I knew when she walked in the room

A love story in the brain

Most people on the planet can relate to the experience of standing in a crowded room full of dozens of intermingling conversations and suddenly becoming acutely aware of their name being said out loud or the sound of a familiar voice. Or of knowing when that special someone walked through the door as if cupid was tapping you on the shoulder.  

What is it that makes us notice that person, or our name, or to become overly conscious of anyone wearing a hat or t-shirt of our favorite sports team or band? Of all the thousands of individual stimuli that enter the brain on any given moment, why do some of them go unnoticed while others draw our attention immediately?  

The answer lies in the Reticiular Activation System (RAS) or Reticular Formation, a series of interconnected regions in the brain, located primarily in the brain stem that regulates the brain's level of arousal.  In other words, it helps the brain to decide what to pay attention to, and what to ignore.  This is the reason why we can fall asleep listening to music but wake up when we hear the front door open.  It is designed to focus our attention on potential threats, items of value, or people of particular interest.  

The RAS is constantly sifting through information and stimuli that passes through our senses into our brain, weighing out what requires our immediate attention and focus, and what does not.  It acts as the gatekeeper of our consciousness.

In Jewish lore, there are several references to a creature called a Golem.  Golems are creatures that were created out of inanimate matter and then magically imbued with life.  In one such version, there is a village that is surrounded by forest.  The villagers, afraid of unknown creatures that might be lurking in the wilderness, create a Golem to protect themselves from various dangers.  The Golem, tasked with protecting the villages, goes to work patrolling the forest.

Unfortunately for the Golem, and for the village, there were no real dangers to speak of, and the Golem, bored and without purpose, began to cause problems around the village until it became the very danger that it was created to protect the village from.

The villagers so desperately wanted there to be unseen problems, that they unwittingly created them; they believed their reality into existence. While this is myth demonstrates a principal of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the potential for this type of genesis is not without scientific basis.

In the 1960's a now famous series of studies were conducted and published by Robert Rosenthal, a psychology professor at Harvard University.  The basis of his work was the principal of self-fulfilling prophecies, or what was termed expectancy effects.  In one study, researchers gave an  IQ test to an elementary school class and reported the results to the teacher.  Twenty percent of the students were chosen at random and it was reported they had "unusual potential for intellectual growth."  At the end of the year, the students were tested again and it was found that those who were labeled as more intelligent showed significant improvement over their peers.

The teacher, expecting those students to be more capable, treated them differently than the rest of the students in the class.  Whether it was more encouraging words, higher expectations, more one-on-one instruction, or a myriad of other potential causes, the teacher's expectation of the students had a marked difference on their growth as a student.  Like the Golem, because they were focusing on a specific outcome, they in turn created it.

This principal became known as the Pygmalion Effect, based on the play by George Bernard Shaw which he titled after the Greek tale of a character of the same name. In the story, Pygmalion was a famous sculpture from Cyprus who had grown weary of the base nature of the women around him, many of whom were prostitutes. In his disgust, he set out to form the perfect woman.

The master sculpture went to work intentionally crafting her form, chiseling and polishing his work to perfection.  When it was completed, he named her Galatea and fell madly in love with his creation. Pygmalion would bring her gifts, kiss and caress her form, doting ardently upon her form.

The goddess Aphrodite, impressed by the depth and extent of his affection, took pity on the sculptor.  Upon returning to his home from the temple of Aphrodite, he found Galatea had been transformed from a form of cold marble, to warm flesh.  The hardness of her features had softened to the touch and she stood before him as human as the man who had tenderly brought her forth from stone.

In the instance of the Golem, those who sought after troubles, found them; while in the story of Pygmalion, the search for something greater was rewarded by the heights of love and joy.  In each case, the characters found what they searched for, because that is WHAT they were searching for.

For individuals, when the RAS is programmed to search out specific stimuli, for instance, confirmation that a student is incapable, it begins to filter out anything that does not fit that narrative, mistakes are viewed as proof that a child can not learn and less effort is put into teaching them. When the RAS is looking for evidence of a student's capability to learn, even mistakes are seen anomalies of thinking or even divergent thought or creative thoughts and be praised, encouraging the student to work harder. These opposing thoughts, over time, will create minor changes in the way the teacher works with their students and the way the students see themselves.

Students who have negative views of themselves will see criticism as proof of ignorance instead of corrective actions, while students seeking confirmation of their intelligence will see a teacher's rebuke as proof that they are held to higher standards. Over time, these minor difference can create significant differences in growth and development in the classroom.

The human brain is responsible for interpreting, evaluation, and filtering thousands upon thousands of pieces of information every single day.  It weighs out what is important and what is not, what is true and what is false, and what we should accept and what we should not. It will help us to find what we are desperately searching for, whether it be that special someone or confirmation of our darkest fears.  In a sense, reality is dictated by the filters of our consciousness.  We human beings will see the world as we choose to see it, and that will in turn, shape the world we live in, for better or for worse.