Different, Together | Scientific American

Different, Together

By Andrea Gawrylewski

In 2015 a woman posted a poorly exposed photograph of a striped dress on Tumblr. Immediately there was disagreement that spread across the Internet: some saw the dress as blue and black, others as white and gold. Remarkably, once you see the dress as either blue/black or white/gold, it may be very hard to change camps. That people could have such different perceptions of the same lace-trimmed dress is a good reminder: each human has a unique brain, influenced by their environment and developmental experiences. Dress-color disagreements aside, research is revealing that humans have a rich diversity of minds. And when they come together, they can conjure fresh in­­sights and innovations.

Where do our individual minds come from? Tightly linked networks in the brain make a kind of symphony out of the roughly 100 billion neurons firing. Reality is perceived in all human brains, but one person’s version is unlike that of anyone else. The ventral medial prefrontal cortex seems to hold the neurological “seat” for our core sense of self. But someone’s personality can change even from hour to hour.

Brains learn in many ways, even through late adulthood. Constructive feedback (rather than rote corrections) on schoolwork employs young minds as agents in their own learning. Neuroscientists and educators teamed up to show that lessons in map reading and other spatial skills boost verbal thinking in high school students. New views on how to evaluate and support kids with dyslexia and dyscalculia—like dyslexia, but with numbers—are energizing research into the different ways that brains process information. The better children understand how their minds work, the more enthusiastic they are about learning and the more academic success they achieve.

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Rather than “fixing” neurodiverse people, therapies now focus on how individuals can flourish in ways suited to them. Many people with autism yearn for connection with others, but stereotypical assumptions on the part of neurotypical people can get in the way of intimacy. ADHD has been misunderstood as solely a lack of attention, but a new book explores how the condition can also confer remarkable focus and creative problem-solving.

Brains are intricate and vulnerable to disorders. Genes linked to conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia share a fair amount of overlap. Research is now shedding light on the misconceptions around conditions such as borderline personality disorder and narcissism. Matching therapeutic strategies for teens to the timing of their brain development may produce long-lasting protection from anxiety and depression.

Emily Makowski, a copy editor at Scientific American, describes her ticker-tape synesthesia—the fascinating brain process whereby spoken words run across the mind’s eye like closed captioning. Like a lot of people with synesthesia, Makowski did not realize until she was in her 20s that other people’s brains did not process the world in the same way. One person’s reality is purely theirs and often unique—although when we first published Makowski’s essay, several people wrote to us, excited to discover that others “saw” words like they did. Our minds are different, yes, but within that is a feeling of belonging.