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Psychophysiology and social events
International Journal of Psychophysiology, 14 (1993) 103-106
103
© 1993 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved 0167-8760/93/$06.00 INTPSY 434
Psychophysiology and social events N.P. Bechtereva
Psychophysiology as a line of investigation covers a wide range of problems, solved on different methodological and technological levels. Methodologically, it varies from just an investigation of the simplest body reactions in a single person or in a group of people to highly sophisticated methods of gathering information from inside the brain with invasive and non-invasive techniques. It is a redundancy to mention that the data obtained in both of these extremes can be and often are processed by modern computers. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning here that the level of investigation itself, and thus its contribution to the field, depends on the methodological thoroughness of the study and not just on the sophistication of the technique, though for some studies technique is indispensable. I will begin here with trivial things, well-known to everybody in the field and even around it, and beg the reader not to stop reading after first few sentences - they are important as a foundation for the further material. So, what kind of work can be considered as rightly belonging the psychophysiology? Let us try to group the possibilities. (I) Can investigations contribute the psychophysiology when one measures thoroughly just one or some body event(s) during the presentation of a psychological task or during some behavioral event? Of course they can. It is worth men-
tioning now, in the present day computer era, that high-level methodology does not always include computerizing, though using a computer certainly, and especially to an unsophisticated eye, brings a 'polish' to the data (or paper) presented. The simple, but appropriate organization of an animal experiment or human investigation can provide significant results. And what is more, the simpler the arrangement of the investigation (which, again, does not exclude a computer), the more subjects can be investigated in a given time. These investigations generally offer data on the onset of a psychic reaction and its amplitude, and, as a rule, do not provide detailed information concerning the peculiarities of what is going on in the brain itself, controlling the reaction. The second advantage is that routine investigations (of type (I)) are absolutely harmless and do not raise objections from those who apply their intellect to "guarding of ethical and medical etc. doings" of those who lead a more active life, trying to help people and society * Investigations of the simplest kind, (I), if properly organized, can serve sociology. It is worth stressing that they can serve even better than just classical sociological ones, presenting more reliable data on the emotional colouring of the response, thereby providing material for predicting the trends in a given society. Though, of course, here one has to polish the technique to the extent
Correspondence to: Dr. N.P. Bechtereva, Brain Center, Paulov's street 8, St. Petersburg 197376, Russia.
* This very situation is beautifully presented in a famous Russian novel, 'Russian Forest', written by L. Leonov.
104 of a possibility to deal with 'the man in the street'. Most certainly, it will not often be applied, though in highly stressful situations, of which our planet is not deprived, it is more than welcome. To summarize the advantages of the abovementioned methodology, one must stress its harmlessness, its possible simplicity which permits us to use this psychophysiological line not only in individual physiology but for judging the state of a group of people even to the extent of forming a society. However, this very approach has its own shortcomings. The most important is that using this technique one obtains very vague data on what is happening in the brain itself, what are the mechanisms of the brain causing order, disorder, war, peace and prosperity in any society, the abovementioned included. I met with some 'sociopsychologists' who have as their slogan - ' T h e further from the brain, the better!' In this case, whatever statistical value of the data may be, they do not give any insight into the fine mechanisms and dynamics of what is going inside us and, as we will see - in a way, around us. (I1) The second line of psychophysiology differs from the first one in registering not only body, but also brain or b r a i n / b o d y events. There are several possibilities to find out about what is going on in the brain during psychological testing. One can speak about invasive and non-invasive techniques, techniques with high- and low-space resolution, multimethodological and monomethodological. Though the problem of comparing all these techniques, their possibilities, advantages and disadvantages is of great value by itself, it is not the problem that is of interest right here. We will give here a kind of a summary of many decades of experience of what we consider to be the best complementary (combined) methodology for finding out what is going on in the brain during thinking, problem solving, etc., though, of course, we are open to criticism. We believe that there are few, if any, scientists who doubt that the best method for finding out what is happening in the whole brain nowadays is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Applying
specially designed psychological tests, keeping in mind the radionuclides used (their time-scale, etc.), as well as the kind of computerizing applied (hard- and software), in the cortex and deep brain structures one can find foci which are active when a certain mental activity is taking place. Considering the highest brain functions, these areas are not always reproducible anatomically in every new patient or even volunteer. Even such zones as Broca's and Wernicke's, highly respected by all human brain scientists, are not always evident as places of activation during highly adequate tests!! For those of us who have been dealing with the living brain for several decades and know at least some of its 'tricks', these data confirm our theory about maintenance of the mental activity by a ontogenically formed system with rigid and flexible elements. P E T is best at finding out the individual rigid links of the system under investigation. There are places (Broca, Wernicke, area 46 of Brodman, etc.) where the activation at a certain mental condition appears statistically much more often than in others. Other non-invasive methods of investigation of brain organization and reorganization do not offer more than PET. The situation being as it is, a real complementary approach can be achieved through application of the so-called invasive methods, in our case implanted electrodes with all the neurophysiological possibilities of discovering what is going on around the tip of each electrode. Working medically and ethically, doing meticulously only what is necessary for the diagnosis and treatment of a given patient but using adequate techniques of placement of the devices and treatment of the data, one can possess all the various physiological indices, though traced from a tiny point, discovering what was going on, where a prominent activation took place or even where the activation on P E T was highly doubtful. Due to this really wonderful complementary insight into the working (thinking, etc.) human brain, one can now penetrate the general, particular, as well as the finest brain mechanisms. Mechanisms of the organ and organs which, for the best or the worst, rule the society, obeying those who rule, disturbing the possibility to rule
105 or, in extreme conditions, showing the light for survival for a society, state, nation or just a group of people, as well as, certainly, an individual. I mentioned this very topic previously in my opening address. I spoke about the necessity of taking into account brain mechanisms when trying to find out what is going on in society. Here I am now trying to classify the possibilities of an alliance of psychophysiology and social science. In (II), I am speaking about discovering further how the brain really works and applying this find knowledge to the dynamics of the society. I am positive that we will never be able to predict what lies ahead of us as members of a society, state, etc. if sociology does not enrich itself through a fruitful alliance with psychophysiology. (III) Most certainly, when mentioning the problem of prediction of what will happen in a society, I was not speaking about the sorcerers and witches of the past and present day, dealing mostly with individual fates, though sometimes coming close to the prediction of the fate of cities (the famous Cassandra). I know too well the conventional scientific approach to these problems. However, I have worked too long in the closest possible contact with the living human brain to avoid this problem out of a 'noble' idea of having 'my hands clean', pretending the problem does not exist. But to these problems really exist? Was the Spanish Inquisition putting people on the stake just to enhance reverence for the church or whatever other reason they had? Of course, the great majority of sorcerers and witches were completely innocent and never possessed the qualities they claimed to have, though some of the burned ones sincerely believed in having them. However, we all know or have heard of modern extrasensories, those who practise charismatic studies as well as those psychotherapists who choose large audiences - if permitted instead of using their abilities in clinics (real clinic, private treatment, etc.). It seems that charismatic teaching, praying and producing 'miracles' is more common to the western hemisphere, though not excluded in some places in West Europe, finding approval sometimes in the highest realms of church hierarchy.
The general 'idea' is to bring more people to God, not, however, through praying and self-optimizing according to the principles of Holy belief, but through comparatively easily produced miracles (like 'speaking languages', etc.), which can have different, even scientific explanations. The social idea here is to activate religion mostly in well-to-do people. The phenomena one reads about can probably be investigated by means of psychophysiology, psychophysiology of states consciousness in particular. The state of the society can be clearly demonstrated by the extent of the abovementioned extrasences, global 'psychotherapy' which can be much better recognized by the name of 'psychoinfluence'. Together with these 'miracle seekers' are the modern astrologers. All these, and their like, really blossomed in the eastern hemisphere. Again, people here are looking for miracles; however, in this case in highly destabilized societies, with hardships at every step of everyday life. An excellent example of the explosion of these trends can be found in the former Soviet Union, its derivative countries, etc. Social events here again need the help of psychophysiology for better understanding of what is going on and why. In both situations there are plenty of charlatans and fakes and it is not the figures who stay in the light of their transitional fame, but the state of the society (people) which evokes the blossoming of all these trends. I am sure our grandchildren will laugh their hearts out about nearly everything mentioned in (III). But whether history will choose to forget or criticize the 'miracle-producers' and 'miracle seekers', there is one extra point where psychophysiology needs to look for approaches. Among all the crowd of fakes there are those who are legitimate! Throughout the centuries, from time to time, there have appeared in different countries persons with paranatural abilities. And it is not a scientific approach to the matter just to pretend that they do not exist and have never existed before, disregarding what cannot be deciphered by the techniques available today. Every such person becomes a question to psychophysiology: I (we) do exist; things usually categorized as 'miracles' can happen, though ex-
106 tremely rarely and among an enormous crowd of fakes; and psychophysiology need not pretend to be blind and deaf in having to deal with the 'miracles' of the universe. What we need here is a completely new methodology at least to come closer to these events. Events happening in a
society demand that psychophysiology should differentiate fakes from the unbelievable but nevertheless real. Psychophysiology enriches social sciences and can contribute much more.
103
© 1993 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved 0167-8760/93/$06.00 INTPSY 434
Psychophysiology and social events N.P. Bechtereva
Psychophysiology as a line of investigation covers a wide range of problems, solved on different methodological and technological levels. Methodologically, it varies from just an investigation of the simplest body reactions in a single person or in a group of people to highly sophisticated methods of gathering information from inside the brain with invasive and non-invasive techniques. It is a redundancy to mention that the data obtained in both of these extremes can be and often are processed by modern computers. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning here that the level of investigation itself, and thus its contribution to the field, depends on the methodological thoroughness of the study and not just on the sophistication of the technique, though for some studies technique is indispensable. I will begin here with trivial things, well-known to everybody in the field and even around it, and beg the reader not to stop reading after first few sentences - they are important as a foundation for the further material. So, what kind of work can be considered as rightly belonging the psychophysiology? Let us try to group the possibilities. (I) Can investigations contribute the psychophysiology when one measures thoroughly just one or some body event(s) during the presentation of a psychological task or during some behavioral event? Of course they can. It is worth men-
tioning now, in the present day computer era, that high-level methodology does not always include computerizing, though using a computer certainly, and especially to an unsophisticated eye, brings a 'polish' to the data (or paper) presented. The simple, but appropriate organization of an animal experiment or human investigation can provide significant results. And what is more, the simpler the arrangement of the investigation (which, again, does not exclude a computer), the more subjects can be investigated in a given time. These investigations generally offer data on the onset of a psychic reaction and its amplitude, and, as a rule, do not provide detailed information concerning the peculiarities of what is going on in the brain itself, controlling the reaction. The second advantage is that routine investigations (of type (I)) are absolutely harmless and do not raise objections from those who apply their intellect to "guarding of ethical and medical etc. doings" of those who lead a more active life, trying to help people and society * Investigations of the simplest kind, (I), if properly organized, can serve sociology. It is worth stressing that they can serve even better than just classical sociological ones, presenting more reliable data on the emotional colouring of the response, thereby providing material for predicting the trends in a given society. Though, of course, here one has to polish the technique to the extent
Correspondence to: Dr. N.P. Bechtereva, Brain Center, Paulov's street 8, St. Petersburg 197376, Russia.
* This very situation is beautifully presented in a famous Russian novel, 'Russian Forest', written by L. Leonov.
104 of a possibility to deal with 'the man in the street'. Most certainly, it will not often be applied, though in highly stressful situations, of which our planet is not deprived, it is more than welcome. To summarize the advantages of the abovementioned methodology, one must stress its harmlessness, its possible simplicity which permits us to use this psychophysiological line not only in individual physiology but for judging the state of a group of people even to the extent of forming a society. However, this very approach has its own shortcomings. The most important is that using this technique one obtains very vague data on what is happening in the brain itself, what are the mechanisms of the brain causing order, disorder, war, peace and prosperity in any society, the abovementioned included. I met with some 'sociopsychologists' who have as their slogan - ' T h e further from the brain, the better!' In this case, whatever statistical value of the data may be, they do not give any insight into the fine mechanisms and dynamics of what is going inside us and, as we will see - in a way, around us. (I1) The second line of psychophysiology differs from the first one in registering not only body, but also brain or b r a i n / b o d y events. There are several possibilities to find out about what is going on in the brain during psychological testing. One can speak about invasive and non-invasive techniques, techniques with high- and low-space resolution, multimethodological and monomethodological. Though the problem of comparing all these techniques, their possibilities, advantages and disadvantages is of great value by itself, it is not the problem that is of interest right here. We will give here a kind of a summary of many decades of experience of what we consider to be the best complementary (combined) methodology for finding out what is going on in the brain during thinking, problem solving, etc., though, of course, we are open to criticism. We believe that there are few, if any, scientists who doubt that the best method for finding out what is happening in the whole brain nowadays is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Applying
specially designed psychological tests, keeping in mind the radionuclides used (their time-scale, etc.), as well as the kind of computerizing applied (hard- and software), in the cortex and deep brain structures one can find foci which are active when a certain mental activity is taking place. Considering the highest brain functions, these areas are not always reproducible anatomically in every new patient or even volunteer. Even such zones as Broca's and Wernicke's, highly respected by all human brain scientists, are not always evident as places of activation during highly adequate tests!! For those of us who have been dealing with the living brain for several decades and know at least some of its 'tricks', these data confirm our theory about maintenance of the mental activity by a ontogenically formed system with rigid and flexible elements. P E T is best at finding out the individual rigid links of the system under investigation. There are places (Broca, Wernicke, area 46 of Brodman, etc.) where the activation at a certain mental condition appears statistically much more often than in others. Other non-invasive methods of investigation of brain organization and reorganization do not offer more than PET. The situation being as it is, a real complementary approach can be achieved through application of the so-called invasive methods, in our case implanted electrodes with all the neurophysiological possibilities of discovering what is going on around the tip of each electrode. Working medically and ethically, doing meticulously only what is necessary for the diagnosis and treatment of a given patient but using adequate techniques of placement of the devices and treatment of the data, one can possess all the various physiological indices, though traced from a tiny point, discovering what was going on, where a prominent activation took place or even where the activation on P E T was highly doubtful. Due to this really wonderful complementary insight into the working (thinking, etc.) human brain, one can now penetrate the general, particular, as well as the finest brain mechanisms. Mechanisms of the organ and organs which, for the best or the worst, rule the society, obeying those who rule, disturbing the possibility to rule
105 or, in extreme conditions, showing the light for survival for a society, state, nation or just a group of people, as well as, certainly, an individual. I mentioned this very topic previously in my opening address. I spoke about the necessity of taking into account brain mechanisms when trying to find out what is going on in society. Here I am now trying to classify the possibilities of an alliance of psychophysiology and social science. In (II), I am speaking about discovering further how the brain really works and applying this find knowledge to the dynamics of the society. I am positive that we will never be able to predict what lies ahead of us as members of a society, state, etc. if sociology does not enrich itself through a fruitful alliance with psychophysiology. (III) Most certainly, when mentioning the problem of prediction of what will happen in a society, I was not speaking about the sorcerers and witches of the past and present day, dealing mostly with individual fates, though sometimes coming close to the prediction of the fate of cities (the famous Cassandra). I know too well the conventional scientific approach to these problems. However, I have worked too long in the closest possible contact with the living human brain to avoid this problem out of a 'noble' idea of having 'my hands clean', pretending the problem does not exist. But to these problems really exist? Was the Spanish Inquisition putting people on the stake just to enhance reverence for the church or whatever other reason they had? Of course, the great majority of sorcerers and witches were completely innocent and never possessed the qualities they claimed to have, though some of the burned ones sincerely believed in having them. However, we all know or have heard of modern extrasensories, those who practise charismatic studies as well as those psychotherapists who choose large audiences - if permitted instead of using their abilities in clinics (real clinic, private treatment, etc.). It seems that charismatic teaching, praying and producing 'miracles' is more common to the western hemisphere, though not excluded in some places in West Europe, finding approval sometimes in the highest realms of church hierarchy.
The general 'idea' is to bring more people to God, not, however, through praying and self-optimizing according to the principles of Holy belief, but through comparatively easily produced miracles (like 'speaking languages', etc.), which can have different, even scientific explanations. The social idea here is to activate religion mostly in well-to-do people. The phenomena one reads about can probably be investigated by means of psychophysiology, psychophysiology of states consciousness in particular. The state of the society can be clearly demonstrated by the extent of the abovementioned extrasences, global 'psychotherapy' which can be much better recognized by the name of 'psychoinfluence'. Together with these 'miracle seekers' are the modern astrologers. All these, and their like, really blossomed in the eastern hemisphere. Again, people here are looking for miracles; however, in this case in highly destabilized societies, with hardships at every step of everyday life. An excellent example of the explosion of these trends can be found in the former Soviet Union, its derivative countries, etc. Social events here again need the help of psychophysiology for better understanding of what is going on and why. In both situations there are plenty of charlatans and fakes and it is not the figures who stay in the light of their transitional fame, but the state of the society (people) which evokes the blossoming of all these trends. I am sure our grandchildren will laugh their hearts out about nearly everything mentioned in (III). But whether history will choose to forget or criticize the 'miracle-producers' and 'miracle seekers', there is one extra point where psychophysiology needs to look for approaches. Among all the crowd of fakes there are those who are legitimate! Throughout the centuries, from time to time, there have appeared in different countries persons with paranatural abilities. And it is not a scientific approach to the matter just to pretend that they do not exist and have never existed before, disregarding what cannot be deciphered by the techniques available today. Every such person becomes a question to psychophysiology: I (we) do exist; things usually categorized as 'miracles' can happen, though ex-
106 tremely rarely and among an enormous crowd of fakes; and psychophysiology need not pretend to be blind and deaf in having to deal with the 'miracles' of the universe. What we need here is a completely new methodology at least to come closer to these events. Events happening in a
society demand that psychophysiology should differentiate fakes from the unbelievable but nevertheless real. Psychophysiology enriches social sciences and can contribute much more.