Book reviewed in this article:Lawrence Weiskrantz, Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsycholog... more Book reviewed in this article:Lawrence Weiskrantz, Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration
In this article we explore the implications of opposing domains theory for developing ethical lea... more In this article we explore the implications of opposing domains theory for developing ethical leaders. Opposing domains theory highlights a neurological tension between analytical and socio-emotional reasoning. Specifically, when we engage in analytical reasoning (the Task Positive Network), we suppress our ability to engage in socioemotional reasoning (the Default Mode Network) and vice versa. In this article we bring together the domains of neuroscience, psychology, and ethics, to inform our theorizing around ethical leadership. We propose that a key issue for ethical leadership is achieving a healthy balance between analytical and socio-emotional reasoning. We argue that organizational culture often encourages too heavy a reliance on non-emotional forms of reasoning to arrive at moral judgments (i.e. the TPN). As a result, leaders run the risk of suppressing their ability to pay attention to the human side of moral dilemmas and, in doing so, dehumanize colleagues, particularly subordinates, and clients.
Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe... more Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe that it lies beyond the reach of standard scientific methods, have something in common: both groups view consciousness as posing a special challenge for science. In this paper, we take a close look at the nature of this challenge. We show that popular conceptions of the problem of consciousness, epitomized by David Chalmers' formulation of the 'hard problem', can be best explained as a cognitive illusion, which ...
Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opp... more Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opposed brain net- works. First, most attention-demanding cognitive tasks activate a stereotypical set of brain areas, known as the task-positive network and simultaneously deactivate a different set of brain regions, commonly referred to as the task negative or default mode network. Second, functional connectivity analyses show that these same opposed networks are anti-correlated in the resting state. We hypothesize that these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of which may be directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging one mode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other. We test this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently asso- ciated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. Social and mechanical reasoning tasks were presented to neurologically normal participants during fMRI. Each task type was presented using both text and video clips. Regardless of presenta- tion modality, we observed clear evidence of reciprocal suppression: social tasks deactivated regions associated with mechanical reasoning and mechanical tasks deactivated regions associated with social reasoning. These findings are not explained by self-referential processes, task engagement, mental simulation, mental time travel or external vs. internal attention, all factors previously hypothesized to explain default mode network activity. Analyses of resting state data revealed a close match between the regions our tasks identified as reciprocally inhibitory and regions of maximal anti-correlation in the resting state. These results indicate the reciprocal inhi- bition is not attributable to constraints inherent in the tasks, but is neural in origin. Hence, there is a physiological constraint on our ability to simultaneously engage two distinct cognitive modes. Further work is needed to more precisely characterize these opposing cognitive domains.
Book reviewed in this article:Lawrence Weiskrantz, Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsycholog... more Book reviewed in this article:Lawrence Weiskrantz, Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration
In this article we explore the implications of opposing domains theory for developing ethical lea... more In this article we explore the implications of opposing domains theory for developing ethical leaders. Opposing domains theory highlights a neurological tension between analytical and socio-emotional reasoning. Specifically, when we engage in analytical reasoning (the Task Positive Network), we suppress our ability to engage in socioemotional reasoning (the Default Mode Network) and vice versa. In this article we bring together the domains of neuroscience, psychology, and ethics, to inform our theorizing around ethical leadership. We propose that a key issue for ethical leadership is achieving a healthy balance between analytical and socio-emotional reasoning. We argue that organizational culture often encourages too heavy a reliance on non-emotional forms of reasoning to arrive at moral judgments (i.e. the TPN). As a result, leaders run the risk of suppressing their ability to pay attention to the human side of moral dilemmas and, in doing so, dehumanize colleagues, particularly subordinates, and clients.
Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe... more Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe that it lies beyond the reach of standard scientific methods, have something in common: both groups view consciousness as posing a special challenge for science. In this paper, we take a close look at the nature of this challenge. We show that popular conceptions of the problem of consciousness, epitomized by David Chalmers' formulation of the 'hard problem', can be best explained as a cognitive illusion, which ...
Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opp... more Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opposed brain net- works. First, most attention-demanding cognitive tasks activate a stereotypical set of brain areas, known as the task-positive network and simultaneously deactivate a different set of brain regions, commonly referred to as the task negative or default mode network. Second, functional connectivity analyses show that these same opposed networks are anti-correlated in the resting state. We hypothesize that these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of which may be directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging one mode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other. We test this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently asso- ciated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. Social and mechanical reasoning tasks were presented to neurologically normal participants during fMRI. Each task type was presented using both text and video clips. Regardless of presenta- tion modality, we observed clear evidence of reciprocal suppression: social tasks deactivated regions associated with mechanical reasoning and mechanical tasks deactivated regions associated with social reasoning. These findings are not explained by self-referential processes, task engagement, mental simulation, mental time travel or external vs. internal attention, all factors previously hypothesized to explain default mode network activity. Analyses of resting state data revealed a close match between the regions our tasks identified as reciprocally inhibitory and regions of maximal anti-correlation in the resting state. These results indicate the reciprocal inhi- bition is not attributable to constraints inherent in the tasks, but is neural in origin. Hence, there is a physiological constraint on our ability to simultaneously engage two distinct cognitive modes. Further work is needed to more precisely characterize these opposing cognitive domains.
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