There’s a really interesting experiment that has been carried out over and over in child development labs all over the world. It was designed by Ed Tronick at the University of Massachusetts more than 30 years ago.
The experiment works like this: a mother and a baby interact face to face in the laboratory. Mom talks motherese, coos and smiles and winks. Baby responds animatedly with similar behaviors. Then, at a signal from the experimenter, mom’s face goes still. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t move a single one of the 42 muscles in her face.
Within seconds, baby is in distress. Here’s how Ed Tronick describes it:
What’s really striking about the still face experiment is that the infants don’t stop trying to get the parents’ attention back. They’ll go through repeated cycles where they try to elicit attention, fail, turn away, sad and disengaged, then they turn back and try again.
When it goes on long enough, you see infants lose postural control and actually collapse in the car seat. Or they’ll start self-soothing behaviors, sucking the back of their hand or their thumbs. Then they really disengage from the parent and don’t look back.
Some infants, however, become so distressed that that they’re unable to console themselves. This neglect leads to increases in the heart rate, a flush of the stress hormone cortisol and to cell death in key regions of the brain.
What Tronick and his colleagues are demonstrating is both our need for, and the extraordinary power of serve-and-return communication (known as contingent communication in the research literature).
I’m sure many of you have noticed that … there is little contingent communication involved with TED Talks. Which is ironic, since TED Talks are intended to produce “knowledge in dangerously addictive short doses.” In other words, learning. In the last decade we’ve discovered a treasure trove of information about the science of learning. What neuroscience teaches us is that the most powerful learning – learning that we can use to ultimately change our neural networks such that we can actually apply it in the world – works powerfully as the result of feedback loops. Feedback loops make learning happen. They also increase the probability of inspiring us to do what’s needed next: take affirmative action in the world.
The Three Magic Ingredients
I’ve written about contingent communication before, just not in the context of TED Talks. But I think it’s so important for lifelong healthy brain development that I’m writing about it here once again.
There are three important components that have to be present for feedback loops to be effective. The first is that the TED Talk audience has to be paying attention. They have to know something about both the subject matter the speaker is presenting on and know the definitions of the words she is using. They also have to be attending to the process – the body language and emotional tone of the speaker and any number of other meta-elements present – prosody, cadence, tone, pace, etc. Also, at some level, what’s NOT being said.
Next, they have to translate what they are hearing and seeing into a meaningful message. Messages mostly become meaningful when they emotionally and intellectually impact my life in some way. For example, that a technology or a design innovation has the capacity to expand and deepen how I engage with and process the world around me.
Finally, in order for the feedback loop to come full circle, I need to respond to the speaker – and here’s the piece missing in so much of the way Technology, Education and Design currently impact our lives – in a timely and effective manner. Let me repeat here – I need to respond in a timely and effective manner.
Timely and Effective Engagement
Thinking back to the Still Face Experiment, what’s clearly missing is mom’s timely and effective response to baby expressing needs for contact and engagement. That is also precisely what is missing from TED Talks. It’s also precisely what’s missing from all too many technological innovations. It’s also a significant piece of what’s missing from … blog writing. At most, a few people might offer a comment or two, to which I will respond, and that will be the end of it. What’s missing? A lot. What can you identify? What can we DO about it?
Oh, and then there’s this Enchanted Loom review of Daniel Levitin’s book, The Organized Mind. How many ways can you imagine creating feedback loops out of it?
Loved this one. As you might remember, I actually couldn’t TEACH my best through webinars in which people were not in some way expressing or demonstrating engagement. It was hugely disorienting. Looks like the feedback loop goes on and on in good teaching unless…you are just a narcissist who enjoys hearing and seeing yourself and having others do the same.
The narcissism implicit in technology is seldom examined. It would mean completely rethinking technology and media generally. What good narcissist would ever dismantle his/her own machine of enlargement?
Thanks for naming it. Only minor quibble is that we are not, of course, infants. We can endure some period of lack of feedback. But I definately agree that we don’t prosper in the doses we are being served it up. Everywhere. Totally confirms my experience.
From one of your usually contingent communicators…
I thought this perspective might resonate with your experience, Jeanne. I would however, minor quibble with your minor quibble! Throughout any day, if I’m paying close attention, my brain often regresses to non-present-moment earlier times. My hunch is that early, overwhelmed, adversely impacted networks constantly offer themselves up for repair, mostly without us realizing it. And of course, not being afforded the possibility of repair/healing. Got any experiences like that? Seen anything like that with your clients? 😉 XOXOX Mark
Hi Mark
Thanks for the insightful piece missing from TED talks. One thing I do with them is share them as part of some teaching I do and then, and also with friends, discuss them. I guess that would help the loop a bit.
On another note, your subject line for this week is the same as last week- food trauma….
Thanks for offering fascinating perspectives into my Sunday mornings!
Hi Mark:
Well, I suppose you suspected you might get a little feedback loop from me. I understand your point with respect to technological separation of the listener from the speaker (as in TED talks). However, as one who spent some time studying the phenomenon, I think the most important part of the feedforward loop (can’t have feedback without feedforward) is the receptiveness of the listener/student’s mirror neuron systems. We automatically and unconsciously activate our own brain circuits to mimic the activity of those of the speaker/partner. Think of contagious yawning….. Some people ‘mirror’ better than others, but it begins in newborns and develops (more or less) as our brains develop. It is what makes in-person communication so intense and rewarding – and what is so agonizing when mom does not move a muscle. In other words, let’s hear it for feedback loops! I agree with you very much on that point. On the other hand, technological separation does not prevent us from being touched by the others in profound and surprising ways. Think of a good tear-jerker movie. The so-called ‘McGurk effect’ is another surprising example. As you know, this is hearing words different from the sound track if a simultaneous video of the speaker’s face is moving in ways that would create different sounds. Close your eyes for an instant and the effect disappears – one hears the sound track as spoken. So I would simply suggest that if one wanted to get the most out of TED talks (or the professor’s lectures, etc.) then being as open as possible to all the modes of communication will help – even if we can’t be there in person.
I have often wondered what it was about the TED talks that felt like ‘1984’ type group gropes..and you have nailed it! Thank you!
I’m glad the piece resonated with you and clarified things, Terri. Now comes the possibility of making TED more personally useful? Best, Mark
I always enjoy your blog Mark! In the last several years I have become a big fan of attachment theory and the life-long effects it has on personality and relationships. I was just discussing with a co-worker today a current auto commercial. It shows a family in brand A automobile with the kids yelling something repetitive that is annoying to the parents. Then it show the same family in auto brand B contentedly hooked up to individual headsets with their own computer tablets. We are so quick to hook our kids up to electronic entertainment and learning systems that I believe they lose a lot of communication and self-entertainment skills. Your observations of TED talks are another example.
I spend a lot of time each week thinking and working with people with attachment trauma. Your blog really resonates with me and i find myself chewing it over the week finding that the context is a bit hard to give to a layperson, I often feel like i don’t have anyone to chat with about it. I truly appreciate what you are doing here, and I continue to add to my learning about very early trauma, prenatal and perinatal and how it so deeply affects us as a population as a whole.
Misty
Thank you for this thoughtful nugget this morning. One-way communication is missing the two-way connection and reciprocity required for human interaction. Yet it does imprint the mind — look at the effect of advertising on our collective psyche.
Recently my teen son yelled at me, slammed the door and ran out of the house. I had merely mentioned I made a mistake on the computer accidentally hitting the wrong link when he wanted me to click the other one and thought that by telling me what to do that in that split second, I would respond perfectly. I was helping him with his work. Why I couldn’t get him to do the task himself is an entirely different and long story. I was pleased by his reaction that he could emote. I wasn’t pleased it was one way.
Hi Mark,
Your article made me remember a little group I was part of with a professional also. Someone in the group would share a recent experience or something that was bothering them at the time and then two others in the group would give their specific feedback on this persons share.
I was wondering if my group example was what you may have been talking about.
Thanks, I always enjoy your writing,
Cheryl
Sounds like your collective intention and purpose organically worked for your little group, Cheryl.
I don’t think we can ask for much more than that. Thanks for posting. Best, Mark