MIND BLINDNESS

There are two parts of the brain which we use to see “people” and “things”. These are respectively the “fusiform gyrus” and the “inferior temporal gyrus”. With the aid of a brain scan called FMRI (or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery) we can see the flow of blood in the brain and, thereby, the areas of activity as the subject sees things and faces. But while the fusiform gyrus is sophisticated, the other is not so evolved. Thus, while we are able to recognise the face of an old friend after a long gap of, say, 20 years, we struggle to locate our bag in the airport carousel. This is what happens in autistic people - the fusiform gyrus in their brain is impaired. Therefore they see people - using their inferior temporal gyrus - as “things”. They can’t read others’ body language or facial expressions. In other words, they are mind-blind. You may pick your nose or furrow your eyebrows - they won’t judge you.

How do we see things when we are in life-threatening situations? Our heart beats become rapid. And our vision becomes tunnel vision, and seeing the world with extra clarity and in ultra slow motion. On the other hand, our memory (we can’t remember), audibility (we can’t hear) and sociability (we can’t read minds) get short-changed.

David Klinger, a criminologist, has graphically documented the “kill” situations that police officers encounter (90% of police officers fortunately retire without having to fire a single shot, much to the chagrin of trigger-happy Hollywood) in his book “Into the Kill Zone”. Similarly, a former army officer named Dave Grossman has described the “optimal state of arousal” in his book “On Killing”. These close call situations put us on the edge and even push us out.

A little bit of stress is good because it keeps us alert and helps us focus. David Rock in ‘Your Brain at Work’ redefines stress, literally and biochemically. After, all, ‘to stress’ is ‘emphasise’! How positive!! There is term called “eustress” and it refers to a state of ‘optimal arousal. What is it to be in that state? The state when the mind is neither lost to distress or dullness. The state when we are not excited or anxious but interested and engaged. 

Two brain chemicals play a role in representing our mental state. Dopamine and norepinephrine. The former makes us ‘expectant’ and ‘interested’ which the latter ‘alert’ and ‘engaged’. Social media feedback in the form of likes provides us with doses of dopamine. Too much if it makes us excited. Too less bored. Norepinephrine  is the cerebral equivalent of adrenaline. Ideal amount of it keeps us somewhere between fear and panic. The peak of an ‘inverted U’ is where we are in a state of eustress, when our levels of dopamine and norepinephrine are ideal and when we are in an optimal state of arousal.

The heart beats are an indicator of our state of arousal. When the heart is beating between 115 and 145 times, our performance peaks. Beyond 145, we become too aroused. Our bodies start shutting down faculties and we become more and more useless. Starting with breakdown of motor skills at 145, at 175, we suffer complete cognitive breakdown. At this point, the human part of the brain - the neocortex or forebrain- shuts down. And the mammalian part - the Amygdala - takes over. We find ourselves

in a “life-threatening situation” (in some imaginary jungle) and we can do just two things - “fight or flee”. Blood is withdrawn from the outer muscles so as to turn it into an armour and to limit bleeding in the event of an injury. And we become a caveman.

However, since we don’t live in a jungle - albeit a concrete jungle - we need to take care not to allow ourselves or others to turn into a hunter-gatherer in a do-or-die situation. And the simple mantra is to keep calm with deep breaths.

Apart from "extreme arousal", "little reaction time" is also a cause of mind-blindness. Three historical cases of killing will prove this point. The first is the attempted assassination of Roland Reagan in 1981. It all happened in the space of 1.8 seconds. The assassin was at point blank range, meaning

there was extremely less “white space” or reaction time. One bullet hit the press secretary, one a police officer, one secret service agent and one bullet ricocheted off the limousine and hit the president, before the bodyguards could draw their weapons.

In another failed assassination attempt a man shot at the South Korean president Park Chung Hee in 1974. The shoot out was over in 3.5 seconds. The assassin misses the president but his bullet hits the president's wife and she dies. The bodyguard fires back at the assassin but he also misses him, rather hitting an eight-year-old boy.

In yet another infamous encounter in 1999, 41 bullets were pumped into Amadou Diallo by four NYPD policemen because they incorrectly ‘thin-sliced’ him. Diallo on seeing the police was petrified but they misjudged him to be daring. They already had biases inside them about his skin colour (as we all have, and even if they are not consciously approved, they surface in life-or-death scenarios) which manifested in their actions. To complete the confusion, Diallo’s wallet looked like a gun. The moment Diallo started running for his life, they started raining fire on him. It was all over in just 2.5 seconds.

An out of breath heart and an out of time brain is a disastrous cocktail for momentary autism. And for making mind-blind, snap judgements

(A paraphrased excerpt from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Your Brain at Work by David Rock)