Tag Archives: neuroscience

Adam Smith and mirror neurons paper published

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Lynne Kiesling

I mentioned a while ago my working paper on the neuroscience research on mirror neurons and its relevance for Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy developed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). After revision and some extremely helpful referee guidance, the paper has been published in The Review of Austrian Economics:

Mirror neuron research and Adam Smith’s concept of sympathy: Three points of correspondence

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith asserts that humans have an innate interest in the fortunes of other people and desire for sympathy with others. In Smith’s theory, sympathy is an imperfectly reflected combination of emotion and judgment when one observes someone (the agent) in a particular situation, and imagines being that person in that situation. That imagination produces a degree of interconnectedness among individuals. Recent neuroscience research on mirror neurons provides evidence consistent with Smith’s assertion, suggesting that humans have an innate capability to understand the mental states of others at a neural level. A mirror neuron fires both when an agent acts and when an agent observes that action being performed by another; the name derives from the “mirroring” of the action in the brain of the observer. This neural network and the capabilities arising from it have three points of correspondence with important aspects of the Smithian sympathetic process: an agent’s situation as a stimulus or connection between two similar but separate agents, an external perspective on the actions of others, and an innate imaginative capacity that enables an observer to imagine herself as the agent, in the agent’s situation. Both this sympathetic process and the mirror neuron system predispose individuals toward coordination of the expression of their emotions and of their actions. In Smith’s model this decentralized coordination leads to the emergence of social order, bolstered and reinforced by the emergence and evolution of informal and formal institutions grounded in the sympathetic process. Social order grounded in this sympathetic process relies on a sense of interconnectedness and on shared meanings of actions, and the mirror neuron system predisposes humans toward such interconnection.

If you are not a subscriber and would like to read the paper, the manuscript version is available on my SSRN page.

Jonah Lehrer on voter ignorance

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Lynne Kiesling

It shouldn’t surprise you to find, given my recent working paper on Adam Smith, sympathy, and mirror neurons that I am an avid reader of neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer. His post today riffs off of President Obama’s birth certificate to muse on voter ignorance. In discussing some research on the subject, he observes

Why does more education lead to less accurate beliefs? The answer returns us to the difference between rational voters (what we think we are) and rationalizing voters (what we really are). It turns out that the human mind is a marvelous information filter, adept at blocking out those facts that contradict what we’d like to believe.

It sounds like he and Bryan Caplan should have a little blog exchange on neuroscience’s implications for the results of Bryan’s book The Myth of the Rational Voter. It also sounds like yet another reason why we should strive to make as few important decisions as possible through political means.

New working paper: Mirror neurons, Adam Smith, and sympathy

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Lynne Kiesling

Mirror neurons have captivated my attention for the past year. Think about the last time you were out walking around and smiling, and you noticed that others who saw you started smiling themselves (this happens to me all the time, is that strange?). Even that simple unconscious mimicry is triggered by our brain’s mirror neuron network. So, too, is your reaction when you watch someone drink a beer; even if you do not drink it yourself but only observe someone who is taking a drink, the same neural network activates in both your brain and in the brain of the person you are observing. Those are mirror neurons in action.

The mirror neuron system is a highly distributed, complex neural network, located in several regions of the brain and differentially active depending on the nature of the action undertaken or observed. Although networked across different areas, mirror neurons are concentrated in the premotor cortex, an area in the brainʼs frontal lobe that uses sensory information to plan, choose, and implement motor action. Most of this systemʼs activity is not conscious, and occurs without our having a sense of developing the abilities to perform actions effortlessly. Neuroscientists studying mirror neurons think that the mirror neuron system is part of what enables us to understand the actions of others and what creates a sense of interconnectedness and shared meaning, even between people who are complete strangers.

How is this research relevant to economics? What interesting economics questions can be illuminated by incorporating an understanding of the mirror system? I’ve been thinking about these broad questions for the past year, and have been working on two projects addressing aspects of them. At a very broad, evolutionary level, reading the neuroscience and the philosophy of mind literature arising from the mirror neuron work indicates that the mirror system is a neural framework for the evolution of anonymous coordination and cooperation — that is, cooperation even among strangers. This question is of great interest to those (economic historians, experimental economists, cognitive psychologists) studying the origins and foundations of impersonal exchange. Impersonal exchange relies on trust being embodied in social institutions (in contrast, for example, to direct personal relationships and trust in personal exchange). Is it possible that the mirror system is a neural framework for the social institutions that enable impersonal exchange?

My answer is yes. More specifically, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 Adam Smith put forward a related argument, that humans innately desire the sympathy of others, desire aspects of interpersonal harmony, and therefore also want to behave in ways that will deserve such sympathy in return. This innate desire for sympathy leads to decentralized coordination and ultimately to the (formal and informal) social institutions of civil society, including institutions that enable cooperation and impersonal exchange. I think Smith’s articulation of the sympathetic process in Moral Sentiments is one of the most profound contributions to our analyses of human action and social institutions. But what do mirror neurons have to do with the Smithian sympathetic process?

That is the question I tackle in my new working paper, Mirroring and the Sympathetic Process: Some Implications of Mirror Neuron Research for Sympathy and Institutions in Adam Smith:

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith asserts that humans have an innate interest in the fortunes of other people and desire for sympathy with others. Recent neuroscience research on mirror neurons has now provided evidence consistent with Smith’s assertion, suggesting that humans have an innate capability to understand the mental states of others at a neural level. This capability provides an important foundation for the Smithian sympathetic process, which has three components: sympathy as a synthesis of empathy with reason-based judgment, an external spectatorial perspective on the actions of others (and one’s own actions), and an innate imaginative capacity that enables an observer to imagine herself in the situation of the agent. This sympathetic process, and the neural framework that the mirror system appears to provide for it, predisposes individuals toward coordination of the expression of their emotions and of their actions. In Smith’s model this decentralized coordination leads to the emergence of social order, bolstered and reinforced by the emergence and evolution of informal and formal institutions grounded in the sympathetic process. This paper presents an argument that a sense of interconnectedness and the shared meaning of actions are essential foundations for the Smithian sympathetic process and the resulting decentralized coordination and emergent social order. The mirror neuron system appears to provide a neural framework for those capabilities.

In the paper I provide a survey of the mirror neuron literature, focusing on the neuroscience evidence and on the implications of mirror neuron evidence for the human philosophy of mind/theory of mind. The really striking and meaningful connection between Smith’s argument and the mirror neuron evidence is the extent to which the mirror system seems to enable imagination, which is crucial for achieving fellow-feeling with another person and his/her situation. Both the mirror neuron literature and Smith emphasize the impassable cognitive gap between one person and another, and that for two people to have a shared understanding of actions that would enable cooperation and social coordination, imagination is essential since we can’t get fully into the consciousness of another person.

The economic relevance of the mirror neuron research goes beyond the “see, Smith was right back in 1759, even without the neuroscience!” A neural framework that predisposes us to have shared meaning of actions is going to reduce cognitive barriers to coordination and cooperation, and I think a natural extension of that simple observation is that it makes it (at least somewhat) easier to find focal-point social institutions.

I don’t expand on this point in the paper, but I do also think there is a dark side to this neural framework for coordination and focal points — not all focal points are going to be as social beneficial and value creating as those that enable decentralized coordination and exchange in civil society. Bandwagon effects, or even coordination on agreement to behave in ways that harm some people (such as discrimination) are entirely possible under this framework. So I wouldn’t characterize the mirror system as the neural root of all possible social happiness, but would rather suggest thinking about it as a neural framework that enables us to form shared meanings of actions, and therefore to coordinate in ways that are mutually beneficial. Other ideas and factors (such as merit, leadership, vision, persuasion) must also come into play to create socially beneficial decentralized coordination. Our neural foundations provide but one part of the story.

Technological developments useful in eventually producing the equivalent of Neal Stephenson’s “Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer”

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Michael Giberson

As any reader of Neal Stephenson’s book The Diamond Age knows, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer would be quite handy to have. Unfortunately, technology hasn’t quite advanced to the point necessary to actually produce such a thing.

A recently published research report seems like one small step in the right direction. From a summary:

Researchers report that they can predict “with unprecedented accuracy” how well you will do on a complex task such as a strategic video game simply by analyzing activity in a specific region of your brain.

The findings, published in the online journal , offer detailed insights into the brain structures that facilitate learning, and may lead to the development of training strategies tailored to individual strengths and weaknesses.

The new approach used established brain imaging techniques in a new way. Instead of measuring how brain activity differs before and after subjects learn a complex task, the researchers analyzed background activity in the basal ganglia, a group of brain structures known to be important for procedural learning, coordinated movement and feelings of reward.

Using magnetic resonance imaging and a method known as multivoxel pattern analysis, the researchers found significant differences in patterns of a particular type of MRI signal, called T2*, in the basal ganglia of study subjects. These differences enabled researchers to predict between 55 and 68 percent of the variance (differences in performance) among the 34 people who later learned to play the game.

More from Chris Kohler at WIRED.

The article, “Predicting Individual’s Learning Success From Patterns of Pre-Learning MRI Activity,” will be published in the journal PLoS One (but I couldn’t find a link to the article there this morning).

HT to Mark Thoma.

Jonah Lehrer channels his inner economist

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Lynne Kiesling

I’ve recommended Jonah Lehrer’s The Frontal Cortex blog before, and if you haven’t checked it out, here are two more reasons to do so. His most recent post discusses Bill Belichick’s decision to go for the first down from 4th and 2 in Sunday night’s Patriots game, and ties it to David Gordon’s research on whether or not NFL coaches follow the optimal 4th down strategy:

… it illustrates the difficulty of making rational decisions, even when the evidence supports the call.

I’ve blogged about the research of UC Berkeley economist David Romer before, but his basic thesis, based on an exhaustive statistical analysis of 4th down scenarios, is that NFL coaches are irrationally risk-averse. They punt the ball way too frequently and kick far too many field goals.

Belichick was an econ major, and has expressed a familiarity with Romer’s research.

Lehrer then goes on to discuss this risk-aversion research, with links to other analyses of Belichick’s decision. One of the fascinating aspects of the 4th down decision that Lehrer highlights is that Belichick was statistically correct to go for it, but it’s emotionally difficult for coaches to make that call (and for fans to endure it). The probability part is also interesting — even with a higher probability of making a field goal, this research shows that going for the 1st down on 4th down increases the probability of winning.

On Tuesday Lehrer also remarked on the research of my Kellogg colleague Jennifer Brown, who does some of the most interesting work I’ve seen in a long time. In her new working paper, “Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars“, Jen finds that golfers in PGA tournaments perform more poorly when competing against Tiger Woods, especially when Woods is playing well. She and Lehrer have different hypotheses for this result, as Lehrer notes:

Brown argues that this phenomenon is caused when “competitors scale back their effort in events where they believe Woods will surely win.” After all, why waste energy and angst on an impossible contest?

That hypothesis is certainly possible, but I’d argue that the superstar effect has more to do with “paralysis by analysis” than with decreased motivation. I’d bet that playing with Tiger Woods makes golfers extra self-conscious, and that such self-consciousness leads to choking and decreased performance. The problem, then, isn’t that golfers aren’t trying hard enough when playing against Tiger – it’s that they’re trying too hard.

I wonder if there’s a way to test these two hypotheses? I think given her data that it might be difficult; testing such a hypothesis may require biometric data like heart rate, sweating, etc. I frankly am more inclined toward Lehrer’s hypothesis, based on my reading of neuropsychology and my non-Tiger-Woods-like experience of athletic competition; the “trying too hard” fits with my experience of athlete psychology. But I’d really like to see if there’s a way to discriminate between the two.

Jonah Lehrer, autism, and surfing

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Lynne Kiesling

I’ve been reading a lot of neuroscience-related books this summer (more on that later …), and I’ve really been enjoying Jonah Lehrer’s blog The Frontal Cortex. If you are interested in the connections between the brain and human action and human decision-making, you will get a lot out of it. I will have more to say in a few days on Lehrer’s books …

One of Lehrer’s recent posts struck me, because it combines three things that I love: economics, economics-related neuroscience, and water sports. It’s a post about an article he’s got in the current issue of Outside profiling Clay Marzo, a young surfing phenom who can read waves brilliantly, can focus narrowly and wait patiently for hours for the right waves, and can bend his body with his board in the water in ways that would strike fear into pretty much all other surfers.

Clay Marzo has autism; in particular, he’s got Asperger’s syndrome. Lehrer’s post and article focus on how his Asperger’s is a crucial factor in his success as a surfer, although it predictably makes him awkward and uncomfortable with the associated media interaction. Among other things discussed in the article, his Asperger’s enables him to focus on the waves at a very deep and narrow level that enables him to learn their physics and to remember specific details about them.

I really, really recommend reading Lehrer’s blog and this Outside article, especially if you have read or are planning to read Tyler Cowen’s new book, which also discusses autism and how it affects human action and human decision-making. They will all make you think differently about the relationship between our cognitive processes and living together in civil society.

Emergent orders are all around us, especially in cities

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Lynne Kiesling

Ron Bailey’s Hit & Run post, Ant Hills=Brains=Cities, reminded me of some really important, fundamental ideas that tend to get lost as we natter about financial regulation, health care regulation, climate regulation …

Emergent orders abound, and occur at all sorts of different scales — molecular, cellular, all the way to complex social structures that were not deliberately designed through some central planning group or function. Ron cites the excellent Godel, Escher, Bach to introduce some new research arguing that cities are like brains in their emergent order construction for successful functioning. Ron quotes Mark Changizi, a neurobiology expert and assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

… brains and cities, as they grow larger, have to be similarly densely interconnected to function optimally.

Interesting. Not surprising, especially if you’ve thought about emergent orders, and double-especially if you’ve read any of Jane Jacobs’ writing on cities. I recommend the Jacobs interview at Reason that Ron links, as well as other Jacobs sources linked in the various posts I’ve written invoking Jane Jacobs and her work over the past several years.

Given how much attention we are having to pay to imposed orders, and the increasing efforts to create more deeply imposed orders in finance, healthcare, etc., it’s important to remember how much of the social life of individuals is a web of emergent orders, and that the biggest and best value creation and thriving and innovation that we have seen in human history arises when individuals can choose and take action in emergent orders.