Mental myths

The following statements are (pretty much) not true:

• We use only 10 percent of our brains.

• “Flashbulb memories” are precise, detailed and persistent.

• It’s all downhill after 40 (or 50 or 60 or 70).

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

"Top Ten Myths About the Brain" (Smithsonian)

• [ill lich]

  “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus”? Where do people come up with this crap?

  Everyone knows: women are from mons and men are from penis.

• [dalesd]

  I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. – Emo Philips

• [Anonymous]

  You’re right; I’m not from Mars. I’m from Uranus!

• [redsquares]

  To all the NeuroComputationalists:
  You realize you’re calling an abstraction a reality, and assuming something from off-the-cuff presumptions from neuroscientists who barely understand the mushy thing themselves!

  Humans tend to understand the world as far as they understand its relations (Descartes and hydraulics mentioned in the article). Our entire language is built from metaphors to communicate the ‘gist’ to another being. A computer is an abstracted brain… as far as our understanding of the brain goes. We equate it to the most advanced technology we understand.

  The person who posted about all the universe being a computer: Your definition of ‘computation’ encompasses all matter, so it follows that everything is either an emulation, process, or output, or all. So of course the brain is a computer. So is a rock. And since Digital Physics (essentially what you’re saying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics) hasn’t really been proven and there’s actually a good case against it (from observation), the assumptions made start to sound more, well religious (the High Priest Neuroscientist spoke thus:…). From what I assume(dangerous I know) you’re getting into: information theory is and awesome and extremely useful for cataloging the world and getting a Turing computer (a tool) to logically relate it, Claude Shannon never meant it to be a proof of how things are, everywhere. We can use Information Theory many different useful ways, but we are not the ones finding the intrinsic laws of information, we’re simply the ones putting labels on what we see. (Have I mentioned that I think Information Theory is awesome and a useful tool?)

  I say it everywhere, but science is a tool, not a faith. It’s a pragmatic lens unto what may stretch out before us and what we may do with it, but it’s not “The Truth”.

  Regardless, we don’t know enough about the brain to make the jump that the brain is a computer. Or is the computer a brain, or is it a satisfactory metaphor, a useful analogue? We don’t know. Until the extraordinary evidence proves otherwise…

• [dainel]

  We only use 10% of our muscles. If all your muscles are pulling in opposite directions at the same time, you wouldn’t be able to move.

  Using 100% of your brain is called having a seizure.

• [niten]

  @pjcamp: If your definition of a computer is ‘something that runs a well-defined program on well-defined data’ then maybe the brain isn’t a computer. Er, well, then it’s not. If your definition of a computer is ‘a thing that performs computations’ then it certainly is.

  If we are able to perform a computation (or ‘solve a problem’), then either it’s not NP-complete or P=NP. Or, I suppose, the dataset is small. If P != NP, then the solution cannot be trivial for any large dataset, not even for an ideal quantum computer (which our brains are not).

  Or else, well, we don’t find the ‘solution’, but rather only approximate. Which is actually a totally valid option. An approximate is very often good enough in the real world. But then a computer could do the same. Point is, if we can do it, then so could a computer (for some value of ‘computer’).

  @redsquares: A rock can be a computer, or can be seen as one. At the atomic level, it’s very possible, and useful, to see particles and their interactions as data and computation. It’s been used in accepted theories of entropy. We’ve made simple quantum computers, and there seems to be no major impediment to building better ones.

  Anyway, my point wasn’t to strongly state than our brains are just like your desktop computer; rather, I was saying that it seems a bit early to dismiss the notion than brains are ‘like’ computers. I don’t think that the author of this article has considered and dismissed the idea that the human brain computes. Rather, I think they’ve compared the comparison between the brain and other machines with the brain and computers, and dismissed that. And I object to it.

• [Anonymous]

  Why should the brain be exempt?

  Should it not be exempt? Because some things are different between genders, mostly reproductive characters (like bone structure) and obvious secondary characters for recognition (like skin, hair, voice), doesn’t mean you’d expect everything to be. Are lungs, kidneys, and spleens also notably different between genders?

• [Anonymous]

  To say we use only 10% of our brains would imply we know what it is to use a 100%… but for sure we don’t know that. – Etienne Matuszewski

• [Mark Dow]

  A nice shorthand list, but it reinforces another myth; that parts of the brain are single function modules.

  “In blind people, parts of the brain that normally process sight are instead devoted to hearing.”

  While tactile processing may occur in V1 and other visual areas commonly used for visual processing, it is certainly not true that it is devoted to hearing, or any single purpose.

• [Anonymous]

  Diana E. Bonnett (on Smithsonian): “If male and female brains have no differences, why do so many more males commit crimes?”

  Answer: Because the human society tells you that more males commit crimes – and so you expect more males to do them.
  That’s circular logic, but it happens all around you. Ask yourself: Who will be scolded the most in kindergarden fights? The girls. They’ll be told that it’s “unbecoming” for a girl to participate in physical violence.
  But the boys? They’ll be scolded a bit and will get to hear a succinct “don’t do it again”, but at the same time that is said their fathers/family/the scolding person will praise them unconsciously/consciously for being strong/doing what a boy does. And it is *expect* that they’ll fight again.

  Btw.: Women also commit crimes, most often “light” crimes, but it’s believed (by criminologist/scientists?) that many crimes by females aren’t reported (e.g. violence at home *by* females) – probably because the victims see it as shameful (being a victim of a *woman*) or the officer/person who notices the offence thinks it’s a one-time “thing”.

  I worry when people ask questions that try to excuse certain behaviour through biology – and disregard the importance of society and oppression by the same.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    A long deceased, elderly gentleman of my acquaintance once described the actions of a terrorist as ‘unladylike’ in a tone of voice that made it clear that that was her greatest crime.

• [redesigned]

  Myth #1: We all have one. ;-P

• [one pieceman]

  Isn’t it quite plausible that there might be gender specific differences within the brain? There are clear (statistical) variations in bone structure, skin, hair, voice, etc. Why should the brain be exempt? The article points out that the power of suggestion can skew results, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t biases to be found. It just means one has to be very careful designing experiments. Dangerous territory though. Gender, race and climate will soon be so politicised that no real science will be possible there.

  • [Anonymous]

    “Gender, race and climate will soon be so politicized that no real science will be possible there.”

    Soon be?

  • [AnthonyC]

    Yes, it is plausible. For one thing, male and female brains (like bodies) vary in size, yet woman are just as smart. For another, in traditional societies men and women have filled different roles for tens of thousands of years, so it’s highly unlikely that there aren’t some differences in what areas each gender excels at. Minor, yes, but they probably exist.

    I also have a problem with #5: Brains are like computers. They say, “There’s a long history of likening the brain to whatever technology is the most advanced, impressive and vaguely mysterious. Descartes compared the brain to a hydraulic machine. Freud likened emotions to pressure building up in a steam engine. The brain later resembled a telephone switchboard and then an electrical circuit before evolving into a computer”
    Someone mentioned that Asimov essay recently where he writes that the people who thought the earth as flat were wrong, and the people who thought it was spherical were wrong, but if you think they were both equally wrong then you’re more wrong than either of them.

    The brain is not much like a hydraulic machine, except that it’s wet. It isn’t much like a steam engine except that it does burn fuel to do work. It is networked (and rewires itself) like a switchboard. It is electrical, containing many complex circuits. And ultimately it does do computation (it’s certainly turing-complete, given an infinite external paper!)

    The brain is necessarily too complex for one human being to contain a complete, accurate model of it. Therefore, we use approximate metaphors to aid our understanding. Since we cannot use metaphors that reference technologies that haven’t been thought of, we reference the extant technologies that does most closely resemble the brain.

    • [pauldavis]

      The brain is not much like a hydraulic machine, except that it’s wet. It isn’t much like a steam engine except that it does burn fuel to do work. It is networked (and rewires itself) like a switchboard. It is electrical, containing many complex circuits. And ultimately it does do computation (it’s certainly turing-complete, given an infinite external paper!)

      this is a hopelessly now-centric view of both computers and the brain. the brain is as much like a computer as it is like an ecosystem, or an ant colony. you’re using such a generously broad definition of “computation” that any moderately complex system could be defined as “like a computer”, which is simultaneously true and more or less useless.

      i think you need to get used to that fact that we’re stuck in a now-centric view of the brain, and not try to fight it. enjoy exploring what the comparison with “computation” reveals, but as lord kelvin advised us long ago, “don’t mistake your models for reality”.

    • [petsounds]

      The brain is necessarily too complex for one human being to contain a complete, accurate model of it. Therefore, we use approximate metaphors to aid our understanding. Since we cannot use metaphors that reference technologies that haven’t been thought of, we reference the extant technologies that does most closely resemble the brain.

      I’d go one further, and say that our technological progress is also informing our understanding of how the body and the brain operates.

      The ancient Greeks (I believe Aristotle in particular) viewed the heart as the central organ, for it was rich in blood, and blood was a symbol of life itself. There was some intimation that the being of man stemmed from the heart. Of course they viewed it from a more philosophic point as they hadn’t the understanding of biology. The didn’t feel the brain to be very important at all; not much blood there!

      But it wasn’t until the 19th century, right in the middle of the industrial revolution, that the circulatory system was struck upon, and realized the heart was merely an organic pump carrying blood around the body. Would we have perceived the body as a mechanical kind of system had we not developed technologically in this way? Maybe. Would we have discovered the nature of synaptic electrical impulses had we not the understanding of electricity and power systems? Doubtful.

      I think we will only understand the brain when we have the capability to build one.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Men and women differ markedly in their metabolism of alcohol:

  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u500637566204213/

  Differences in hormonal levels influence behaviour as much as the brain does.

  Some of the neurologists here may be neglecting the role of the endocrine system of “thinking” and on emotions.

  Differences between men and women as to hormones – and the existence of that difference is well-proven, uncontroversial – will of course lead to differences both of behaviour and of physical response to sensory stimuli, food and drugs.

  Vive la difference!

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Oops forgot to link to the relevant abstract re: my claim as to differences between the sexes as to alcohol metabolism:

  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u500637566204213/

  …only one of many differences between the sexes, I bet.

  Different hormones = differing neural response; there’s a reason those teenage boys seek to get the young ladies drinking – the girls physically cannot keep up with the boys’ physical metabolizing of alcohol, drink for drink, and get drunk much faster than the boys, other things being equal, as a result.

  That research constitutes a warning to the young ladies as to matching drinks with unscrupulous guys, I suppose.
  And hints that other hidden differences may also exist between the sexes.

  • [Ugly Canuck]

    So, I did include the cite in my first comment – but I also put an “of” where I ought to have put an “on”, that is, before “thinking”.

• [niten]

  I take issue with Myth #5: Brains are like computers. If the author is talking about computers in the sense of CPU, memory, wires and power supplies, then sure, that’s correct.

  But in a more general sense, the brain is a computer. Literally. In the same sense as the universe is a computer. And it doesn’t matter if it’s made of mushy stuff and doesn’t store things at fixed memory locations and doesn’t have a central clock. It’s still a computer. Heck, it’s a computer several times over, on different levels of abstraction (at the atomic level, and again at the level of sense and perception, and again when you perform “2 + 2″ in your head).

  Heh, having said that, the image most people get in their head when they think of the brain as a computer is wrong.

  • [pjcamp]

    Gerald Edelman argues that it is not, in the sense that:

    1. There is no executive locus.
    2. It is not doing anything similar to running a program, and
    3. It operates almost exclusively on ill defined data sets.

    The model most current in neuropsychology circles these days is an application of natural selection. The brain generates a vast number of connection patterns that are then matched for fitness against feedback from the environment, filtered through permanent traces established by prior experience, and promoted or demoted by shots of happiness/sadness chemistry from the basal ganglia.

    That may be a computable problem. I don’t know that anyone has ever looked at it. I suspect it is not. There is an element of chaos in the operations of the central nervous system, and my guess is that implies it is NP-complete.

    This does not mean that electronic versions of the system cannot be built. In fact, Edelman’s lab has been constructing them for some years. But they are not anything ordinarily thought of as a computer.

  • [SamSam]

    But in a more general sense, the brain is a computer. Literally. In the same sense as the universe is a computer.

    What does this even mean? In what way is the universe literally a computer? To define something so vaguely and expansively that anything falls under its definition is not to define it at all.

• [wylkyn]

  I thought that we boys are from Jupiter because we get more stupider.

• [blueelm]

  The problem here is that the differences known do not match the expected differences or account for the way society acts.

  This is pretty much what the article says.

  That still bothers some people, the kind of people who never tire of asking the same question if they don’t get the answer they want desperately to believe no matter what.

  This is scientific the way that looking for God’s hand in fossils is scientific.

  Differences between the sexes? Plenty of them. Differences that make them completely different in cognitive ability? Not really.

• [arikol]

  An embodied approach to mind also affects the whole question whether there are gender specific differences in brains.
  As Ugly Canuck rightly points out the endocrine system is a factor, as is the body itself. As our thinking is seen as body based, and that includes our actions and action capabilities, it follows that Shaquille O’Neill will have subtly different thought process than a 150cm, 50kg woman. Their thought processes are shaped by what hetheycan do and how that relates to the world around them.

  Male and female brains may be subtly different due to differences in hormones we receive as foetuses, differences in our endocrine systems as we grow up and develop, and due to the brain simply changing and adapting to the social and physical factors around us (including our own bodies).

  Cause and effect? Well, the largest male-female differences are fairly probably due to the mixed factors of physical differences (size, strength, endocrine systems, etc.) and social factors (upbringing, friends, etc.).

  And personal differences have been shown to be WAY bigger than gender differences. So YOU will probably not conform to the norms or averages of your gender in nearly all factors.

  • [Ugly Canuck]

    “…personal differences have been shown to be WAY bigger than gender differences. So YOU will probably not conform to the norms or averages of your gender in nearly all factors. ”

    It’s good to point that out, as it is often forgotten, although upon reflection it ought to be obvious.

    For the “norm” or “average” is and must be a constructed idea, a conception of the mind – albeit abstracted from the careful observation and examination of many many actual individuals, each of whom is a unique physical entity, solely occupying their discrete time and place.

    And how can a person be a mere idea? People may be said to be close to the norm, or to be close to average – but they never ARE “the” norm, or “the” average. They are what they are – physical beings occupying their own unique time and space.

    Norms and averages are abstract comparisons, not people.

    Oh hi Norm, did not see you back there!

• [ill lich]

  I had a friend who thought we only used one side of our brains (something to do with being left or right handed, I guess), so I asked him “OK, so we can remove that side you aren’t using then?”

• [Anonymous]

  #17 Are lungs, kidneys, and spleens also notably different between genders?

  Yes. Women have to make more room for their reproductive organs. Lungs and kidneys is proportionally smaller and shaped differently. Spleen is shaped differently. (I’m a butcher and not a physician, but this is true for any species.)

  #20 Men and women differ markedly in their metabolism of alcohol
  Differences between men and women as to hormones – and the existence of that difference is well-proven, uncontroversial – will of course lead to differences both of behaviour and of physical response to sensory stimuli, food and drugs.

  I’m Swedish. A randomly selected Swede, if he/she have not a mutation that make him/her blush and feel nauseated of very small levels of alcohol (known in USA as the Asian flush, this mutation is present among less then a percentage of the Scandinavian population), can metabolise alcohol better then a majority of US Americans. This is true for Swedish women compared to US men too. Even if an average Swedish male metabolise alcohol better then an average Swedish women, the spread among individuals is more prominent then the spread among gender. It also have a lot to do with size (insert dirty joke here), Swedish women are in general larger then US men (not counting dead weight, a.k.a. fat) and Swedish men are in general larger then Swedish women. Even if some of the persistence against alcohol for Scandinavians can be attributed to differences in enzyme production compared to other human populations, size of organs and blood volume matters too. The difference in hormone levels between Swedes and other populations is at least partially caused by culture, both Swedish women and men living in Sweden have slightly larger amounts of male and growth hormones then their counterparts outside Sweden (Swedish women have also relatively high levels of female hormones), but Swedes that live abroad have their levels decreasing over the years to almost the same levels as in the country they now live in. Interestingly, people with an origin outside Scandinavia, don’t get significantly increased levels of male and growth hormones by living in Sweden. But these hormone levels doesn’t effect tolerance of alcohol much anyhow. Point being, average differences between gender in a local population is not as large as the spread between individuals in a local population and differences between local populations (caused by both culture and genetics) around the world is more prominent then differences between the two genders within a local population.

  #25 And personal differences have been shown to be WAY bigger than gender differences. So YOU will probably not conform to the norms or averages of your gender in nearly all factors.

  I would like to agree, but I can’t, not without reservations. When it come to mental capacity, the spread is larger among men then women. That is, there are more “retarded” men then there are “retarded” women, but there is also more “genius” men then there are “genius” women. On an individual level this is irrelevant, there are woman geniuses and woman retards as well, you can’t judge a person by statistics, statistics only apply to populations. But it could be important to take into consideration when it comes to very large scale planning (but not without measuring if this is indeed true for the population effected by the planning). And whatever you say, norms is often THE most important factor, this it is painfully obvious when I compare Sweden with a more sexist society like USA. Women’s ability to do math have been mentioned, I’m an mathematics enthusiast and when I have attended high level university math courses, there are generally more women then there are men, this doesn’t prove that women are better in math then men (the large majority of males studying math in USA, doesn’t prove that males are better at math either), but it proves that women, under the right circumstances, like math and are prepared to make large efforts to learn math. (Yes, I’m still a butcher, but I take advantage of living in a country where University tuition is free of cost as long as you have the right academic qualifications. As a hobby, on my spare time, over the decades, I have finished three years worth of University math courses.) Also, as a Swede, I find most women outside Scandinavia very meek and uncertain of themselves and most men very aggressive and to certain of themselves, the difference in confidence and self worth is much smaller between Swedish men and women (even if it still exists and as long as it exist, it is to large). Norms often triumphs individuality and birth given talents, it is sad, but no point in denying.

  • [Anonymous]

    When it come to mental capacity, the spread is larger among men then women.

    Citation needed. This is exactly the sort of thing some studies would claim, others would dispute, and without knowing their quality should not be taken at face value.

    Also, as a Swede, I find most women outside Scandinavia very meek and uncertain of themselves and most men very aggressive and to certain of themselves…

    This could also use a lot of backing up. To start with, where have you been? I’ve been in the US, western Europe, and eastern Asia, and in none of them did I find that all the women were particularly meek or all the men particularly aggressive. But to say anything really worthwhile, we’d need much more than just my and your first impressions.

• [SamSam]

  It also have a lot to do with size (insert dirty joke here), Swedish women are in general larger then US men (not counting dead weight, a.k.a. fat)

  Hmmm, this sounds very unlikely to me. The Wikipedia article on human height shows that the average height of a Swedish woman is more than 10 cm less than the average height of a US man.

  Unless Swedish women have shoulders that are twice as broad as US men, they aren’t going to make up that difference in height to be bigger than US men.

  I know, I want to believe in giant Swedish Valkyries as well, but in this case the differences in size between nations is less than the much older biological differences in size between men and women, world-wide.