|
|
|
|
. Essays from the 1970s .
A Mechanistic View of Mind - C. E. Brough.
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to present a unified mechanistic description of the human mind. Explanations are provided for certain internal experience and some external behaviour.
Motivators
We must take as a general principle that all voluntary motion is determined by emotion. The similarity of the two words seems to be significant.
In the case of spontaneous responses, the input configuration is transformed and integrated with experience before the emotional content of the configuration can be evaluated. A situation may only appear threatening in the light of similar situations of which knowledge has previously been gathered.
In reflective processing (believed to involve the frontal cortex), the mind decides how to act by imagining itself to act in a certain way, emulating the response of the environment reflectively, imagining itself to react, etc., and evaluating the emotional content of states achieved. That configuration of effector acts is decided upon which maximises the emotional value of the terminal state. (Theorem proving and chess playing by machine model this to some extent.)
Here is a list of emotions which have relevance for human behaviour.
Goal achievement/Frustration
One of the most intense forms of the achievement emotion is felt when, trying to solve an intellectual problem, one in a sudden flash of inspiration gains an understanding which jumps one significantly nearer the “solution”. A form of abstracted pattern recognition is involved, in which one suddenly sees a relationship, which is often what could be called an analogy, between previously disparate configurations. It is an understanding of these analogies between configurations which allows simple explanations for natural phenomena: this is scientific advance.
In general, a mild achievement emotion results from “ticking off” subgoals in a plan one after the other. A good example is a shopping list.
Frustration is felt when there is pressure (either from outside or from a previous internal decision) to achieve a goal but little progress has been made over a period of time.
Interest/Anxiety
A configuration is interesting if it is not completely familiar and some structure (pattern) is perceived in it. An example (at the first reading) is
1 2 3 6 12 13 14 28 56 57.
Anxiety is felt when no significant pattern is seen in an unfamiliar environment.
Controlled manipulation/Uncontrolled body movement
To acquire and practise a complex manipulative task such as playing the piano is pleasurable. Many such skilful motor configurations include periods of smooth controlled acceleration (skiing, surfing, hang-gliding and many more). In fact, this emotion may be explicable as interest applied to the proprioceptive system. Presumably (ignoring other factors such as the approval of an audience) repetitiously playing a familiar piece of music becomes tedious.
Unexpected accelerations are unpleasant. E.g. tripping when climbing stairs - even if one does not actually fall.
It is interesting to relate these emotions to sports: in football the goals give rise to the achievement emotion. In cricket this emotion results mainly from a catch or a clean bowl. Skilful motor configurations are of course needed in all physical sports.
There are also the following emotions: flight/fight, hunger, sex.
Social behaviour
In preserving the recognisable form of a self-perpetuating entity it is more efficient when experience is being recorded, to share the experience of the members of the species. When another entity (of the same species) is still alive, it follows that his behaviour has been successful. It is therefore worth imitating.
In addition to the emotions above, there is a set of social emotions whose function it is to ensure the sharing of experience within a group of entities (tribe).
There are two ways of sharing experience. One is by direct imitation. This is found in primates. Chimpanzees seem to learn how to use primitive tools by imitating more experienced chimpanzees. Human beings laugh and yawn together. Children mimic their mothers in various ways, e.g. shading the head. (Perhaps the motivation to walk is mimicry as well - chimpanzees brought up among humans walk more often erect.)
This type of imitation is limited to what can be shown by one organism to another in the here-and-now. The human mind has an improved method available, allowing experience to be shared regarding milieux other than the here-and-now; i.e. language. Abstract symbols are used to denote the symbols arising from the partition of an input configuration. This permits the communal analysis of a configuration and synthesis of a response.
Technology and the development of civilization have been made possible by the implementation of written language. No longer is an individual limited by the experience he can gather in his own lifetime, nor even by what he can learn from the other individuals he meets in his lifetime. He has access to understanding accrued over centuries. Space flight would not be possible if each individual involved had separately to discover the Newtonian theory of dynamics.
The emotions involved basically cause Self to become identified with Other, so that Self can perceive the environment from the point of view of Other. It follows that there is a correspondence in the mind between the internal perception of the distribution of the parts of the body, and the external (visual) perception of a body thus distributed. (This also explains why when imagining oneself in a situation one can either perceive the situation from within the body in the situation, or one can perceive one’s self in the situation.) That this facility is built-in (i.e. present at birth) is shown by the mimicking behaviour of babies.
Descriptions of autistic children show that other human beings have no more significance for them than inanimate objects. Also, there is typically a misuse of the pronouns “I” and “you”: both are treated as third-person. These phenomena are precisely what would result from an absence of the ability to match the visual image of a human body with the corresponding internal sensations.
The social emotions are: pleasure at stimulating the Other by a description of some experience (cf. two people reporting to each other scenes from a film or television programme they have both seen), loneliness from lack of stimulus from others, tribalism. The last is a set of normalising emotions whose function is to cause individuals in a tribe to conform. The basic components are a desire for esteem (praise from one’s peers) and an aversion to embarrassment (disapproval; feeling one has done something not conforming to the etiquette of the tribe). Tribalism leads to wars and various types of gang dispute.
Compassion, jealousy, and envy are normalising emotions which are explained by identification with the Other. In the first, one notes that Other is suffering and it is as if one felt the suffering oneself. In the second, one notes that Other is well off and a goal is formulated: to transfer some of the benefit to oneself. In the third, one notes that Other is well off and the goal formulated is to achieve a comparable state oneself.
Humour is a social emotion.
Intelligence
Intelligence is the process involved in transforming affector configurations with a view to their comparison with experience.
The purpose of intelligence is to note patterns in a configuration (or in the relationship between an input configuration and experience). This is useful for at least three reasons. First, it takes advantage of redundancy (in particular in communication with other organisms), so that an incomplete or noisy input configuration can be rectified. Second, it makes more efficient use of memory. (Not only is the configuration stored but also the fact of the existence of a pattern; so any process of decay acting on the memory trace will take longer to render the trace irrecoverable.) Third, it allows infinite extension of the pattern, at least in some instances. (It is well known that from a finite number of language elements, a potentially infinite number of sentences can be formed.)
There seem to be three subcategories of intelligence: verbal, spatial, and numeric (to give the conventional names).
Verbal reasoning entails the classification of symbols. The transformation process on an input configuration is to replace a symbol by another (or the generic) member of the same class.
Symbols are placed in the same class if they appear in the same context. An example is dialect comprehension: vowel sounds in particular are consistently altered in dialect pronunciation. A repertoire of equivalent vowel sounds (i.e. those occurring in the same place in a recognised word) is soon built up even for a novel dialect. Presumably the first words to be understood are the ones closest to the hearer’s own pronunciation, and this gives a clue to vowel transformations which must be made in the more difficult utterances. (Reading of handwriting is similar.)
A second example is classification of words by grammatical type. A noun occurs in the same context as other nouns. Subclassifications (e.g. animate noun) are also accounted for.
Finally, there is the attachment of meaning to words. For open-class words, a word and an object are classed together because they tend to occur in the same context. So “table” and table tend to occur together (especially for children, who are not ordinarily subjected to a confusing barrage of abstract language).
Whereas verbal reasoning relies heavily on experience, particularly on the classification of experience, spatial reasoning has no such dependence. Spatial transformations are simply translations, rotations, reflections, etc., in an internal model of space, of objects perceived by sight and touch.
Numerical reasoning is that type of reasoning in which two symbols from the partitioned input configuration are taken together and converted by a rule in experience to give a third symbol. The obvious example is arithmetic manipulation of integers (especially single-digit integers).
A pattern is noted where there is repetition of a symbol, after transformation if necessary (i.e. symmetry properties). Thus “assassinate” (aloud) has two /æs/. And <> = < plus its reflection. And 235 = “2 + 3 = 5”.
When a pattern has been perceived but it is broken at some point, for example
2 4 6 8 10 14 16 18,
the emotion of interest is generated, centring attention at the point of conflict. This suggests that a child acquiring language will devote itself to words which it does not as yet understand. Only a limited number of centres of interest can be maintained, so common words will be understood first.
If no pattern can be detected in the input configuration in relation to experience, the universe appears chaotic and the emotion felt is anxiety. This is evidenced by apprehension on entering a new environment.
The frontal processor
In organisms “lower” than primates, the function of experience is to mark motor acts employed in certain contexts according to whether the result was beneficial or detrimental. The behaviour of the organism becomes modulated with the accrual of experience so that it tends to avoid obliteration. As experience is gathered by a child learning to walk, fewer painful falls are suffered.
In primates, and especially in man, experience is ordered within the mind for a more sophisticated use. The concept available is causality. If two symbols A and B are such that B is perceived shortly after A, reliably, then the symbols are noted as being causally linked. Often A is a motor act and B some environmental response.
A similar arrangement is found in other organisms but the caused symbol (B) is recorded in a simple fashion, e.g. that it will satisfy the emotion of hunger (Pavlovian response in dogs). In man, the caused symbol is recorded in detail. This permits long chains of causality to be followed through within the mind.
Further, there may be several possible caused symbols for one causing symbol, with varying probabilities. The frontal processor is capable of maintaining a list of these and investigating them in turn.
Man uses this facility to imagine himself in some context, performing some act, predicting the response, himself responding, and so on. This is planning and is used in games such as chess, and also in constructing mathematical and logical arguments. (Logical implication is modelled by causality - there is a temptation in mathematics to lose sight of the fact that everything which is true in a consistent theory is true simultaneously and necessarily, irrespective of the length of the proof or the method of proof.)
The imagined configuration is perceived in detail and the same mechanism is used as is used to perceive external configurations. As a result, it is not possible to be lost in abstract thought and at the same time attend to the external context. Some evidence is provided about the point at which the perceptual apparatus is switchable between external and internal configurations by the fact that routine activities (those programmed in the cerebellum) can be performed at the same time as abstract thinking.
The evolutionary advantage conferred is that the long-term consequences of some plan of motor acts can be predicted without the danger, delay, and error involved in acting out the plan without foresight.
Memory
Experience is recorded in memory. Taking a figure of 108 for the number of light-sensitive cells in the retina, and estimating the time-resolution of the visual system by the fact that 25 frames/second yields a discernible flicker, and assuming that the amount of information from the visual system gives an order of magnitude for the total amount of information, impinging on the human brain, it follows that the total amount of information received in a lifetime might be something like
2 x 108 x 25 x 3600 x 16 x 365 x 70 ~ 1017
However, as much information from the senses is entirely familiar, it is likely that only a fraction is recorded. Still, it may be that memory traces are stored at a molecular level [to make possible storage of such a vast quantity of data].
Experience is ordered in such a way that associated memory traces are linked. Symbols are associated in memory if they were perceived at approximately the same time (i.e. in the same context). When one memory trace is retrieved, all associated experience is prompted. That is to say, it becomes more easily accessible: it is moved higher in the queue for retrieval. Evidence for this is provided by the tendency when writing to repeat a word used recently, even in a different sense.
So it is that the organism’s perception of its environment causes all experience relevant to that environment to come to the “front” of the mind.
The process can be seen as well in trains of thought. If the frontal processor is not active, there is no structure to thinking, and the mind wanders. This typically takes the following form: a configuration is perceived (internally) and attention focuses on one symbol in it. A second configuration comes into the mind which also includes, or is otherwise associated with, the symbol. Attention focuses on a different symbol in the second configuration. And so on.
The accessibility of memory traces depends upon various factors. Apart from that mentioned above, all other factors seem to be explicable in terms of the quantity of information used in recording the trace. Thus repetition helps accessibility. When a configuration with high emotional value is perceived, more conscious attention is devoted to it, and hence the quantity of information received from sensor devices is increased. Again, where a pattern is noted in a configuration, not only is the configuration recorded but also the fact of the observation of the pattern.
The retrieval of a memory trace improves its accessibility (because it involves re-perception of the symbol or configuration). The effect of this is that little used (e.g. spurious or erroneous) perceptual data tends to become inaccessible.
Conclusion
Here then is a simplified schematic diagram of a human mind in the world.
The most immediate response to sensed environmental conditions is reflex. After that, if the context is familiar, behaviour is (subject to the impression of conscious will, i.e. planned goal-directed activities) automatic. Reflex and routine responses are active (if the context calls them) in the wakeful mind at all times. The extensive use of feedback and self-adjustment mechanisms throughout ensures that motor acts almost always blend together smoothly.
If in a routine context something happens out of the ordinary, if the routine is interrupted, then the routine processor alerts the conscious mind. This is done by switching conscious perception from internal configurations to the external context. Thus when driving a car, if the car ahead suddenly stops, one becomes suddenly conscious and alert.
The conscious mind itself is capable of switching perception from the internal to the external.
In non-routine contexts, the sensor configuration is processed by intelligence and compared with experience while it is being emotionally evaluated. On the basis of associated memory traces with their emotional value, and with reference to any plan which is currently being executed, some motor configuration follows.
Finally: in reflective thought, the above non-routine procedure is used with an internal representation of environmental responses. The frontal processor, which emulates the environment, maintains a list of subgoals (i.e. a plan) both for the reflective process itself and for chains of motor acts or chains of logical implication which are determined upon by the reflective process.
An Explanation of Schizophrenia - C. E. Brough.
Introduction
This paper purports to give a general explanation of the schizoid and schizophrenic mentalities. Specific behaviours are mentioned.
Framework
The Frontal Processor
A broad mechanistic description of the human mind is given elsewhere. What concerns us here is the frontal processor, which is that portion of cortex forming the frontal lobes.
The function of the frontal processor is to model causality. When some symbol in the environment is reliably followed by another symbol, for example the smashing of an egg after it has been dropped, then the mind retains the two symbols linked. Note the discontinuous nature of causality - two distinct symbols (perceived events or states) are involved, and not merely a succession of similar states. We would only loosely, or for some special reason, think that the impact of an egg on the ground was caused by its falling.
It is the case that the operation of causality in the perceived universe is not wholly predictable. Sometimes the egg breaks, but sometimes it does not. Further, it may be that a particular causing symbol has more than one reliably occurring linked caused symbol. If I throw a dice, I expect it almost always to come to rest showing one of six faces. The frontal processor is capable of considering all possibilities in turn. To do this it evidently maintains a coherence in the mind so that, so to speak, only one possibility is considered at a time. Long chains of causal relationships (or logical implications) may be played out when the frontal processor is working effectively. Examples include playing chess and philosophical reasoning.
Will
Often the causing symbol of a causal pair is a motor act. The mind thus foresees the possible outcomes of a sequence of actions and by evaluating the achievable states with reference to emotions relevant to humans (such as the esteem of fellows, sexual gratification) determines upon some course. This plan is “loaded” in the form of a series of subgoals, the planning process is suspended, and the mind executes the plan. (It is possible to plan the planning activity.)
Emotions
There are two emotion pairs controlling the operation of the frontal processor, viz. achievement/frustration and interest/anxiety. The frontal processor seeks to understand a perceived configuration for one of two reasons: sufficient internal relationships are perceived to make the configuration interesting; or so few internal relationships are perceived that the configuration appears threatening.
“Internal relationships” are patterns of repetition after the configuration has been compared with experience through the mediation of intelligence. E.g. a b c α β γ possesses internal relationships.
“Understanding” means explaining the complex in terms of the simple - i.e. finding a sufficient set of axioms which, with the addition of known causal links, imply the configuration which is to be understood. It is the essence of science. For example, the falling of all bodies at the surface of the earth with approximately the same acceleration is understood in terms of Newtonian gravitation.
So interest and anxiety load their own subgoal: a request that the frontal processor should understand some particular configuration.
Achievement is the emotion felt when a subgoal is satisfied. Here, the achievement emotion takes the form of the “Eureka” sensation.
Frustration occurs when a subgoal remains unsatisfied after the expenditure of considerable effort. Its function is to prevent the waste of resources on fruitless pursuits [after a final putsch].
Generalities
The essence of the argument is as follows. Certain people are predisposed by their genetic constitution to “frontal” activity. They are destined to be reflective, forever seeking to understand the universe. They may show exceptional aptitude for chess or mathematics (I have insufficient knowledge to tell if music should be included).
If such a person is subjected to a disturbed upbringing, that is to say if one or both of the parents (or perhaps the siblings) behave in an arbitrary, unpredictable manner, then he will acquire the notion that the Other in general is unpredictable, untrustworthy, and negative. Because of the high level of frontal activity, he is already predisposed to anxiety, and his family background has the effect of associating this anxiety with other human beings. (Since human beings are inherently spontaneous and unpredictable, comparatively mild disturbance in family life may lead to schizoid symptoms.)
As an aside, since self-awareness, insight, and schizophrenia almost always develop after puberty, it would appear that the frontal processor is not fully active until that stage of development. On the other hand, the existence of child prodigies and (possible) child schizophrenics may indicate exceptions to this rule.
Schizoid logic
The schizoid, because of his anxiety, avoids other people. Deprived of this source of interest and stimulation, he prefers abstract intellectual configurations. The frontal processor is so arranged as to take as input the effector output of the mind, so that it can emulate the environmental response. Thus unless he can find some completely absorbing external topic, the schizoid finds himself investigating his own mental behaviour and experience. The schizoid is bound to be introspective to some degree. He often regards himself as a mechanism [evidently this was my idea of a joke - note added three decades later].
This reflexion has wide implications. The function of the frontal processor is in effect to respond to the question “why?” Unfortunately the question appears to be ultimately irresolvable - for any configuration, whatever causal antecedents are found I may always demand their causal antecedents.
If the schizoid is placed in an environment in which he experiences intense unabating anxiety, the frontal processor becomes feverishly active. This generally happens after a change of circumstances, before he is habituated to the new conditions.
Three major patterns of behaviour emerge.
The paranoid pattern results from trying to understand minor slights by other people, to which the schizoid is of course extremely sensitive. An insight is gained (the “Eureka” sensation) which to the world at large appears invalid.
The hebephrenic pattern is an expression of the search for insight. The frontal processor when functioning incessantly presents an appearance of chaos.
The catatonic pattern results from a literal acting out of the belief that there is no point in anything. This view comes from noting that “why?” is at bottom unanswerable.
We can see then that schizophrenic behaviour is logically defensible. What criteria am I to use in deciding which of two courses of action to follow? How do I know I am right in fixing on certain criteria? Why should I think? Why should I be comprehensible? Why follow conventional logic at all? In other words, the frontal processor is in an unstable state: it is deciding that it is incapable of deciding.
Notwithstanding the difficulty of communication, the overactive mind may produce many original and clever notions. In particular, an institutionalised schizophrenic can get a certain pleasure from producing subtle statements which the doctor fails to understand. An example is: “Why is a silly question because Y is a crooked letter.” The connection between the crookedness of Y and the silliness of Why is not causal, but it has no need to be since Why is a silly question. Again, “A fool is a fool when a fool calls a fool a fool.” The meaning, given the context, - doctor interrogating patient, - is apparent.
Specifics
The essence of the schizoid character lies in the abhorrence of unpredictability in configurations which are capable of having an impact on the schizoid. By this I mean, for example, that the schizoid will not be too concerned about the fact that he cannot predict whether a tossed coin will show heads or tails, but he will be anxious over whether or not he is going to get a job he has applied for.
It is easy to understand, therefore, why people with this type of mind often prefer night to day. There is less variability in received stimuli at night.
Many schizoid behaviour patterns in fact can be explained in terms of an overactive frontal processor and the associated anxiety in the face of unpredictability. The feelings of confusion and perplexity reported by incipient schizophrenics are immediately understood in terms of an overactive frontal processor seeking to understand and find meaning.
The schizoid appears distanced from reality. He does not become involved in what is going on around him. This is because the activity of the frontal processor absorbs the attention of [his] mind. His perceptions in general are those reflected by the frontal processor and not those impressed from outside.
The schizoid is uneasy in the presence of the Other, especially if this Other displays considerable variability in mood and attitude. The schizoid feels less pressured in the presence of persons who are tolerant and noncondemnatory, and who do not make outbursts of emotion.
Because of his need for a secure, familiar, predictable environment, the schizoid wants the objects about him to be in fixed locations. Also, he may indulge in meaningless routines such as finger-twiddling, the [purpose] being to supply the brain with totally familiar stimuli. This gives the appearance of so-called obsessional behaviour: he perhaps will not tolerate ornaments and furniture in his room being moved, or he spends many hours pacing to and fro. It is doubtless the case that the conditions in many mental hospitals make it impossible for the schizophrenic to use this method of regulating his environment. Hence his anxiety is exacerbated.
A pattern of behaviour which is regarded as psychotic is catatonic immobility. This is similar to obsessional behaviour. If the sense organs do not move in relation to the perceived scene, after a while no neural messages are sent to the brain; evidently this is because through evolution it has been found that it is changes in the received stimulus which are of importance. If one looks at a spot fixedly for several minutes, the visual field appears to cloud over. The effect is that the catatonic experiences fewer unpredicted sensations.
Behaviour resulting from the intensity of the frontal emotion of achievement-frustration can be seen in schizoids. The schizoid experiences great pleasure on observing a connection between two configurations, i.e. a pattern of repetition. It sometimes happens that a person mentions some fact which has special relevance to the schizoid, or which he had just independently thought. He attaches great importance to this and if the frontal processor is extremely active a paranoid insight may be reached. He may believe other people are reading his thoughts or making subtle comments for the purpose of attacking him personally. Because most of the perceptions of the schizoid are internal reflections, there is a temptation to believe more readily than would a non-reflective person that events have some special relevance to himself (“ideas of reference”).
The enjoyment of patterns of repetition means that the schizoid is addicted to puns. He also tends to produce utterances which are difficult to unravel because of the repeated use of certain words, e.g. “What is the case is the case is the case” [meaning it is true that what is the case, is the case].
It has often been reported that at the onset of psychosis - that is to say in the case of a schizoid person under considerable stress - the world is seen differently, with an uncanny feeling. The schizoid is acutely conscious of the objects around him. This happens when perceptions are received from the external configuration and are reinforced reflectively by the frontal processor. Free operation of the latter is impossible because of the previously mentioned self-defeating nature of its decisions, and it reverts to the function of duplicating the experience of the here-and-now. In effect, instead of being partially aware of his thoughts and partially aware of his surroundings, now the schizoid is intensely aware only of immediate sensation.
Self-consciousness is a similar phenomenon. In this case the schizoid not only feels but is aware that he feels. The frontal processor does not emulate the environment directly but the reflections it supports are reflections about the fact that the schizoid is conscious of the environment, and that he is conscious of being conscious of the environment, etc. (This is another example of reflexion.)
A typical feature of schizoid writing (and thinking) is the frequent suspension of the main theme for the purpose of commenting on the fact that the schizoid is writing, or on the way in which he is writing. If these interrupts become very frequent (and they may, as we have seen, be nested) the resulting language output will be in the form known as word-salad. Densely packed interrupts of this kind are experienced as thought-blocking.
The schizoid mind is reserved and filled with self-doubt. It is unwilling to commit itself to any decision the reactions of other people to which are unpredictable. The schizoid fears making errors, and one use to which his tendency to interrupt his actions to watch them is put is to verify what he has done end eliminate faults. Hence he may be very careful in the matter of spelling and punctuation [not so Emily Brontë].
On the other hand, if he finds that he is unable to criticise himself effectively in this way, he may adopt the policy of deliberately making errors - for example, he may adopt a bizarre grammar so that it is impossible to say whether his usage is “right” or “wrong”. This is also the reason for schizophrenic self-deprecation - he is useless and lazy and he is responsible for all the ills in the world - so that people are led to expect little from him.
The disturbance of Will in schizophrenia is of course due to the fact that the schizophrenic does not formulate and load coherent plans. This function would be performed by the frontal processor but it has been incapacitated by the high level of neural activity (which is the same as saying it is always planning and never deciding). The person in this state tends to drift aimlessly: whatever acts are performed are intended to alleviate anxiety in the short term. He feels the victim of circumstances: it is not he who is deciding upon these actions. Introspection reveals that his thoughts arise without intention on his part (because just as he does not plan external behaviour, neither does he lay down a strategy for coherence of thinking). It is as if the thoughts are presented from some source outside himself.
The basis of delusional attitudes is the absence of the belief, widely held to be desirable, that external experience is more important than internal experience. Because of the intensity of the frontal reflections, the schizophrenic pays as much heed to them as he does to the “real” world. Doubts about the validity of conventional logic, resulting from a close scrutiny, predispose such a person to accept ideas which others are less willing to accept. If the schizophrenic was in regular communication with the world at large, it might be possible for him to adapt his behaviour to conform sufficiently to the attitudes of society. However, when he is isolated, he develops idiosyncratic beliefs which people in general find unacceptable. (Incidentally, it is my impression that when a schizophrenic asserts himself to be an historical personage, he usually chooses a person who from available evidence would appear to have exhibited a schizoid personality.)
Hallucinations are to be understood in terms of the intensity of internal perceptions and the attention devoted to them (this is especially relevant to the experience reported by the schizophrenic of hearing voices inside his head) and also by a lack of feedback from other people concerning the intensity of their perception of stimuli. For example, in the case of a schizoid living a monotonous life, with almost no unpredictable stimuli, he will notice more acutely small changes in the environment. He may detect a smell from his body which appears particularly strong. Without another person whose reactions the schizoid could observe, he imagines that the smell would be experienced equally strongly by everyone.
The frontal processor in the schizophrenic, I repeat, does not function properly. No subgoals are loaded, and hence the achievement emotion is no longer experienced. This, together with the widespread lack of understanding of the schizophrenic, causes a general feeling of frustration to arise. He cannot explain it or put it into words but it leads to a generally anti-authoritarian disposition. It underlies the non-verbal scream of loneliness and lack of communion which is heard from some schizophrenics. Again, institutional life is bound to increase frustration.
Conclusion
It is my assertion that schizoidism and schizophrenia are a result of excessive activity of that part of the mind which makes coherent plans for the future, combined with a greater or less expectation developed in childhood of the unpredictably threatening behaviour of the Other. I have sought to explain many aspects of schizoid and schizophrenic behaviour in terms of this hypothesis.
The response from R D Laing
