My research lab sits about a mile
from where several bombs exploded
00:12
during the Boston Marathon in 2013.
00:17
The surviving bomber,
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of Chechnya,
00:21
was tried, convicted
and sentenced to death.
00:24
Now, when a jury has to make the decision
00:28
between life in prison
and the death penalty,
00:31
they base their decision largely
on whether or not the defendant
00:34
feels remorseful for his actions.
00:39
Tsarnaev spoke words of apology,
00:42
but when jurors looked at his face,
00:44
all they saw was a stone-faced stare.
00:47
Now, Tsarnaev is guilty,
there's no doubt about that.
00:52
He murdered and maimed innocent people,
00:55
and I'm not here to debate that.
00:59
My heart goes out
to all the people who suffered.
01:01
But as a scientist, I have to tell you
01:04
that jurors do not
and cannot detect remorse
01:07
or any other emotion in anybody ever.
01:11
Neither can I, and neither can you,
01:16
and that's because emotions
are not what we think they are.
01:19
They are not universally
expressed and recognized.
01:22
They are not hardwired brain reactions
01:26
that are uncontrollable.
01:30
We have misunderstood
the nature of emotion
01:32
for a very long time,
01:35
and understanding what emotions really are
has important consequences for all of us.
01:37
I have studied emotions as a scientist
for the past 25 years,
01:43
and in my lab, we have probed human faces
by measuring electrical signals
01:47
that cause your facial muscles to contract
to make facial expressions.
01:53
We have scrutinized
the human body in emotion.
01:57
We have analyzed
hundreds of physiology studies
02:01
involving thousands of test subjects.
02:05
We've scanned hundreds of brains,
02:08
and examined every
brain imaging study on emotion
02:09
that has been published
in the past 20 years.
02:13
And the results of all of this research
are overwhelmingly consistent.
02:15
It may feel to you
like your emotions are hardwired
02:22
and they just trigger and happen to you,
02:27
You might believe that your brain
is prewired with emotion circuits,
02:32
that you're born with emotion
circuits, but you're not.
02:38
In fact, none of us in this room
have emotion circuits in our brain.
02:41
In fact, no brain on this planet
contains emotion circuits.
02:45
So what are emotions, really?
02:51
Well, strap on your seat belt,
because ...
02:55
emotions are guesses.
02:59
They are guesses that your brain
constructs in the moment
03:02
where billions of brain cells
are working together,
03:08
and you have more control
over those guesses
03:12
than you might imagine that you do.
03:15
Now, if that sounds preposterous to you,
or, you know, kind of crazy,
03:19
I'm right there with you, because frankly,
if I hadn't seen the evidence for myself,
03:23
decades of evidence for myself,
03:27
I am fairly sure
that I wouldn't believe it either.
03:29
But the bottom line is that emotions
are not built into your brain at birth.
03:32
They are just built.
03:39
To see what I mean, have a look at this.
03:43
Right now, your brain
is working like crazy.
03:46
Your neurons are firing like mad
trying to make meaning out of this
03:51
so that you see something
other than black and white blobs.
03:55
Your brain is sifting
through a lifetime of experience,
03:58
making thousands of guesses
at the same time,
04:03
weighing the probabilities,
04:05
trying to answer the question,
04:08
"What is this most like?"
04:09
but "What is this most like
in my past experience?"
04:13
And this is all happening
in the blink of an eye.
04:16
Now if your brain is still struggling
to find a good match
04:19
and you still see black and white blobs,
04:24
then you are in a state
called "experiential blindness,"
04:27
and I am going to cure you
of your blindness.
04:31
This is my favorite part.
Are you ready to be cured?
04:35
All right. Here we go.
04:39
So now many of you see a snake,
04:49
Because as your brain is sifting
through your past experience,
04:55
there's new knowledge there,
05:00
the knowledge that came
from the photograph.
05:01
And what's really cool is that
05:04
that knowledge which you just
acquired moments ago
05:06
is changing how you experience
these blobs right now.
05:09
So your brain is constructing
the image of a snake
05:15
where there is no snake,
05:18
and this kind of a hallucination
05:20
is what neuroscientists like me
call "predictions."
05:23
Predictions are basically
the way your brain works.
05:26
It's business as usual for your brain.
05:30
Predictions are the basis
of every experience that you have.
05:33
They are the basis
of every action that you take.
05:36
In fact, predictions are what allow you
to understand the words that I'm speaking
05:39
as they come out of my --
05:44
Audience: Mouth.
Lisa Feldman Barrett: Mouth. Exactly.
05:47
Predictions are primal.
05:49
They help us to make sense
of the world in a quick and efficient way.
05:53
So your brain does not react to the world.
05:56
Using past experience,
06:02
your brain predicts and constructs
06:04
your experience of the world.
06:07
The way that we see emotions in others
are deeply rooted in predictions.
06:12
So to us, it feels like
we just look at someone's face,
06:17
and we just read the emotion
that's there in their facial expressions
06:20
the way that we would read
words on a page.
06:24
But actually, under the hood,
your brain is predicting.
06:26
It's using past experience
based on similar situations
06:31
to try to make meaning.
06:35
This time, you're not
making meaning of blobs,
06:36
you're making meaning of facial movements
06:39
like the curl of a lip
or the raise of an eyebrow.
06:42
And that stone-faced stare?
06:46
That might be someone
who is a remorseless killer,
06:48
but a stone-faced stare might also mean
06:53
that someone is stoically
accepting defeat,
06:55
which is in fact what Chechen culture
prescribes for someone
06:58
in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's situation.
07:02
is that emotions that you seem
to detect in other people
07:08
actually come in part
from what's inside your own head.
07:12
And this is true in the courtroom,
07:17
but it's also true in the classroom,
07:20
and in the boardroom.
07:25
And so here's my concern:
07:28
tech companies
which shall remain nameless ...
07:30
You know, Google, Facebook --
07:35
are spending millions of research dollars
to build emotion-detection systems,
07:40
and they are fundamentally
asking the wrong question,
07:45
because they're trying to detect
emotions in the face and the body,
07:48
but emotions aren't in your face and body.
07:53
Physical movements
have no intrinsic emotional meaning.
07:57
We have to make them meaningful.
08:03
A human or something else
has to connect them to the context,
08:05
and that makes them meaningful.
08:09
That's how we know
that a smile might mean sadness
08:11
and a cry might mean happiness,
08:16
and a stoic, still face might mean
08:20
that you are angrily plotting
the demise of your enemy.
08:23
Now, if I haven't already
gone out on a limb,
08:29
I'll just edge out on that limb
a little further and tell you
08:33
that the way that you experience
your own emotion
08:36
is exactly the same process.
08:40
Your brain is basically
making predictions, guesses,
08:43
that it's constructing in the moment
08:47
with billions of neurons working together.
08:50
Now your brain does come
prewired to make some feelings,
08:55
simple feelings that come
from the physiology of your body.
08:59
So when you're born,
09:04
you can make feelings
like calmness and agitation,
09:05
excitement, comfort, discomfort.
09:10
But these simple feelings
are not emotions.
09:13
They're actually with you
every waking moment of your life.
09:16
They are simple summaries
of what's going on inside your body,
09:20
kind of like a barometer.
09:25
But they have very little detail,
09:27
and you need that detail
to know what to do next.
09:30
What do you about these feelings?
09:32
And so how does your brain
give you that detail?
09:35
Well, that's what predictions are.
09:37
Predictions link
the sensations in your body
09:39
that give you these simple feelings
09:42
with what's going on
around you in the world
09:44
so that you know what to do.
09:46
those constructions are emotions.
09:49
So for example, if you were
to walk into a bakery,
09:54
your brain might predict
that you will encounter
09:59
the delicious aroma of freshly baked
chocolate chip cookies.
10:03
I know my brain would predict
10:07
the delicious aroma of freshly baked
chocolate cookies.
10:09
And our brains might cause
our stomachs to churn a little bit,
10:11
to prepare for eating those cookies.
10:14
And if we are correct,
10:17
if in fact some cookies
have just come out of the oven,
10:19
then our brains will
have constructed hunger,
10:22
and we are prepared
to munch down those cookies
10:25
and digest them in a very efficient way,
10:29
meaning that we can eat a lot of them,
10:32
which would be a really good thing.
10:33
You guys are not laughing enough.
I'm totally serious.
10:36
But here's the thing.
10:42
That churning stomach,
10:43
if it occurs in a different situation,
10:46
it can have a completely
different meaning.
10:48
So if your brain were to predict
a churning stomach
10:50
in, say, a hospital room
while you're waiting for test results,
10:53
then your brain will be constructing dread
10:58
or worry or anxiety,
11:01
and it might cause you to, maybe,
11:04
or take a deep breath or even cry.
11:10
Right? Same physical sensation,
same churning stomach,
11:13
different experience.
11:18
And so the lesson here
11:20
is that emotions which seem
to happen to you
11:22
are actually made by you.
11:26
You are not at the mercy
of mythical emotion circuits
11:32
which are buried deep inside
some ancient part of your brain.
11:37
You have more control over your emotions
11:42
than you think you do.
11:45
I don't mean that you can
just snap your fingers
11:47
and change how you feel the way
that you would change your clothes,
11:49
but your brain is wired
11:53
so that if you change the ingredients
that your brain uses to make emotion,
11:56
then you can transform
your emotional life.
12:02
So if you change those ingredients today,
12:06
you're basically teaching your brain
how to predict differently tomorrow,
12:09
and this is what I call
being the architect of your experience.
12:14
So here's an example.
12:20
All of us have had a nervous feeling
before a test, right?
12:23
But some people experience
crippling anxiety before a test.
12:27
They have test anxiety.
12:32
Based on past experiences of taking tests,
12:35
their brains predict
a hammering heartbeat,
12:40
so much so that they are unable
to actually take the test.
12:44
They don't perform well,
12:50
and sometimes they not only fail courses
but they actually might fail college.
12:51
But here's the thing:
12:57
a hammering heartbeat
is not necessarily anxiety.
12:59
It could be that your body
is preparing to do battle
13:02
and ace that test ...
13:08
or, you know, give a talk
13:10
in front of hundreds of people
on a stage where you're being filmed.
13:12
And research shows
that when students learn
13:21
to make this kind
of energized determination
13:26
instead of anxiety,
13:28
they perform better on tests.
13:30
And that determination seeds their brain
to predict differently in the future
13:33
so that they can get their butterflies
flying in formation.
13:38
And if they do that often enough,
13:41
they not only can pass a test
13:43
but it will be easier for them
to pass their courses,
13:46
and they might even finish college,
13:49
which has a huge impact
on their future earning potential.
13:52
So I call this emotional
intelligence in action.
13:57
Now you can cultivate
this emotional intelligence yourself
14:01
and use it in your everyday life.
14:05
imagine waking up in the morning.
14:09
I'm sure you've had
this experience. I know I have.
14:11
You wake up and as you're emerging
into consciousness,
14:13
you feel this horrible dread,
14:16
you know, this real wretchedness,
14:19
and immediately, your mind starts to race.
14:21
You start to think about
all the crap that you have to do at work
14:24
and you have that mountain of email
14:27
which you will never
dig yourself out of ever,
14:29
the phone calls you have to return,
14:32
and that important meeting across town,
14:34
and you're going to have to fight traffic,
14:35
you'll be late picking your kids up,
14:37
your dog is sick, and what
are you going to make for dinner?
14:39
What is wrong with your life?
14:43
What is wrong with my life?
14:45
That mind racing is prediction.
14:52
Your brain is searching
to find an explanation
14:55
for those sensations in your body
that you experience as wretchedness,
15:00
just like you did with the blobby image.
15:05
So your brain is trying to explain
what caused those sensations
15:10
so that you know what to do about them.
15:16
But those sensations
15:19
might not be an indication
that anything is wrong with your life.
15:20
They might have a purely physical cause.
15:24
Maybe you're tired.
15:27
Maybe you didn't sleep enough.
15:28
Maybe you're hungry.
15:29
Maybe you're dehydrated.
15:31
The next time that you feel
intense distress,
15:33
Could this have a purely physical cause?
15:41
Is it possible that you can transform
15:45
emotional suffering
into just mere physical discomfort?
15:48
Now I am not suggesting to you
15:54
that you can just perform
a couple of Jedi mind tricks
15:56
and talk yourself out of being depressed
15:59
or anxious or any kind
of serious condition.
16:02
But I am telling you
16:07
that you have more control
over your emotions than you might imagine,
16:08
and that you have the capacity
16:12
to turn down the dial
on emotional suffering
16:14
and its consequences for your life
16:17
by learning how to construct
your experiences differently.
16:19
And all of us can do this
16:24
and with a little practice,
we can get really good at it,
16:25
At first, it takes a lot of effort,
16:30
but eventually it becomes
pretty automatic.
16:31
Now I don't know about you,
16:35
but I find this to be
a really empowering and inspiring message,
16:36
and the fact that it's backed up
by decades of research
16:41
makes me also happy as a scientist.
16:44
But I have to also warn you
that it does come with some fine print,
16:47
because more control
also means more responsibility.
16:50
If you are not at the mercy
of mythical emotion circuits
16:57
which are buried deep
inside your brain somewhere
17:01
and which trigger automatically,
17:03
then who's responsible,
17:05
who is responsible when you behave badly?
17:08
Not because you're culpable
for your emotions,
17:14
but because the actions
and the experiences that you make today
17:17
become your brain's
predictions for tomorrow.
17:22
Sometimes we are responsible for something
17:25
not because we're to blame
17:28
but because we're the only ones
who can change it.
17:31
Now responsibility is a big word.
17:35
It's so big, in fact,
17:38
that sometimes people feel the need
to resist the scientific evidence
17:39
that emotions are built and not built in.
17:45
The idea that we are responsible
for our own emotions
17:50
seems very hard to swallow.
17:55
But what I'm suggesting to you
is you don't have to choke on that idea.
17:59
You just take a deep breath,
18:02
maybe get yourself
a glass of water if you need to,
18:04
Embrace that responsibility,
18:08
because it is the path
to a healthier body,
18:10
a more just and informed legal system,
18:14
and a more flexible
and potent emotional life.
18:18