| 3
June 2003
Pink elephant
syndrome
NEVER start a speech
with an apology, I was told many years ago. I presume that applies to
columns as well, but I'm going to make an exception here because the
apology gives me an excuse to write about the brain, sticky tunes and
pink elephants.
Last Thursday my column was about the plight of state universities and
colleges, with references to the admirable efforts of the faculty to
make the best of a difficult situation. I mentioned two professors of
the University of the Philippines (UP) who had retired and were serving
other state universities. It turned out that one of them, Professor
Jaime Veneracion, has not retired but is giving some of his time to the
Bulacan State University. Nope, Sir Jimmy isn't 65 yet, but has the
sagacity of people of that age. (Palusot...)
More embarrassing was a glowing description I gave of "Gareth
Evans," who uses Shakespeare to teach political science at the UP
in Diliman, Quezon City. Now, head bowed in shame, I have to apologize
because I got the name of this very popular professor only half right.
Its name is Gareth Richards.
For days after that column, which I spent in Palawan province, I became
almost obsessed trying to figure out how I ended up writing "Gareth
Evans." I knew it had something to do with the way our brains lap
up information rather voraciously. I've learned to "exploit"
this ability of the brain, training it to capture all kinds of detailed
information that I can use in my research, writing and teaching.
But this ability of the brain has its disadvantages, in the way it
stores and connects the massive amounts of information. For example, the
brain likes to pick up "sticky tunes" -- simple but repetitive
tunes like "Shalala" or "Dilemma." Just mentioning
those tunes activates a "playback" button in my brain, the
tunes exploding in a mad mental cacophony that will probably last the
whole day.
The brain's predilection for certain types of information probably
served a purpose in our evolutionary past. My speculation is that maybe
our ancestors' brains started out "recording" certain calls of
animals, a way of getting our hunter-ancestors to associate each call
with a message: "predator," "food,"
"friend." Those who were good at capturing and storing these
sound bites, together with what they meant, had better chances of
survival.
In this 21st century, there is no survival value to replaying
"Dilemma" over and over again in the brain, but there may be
other uses for these "recordings." Repeated sounds are still
useful for learning: note how as children we were made to read out loud,
a way to get us to learn the alphabet and words more quickly.
I've wondered at times if this whole "sticky memories" thing
might even be culturally institutionalized. For example, Filipinos tend
to be quite repetitive with stories, repeating certain details over and
over again even in the course of the same conversation.
I see similar patterns in other societies, even among Americans, and see
a common denominator: low levels of reading literacy. Given that we
don't rely too much on the written word, we end up repeating certain
details as a way of ensuring that the stories are remembered.
Note that evangelists and politicians are particularly adept at using
this method of repeating key messages over and over again in their
rallies. Eventually, the substance of the messages isn't as important as
getting the song's lyrics, or a sermon's messages or a political
candidate's name to dock on and colonize the brain's neurons like tiny
viruses. (If I might be a bit nasty here, I think this is why people who
enjoy such songs or conversations eventually end up with brains like
mush, all the better to receive the inane stories and songs.)
The human brain deserves more than sticky tunes and political or
religious pep talks. In societies that rely more on the written word,
there is less use of repetition, and greater reliance on literary tropes
or figures of speech like metaphors and irony and hyperbole. It is these
tropes that stimulate the brain to do more than store the bits of
information. The brain gets to exercise more here because it gets to
play with the words, unraveling the nuanced meanings, the wit, the punch
lines.
When exposed to extraordinary sensory inputs, the brain goes beyond
recording mode. A clinical psychologist based at McGill University,
Susan Ball, describes the "pink elephant syndrome": If you
tell yourself not to think of a pink elephant, that's a guarantee the
pink elephant will recur in your brain. It's not that a pink elephant is
important but that it's just so out of the ordinary. Once evoked in the
brain, our neurons are titillated enough to store it, calling up our
imagination so the pink elephant is transformed and given a new life,
maybe wearing a tutu and prancing down the Cubao commercial area in
Quezon City in the rain, its trunk wielding an umbrella.
Mind you, we did have cultural institutions for brain workouts. A good
example is the "balagtasan," where people playfully debated in
verse, working out the right cadences and rhyming on the spot. Alas, all
that is disappearing now, several generations (including my own) dumbed
down by mindless rock tunes, TV sitcoms and tabloid news.
So how did Gareth Evans end up in my column? With the help of a
leisurely cruise down Puerto Princesa City's underground river and,
eventually, the Internet and Google, it all finally came together: last
year, I read an article by Gareth Evans in the British paper The
Guardian. Evans, who used to be the Australian foreign minister, urged
new ways of looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
You figure out how my brain got the wires crossed: Gareth Evans, Israel,
Palestine, The Guardian, Britain, UP's Gareth Richards (who is British).
Ay yay yay, the brain is a wonder, but it can be tricky when left on its
own.
Now if I can just switch off my brain's images of a pink elephant,
reading The Guardian while rapping to the beat of "Dilemma." |
