Heroes Not Zombies

Tiny photo, huh?

I do a lot of scrolling through my digital photo libraries looking for images. Sometimes I’m skipping across thumbnails not much different from this one in size. I stopped when I saw this particular image and thought “when did I take a photo of a gorilla on a wall?”

Do you see what I saw there?

One click zooms the image up to its full size…..

Ha! Where did the gorilla go??

This is a photo of a bell!

If I try hard I can just about still see the gorilla’s face in the full size image but it’s really not nearly as clear as it is in the thumbnail.

Did you know that there are parts of our brain whose whole function is to spot and recognise faces? It seems to work so well it can even see faces where there aren’t any! Like in this image. I’ve shown you examples of this before with photos I have of rock formations and so on, but I’m sure you’ll have lots of experiences of your own to confirm this.

Why should we devote such a lot of brain resources and energy to spotting and recognising faces?

It turns out that we are THE most highly social creatures on the planet. It’s one of the key features which distinguishes us from other primates. Dan Siegel, of “Mindsight” fame says that the frontal cortex of our brain is our map making part – it creates, he says, a “me map, a you map and a we map”. We use more of the brain than our frontal cortex to recognise others, establish bonds and communicate our feelings, but that’s an important part. Iain McGilchrist, of “The Master and His Emissary”, describes how the two cerebral cortexes engage with the world differently, and how the right side has a predilection for the particular, for seeing the over all, contextualised big picture, and for seeking and making connections. Neuroscientists have described specialised “mirror neurones” which we use to tune into and harmonise with others….partly explaining why if I touch my chin while speaking to you, you are more likely to touch your chin (if we are face to face….doesn’t happen on WhatsApp!)

We are the world’s greatest mimics. That’s how we learn, but it’s also how we form bonds with each other. At a trivial level, think of the “ganga style” dance moves. At a far from trivial level, see how the same slogans, gestures, and behaviours are spreading around the world just now as people in many countries respond to the horror of the killing of George Floyd.

We have an astonishingly large number of facial expressions which communicate our emotions. Are you familiar with the work of Paul Ekman on facial expressions? He has shown how certain facial expressions are universal across cultures, and has studied and documented many “micro expressions” which are used in social interaction.

I know there is a lot of talk just now about communication technologies during this time of social distancing, but we humans need the opportunity to connect literally face to face. Does video conferencing, Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime etc do that? Well, what’s your experience?