Person
1 episodes · 23 quoted claims
Meta-analyses of many studies, even in Western samples, find people scowl about 35% of the time when angry.
“Meta analyses, so statistical summaries of many, many, many studies, even in the West, show that people scowl about 35% of the time when they're angry, which is more than chance.”
In about 2016 the Association for Psychological Science asked Lisa Feldman Barrett and other senior scientists to write a consensus paper on facial expressions.
“So in 2016, I think the Association for Psychological Science, um, tasked me and some other senior scientists, uh, with a attempting to write a white paper, a consensus paper on what the literature actually shows.”
The five-scientist panel met over Zoom for two and a half years before COVID and read over a thousand papers.
“we met over Zoom for two and a half years. This is pre-COVID, cause people were all over the world, right? And we a we read over a thousand papers.”
Barrett says studies of remote cultures such as the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania found that facial movements were often not understood as related to emotion.
“the minute that you go outside of the West to, uh, or even to the East, I mean, so, y, you know, there are other cultures, you know, that have been studied.”
Barrett describes 'ligut' as an emotion word from a Polynesian headhunting culture meaning exuberant aggression in a group.
“it's a Polynesian, um, headhunting, um, uh, emotion word, and it means, um, exuberant aggression in a group, like soccer or h or headhunting, right?”
Barrett says she coined the phrase 'emotional granularity' almost thirty years before the interview.
“I coined that phrase almost thirty years ago, and now people study it like it's a phenomenon”
Philosopher Andy Clark describes everyday experience as a controlled hallucination, according to Barrett.
“Andy Clark is a philosopher who writes a lot about prediction, predicting brain and and so on, and he talks about normal, uh, everyday experience as being a controlled hallucination.”
Barrett says cortisol is secreted more when the brain expects a large metabolic outlay, instead of being simply a stress hormone.
“Cortisol is not a stress hormone, it's not a stress hormone. I mean, it's a hormone that is secreted more when the brain believes that there is a big metabolic outlay that's required.”
Barrett says serotonin evolved as a metabolic regulator and not as a 'happiness chemical'.
“serotonin evolved as a metabolic regulator, it is a metabolic regulator, and whatever it's doing, it's allowing an animal to spend resources.”
Barrett says the cerebral cortex, stretched out like a napkin, shows a gradient from many small neurons at sensory areas to fewer, larger neurons at the front.
“If you take the cortex off the surface, uh, the cortical sheet, off the that wavy, you know, cortical sheet, you take it off the rest of the brain, the subcortical parts, and you stretch it out like a napkin.”
Barrett says that social stress within two hours of a meal makes the body metabolize it as if it were about 104 more calories.
“If you are stressed, socially stressed. Within 2 hours of eating a meal, that same meal will cost you a hun- the equivalent of 104 more calories.”
Barrett says that 104 extra calories per meal under stress would add up to about eleven pounds over a year.
“And so over the course of a year, that's eleven pounds.”
Barrett's twelve-year-old daughter was told by her karate sensei to 'get your butterflies flying in formation' before a black belt test.
“her sensei, who was a ten-stripe black belt, didn't say to her, don't be afraid. He said, Get your butterflies flying in formation.”
Shortly before the COVID pandemic was officially announced, Barrett was in New Zealand giving talks and reinterpreted her arousal as uncertainty.
“right before co- the COVID pandemic was announced, officially, I was in New Zealand giving talks”
Barrett had major back surgery and chose to feel the pain after the first weeks to give her brain prediction-error signals.
“I had major back surgery a couple years ago and I know something about chronic pain.”
Barrett says a woman was placed on death row partly on a police officer's claim of reading her emotions, and the Innocence Project got her a stay of execution.
“There was a woman who was on death row, and what put her on death row was, um, a police officer's claim that he could read her emotions by her, the comportment of her face and her body”
Barrett notes her husband can read her well because they have known each other for thirty years, as of the interview day.
“But he's, you know, brains are pattern learners, so I'm not saying that everything is random”
Barrett's daughter coined the concept of the 'emotional flu' after a trip to Sweden where Barrett took her to a keynote at the Karolinska Institute.
“my daughter came up with this, um, after we had this very interesting thing that happened to us on another trip.”
Barrett says research in creative and innovation work finds trust in one's team and managers is the best predictor of job performance after accounting for basics like sleep.
“the best predictor is the amount of trust that you have in your team and in your managers.”
Barrett defines affect as a low-dimensional summary of the body's state, a general barometer of pleasant or unpleasant and calm or worked up.
“Instead, the brain creates a low-dimensional summary, this gross kind of like barometer, which is feeling, affective feeling, we call it, or you could call it mood, but scientists call it affect, with an a.”
Barrett calls the brain's predictive regulation of the body allostasis, which she explains with a body-budget metaphor.
“the technical term is allostasis. But when I'm explaining this to the public, I use a metaphor”
Barrett cites a German word for the feeling that someone has a face that deserves a punch.
“There's a German word, which I can't remember the name of the word, but it's like, um, the experience of someone having a face that deserves a punch.”
Barrett cites a Turkish concept she describes as anger and sadness combined, felt when you lose something and are angry about it.
“There's a concept gusken look, which I probably just butchered, so if you speak Turkish, I'm sorry.”