L'Esprit de L'Escalier Unmasked

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L'Emmerdeur
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L'Esprit de L'Escalier Unmasked

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Sun Nov 24, 2024 3:34 am

... Sort of. It's the elemental old amygdala chiming in on the social cognitive network. Seems to be a particularly efficient connection in my case. Apologies for the anglicized use of capitalization. :lol:

'Overthinking what you said? It’s your "lizard brain" talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain'
We’ve all been there. Moments after leaving a party, your brain is suddenly filled with intrusive thoughts about what others were thinking. “Did they think I talked too much?” “Did my joke offend them?” “Were they having a good time?”

In a new Northwestern Medicine study, scientists sought to better understand how humans evolved to become so skilled at thinking about what’s happening in other peoples’ minds. The findings could have implications for one day treating psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression.

“We spend a lot of time wondering, ‘What is that person feeling, thinking? Did I say something to upset them?’” said senior author Rodrigo Braga. “The parts of the brain that allow us to do this are in regions of the human brain that have expanded recently in our evolution, and that implies that it’s a recently developed process. In essence, you’re putting yourself in someone else’s mind and making inferences about what that person is thinking when you cannot really know.”

The study found the more recently evolved and advanced parts of the human brain that support social interactions — called the social cognitive network — are connected to and in constant communication with an ancient part of the brain called the amygdala.

Often referred to as our “lizard brain,” the amygdala typically is associated with detecting threats and processing fear. A classic example of the amygdala in action is someone’s physiological and emotional response to seeing a snake: startled body, racing heart, sweaty palms. But the amygdala also does other things, Braga said.

“For instance, the amygdala is responsible for social behaviors like parenting, mating, aggression and the navigation of social-dominance hierarchies,” said Braga, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Previous studies have found co-activation of the amygdala and social cognitive network, but our study is novel because it shows the communication is always happening.”
The paper is open access.

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Re: L'Esprit de L'Escalier Unmasked

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Nov 24, 2024 6:20 am

Sounds familiar.

Robert Sapolsky, Behave, 2017. Covers the role of the amygdala in social interactions, fear responses, aggression, and trauma. Large section on how prefrontal cortex is bypassed by signals from the amygdala in response to certain stimuli in certain people, proning them to impulsive, risky, antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviour.


- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behave_%28book%29
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/ ... sky-review



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Re: L'Esprit de L'Escalier Unmasked

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Tue Nov 26, 2024 12:52 am

Indeed they acknowledge that this is an examination of some details of the interaction of the amygdala with the social cognitive network, it having already been established that such an interaction exists. I suppose it may be reasonable to include the amygdala as part of that network.
* * *
I played a bit loose with the title of this thread, something headline editors do that I grouse about. The article/paper describes physiological underpinnings of social anxiety post-interaction, while l'esprit de l'escalier is delayed inspiration of wit--the perfect riposte or apposite turn of phrase comes to you post-interaction; figuratively or literally as you're traversing the stairway. In my defense, this stairway wit would be inspired by the (in some cases anxiety-driven) post-interaction replaying of the conversation/events.

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