Emotional Ties
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www.SciAmMind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 1 Mariette DiChristina Executive Editor [email protected] (from the editor) M IND BEHAVIOR • BRAIN SCIENCE • INSIGHTS PHOTOILLUSTRATION BY AARON GOODMAN; SHUTTERSTOCK ( woman ); GETTY IMAGES ( scenes inside film) EDITOR IN CHIEF: John Rennie EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mariette DiChristina EDITORS: Karen Schrock, Ingrid Wickelgren ART DIRECTOR: Patricia Nemoto ISSUE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR: Bridget Gerety Small PRODUCTION EDITOR: Richard Hunt COPY DIRECTOR: Maria-Christina Keller COPY CHIEF: Daniel C. Schlenoff COPY AND RESEARCH: Rachel Dvoskin, Aaron Fagan, John Matson, Eugene A. Raikhel, Aaron Shattuck, Kenneth Silber, Kevin Singer, Michelle Wright EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Avonelle Wing SENIOR SECRETARY: Maya Harty CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Phil Cohen, David Dobbs, Robert Epstein, Jonah Lehrer BOARD OF ADVISERS: HAL ARKOWITZ: Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona STEPHEN J. CECI: Professor of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University R. DOUGLAS FIELDS: Chief, Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development S. ALEXANDER HASLAM: Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter CHRISTOF KOCH: Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology SCOTT O. LILIENFELD: Associate Professor of Psychology, Emory University JOHN H. MORRISON: Chairman, Department of Neuroscience, and Director, Neurobiology of Aging Laboratories, Mount Sinai School of Medicine VILAYANUR S. RAMACHANDRAN: Director, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies DIANE ROGERS-RAMACHANDRAN: Research Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego STEPHEN D. REICHER: Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews Some of the articles in this issue are adapted from articles originally appearing in Gehirn & Geist. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION: William Sherman MANUFACTURING MANAGER: Janet Cermak ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER: Carl Cherebin PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER: Silvia De Santis PRODUCTION MANAGER: Christina Hippeli CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER: Madelyn Keyes-Milch HOW TO CONTACT US FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES OR TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Scientific American Mind 415 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017-1111 212-451-8200 [email protected] Emotional Ties Macbeth extolled “sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,” in Shake- speare’s great tragic play of the same name. Soothing rest is not all that shut-eye provides, however. As sleep and cognition researchers Robert Stickgold and Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen explain in their feature article in this issue, the brain is very busy during a night’s slumber. It is processing and sorting all the things we learned during the day, making valuable memories more resilient and tossing away irrelevant details. It finds hidden relations among our recollections and works to solve problems that arose during our waking hours. Turn to page 22 for our cover story, “Quiet! Sleeping Brain at Work.” While we are catching some zzz’s, the brain preferentially strengthens mem- ories that have important emotional content. A humming emotional-rewards circuit is also key to warding off depression in many of us, as neuroscientist and psychologist Kelly Lambert explains in “Depressingly Easy.” Activities that stir our thinking, motor and pleasure centers—such as gardening, cooking, knit- ting—engage the brain in ways that make us mentally healthier, Lambert ex- plains. Anticipating the ultimate result as we perform such laborious tasks can be more enjoyable than achieving the end goal itself. The swift ease of modern, push-button conveniences, in contrast, may undercut our brain’s supply of hard- earned rewards, making us more susceptible to depression. Find out why starting on page 30. There is nothing like a good yarn to pluck our emotional strings, as Jeremy Hsu writes in “The Secrets of Storytelling,” beginning on page 46. Stories are one of humanity’s universals—they appear in all cultures—and certain themes arise repeatedly in tales around the world. Why do these narratives have such power over our feelings? The study of stories reveals clues about our evolution- ary history and the roots of emotion and empathy. Indeed, as you will learn from Hsu’s article, the stories we tell explain much about ourselves.
Transcript of Emotional Ties
www.SciAmMind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 1
Mariette DiChristina Executive Editor
(from the editor)
MINDBEHAVIOR • BRAIN SCIENCE • INSIGHTS
PH
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EDITOR IN CHIEF: John RennieEXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mariette DiChristina EDITORS: Karen Schrock, Ingrid Wickelgren
ART DIRECTOR: Patricia NemotoISSUE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR: Bridget Gerety SmallPRODUCTION EDITOR: Richard Hunt
COPY DIRECTOR: Maria-Christina Keller COPY CHIEF: Daniel C. SchlenoffCOPY AND RESEARCH: Rachel Dvoskin, Aaron Fagan, John Matson, Eugene A. Raikhel, Aaron Shattuck, Kenneth Silber, Kevin Singer, Michelle Wright
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Avonelle WingSENIOR SECRETARY: Maya Harty
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Phil Cohen,David Dobbs, Robert Epstein, Jonah Lehrer
BOARD OF ADVISERS :
HAL ARKOWITZ: Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona
STEPHEN J. CECI : Professor of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University
R. DOUGLAS FIELDS: Chief, Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
S. ALEXANDER HASLAM: Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter
CHRISTOF KOCH: Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology
SCOTT O. LILIENFELD: Associate Professor of Psychology, Emory University
JOHN H. MORRISON: Chairman, Department of Neuroscience, and Director, Neurobiology of Aging Laboratories, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
VILAYANUR S. RAMACHANDRAN: Director, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
DIANE ROGERS-RAMACHANDRAN: Research Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego
STEPHEN D. REICHER: Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews
Some of the articles in this issue are adapted from articles originally appearing in Gehirn & Geist.
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION: William Sherman MANUFACTURING MANAGER: Janet Cermak ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER: Carl Cherebin PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER: Silvia De SantisPRODUCTION MANAGER: Christina Hippeli CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER: Madelyn Keyes-Milch
HOW TO CONTACT US
FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES OR TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Scientifi c American Mind 415 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017-1111 [email protected]
Emotional TiesMacbeth extolled “sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,” in Shake-speare’s great tragic play of the same name. Soothing rest is not all that shut-eye provides, however. As sleep and cognition researchers Robert Stickgold and Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen explain in their feature article in this issue, the brain is very busy during a night’s slumber. It is processing and sorting all the things we learned during the day, making valuable memories more resilient and tossing away irrelevant details. It fi nds hidden relations among our recollections and works to solve problems that arose during our waking hours. Turn to page 22 for our cover story, “Quiet! Sleeping Brain at Work.”
While we are catching some zzz’s , the brain preferentially strengthens mem-ories that have important emotional content. A humming emotional-rewards circuit is also key to warding off depression in many of us, as neuroscientist and psychologist Kelly Lambert explains in “Depressingly Easy.” Activities that stir our thinking, motor and pleasure centers—such as gardening, cooking, knit-ting—engage the brain in ways that make us mentally healthier, Lambert ex-plains. Anticipating the ultimate result as we perform such laborious tasks can be more enjoyable than achieving the end goal itself. The swift ease of modern, push-button conveniences, in contrast, may undercut our brain’s supply of hard-earned rewards, making us more susceptible to depression. Find out why starting on page 30.
There is nothing like a good yarn to pluck our emotional strings, as Jeremy Hsu writes in “The Secrets of Storytelling,” beginning on page 46. Stories are one of humanity’s universals—they appear in all cultures—and certain themes arise repeatedly in tales around the world. Why do these narratives have such power over our feelings? The study of stories reveals clues about our evolution-ary history and the roots of emotion and empathy. Indeed, as you will learn from Hsu’s article, the stories we tell explain much about ourselves.
