[Music]
[Applause]
so I want you to come on a little
journey with me right now I want you to
imagine that you are a soldier in
wartime patrolling the forest with your
squad and then suddenly up ahead you
hear rustling in the bush you scan
around you and then it hits you with
horror you see them a long line of
Fighters guerrilla fighters dressed in
camouflage and carrying machine guns
instinctively
you raise your rifle you flip off the
safety catch and you point it at the
leader who is carrying an ak-47 this is
actually a true story that was told to
me by a man who was drafted against his
will into the Rhodesian army before the
fall of apartheid before he was drafted
he was an attorney who defended
guerrilla fighters in court and now to
his utter astonishment and dismay he was
preparing to kill them he focused in on
his target finger on trigger and then he
felt a gentle hand on his shoulder don’t
shoot
whispered one of his squad members it’s
just a boy our friend lowered his rifle
and took another look it was a boy maybe
10 or 11 years old carrying not a rifle
but a long stick and trailing behind him
was a long line
of cows I’m a psychologist and
neuroscientist and in my lab we study
why people have these surprising visual
experiences and here is the secret what
you see is influenced by how you feel
your mood influences what you see your
vision what you hear your hearing and
every sense that you have smell and
taste and touch not just in the heat of
war but every day of your life and this
discovery of the power of mood just
abolish as common sense and it actually
holds serious implications for how we
live our lives
now when I say mood I am NOT talking
about emotion like anger and sadness and
fear mood is more basic it’s just a
simple accounting of how you’re doing so
maybe you’re hungry right now maybe you
had a terrific dinner before you came to
the show so you’re feeling pretty
comfortable maybe you are feeling very
awake because you had a great night’s
sleep you slept like a baby and maybe
you were kept up all night by a baby so
you’re feeling pretty tired maybe you’re
sitting next to someone who you care
about and you feel really comfortable
with or maybe you’re sitting next to a
stranger who’s hogging the armrest all
of these things combined together to
create your mood so check in with
yourself for a second using this graph
are you feeling pleasant and kind of
good are you feeling unpleasant mmm lots
of
calm alert jittery somewhere in the
middle this is your mood or what
scientists like me call effect you know
because scientists always give something
a really complicated name effect is with
you every moment of your life from the
moment that you are born until the
moment that you die whether or not
you’re emotional and whether or not
you’re even aware of it let me show you
an example all of us
right now are looking at the same image
but we don’t all see this person in
exactly the same way some of you see her
as slightly smiling and your first
impression of her would be as that she’s
friendly and trustworthy other people in
this audience see her as slightly
frowning and maybe find her less
appealing and still other people find
her completely neutral the difference is
your mood your effect we actually have
demonstrated this effect many many times
in our laboratory and in fact if you
were to come to my lab we could make her
seem more appealing to you or less
appealing just by fiddling with your
mood your effect and that would
influence whether or not you want it to
be her friend or maybe whether you
wanted to even hire her for a job this
power of effect happens in every day of
our lives so the last time that you
devoured a delicious piece of chocolate
cake that deliciousness was not in the
cake it’s not even in your taste buds to
actually in your brain it’s your effect
when you’re driving on the highway
and some idiot cuts you off your
certainty that he is an idiot is your
effect in fact everything that you will
hear tonight will be filtered through
your effect so right now I’m sure that
many of you are thinking wow this is an
amazing talk yeah she’s awesome and that
is your aspect and for the one or two
people in the room who are skeptical and
don’t see the wisdom of my words you
know yet
that’s a sec – so where does that come
from you know what is it really affect
is made by your brain as it controls the
systems of your body to keep them all in
balance one of your brains most
important jobs is running a budget for
your internal resources like oxygen and
glucose water salt hormones to help keep
you alive and well so that you can do
the things that you really like to do
like pass your genes on to the next
generation if you know what I mean
and this body budgeting is completely
invisible to you
it’s happening under the hood in a way
that you are largely unaware of most of
the time which is a really fortunate
thing because if you were aware of it
this is what you would experience you
and your lungs expanding and contracting
as you breathe you’d be listening to a
never-ending symphony of bodily sounds
and sensations that is so distracting
that you would never pay attention to
anything outside your own skin that is
what’s actually going on inside of each
and every one of you right now so
instead of making you aware of this
distracting Symphony evolution gave you
a workaround that merely hints at
whether your body budget is in balance
or is in the red and that workaround is
effect somehow the sensations of body
budgeting which are physical become
transformed into effective feelings
which are mental scientists don’t yet
understand how this transformation
happens but we know that it does because
there are hundreds of studies from
laboratories all around the world which
show us that it does and this
transformation from physical to mental
is one of the great mysteries of
consciousness so our brains are
continuously regulating our body budgets
and continuously generating effect and
the tricky bit here is that effect is
really imprecise it’s really vague so
here’s an analogy if vision is like
watching high-definition TV then effect
is like watching a
50-year old TV set in black-and-white
with a really bad connection through a
layer of bubble wrap it would have been
totally awesome if evolution had given
us a SmartWatch to regulate our body
budget you know so that would go
something like this beep you’re running
low on glucose have an apple at the
intermission or even better have a piece
of chocolate but if this revolution it
would be telling you to have an apple or
B you didn’t sleep too much last night
so you’re running low on a brain
chemical called dopamine so drink eight
ounces of coffee
preferably dark roast with a little bit
of cream to borrow energy from tomorrow
to help you get through the rest of
today but that’s not what we have we
have mmm feeling kind of crappy and then
your brain is constantly guessing to
figure out what caused that crappy
feeling so that it knows what to do next
to keep you alive and well sometimes
your brain guesses really well it’s like
right on the mark and other times not so
much so you can be walking down the
street and then you come to a hill and
you’re effect
can help can actually cause you to see
that hill as steeper than it actually is
if you have the misfortune to interview
for a job on a rainy gray day the
listless feeling that we get when it’s
gloomy outside can cause your
interviewer to actually be less
impressed with you than they otherwise
would making it harder for you to
actually get that job and we we all know
that after we’ve had a few drinks and
we’re feeling pretty good miraculously
everyone around us becomes much more
so the bottom line here is that feeling
is believing you believe what you feel
the wiring of your brain guarantees that
this is how it works and in my lab we
give this a fancy name we call it
effective realism effective realism you
believe what you feel and now we are
equipped to understand what happened to
our friend in the forest when he saw
those guerrilla fighters so he was in a
dangerous situation that disrupted his
body budget and he felt a powerful wave
of affect and he physically saw a gun
that wasn’t there effective realism and
he prepared to shoot an unarmed African
civilian does that sound familiar to you
it should now I’m being deliberately
provocative here to make a point and I
just want to be really clear I’m not
suggesting that every time an unarmed
civilian is shot that it’s merely a case
of effective realism these are really
tragic situations and they are caused by
a variety of very complex influences but
as a scientist I have to tell you that
your brain the human brain is wired to
see the world through effect color
glasses and a deeper appreciation of
this of effective realism might help to
save someone’s life just like that tap
on the shoulder save the life of that
young African Shepherd and his
cows if we were gonna pursue this a
little further we could discuss how
effective realism may be at the heart of
some of our society’s most challenging
problems like the opioid crisis fake
news escalating gun violence and every
single financial meltdown of the past
century because effective realism is
part of human nature it is inevitable
for you and for me and for every person
on this planet but that doesn’t mean
that we are destined to hallucinate to
shoot people by mistake to become
addicted to pain medication or make bad
decision after bad decision because we
can learn to use effect to our advantage
and when we do effect becomes a source
of wisdom so let me give you one example
you can use effect as a cue to step back
from your deeply held beliefs so that
you can better connect with people who
see the world in a way that’s different
from the way that you do when you watch
something on television or you read
something in the newspaper or on the
internet or you listen to something on
the radio and it hits you immediately
that it is obviously true right or
obviously a piece of foolishness that is
a cue that whatever you’ve encountered
has touched a deeply held belief and
either confirmed it or violated it
impacting your body budget and so that’s
the moment
to open your mind to listen and to learn
even if you know you’re right maybe
especially if you know you are right
conservatives know that abortion is
immoral and liberals know that abortion
is a woman’s right this knowing is
effect and maybe if we were a little
less suspicious of each other
and a little more suspicious of our own
certainty which is forged in the fires
of effect maybe our democracy would be a
little healthier and this skill is
something thank you right
and this skill is something that we can
use in our own lives each and every day
so that idiot who cut you off on the
highway maybe he is just an idiot or
maybe he’s an idiot who’s rushing to the
hospital to be with his kid you can use
the effect that that came about right
when he cut you off it disrupted your
body budget and gave you a strong sense
of affect and you can use that as a cue
to take a breath to take a deep breath
breathing it turns out is one of the
ways that we can control effect a little
bit because breathing it allows one part
of our nervous system to kind of dial
down the other parts to create enough
space for us to transform certainty into
curiosity and that curiosity can let you
consider other options options that
don’t necessarily involve swearing at
him or chasing it with your car options
that could save you from getting a
speeding ticket or even having a car
accident due to road rage now if if I
were listening to this talk it’s right
about now that I would be thinking
seriously in the heat of the moment who
has time to hit the pause button and be
curious about their effect
it just sounds completely impractical in
some situations and that’s right it is
so sometimes the trick is to be curious
earlier to take a moment before the heat
of the moment before you get behind the
wheel before you have a meeting with
your difficult boss before you draw your
firearm
take a breath that might allow you a
moment to think about what to do next
and you might discover other paths
forward that don’t involve you seeing a
gun at the end we know where there is no
gun with a little bit of practice effect
can help you make better wiser choices
it can make you can make choices that
will improve your life choices that will
maybe save your job or your relationship
choices that will touch and maybe even
save the lives of those around you thank
you
[Applause]
you
[Applause] [Music]
[Applause]
so I want you to come on a little
journey with me right now I want you to
imagine that you are a soldier in
wartime patrolling the forest with your
squad and then suddenly up ahead you
hear rustling in the bush you scan
around you and then it hits you with
horror you see them a long line of
Fighters guerrilla fighters dressed in
camouflage and carrying machine guns
instinctively
you raise your rifle you flip off the
safety catch and you point it at the
leader who is carrying an ak-47 this is
actually a true story that was told to
me by a man who was drafted against his
will into the Rhodesian army before the
fall of apartheid before he was drafted
he was an attorney who defended
guerrilla fighters in court and now to
his utter astonishment and dismay he was
preparing to kill them he focused in on
his target finger on trigger and then he
felt a gentle hand on his shoulder don’t
shoot
whispered one of his squad members it’s
just a boy our friend lowered his rifle
and took another look it was a boy maybe
10 or 11 years old carrying not a rifle
but a long stick and trailing behind him
was a long line
of cows I’m a psychologist and
neuroscientist and in my lab we study
why people have these surprising visual
experiences and here is the secret what
you see is influenced by how you feel
your mood influences what you see your
vision what you hear your hearing and
every sense that you have smell and
taste and touch not just in the heat of
war but every day of your life and this
discovery of the power of mood just
abolish as common sense and it actually
holds serious implications for how we
live our lives
now when I say mood I am NOT talking
about emotion like anger and sadness and
fear mood is more basic it’s just a
simple accounting of how you’re doing so
maybe you’re hungry right now maybe you
had a terrific dinner before you came to
the show so you’re feeling pretty
comfortable maybe you are feeling very
awake because you had a great night’s
sleep you slept like a baby and maybe
you were kept up all night by a baby so
you’re feeling pretty tired maybe you’re
sitting next to someone who you care
about and you feel really comfortable
with or maybe you’re sitting next to a
stranger who’s hogging the armrest all
of these things combined together to
create your mood so check in with
yourself for a second using this graph
are you feeling pleasant and kind of
good are you feeling unpleasant mmm lots
of
calm alert jittery somewhere in the
middle this is your mood or what
scientists like me call effect you know
because scientists always give something
a really complicated name effect is with
you every moment of your life from the
moment that you are born until the
moment that you die whether or not
you’re emotional and whether or not
you’re even aware of it let me show you
an example all of us
right now are looking at the same image
but we don’t all see this person in
exactly the same way some of you see her
as slightly smiling and your first
impression of her would be as that she’s
friendly and trustworthy other people in
this audience see her as slightly
frowning and maybe find her less
appealing and still other people find
her completely neutral the difference is
your mood your effect we actually have
demonstrated this effect many many times
in our laboratory and in fact if you
were to come to my lab we could make her
seem more appealing to you or less
appealing just by fiddling with your
mood your effect and that would
influence whether or not you want it to
be her friend or maybe whether you
wanted to even hire her for a job this
power of effect happens in every day of
our lives so the last time that you
devoured a delicious piece of chocolate
cake that deliciousness was not in the
cake it’s not even in your taste buds to
actually in your brain it’s your effect
when you’re driving on the highway
and some idiot cuts you off your
certainty that he is an idiot is your
effect in fact everything that you will
hear tonight will be filtered through
your effect so right now I’m sure that
many of you are thinking wow this is an
amazing talk yeah she’s awesome and that
is your aspect and for the one or two
people in the room who are skeptical and
don’t see the wisdom of my words you
know yet
that’s a sec – so where does that come
from you know what is it really affect
is made by your brain as it controls the
systems of your body to keep them all in
balance one of your brains most
important jobs is running a budget for
your internal resources like oxygen and
glucose water salt hormones to help keep
you alive and well so that you can do
the things that you really like to do
like pass your genes on to the next
generation if you know what I mean
and this body budgeting is completely
invisible to you
it’s happening under the hood in a way
that you are largely unaware of most of
the time which is a really fortunate
thing because if you were aware of it
this is what you would experience you
and your lungs expanding and contracting
as you breathe you’d be listening to a
never-ending symphony of bodily sounds
and sensations that is so distracting
that you would never pay attention to
anything outside your own skin that is
what’s actually going on inside of each
and every one of you right now so
instead of making you aware of this
distracting Symphony evolution gave you
a workaround that merely hints at
whether your body budget is in balance
or is in the red and that workaround is
effect somehow the sensations of body
budgeting which are physical become
transformed into effective feelings
which are mental scientists don’t yet
understand how this transformation
happens but we know that it does because
there are hundreds of studies from
laboratories all around the world which
show us that it does and this
transformation from physical to mental
is one of the great mysteries of
consciousness so our brains are
continuously regulating our body budgets
and continuously generating effect and
the tricky bit here is that effect is
really imprecise it’s really vague so
here’s an analogy if vision is like
watching high-definition TV then effect
is like watching a
50-year old TV set in black-and-white
with a really bad connection through a
layer of bubble wrap it would have been
totally awesome if evolution had given
us a SmartWatch to regulate our body
budget you know so that would go
something like this beep you’re running
low on glucose have an apple at the
intermission or even better have a piece
of chocolate but if this revolution it
would be telling you to have an apple or
B you didn’t sleep too much last night
so you’re running low on a brain
chemical called dopamine so drink eight
ounces of coffee
preferably dark roast with a little bit
of cream to borrow energy from tomorrow
to help you get through the rest of
today but that’s not what we have we
have mmm feeling kind of crappy and then
your brain is constantly guessing to
figure out what caused that crappy
feeling so that it knows what to do next
to keep you alive and well sometimes
your brain guesses really well it’s like
right on the mark and other times not so
much so you can be walking down the
street and then you come to a hill and
you’re effect
can help can actually cause you to see
that hill as steeper than it actually is
if you have the misfortune to interview
for a job on a rainy gray day the
listless feeling that we get when it’s
gloomy outside can cause your
interviewer to actually be less
impressed with you than they otherwise
would making it harder for you to
actually get that job and we we all know
that after we’ve had a few drinks and
we’re feeling pretty good miraculously
everyone around us becomes much more
so the bottom line here is that feeling
is believing you believe what you feel
the wiring of your brain guarantees that
this is how it works and in my lab we
give this a fancy name we call it
effective realism effective realism you
believe what you feel and now we are
equipped to understand what happened to
our friend in the forest when he saw
those guerrilla fighters so he was in a
dangerous situation that disrupted his
body budget and he felt a powerful wave
of affect and he physically saw a gun
that wasn’t there effective realism and
he prepared to shoot an unarmed African
civilian does that sound familiar to you
it should now I’m being deliberately
provocative here to make a point and I
just want to be really clear I’m not
suggesting that every time an unarmed
civilian is shot that it’s merely a case
of effective realism these are really
tragic situations and they are caused by
a variety of very complex influences but
as a scientist I have to tell you that
your brain the human brain is wired to
see the world through effect color
glasses and a deeper appreciation of
this of effective realism might help to
save someone’s life just like that tap
on the shoulder save the life of that
young African Shepherd and his
cows if we were gonna pursue this a
little further we could discuss how
effective realism may be at the heart of
some of our society’s most challenging
problems like the opioid crisis fake
news escalating gun violence and every
single financial meltdown of the past
century because effective realism is
part of human nature it is inevitable
for you and for me and for every person
on this planet but that doesn’t mean
that we are destined to hallucinate to
shoot people by mistake to become
addicted to pain medication or make bad
decision after bad decision because we
can learn to use effect to our advantage
and when we do effect becomes a source
of wisdom so let me give you one example
you can use effect as a cue to step back
from your deeply held beliefs so that
you can better connect with people who
see the world in a way that’s different
from the way that you do when you watch
something on television or you read
something in the newspaper or on the
internet or you listen to something on
the radio and it hits you immediately
that it is obviously true right or
obviously a piece of foolishness that is
a cue that whatever you’ve encountered
has touched a deeply held belief and
either confirmed it or violated it
impacting your body budget and so that’s
the moment
to open your mind to listen and to learn
even if you know you’re right maybe
especially if you know you are right
conservatives know that abortion is
immoral and liberals know that abortion
is a woman’s right this knowing is
effect and maybe if we were a little
less suspicious of each other
and a little more suspicious of our own
certainty which is forged in the fires
of effect maybe our democracy would be a
little healthier and this skill is
something thank you right
and this skill is something that we can
use in our own lives each and every day
so that idiot who cut you off on the
highway maybe he is just an idiot or
maybe he’s an idiot who’s rushing to the
hospital to be with his kid you can use
the effect that that came about right
when he cut you off it disrupted your
body budget and gave you a strong sense
of affect and you can use that as a cue
to take a breath to take a deep breath
breathing it turns out is one of the
ways that we can control effect a little
bit because breathing it allows one part
of our nervous system to kind of dial
down the other parts to create enough
space for us to transform certainty into
curiosity and that curiosity can let you
consider other options options that
don’t necessarily involve swearing at
him or chasing it with your car options
that could save you from getting a
speeding ticket or even having a car
accident due to road rage now if if I
were listening to this talk it’s right
about now that I would be thinking
seriously in the heat of the moment who
has time to hit the pause button and be
curious about their effect
it just sounds completely impractical in
some situations and that’s right it is
so sometimes the trick is to be curious
earlier to take a moment before the heat
of the moment before you get behind the
wheel before you have a meeting with
your difficult boss before you draw your
firearm
take a breath that might allow you a
moment to think about what to do next
and you might discover other paths
forward that don’t involve you seeing a
gun at the end we know where there is no
gun with a little bit of practice effect
can help you make better wiser choices
it can make you can make choices that
will improve your life choices that will
maybe save your job or your relationship
choices that will touch and maybe even
save the lives of those around you thank
you
[Applause]
you
[Applause] [Music]
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