"Seeing" feelings
British researchers have identified a "sixth sense" that allows a blind man to distinguish between happy, sad, and fearful faces.While damage from two strokes prevents the man from processing visual stimuli, activity in the amygdala--the "primitive" part of the brain--allows him to correctly identify some emotions using only visual cues.
This suggests, as my colleague Andy Lester has noted, that emotions can bypass the "thinking" brain through a subconscious conscious that mobilizes the body to respond to someone even before we consciously recognize danger or delight.
We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made . . . and perhaps our ability to "reason through" life and faith isn't as important as some in my branch of the Christian tree have hoped.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, December 13, 2004
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