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Hernán Laperuta: Emotional Reflexes
Well, some years ago,
in one of my Doctors Without Borders missions,
in Perú, more precisely, I was assisting some natives
and I witnessed the funeral of one of them.
Really sad by the way, but I was truly surprised by the fact that
in the middle of the improvised ceremony a woman of the tribe
started to sing.
She opened her mouth and made a sound and,
to my surprise, all the people around joined
and started singing with her,
in unison, creating harmonies, changing rhythms,
an improvised song, with no scores,
with no director.
I was deeply surprised.
If my musical side was moving me,
on the other hand my scientific side said:
"How do these people do it?".
So, I came back after some other missions
and I observed similar behaviors.
Natives, people without restrictions, inhibitions,
they simply started singing.
I was surprised and when I came back home
I started researching these two neurological responses
that human beings have.
The first response is very classical, when
two people respond differently to the same stimulus.
For instance, I play a song for you
and one person is moved because it reminds them that when they first kissed
that song was playing.
So they are moved.
And the person next to this one falls asleep because that song
means nothing to them.
That is because this stimulus goes through some
areas of the cerebral cortex, that are primary areas that receive
these stimulus and associate,
it's where we keep memories, our experiences.
Therefore what we are receiving gets a meaning.
This stimulus also connects more deeply with
the basal ganglia and the limbic system that is the one
which manages our emotions and instincts.
I also studied another neurological response that is
definitely totally opposite to this last one.
How two people of different race and age react
exactly the same or generate an exact equal response to
the same stimulus; this is called reflex reactions
or responses.
The famous reflex when the doctor hits your knee and you give
a little kick, no matter what's your age, or race, no matter
anything at all, we all give the kick.
So, researching on these two basic concepts
of neurology, combining these deep experiences I had
in these Doctors Without Borders missions, I created a research
problem, and I asked myself:
"Can you generate a musical reflex response, stimulating
punctually and specifically some emotional centers in
different people?"
And so this is how I advanced in the work.
This is a group in the Patagonia, where we work with these reflexes,
visual stimulus, different images.
They had a very funny pet.
Different visual stimulus generated music,
a chord, lyrics with no lyrics, without a direction,
it just came out as a reflex.
That's why I called it an emotional reflex.
And
following, I had prepared a video of this same
group doing this presentation.
But here the TEDx people, as they usually do things differently
as you've seen, asked me to make a live demonstration.
And to make this live demonstration I need volunteers.
Male volunteers because the images I brought have more
to do with men's emotional background.
So if I have a volunteer, raise the hand the ones who
want to come up...
I have one there, one volunteer, another one there, very good.
You two there please.
I need please six volunteers, we have here
seven.
It's going to be seven with me.
Let's see, six and one more.
There's another one, very good.
I think we're done.
Yes, we're OK.
One, two, three, four, five, six, we're missing one,
over there, could you come up please?
Thank you.
Great.
I'm going to ask you to please take a microphone.
Yes, take any of them.
Yes, yes, very well.
Now, what I'm going to ask you is really simple.
First of all, thanks for coming up.
And second, I'm going to ask you to look at some images
and to just concentrate.
First you have to close your eyes, are you ready?
Close your eyes.
You're going to hear a sound.
I please ask the audience to be silent.
Open your eyes, look at this image.
They are watching in the monitor the same you are
in the screen.
Close your eyes please.
Open your eyes.
Look at that image.
Close your eyes please, listen to the sound.
Look at the image, open your eyes.
Once again close your eyes.
Look at the next image,
hear the sound.
When I say 'go', emit the first sound that comes to you,
don't be shy.
The very first thing that comes out.
Go.
[Singing]
[Applause]
[Applause]
Thank you very much to all.
Have a good day.
MC: Thank you very much, doctor.
This was the a capella vocal group Vox Pop that are going to sing for us
again in the afternoon, thank you very much.
Thank you.