything you see seems to reinforce and extend that sad feeling or depressed mood.

Have a Thriving Thursday!  Just for today, don’t be a nail or a hammer. Chose to learn today. Opt to be optimistic!

Cheers,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Posted in National speakers, Positive expectations, Brain plasticity, Visual perception, Curiosity, Awareness, Life coach, Guide to Self, Consciousness, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »