Legend Series #1 - Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa (Harvard University)

Podcast Link: #64 Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa

Our first entry into “The Legends Series” is Robert S. Murphy’s interview with Dr Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa from Harvard University. What you first notice from their interactions is their familiarity, having met many years ago on a research trip to Quito in 2013. In fact, this noticing of the patterns of their interaction which tells you that these two go way back is the theme of the interview: patterns.

We notice things all the time, but we very rarely think about them: we internalise, construct, test, confirm and reject inferences and hypotheses constantly, but we rarely externalise these processes through verbal or written production. They happen without concrete manifestation, but we don’t forget them. These patterns we notice form the models and heuristics that we apply to future situations, even in the abstract. 

I’ll let Professor Tokuhama-Espinosa explain it in her own words:

(16:39) - Your brain is always always comparing what it knows with the new things out in the world, not just when you're in a classroom, but in life in general. You know, how is New York different from Quito though, you know, you're always looking for things that are novel, and things that don't show a pattern? So what is the pattern of something that I already know? Well, I typically used to do my grocery shopping in this way. And now I have to do my grocery shopping in this way. So there's patterns in life, there's patterns of activities, but there's also patterns and things like sentence structures, you know, what is? What is the basic pattern of a sentence in, you know, simple past tense in English, okay, when you're teaching this to somebody else? Well, here's our basic structure. Okay. But when you deviate from the pattern, when is it acceptable? And when is it not acceptable, at least grammatically speaking, right? And so your brain is always looking for what it knows and comparing it with what is new.

I use the analogy of driving a car when I bring up this easily grasped but abstractly explainable neurobiological activity. When you first learn to drive a car, everything is new, the wheel, the pedals, the mirrors, the buttons, the gear stick (if you learned to drive properly), and so everything is terribly confusing and stressful because every move of your eyes, hands, and feet is what Daniel Kahneman would call a “Type 2” decision, i.e. it is slow thinking because everything is done consciously, sometimes with vocalizations of the activities themselves (“hands on the wheel,” “10 and 2,” “find the bite,” etc.) or your honest reaction to getting the action wrong (“F**k THIS!!”). Over time, as nothing YOU are doing in the car is new, it becomes automated, systematised, subconscious, and a lot less stressful. The majority of your decisions are “Type 1” decisions; you are “thinking fast” or, in reality, not ‘thinking’ at all. This leaves your brain open again to the things that ARE new, i.e., the actions of other drivers, changes in traffic lights, and the movements of pedestrians or animals.

This is similar to my point before about knowing that Robert and Tracey are friends and long-time friends at that. This is why I prefer questions about register, genre, and tone to come early in any comprehension test. I don’t have the listener answer single-point questions first; I will ask, “How would you describe this relationship?” And give options such as “a) Friends at a bar; b) Colleagues discussing research; c) Customers in a clothes shop; d) Strangers meeting on a bus.” This item generally works well to start a comprehension check because the listener can apply their pattern recognition to actively discard options such as strangers, narrow it down to at least the options that include a degree of familiarity, and then recall other aspects of the dialogue. “But, isn’t this an easy question?” I hear some of you ask, to which I would reply, “Yes, it should be, IF you have actually listened to the dialogue: this answer cannot be guessed without context, and it cannot be answered correctly without applying some degree of heuristic appreciation of the task at hand. More focused “Who, What, Why, When, Where, How?” questions can be asked later once this schema has been activated by the tone/register question and consideration of the options.

The interview moves on to discuss applications of this understanding of neural patterns: how, when we know how the brain develops patterns, can we apply it to the way we teach and how we encourage more creativity in expression and interaction?

Tracey moves on to talk about “categories”:

(27:33) - So everything around you can be categorized. Basically, categories are very subjective to the user, how you decided to categorize things. Now within schooling systems, we spent a whole lot of time trying to help people see similar categories. So the kid who saw the spaghetti, the apple, the cereal, and the tennis shoe, who now decides the tennis shoe does belong, the tennis shoe belongs with the apple, and, and cereal, because those are the things that go together in my morning, I have to put on my tennis shoes, I have my cereal for breakfast. Spaghetti is a dinnertime thing, you know, and so the kid might have a totally different categorization of understanding. But the idea is, we and I do think it's a problem. We talk about divergent thinking when I encourage kids to innovate and think differently, and we slam them for thinking of categories that aren't the same as what we expect. So anyways, that is the relationship to school situations with categories.

This is a very good explanation of how we can and should encourage learners to play with the patterns we know develop naturally, creating something unexpected. And here Tracey reminds us to be patient because what may seem ‘wrong’ as it does not fit our expected pattern is correct because it demonstrates a different path of thought without being a different method of thinking: the same neurochemistry is at work but is being applied differently due to personal context. As soon as the student who groups shoes and cereal together explains how they arrived at that grouping, we all learn something new. And it’s always fun to learn together. The teacher sets the task, and the students lead the way.

Robert then asks about one aspect of pattern recognition and heuristics: the ‘applicability heuristic’: what are our expectations of a situation or person prior to encountering it or them, and how closely does the event or person match these expectations? These are also known as ‘stereotypes’:

(28:38)

Robert: So my question for you now then, is stereotypes are a form of categorization right? Now, so how inevitable and how evil are stereotypes? I mean, typically, normal conversation, if you say a stereotype that you're talking about something with a negative connotation, but can you explore that a bit for me?

Tracey: Well, actually negative and positive. I just had a student in the class at Harvard last semester, write this fantastic essay that had to do with them. I guess it was the curse of giftedness. And the other was the, the negative nature of the positive stereotype of Asian Americans. So it's basically the negative nature how it's so bad on Asians to be categorized as the perfect minority in the United States. ‘Wow, they're the perfect they never break the rules. They're always the conformance they they do the right thing they do’ and how bad that is to the individual. Because I know he's born, you know, Korean American, and here he is, now all of a sudden, he's been categorized as being x type of a person. So categories, you know, typically you're right them When we have those kinds of stereotypes, they typically are negative, but you would think calling somebody gifted or Asian wouldn't be a negative, but to the person themselves, the reason they're negative is because there's a, it comes with baggage of expectations, this is how that person is, without even knowing the individual, right. And so this type of stereotyping that you're mentioning, is a really huge problem in terms of the, your brain seeks heuristics, because it's a faster way to process information, right? Yeah, but if you've just lumped all Asians into one category, or all kids who are gifted in one category, you are missing human variability, which is the key idea in the uniqueness of how each individual approaches information based on their baggage of their past life. 

I always say that stereotypes are like Wikipedia, 90% accurate and save time. And stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason: we can notice similarities in the behaviours of certain identifiable groups, but this can have both positive and negative implications if the person forming the heuristic is unwilling to change the stereotype based on context. 

A very good example of this was given by Erin Mayer in her book “The Culture Map” when she discussed the concept of high-context and low-context communication, and she used the example of “Reading the air” (kuuki wo yomu, as it is expressed in Japanese), where high-context cultures appear to be able to express so much information and convey so much meaning while actually saying relatively little when compared to low-context communication. The entire context of the interaction, the careful selection of words and their arrangement, will express far more than just saying more words ever could. And this is fine if everyone in the discussion is ‘in on it,’ so to speak. If a Japanese CEO gives a very short but poignant speech to his workers, they are applying the heuristic that all their workers will ‘read the air’ and ‘fill in the spaces’ with their contextual understanding. However, this message will break down or be seen as inadequate if any worker is non-Japanese or is unable to fill in those spaces due to a lack of experience in these contexts. The application of the Japanese high-context communication stereotype has not led to a positive interaction. The same can be said of applying the stereotype of the ‘gifted Asian’ to a person who, though ethnically Asian, is culturally American. 

I’ll leave this blog here, as there is more I could say, but I encourage you to listen to the whole interview, as both the interviewer and interviewee make fine points and offer really helpful pointers and advice for a more positive application of an understanding of neurobiology in education and in your life generally.

Go on - have a listen!

Podcast Link: #64 Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa