Psychoengineering

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Psychoengineering is a research-based engineering practice designed to control and mitigate mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. This site serves as a guide to psychoengineering and how to perform it.

Humans have two primary systems of acquiring knowledge: intuition, a fast and unconscious reflex; and logic, a slow and deliberate process.[1] Each of these dual cognitive methods is designed to interface with a specific type of information,[2] and are thus connected to different parts of the brain. The neural circuitry of intuition (the amygdala, basal ganglia and lateral temporal cortex)[3] is linked to circuitry related to working memory, motor control, attention, perception, and empathy.[4][5][6] Meanwhile, the neural circuitry of reason (anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and the medial temporal lobe including the hippocampus)[3] is linked to circuitry related to long-term memory recall, executive function, and complex decision-making.[7][8]

These systems are implicated in different behaviors, but like everything in the brain they are deeply connected and regularly interface with each other. For example, one could notice a dessert table and be drawn to it by their intuitive, perceptual mind - but ultimately be drawn away from it by their logical mind.[2][note A]

Empathetic mind Logical mind
  • Fast and parallel
  • High error rate
  • Useful in persuasion, detecting deception
  • Useful for perceptual, physical knowledge
  • Automatically driven by similarity and association
  • Prone to judgements
  • Slow and sequential
  • Relatively low error rate
  • Impossible to construct morality with alone
  • Useful for complex decision-making
  • Deliberately driven by structured, relational data
  • Tends to disregard emotions

Notes

note A.^ Psychoengineering uses "empathetic/logical mind" for these systems, but they have many different names in contemporary psychology. Stanovich uses "systems 1/2", so as to not give a preference to either system. Evans has used "old/new mind", in reference to the evolutionary age of each system.[9] Darlow and Sloman use "intuitive/deliberate system" to emphasize the level of conscious control present in each.[2]

References

  1. ^ Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  2. ^ a b c Darlow, A. L., & Sloman, S. A. (2010). Two systems of reasoning: architecture and relation to emotion. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(3), 382–392. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.34
  3. ^ a b Lieberman, M. D. (2003). Reflexive and reflective judgment processes: A social cognitive neuroscience approach. Social Judgments: Implicit and Explicit Processes.
  4. ^ Ramezanpour, H., & Fallah, M. (2022). The role of temporal cortex in the control of attention. Current Research in Neurobiology, 3, 100038. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crneur.2022.100038
  5. ^ Roozendaal, B., McEwen, B. S., & Chattarji, S. (2009). Stress, memory and the amygdala. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 423–433. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2651
  6. ^ Schacter, D. L., Daniel Todd Gilbert, Nock, M., & Wegner, D. M. (2020). Psychology (5th ed.). Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning.
  7. ^ Aharoni, E., Vincent, G. M., Harenski, C. L., Calhoun, V. D., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Gazzaniga, M. S., & Kiehl, K. A. (2013). Neuroprediction of future rearrest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 6223–6228. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219302110
  8. ^ Friedman, N. P., & Robbins, T. W. (2021). The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function. Neuropsychopharmacology, 47(47), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-021-01132-0
  9. ^ Evans, J. St. B. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3), 223–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460685
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