The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

     (h) LC had a profound inability to understand even simple gestures such as “okay,” “hitchhike,” or “salute,” Nor could he comprehend iconic signs like the restroom sign. He couldn’t match a dollar with four quarters. And preliminary tests showed he was poor at transitivity.

     A paradox arises: Given that LC was okay at learning paired associations (for example, pig = nagi) after extensive training, why can’t he relearn his own language? Perhaps the very attempt to engage his preexisting language introduces a software “bug” that forces the malfunctioning language system to go on autopilot. If so, then teaching the patient a completely new language may, paradoxically, be easier than retraining the patient to the original.

     Could he learn pidgin, which requires only that words be strung together in the right order (given that his concept formation is unimpaired)? And if he could be taught something as complex as “similar but not same,” why can’t he be taught to attach arbitrary Sassurian symbols (that is, words) to other concepts such as “big,” small,” “on,” “if,” “and,” and “give”? Would this not enable him to understand a new language (such as French or American Sign Language), which would allow him to at least converse with French people or signers? Or if the problem is in linking heard sounds with objects and ideas, why not use a language based on visual tokens (as was done with Kanzi, the bonobo)?

     The oddest aspects of Wernicke’s aphasia are the patients’ complete lack of insight into their own profound inability to comprehend or produce language, whether written or spoken, and their total lack of any frustration. We once gave LC a book to read and walked out of the room. Even though he couldn’t understand a single word, he kept scanning the print and turning the pages for fifteen minutes. He even bookmarked some pages! (He was unaware of the fact that the video camera filming him had been left on during our absence.)

CHAPTER 7 BEAUTY AND THE BRAIN: THE EMERGENCE OF AESTHETICS

1. One has to be careful to not overdo this type of reductionist thinking about art and the brain. I recently heard an evolutionary psychologist give a lecture about why we like kinetic art, which includes pieces like Calder mobiles made up of moving cutout shapes dangling from the ceiling. With a perfectly straight face he proclaimed that we like such art because an area in our brain called the MT (middle temporal) area possesses cells that are specialized for detecting the direction of motion. This claim is nonsense. Kinetic art obviously excites such cells, but so would a snowstorm. So would a copy of the Mona Lisa set spinning on a peg. Neural circuitry for motion detection is certainly necessary for kinetic art but it’s not sufficient: It doesn’t explain the appeal of kinetic art by any stretch of logic. This chap’s explanation is like saying that the existence of face-sensitive cells in the fusiform gyrus of your brain explains why you like Rembrandt. Surely to explain Rembrandt you need to show how he enhanced his images and why such embellishments elicit responses from the neural circuits in your brain more powerfully than a realistic photograph does. Until you do that, you have explained nothing.

2. Note that peak shift should also be applicable in animation. For example, you can create a striking perceptual illusion by mounting tiny LEDs (light-emitting diodes) on a person’s joints and having her walk around in a dark room. You might expect to see just a bunch of LEDs moving around randomly, but instead you get a vivid sense of seeing a whole person walking, even though all her other features—face, skin, hair, outline, and so forth—are invisible. If she stops moving, you suddenly cease to see the person. This implies that the information about her body is conveyed entirely by the motion trajectories of the light spots. It’s as though your visual areas are exquisitely sensitive to the parameters that distinguish this type of biological motion from random motion. It’s even possible to tell if the person is a man or woman by looking at the gait, and a couple dancing provides an especially amusing display.