How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behaviour: Leonard Mlodinow at TEDxReset 2013

Summary

In this engaging talk, the speaker explores the concept of the unconscious mind through the lens of social neuroscience, combining social psychology, cognitive psychology, and modern neuroscience. They illustrate how our unconscious processes, such as perception and social interactions, are not direct reflections of reality but are influenced by factors like expectations and beliefs. The speaker uses compelling examples, including visual illusions and the impact of touch, to demonstrate the power of the unconscious in shaping our perceptions and behaviors, challenging the audience to reconsider how much control they have over their decisions.

Takeaways

• 🧠 The 'unconscious' in modern science refers to automatic processes in the brain that are beyond our awareness and control.
• 🤔 Our unconscious mind significantly influences our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and judgments, thereby affecting our behavior.
• 🚫 The modern view of the unconscious differs from the Freudian or Jungian view, focusing on brain structure rather than repressed emotions.
• 🧪 Social neuroscience is a new field combining social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience to study how the brain influences social behavior.
• 👀 Our visual perception is not a direct reflection of the data hitting our retina but is constructed by our unconscious mind using context, expectations, and beliefs.
• 🖼️ The context in which we perceive things can dramatically change our interpretation, as shown by the checkerboard illusion.
• 👤 Facial recognition and processing are crucial for social interaction, and our brain's processing of faces is influenced by their orientation, such as upright versus upside down.
• 🎶 Our hearing, like our vision, is also influenced by context, as demonstrated by understanding words in reversed songs when given the lyrics.
• 📈 Physical appearance, such as looking competent, can sway voting decisions, indicating that our social perceptions are not solely based on presented data.
• 🤝 Touch, even subtle, influences social interactions, such as increasing success rates in social propositions or tipping behavior in restaurants.
• 💭 Unconscious processes can affect our judgments and decisions without our awareness, as shown by the experiment with hotel room price estimations.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the experiment described in the transcript?

The main theme of the experiment is to demonstrate the influence of the unconscious mind on perception and decision-making, particularly in the context of social interactions and environmental stimuli.

What is the difference between the modern scientific view of the 'unconscious' and the Freudian or Jungian view?

The modern scientific view of the 'unconscious' refers to automatic processes in the brain that are beyond our awareness and control, whereas the Freudian or Jungian view suggests that the unconscious is hidden due to emotional reasons and can be revealed through introspection or therapy.

What is social neuroscience and how does it combine different fields of study?

Social neuroscience is a relatively new field that combines social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, particularly using modern technology like fMRI to image brain activity during thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and decision-making.

How does the unconscious mind process visual data differently from the raw data that hits the retina?

The unconscious mind processes visual data by automatically enhancing clarity, using expectations, desires, beliefs, and context to create a clear and meaningful image from the fuzzy raw data that hits the retina.

What role does context play in the perception of visual stimuli?

Context plays a significant role in perception by influencing how the unconscious mind interprets visual stimuli, as demonstrated by the checkerboard illusion where squares A and B appear different due to the surrounding context, despite being optically identical.

How does facial recognition change when a familiar face like Barack Obama's is presented upside down?

When a familiar face is presented upside down, the brain's facial recognition area, which is evolved to recognize right-side-up faces, does not function as effectively, leading to a distorted perception of the face.

What is an example of how auditory perception is influenced by context?

An example of auditory perception being influenced by context is the Led Zeppelin song played backward, which sounds like gibberish without context, but can be perceived as words when provided with written lyrics to follow along.

What was the result of the political candidate experiment in California regarding perceived competence and voting behavior?

The experiment showed that when the conservative candidate was made to look more competent, they received 58% of the votes, but when they looked less competent, they received only 44%, indicating a significant influence of perceived competence on voting behavior.

How accurate was the prediction of election outcomes based on the perceived competence of candidates' photographs?

The prediction based on the perceived competence of candidates' photographs was correct 70% of the time, suggesting that unconscious biases based on appearance can significantly impact election results.

What is the impact of a light touch on social interactions, as demonstrated by the French experiment?

The French experiment showed that a light touch on the forearm or shoulder increased the success rate of obtaining a phone number from women by doubling it from 10% to 20%, highlighting the subconscious influence of touch in social interactions.

How did the initial question about the hotel room price influence the subsequent estimation of its cost?

The initial question, which asked if the room cost $5,500 or $55 a night, set a context that influenced the subsequent estimation of the room's cost. Group one, starting with the higher price, estimated an average of $1,857, while group two, starting with the lower price, estimated an average of $131.

What is the significance of Carl Jung's quote in the context of the talk?

Carl Jung's quote emphasizes the importance of subliminal aspects in our daily lives, suggesting that while they may seem insignificant, they are the foundational roots of our conscious thoughts, aligning with the talk's theme of unconscious influences on perception and decision-making.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Introduction to the Unconscious Mind

The speaker begins by introducing the concept of a 'speed experiment' to the audience, explaining that participation is voluntary and anonymous. The audience is divided into two groups to answer questions silently on slips of paper. The speaker then transitions into a discussion about the unconscious mind, defining it as automatic processes in the brain that are beyond our awareness and control. This is contrasted with the Freudian or Jungian unconscious, emphasizing that the modern understanding of the unconscious is related to the brain's structure rather than emotional repression. The field of social neuroscience is introduced as a combination of social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, with a focus on how brain mechanisms relate to behavior. The talk will focus on the unconscious in physical perception and social perception.

05:02

👀 The Power of Unconscious Perception

The speaker discusses the impact of the unconscious mind on our perceptions, particularly in the realms of vision and hearing. An example is given where the audience is shown an image that represents the raw optical data that hits the retina, which is very different from the clear vision we normally experience. This demonstrates how the unconscious mind processes visual information. The concept of context is highlighted as a factor that influences perception, using an example of two squares that appear to be different shades but are actually identical, illustrating how our brain uses context to interpret visual information. The speaker also touches on social perception, explaining that our understanding of others is also influenced by our unconscious mind.

10:06

🗣️ The Influence of Facial Recognition and Context on Perception

The speaker continues the discussion on perception by focusing on facial recognition and how it is affected by the orientation of a face. Upright faces are recognized more easily than upside-down faces, demonstrating the unconscious mind's role in social interaction. The speaker uses images of Barack Obama to show how our brain's face recognition system is less effective when faces are inverted. An auditory example is then provided, playing a song by Led Zeppelin both forwards and backwards, with and without context. The audience is challenged to understand the lyrics when the song is played backwards without context, and then with context provided through written lyrics, showing how the unconscious mind uses context to make sense of auditory information.

15:09

🤝 The Subtle Effects of Touch and Appearance on Social Interaction

In this section, the speaker explores how subtle touches can influence social interactions, using a French experiment where actors propositioned women on the street. The success rate doubled when a light touch was included, highlighting the powerful, often subconscious, effect of touch. The speaker also discusses how physical appearance, particularly the perception of competence, can sway voting decisions in political races. An experiment where people rated the competence of candidates based on photographs predicted the outcomes of real elections with a high degree of accuracy. The speaker concludes with an experiment conducted with the audience, showing how the context of a question can influence their estimates of a hotel room's price, emphasizing that our unconscious minds are constantly at work, shaping our perceptions and decisions.

Keywords

💡Unconscious

The unconscious refers to mental processes that occur automatically and are beyond our awareness or control, as defined in modern science. In the video, the unconscious is central to the theme as it influences our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and judgments without our conscious knowledge. For example, the presenter discusses how the unconscious mind processes visual data to create clear images from the fuzzy data that actually hits our retinas.

💡Speed Experiment

A speed experiment is a quick, interactive activity designed to engage participants and gather data efficiently. In the script, the speed experiment is used as an introduction to the topic, dividing the audience into two groups to answer questions silently, which sets the stage for discussing the unconscious mind's influence on perception and decision-making.

💡Social Neuroscience

Social neuroscience is a field that combines social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience to understand how the brain supports social behaviors. The presenter mentions this field as a way to explore the unconscious mind's role in social interactions and perceptions, highlighting its interdisciplinary nature and the use of modern technology like fMRI to image brain activity.

💡Perception

Perception is the process of interpreting sensory information to understand the surrounding environment. The video emphasizes how our perceptions, particularly visual and auditory, are constructed by the unconscious mind using data, expectations, desires, and beliefs. An example is the illusion of squares A and B appearing different shades due to context, demonstrating the unconscious mind's role in perception.

💡Freudian Unconscious

The Freudian unconscious refers to the repressed emotions and desires that influence our behavior, according to Sigmund Freud. The presenter contrasts this with the modern scientific view of the unconscious, emphasizing that the video's focus is on the automatic processes of the brain rather than on emotional repression and introspection.

💡Context

Context is the setting in which something exists or occurs and is crucial for understanding how it influences perception. The script uses the example of the checkerboard illusion to show how context affects visual perception, and the Led Zeppelin song played backward to illustrate how context influences auditory perception.

💡Facial Processing

Facial processing is the mental activity involved in recognizing and interpreting faces, which is crucial for social interactions. The presenter uses the example of recognizing Barack Obama's face to show how the unconscious mind processes facial information and how this processing is affected by the orientation of the face (upright vs. upside down).

💡Competence

Competence, in the video, refers to the perception of capability or proficiency, which significantly influences social judgments and decisions. The presenter discusses an experiment where political candidates' perceived competence, based on their photos, affected voting choices, illustrating the power of unconscious perceptions in social judgments.

💡Touch

Touch is used in the video to describe the subtle, brief physical contact that can influence social interactions and perceptions. The presenter cites an experiment where a light touch increased the success rate of getting phone numbers, and how waiters increased tips through touch, showing the unconscious impact of physical contact on social behaviors.

💡Anchoring

Anchoring is a cognitive bias where an individual relies too heavily on an initial piece of information (the 'anchor') when making decisions. The presenter uses the hotel room pricing experiment to demonstrate how initial questions can anchor participants' subsequent estimates, influencing their judgments unconsciously.

💡Carl Jung

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. The presenter quotes Jung to emphasize the importance of the unconscious in shaping our conscious thoughts, even though they may seem minor or insignificant. Jung's quote is used to reinforce the video's central message about the power of the unconscious mind.

Highlights

Introduction to the concept of a speed experiment in the context of understanding the unconscious mind.

Explanation of the voluntary and anonymous nature of the experiment, emphasizing no right or wrong answers.

Division of participants into two groups to control the exposure to information.

Demonstration of how the unconscious mind processes visual data differently from raw retinal input.

Discussion on how context influences perception, using the example of squares A and B on a checkerboard.

Illustration of the automatic nature of unconscious visual processing that cannot be overridden.

Importance of facial recognition in social interactions and how it is affected by orientation.

Experiment showing how the brain processes auditory information differently when context is provided.

Explanation of how unconscious processing works with both vision and hearing.

Introduction to social neuroscience as a field combining social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience.

Discussion on how unconscious processes affect physical perception, such as hearing and seeing.

Explanation of how our perceptions are constructions of our minds rather than direct representations of reality.

Experiment on political candidate flyers showing the impact of perceived competence on voting decisions.

Real-world application of the experiment on political candidate perception, predicting election outcomes based on looks.

Discussion on the role of touch in forming bonds and trust among primates, including humans.

Experiment in France showing how a light touch can double the success rate in social interactions.

Experiment on how touch influences tipping behavior in restaurants.

Final experiment demonstrating the influence of context on price estimation, showing the power of unconscious processes.

Conclusion with a quote from Carl Jung emphasizing the importance of the unconscious in our daily lives.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Irina Rafaelle Grinberg Reviewer: Denise RQ

Hi there. Let's start.

You may have heard of speed dating or speed interviews,

we'll do a speed experiment, so, I'm just going to get on with it.

It's voluntary and it's anonymous, so, you don't have to do it,

but if you do it, don't worry about how you do.

There is no right or wrong.

If you see yourself on this side of me, of my line here,

you call yourself you are in group number one.

And if you are on this side, you are in group number two.

And the important thing is I'll show you some slides

and you answer on the slips that you have in front of you,

and just do everything silently.

So, first, group number two, turn away from the screen,

so you don't see it, if you wish to participate.

Turn away, so you don't see what is going to be projected.

And, group number one, here we go!

Please, read this question silently and answer it.

Now, please, read this question silently and answer this question.

Sorry to rush you, but if you can get your answers down, we'll move on.

Now, group number one, please put your group number

at the top of the slip and circle it and turn away from the screen now.

Group two, you can turn toward the screen.

Are we ready?

Please, read this question silently and answer it.

Now, please, read this question silently and answer this one.

If you finished up,

please, write your group number at the top of your slip and circle it.

And everyone can turn forward again.

And if you are in group one, pass your slips toward this aisle.

And if you are in group two, pass your slips toward this aisle.

They'll be collected, and we will get to them later in the talk.

So, let's talk about your unconscious mind,

and let's begin by talking about what I mean by the 'unconscious.'

In modern science, what we mean by the 'unconscious'

are processes that go on in your brain that are automatic.

They don't take any effort, they're beyond your awareness,

so you don't know they are happening, and they are mostly beyond your control.

And because of this, we don't really understand

what is influencing our thoughts, perceptions, our feelings, our judgments,

so that has a huge effect on our behavior.

But I want to contrast the modern unconscious

with the Freudian or the Jungian unconscious.

And what we mean by the unconscious in modern science today,

is our mental processes that are outside of our control and our awareness

because of the structure of our brain.

It's not the Freudian unconsciousness which was hidden for emotional reasons

and that could be revealed through introspection or through therapy.

This unconsciousness is totally different

from that traditional idea of the unconscious.

And the field that I'm going to talk about is called social neuroscience.

It is a new field that has just begun in about the last ten years,

and it's a combination of three fields: one is Social Psychology,

which is the psychology of how people interact with each other.

The second is Cognitive Psychology which is the psychology of how people think.

And the third is something completely different; it's neuroscience,

especially neuroscience using modern technology,

such as fMRI technology which images your brain

and can show what parts of your brain are functioning,

as you have thoughts, feelings, perceptions, as you make decisions.

And this kind of technology has revolutionized psychology

because prior to this, of course, we couldn't look into the brain

to see what was actually going on, and psychology was kind of a soft science.

But this has made psychology much more of a hard science

because we can connect brain mechanisms and structures to the behavior we see.

So, I'm going to talk today about the unconscious in two realms.

The first is the realm of physical perception, hearing and seeing.

And the reason I'm going to talk about that is, partly, because, of course,

it's very important to how we survive and interact in our environment,

and partly, because all the processes, some of which are very complex,

that have to do with your social perception,

are similar or analogous to

the same processes that happen in your hearing and your vision,

which we can illustrate very clearly.

And I want you to come away with this lesson,

that our perceptions, both our visual and our physical perceptions,

and also our social perceptions of other people,

and situations, in life and business

are very much affected by our unconscious.

That what we perceive, isn't really the data that is literally out there,

but it's a construction that our minds make using our imagination.

It's not really what is there.

This is an example from sight.

This is just a typical scene of a road side view that you might see

if you are driving down the road.

And it's what we normally perceive. It's very clear.

But now I'm going to show you a slide

that is made from the data that actually hits your retina.

So, this slide I am about to show you is what you would perceive,

if there was no unconscious processing

if you saw, literally, the optical data that hit your retina.

And, as you can see, it's very fuzzy.

It's a little bit clearer towards the center

and outside it's very fuzzy.

And the reason that you don't have this horrible vision

and bump into things, and fall off cliffs, etc.,

is that your unconscious mind, automatically, with no effort, immediately

processes that data and gives you the clear image.

And when it processes the data,

it uses not only, of course, the data that is there,

but it uses other things, it makes its best guess,

and it uses things like your expectations, your desires, and your beliefs.

So, let's see, how that works.

One of the things that it also uses is the context.

And I'm going to illustrate that here.

If you look at the squares A and B,

A looks like a dark square, and B looks like a light square.

That's not really what's going on. A and B are identical.

The optical data that's coming to your eye from square A and B

are exactly the same.

They only look different because your unconscious processing

is taking the fact that there is a shadow there,

and there is a checkerboard;

and it's presenting you with what looks like a real image.

As I remove the context, you can see what happens.

Now you can see that they are both the same.

So this is an illustration of how your unconscious mind

helps you to see things in an environment that will make sense.

Now, notice the automaticity! That you can't overcome this.

If you look at the square, at the checkerboard,

you cannot see A and B being the same,

even though if you look at A and B on the white background,

you see that they are.

Here is another example. Humans are very social creatures.

So, facial processing is very important to identify people, and also to tell

what people are thinking and what they intend to do.

And because we are social creatures, and we had to get along as we evolved,

a lot of our mental processes in our brain evolved

to help us to get along with other people and to understand them.

These two pictures are of Barack Obama.

And they probably both look more or less like Barack Obama,

but what happens when I turn them over?

The part of your brain that focuses on faces,

and helps you to identify faces, doesn't really work for upside down faces

because we are not used to seeing people upside down.

So, it evolved for right side up faces.

Look, what happens when I turn it over.

So, now you can see that the picture on your right is very deformed,

the picture on the other side is not.

Now, watch, as I turn it back over, they look again kind of normal.

So, this is your unconscious mind at work, and then not at work.

Let me give you now another example from hearing

to show you that hearing works in a similar way or analogous way to vision

in how you use, for instance, context.

Here is an old song that you may recognize by Led Zeppelin.

It should be playing right now.

Audio?

Well, these are the words to the old song,

so you don't really have to hear the forward part,

but I need to get the audio going before the next slide.

Anybody? Is the audio going to work now?

(Song plays) There we go!

Alright.

You can trust me that these are the words.

But the question is, when I play this song backwards,

are you going to understand words?

Was the group Led Zeppelin smart enough

to design a song that makes sense both forward and backward?

So, I want you to listen to this audio.

Let your ears process it and see if you can understand the words.

I apologize, if you don't speak English, this may be a little difficult.

(Audio plays)

So, is this making sense?

I bet it's not, whether you speak English or Turkish.

When you hear the song backward, it sound like gibberish.

But now I'm going to play the song again for you and I'm going to give you context.

Just like you saw the squares differently when I put the checkerboard there

and when I took them away,

I'll put a 'checkerboard' here, I'll put some words here.

You follow along with the words and listen to the same audio again,

and see if you don't hear these words.

(Audio plays)

So, now you heard the same thing that you heard before,

but you heard a different reality.

Now you heard words and before you heard gibberish.

So, which is it?

Well, they really didn't make these words backwards,

but we take the music, and we match words that sound like the backward song.

And when you have that context,

your brain makes you think that it's really there.

So, this is an example of your unconscious processing at work again!

I'm going to play again a little bit of the song for you,

but just to show how automatic this is,

I'm going to play the song, with the words again, the backward song.

I want you to listen to it and read the words,

but don't hear the words!

Try and hear as you did the first time, as gibberish.

(Audio plays)

So, now, when you hear it and you watch the words,

just like you couldn't see the checkerboard

and see those squares differently when you are looking at it,

you can't avoid hearing the words, when you have the context there.

So, these are examples of your unconscious mind and how it works,

and how you have no control or awareness over its functioning.

But let's talk about social perception,

because that's really where it is most interesting.

And I want to convince you that our social perception is also

not a direct construction from the data that you get about people,

but uses a lot of other factors, such as your beliefs, your desires,

your expectations, and the context

to make a picture of other people and social situations.

This slide illustrates an experiment that was done in California.

Researchers made flyers for the candidates in two fictitious political races.

And on the flyers, they listed for the liberal candidate

the qualifications and the views,

and also for the conservative candidate data like that.

But they also put a picture in for the liberal and for the conservative.

And then they had people come in to read these flyers and say,

"Who would you vote for?", if you are voting.

And the difference is that half of the people

saw flyers where the liberal was made to look more competent,

and the conservative made to look less competent,

and the other half saw flyers where it was the other way around.

And so the question is, does the look of competence

that was in these flyers affect the way people vote,

or do they vote just on the data that they think they are voting on,

which is the other data that was listed?

And the result was very dramatic.

When the conservative candidate looked more competent,

she got 58% of the votes.

But when she looked less competent she got only 44%.

So there was a 14% vote swing.

So people thought that they were voting

based on certain data, which was the hard data,

but they were really also voting on looks.

Of course, this was in a laboratory, so you might say,

"Does it really happen in real elections?"

And, fortunately, a Professor at Princeton decided to find out.

In 2006, he collected pairs of head shots of the competing candidates

in dozens of races around the United States.

And then he got people from districts where these races were not being run in,

people who didn't know the candidates,

just to look at the pairs of photos and rate who looks more competent.

So he had these people look at the pairs of photos

and tell them who looks more competent,

took the statistics on that,

and he predicted the outcome of all these races, based purely on looks.

Not beauty or handsomeness, but the look of who is more competent.

And how often was he correct? He was right 70% of the time.

So, in 70% of the races around the United States,

the candidate who looked more competent won the race.

So, obviously,

we are not just basing our vote on what we think we are basing it on,

but our unconscious mind is pushing us to vote for people based on looks.

Another thing that influences a great deal is touch.

All primates rely on touch to form bonds and trust with each other.

Most primates spend hours a day grooming each other.

Humans do it a little bit less and its much more subtle,

but it really has an affect.

So I'll talk to you a little bit now about how you take in data from people,

based on whether or not they touch you.

And when I say "touch you," I don't mean a grope or a big hug.

I'm talking about something as subtle

as a quarter to half a second light touch on the elbow or the shoulder.

And my favorite experiment in this realm was done in France,

where French researchers hired two actors to stand on street corners,

in a town in Northern France, on sunny days in the summer,

and proposition all the single, young women who walked by.

And to all the young women they said the same thing.

Here's the script translated into English.

The difference between how they treated the women was:

to half the women they provided this light quarter to half second touch

on the forearm or the shoulder,

and to the other half, they didn't.

And the question was, would they increase their success rate with the touch?

And the answer is yes, they did. By a great deal.

They were successful in getting the phone number of the women

10% of the time without a touch and 20% of the time with the touch.

So it doubled their success rate.

Now, of course, picking up a woman is a sexual related activity,

so you might think that touch is expected to have a greater influence there,

but this same experiment has been done in many other contexts.

For instance, waiters and waitresses in restaurants increase their tips by 30%

if they give their customers a light touch.

So this is something again that happens subconsciously.

When they interviewed people after the experiment,

most of them did not remember even being touched,

and they all denied that the touch is what influenced their decision.

In my last minute,

I want to convince you that these unconscious processes also affect you

because a lot of people hear these things and go:

"Yeah, other people are silly, aren't they? But it doesn't work with me."

So, before this talk, at the beginning, I did a little experiment.

I asked you how much you would expect to pay for this hotel room.

And I divided you into two groups.

And, typically, when I do this experiment,

group one tends to average around a $1,000 or $1,200 in their answer.

And group two tends to go to like $200 or $300.

Let's see, what you guys did. Sean?

Thank you.

Wow! OK. Group one 1,857 dollars and group two 131 dollars.

So, how did I, the magician,

influence you subliminally to make these guesses

because I didn't twist your arm,

and I didn't give you any different data on the two rooms?

Both groups took in exactly the same data,

and, somehow, you made different conclusions.

And the difference was this.

Group one was asked first this question,

"Does this room cost 5,500 dollars a night?"

I think, the answer is pretty clearly no.

But group two was asked, "Is this 55 dollars a night?"

The answer is also no.

So, when you answered the second question, you probably didn't think

you are basing your answer on the first question, but you were.

This is the context, just like the checkerboard was.

And just like the words were to the backward song.

So, let me end with the quote from Carl Jung,

who I don't agree with his specifics of what he believed,

but I think he was right when he said:

"These subliminal aspects of everything that happens to us

may seem to play a very little part in our daily lives,

but they are the almost invisible roots of our conscious thoughts."

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Host) Thank you, thank you so much.

So, you know that how do we choose...

You just proved that we don't really choose.

Leonard Mlodinow: You choose, but you don't exactly know

how are you doing the choosing.

Host: Thank you very much.

LM: Thank you very much.

(Applause)

(Host) Thank you. Thank you.