“Inside Story” Page: 8
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Bergen calls this construction of meaning through the intersection of language and our
memories 'embodied simulation' (Bergen 13).
Michael Gazzaniga refers to a similar phenomenon called mirror neurons (Gazzaniga
2008 63). When we are attentively watching someone performing an activity, like riding a kayak
through class IV rapids, neurons are firing in the same patterns and in the same regions as in
the kayaker's brain. Our synaptic patterns and activity can closely mirror those of the characters
we pay attention to. This is how, at the movies, we can climb into the hero's skin; feel what he
feels, and see things from his perspective. We can experience the same thrill of riding the
whitewater by just watching. We are rewarded through the imagined participation in the
experience of others.
What we have learned about the brain though, raises some questions. If there are so
many functional regions in our brains, all operating at the same time, why do we feel like one
whole unitary person instead of a collection of sensors, processors and operators. The answer
lies in what Gazzaniga calls 'The Interpreter". It is located only in the left hemisphere in the left
frontal lobe. The function of The Interpreter is to bring order out of chaos, to explain how one
thing relates to another, to interpret our emotional and cognitive responses to what we
encounter in the environment. The Interpreter creates hypotheses and makes predictions. It
keeps a running narrative of our actions, emotions, thoughts and dreams. It keeps our story
unified and creates our sense of being a coherent, rational agent (Gazzaniga 2008 301). Like
Sherlock Holmes, the Interpreter is very good at syllogistic reasoning and makes many decisions
based on anecdotal evidence. The interpreter is sometimes wrong. Take a look at what is called
the Heider-Simmel animation (Gottschall 105) and think about what you are seeing.
Cut to
Heider-Simmel Animation:
About a minute in length. Geometric shapes move around the screen.
Cut to
People responding to what they have seen. People talk about the shapes as if they were people
and the movements they saw comprised a mini-drama.
Cut to8
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Crawford, Jim D. “Inside Story”, thesis, May 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500092/m1/13/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .