TRENDING SCIENCE: Why can’t you see things as I do?

We’re so certain that the way we see others, situations and even politics is correct. We believe the way others see all of these is not correct. Why is that?

After analysing more than 400 studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) psychology professor Matthew Lieberman says it’s all in the brain. The gestalt cortex to be precise, a region found behind the ear that helps people to quickly process and interpret vague or incomplete information and disregard alternative interpretations. His research is in press for publication in the journal ‘Psychological Review’.

Science has never been able to fully explain the underlying brain mechanisms behind how people make sense of the world. What is known is that several mental acts occur in the gestalt cortex. For example, we perceive a smiling person as happy without giving it much thought.“We tend to have irrational confidence in our own experiences of the world, and to see others as misinformed, lazy, unreasonable or biased when they fail to see the world the way we do,” Prof. Lieberman explained in a UCLA news release. “The evidence from neural data is clear that the gestalt cortex is central to how we construct our version of reality.”

We usually mistake our understanding of the world around us as an objective reflection of reality, rather than simply our own interpretation. Other perspectives are irrational. According to the paper, this phenomenon is called “naive realism”, perhaps “the single most underappreciated source of conflict and distrust across individuals and groups.”

“When others see the world differently than we do, it can serve as an existential threat to our own contact with reality and often leads to anger and suspicion about the others,” Prof. Lieberman added. “If we know how a person is seeing the world, their subsequent reactions are much more predictable.”An inference such as the one of a smiling person is instant and effortless, and it usually feels more like seeing reality, despite the fact that happiness is an internal psychological state. “We believe we have merely witnessed things as they are, which makes it more difficult to appreciate, or even consider, other perspectives,” Prof. Lieberman elaborated. “The mind accentuates its best answer and discards the rival solutions. The mind may initially process the world like a democracy where every alternative interpretation gets a vote, but it quickly ends up like an authoritarian regime where one interpretation rules with an iron fist and dissent is crushed. In selecting one interpretation, the gestalt cortex literally inhibits others.”

“Our capacity to immediately experience a coherent world is the unheralded backbone of a meaningful life,” the paper states. “The world around us is almost always immediately sensible in a way that feels effortless, is rarely considered, but yet informs nearly all of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.”

We view the world through our own lens. Perhaps we could borrow somebody else’s glasses from time to time.