Benny Luva Was A Neuroscientist

I hope Jonah Lehrer doesn't get mad at me for stealing his clever title trick, but as my obsession with one of the most important neuroscience principles continues to grow, I had to post another (hilarious) example of top down processing.

An "interpretation" of the lyrics are subtitled during this electric (and I DO mean electric) Bollywood video, which actually changes the perception of what you think you're hearing.

Michael Shermer did a TED talk about this phenomenon, but he used Stairway to Heaven played backwards - I'm not sure it's as effective as Benny Luva here...

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Aural Illusion

I'm guessing this is an example of top down processing (click that link to the left, it's a great explanation of TDP).

First, watch and listen to the video below.



Sounds sort of like "dada dada dada."

Now close your eyes and play it.

It switches to "baba baba baba." Not sure this works for everyone, but it did for me. My guess is seeing the hippie guy mouth the pronunciation of a "da" sound actually changes your perception of the sound. Close your eyes, and your hear the actual sound being made. The visual information is tricking your auditory perception. It's not an extraordinary example of top down processing, but it's pretty interesting.

(from Bad Astronomy)

Predictably Irrational

A book I will be reading soon (thanks, Alex) by Dan Ariely. Neuroscience and psychology principles through the eyes of economics - interesting stuff.

He describes how placebos work in the video below. Another example of research on the effect expectations and top-down processing have on perception (in this case, pain and flavor). It's experiments like these that makes you realize how subjective and malleable ideas of pain and taste are.

Human experience is a messy operation - one science continues to analyze the same way we would balance a chemical equation. Most "data" in psychology and neuroscience is too confounded to be applicable.

(PS - not a huge surprise that he mentions how antidepressants don't fare much better than placebos.)

Top Down Processing and Michael Shermer

Another old TED video from 2006, this time with Michael Shermer about belief. He covers some great topics in this, in particular how our beliefs shape our perceptions, another perfect example of top-down processing. A quick example:





If you don't feel like watching the whole thing, here are some highlights:

At 7:10 he talks about how we see happy faces on pictures of Mars, and my favorite, "The Nun Bun." He explains how we're primed to see faces based on our extensive experience looking at faces throughout our lives. Our brains shape our incoming sensory information into what it expects to see. So if anything even remotely looks like the features of a face, we'll see a face. It's very difficult not to see it once you already have.

At about 9:07 in he talks about how to hear satanic messages when music is played backwards. He plays Stairway to Heaven for a few seconds normally; then he plays it backwards and everything sounds typically gibberish. That is until he projects some satanic worship lyrics on the screen as you listen to the backwards version, at which point you can "hear" what Robert Plant was REALLY trying to tell us.

Elusive Objectivity

Great op-ed by Nicholas Kristof about the elusiveness of objectivity. He refers mostly to politics here, but it really applies to everything. In most cases, I try to let my subjectivity and bias apply only to my sports teams.

We think and argue emotionally, only looking for the facts that support our theory; as opposed to the opposite - looking at the facts, then structuring our theories. It's so deeply embedded in our brains, it's very difficult to stop. I know this is true because I'm so guilty of it.

No,it's not new news exactly, but it it's a phenomenon of neuroscience referred to as top-down processing. We have an expectation of an experience, and we literally structure how the sensory information enters our brains. That sensory info distorts as we contort it based on what we expect. It's a reminder that much of what we see, touch, and hear are self-induced illusions.

On Kristof's blog, of course, all the crazy commenters (with a few exceptions) revert right back to partisan politics. The irony!

Here is some commentary from one of my favorite writers Jonah Lehrer - I think his point about resigning yourself to a sense of certainty despite knowing you are torn between two conflicting ideas is really apt. That craving for the feeling of certainty is what drives most bad thinking. It's probably the root of religious thinking, and why people think they have answers to unanswerable questions - it feels better to feel certain. Questioning creates a sort of psychic pain. I liken it to western music that doesn't return to the tonic (leaving a sense of unpalatable dissonance), or watching a bad TV mystery movie that you can't walk away from because you have to know "who done it."

Anyway, Mr. Lehrer states it better than I do...