Socionics and Neuroscience: Hypotheses

Here I propose a hypothesis of socionic functioning based on the length of neuron chains between clusters of internal receptors that correspond (or roughly correspond) to information elements, and consciousness. The fact that such chains exists seems obvious, since people are not aware of the receptors themselves or how they work, yet they are somehow aware of signals that come from these receptors. It is also apparent that people differ in their awareness of different kinds of signals. I see a few possible reasons for these differences:

The illustration above shows differing lengths of neuron chains from receptors to consciousness. This would suggest that certain types of information follow a more convoluted route in the brain and take longer to reach consciousness. Other types of information reach consciousness rapidly and with less distortion. Receptors with short neuron chains would correspond to one's strong functions, while receptors with long neuron chains would correspond to one's weak functions.

A better hypothesis

A better hypothesis than the one above, in my view, would be to suppose that a combination of the reasons listed above exists, and to try to describe the eight socionic functions in terms of these variables — size (quality) of receptors, number of neural connections, and length of neuron chain. For example, it is apparent that the leading function has many receptors (high-quality perception and differentiation), many neural connections, and short neuron chains.

Taking this approach, I would hypothesize that the mental functions (the first four) look like this:

In each case the length of the neuron chain is short, so information reaches the consciousness quickly. The first two functions are recognizeably "above average" (to their owner), while the third and fourth are noticeably "below average." Thus, one feels confident in one's interpretation of signals from the first and second functions, and unsure of (and often defensive about) one's interpretation of signals from the third and fourth functions. In addition, the fewer the receptors and neural connections, the more simplistic the perception of each information element. One's understanding of phenomena registered through the first two functions is multi-dimensional, while one's understanding of phenomena through the third and fourth functions is one-track and rather primitive.

A different picture emerges for the vital functions (5-8), though I am not yet able to put everything together. On the one hand, it appears that neuron chains for all the vital functions are long; this would explain the fact that people verbalize information using their mental functions first, while information from the vital functions tends to be processed without the individual's awareness. On the other hand, some of these functions seem to have well-developed receptors. For example, the phenomenon of suggestibility requires an explanation; how is it that the fifth function is weak, yet potentially is able to receive anything that is put in it? This contrasts greatly with the very discriminating 4th function, which is only able to process signals of a certain narrow sort. This suggests that the fifth function has many receptors, but they are distant from consciousness.

What about the 7th and 8th function, though? Do they then have fewer receptors? How can we explain their relative ease of processing information and ease of use of this information, and yet their tendency towards non-verbalization?

11/29/2006 Fred
receptor theories...number of receptors, and physical lengths is a shakey thing, because of physical similarities.

another way of doing this, may be to start models corresponding with Socion info elements based on brain region interaction types.

i.e. some nature article, showed that stimulations of brain areas differed bt chinese and western/english speakers. if we assume that tasks like mathematics or language take up a universally same set area, then we may be able to see the reason why chinese speakers are on average better in maths, while in the west u only get a few,but very significant mathematicians.

actually it is not brain region stimulation
it is processing chains which differ,....i only said that to get attention. (processing chains do not imply area activation parcularities)

the BEST is brain organ/region interactions..
(not topologies of electric stimulation)
i.e. u may know the Amygdala is involved in general tonous and emotion,
whereas the hippocampus is the primary cognitive processing organ in active learning and a part of the 'permeant memory' creation chain.

it may be that Socion types differ genetically in brain hardwiring...
but the genetically determined preference for feed-between from these medially situated brain regions...

i would say...forget the exterior brain portions like forebrain and visual circuit areas,....these are merely tools, ..
it is the medial brains preference to activate or receive and give feed-back to these regions.

we may say the Intuitive socion expecially works well within the hippocampus.... and expecially depends on permeant memory creation activation processes dependent on NMDA receptors and CA1 to CA2 hippocampus regions..... and retrival systems where this has been stored in exterior brain portions..

a Think (square) socion.... may depend on first retreval, and second a processing by hippocampus, with a second prefered preference for relay in the cognitive chain to auditory areas, where the extratim square may immediately want to say and employ this situmulus for either feeling Amygdaloid related motions or logic hippocampus - more retrival actions, or if intratim, use auditory block considerations related to language expression chains to start the second retrival chain via hippocampus without immediate expression.

ethics and sensing, might err on the part of Amygdaloid functions in preference to hippocampus functions...

{warning....i intend my professional career to be in neurobiology....so my definitions of these organs 'hippocampus' and 'amygdala' is purely self gained, and only clearly stated in pseudo-science like publications...... but obviously to me, a better model of the role of genetics in neurobiology to socionics as an inheritable process}

11/24/2007 Lauri

Reducing it to the neuron level won't prove anything. The brain should be seen as top-down. It has top-down awareness and command of itself—for example you'll be naturally directed to excersise its weaker areas and there's a huge, unconscious, drive to reach some sort of finality in what it feels are its central concepts. The cognitive drive isn't best thought as a direction towards homeostasis, it's more like the self-optimizing function of life that needs to be very adaptable.

It appears that the brain has certain ideals of itself. They differ among people genetically, a bit like body types might, but also obviously due to environments.

Differences in brain area density are thus explained mostly by differences in these ideals, and the genetical part of them is in turn described by socionics. Of course some people will always overpractice certain areas. (Actually something as simple as playing an instrument will, in addition to motorics, also affect your overall "personality type", in ways that we don't really know about yet, at least that I know of.) The general direction towards personal weaknesses and strenghts is mostly genetical however.

The personality types are probably actually visible in brain scans. It'll be sort of like the next level of VI. All brains are unique, they have very high plasticity and their physical makeup _is_ what makes us us.

I can recommend this book for some good pop-neuroscience, with also some insights into type theory: http://www.amazon.com/Executive-Brain-Frontal-Lobes-Civilized/dp/0195140222 (The Executive Brain by Elkhonon Goldberg).

For example, it presents that there are differences in frontal lobe symmetry and that there are different "cognitive styles" that correlate with the symmetries. When both halves are about equal, which is more common with females, there will be a "context-independant" style in decision making. It means that, for example, objects with similar appereance will be preferred universally despite context. In males it's more common that the right half is larger, which creates a "context-dependant" style, i.e. decisions will rely on abstract valuation systems and every situation will be dealt with uniquely.

To bridge this into socionics, I'd like to make an analogy "phenotype"-orientation (with the "female" style) and "genotype"-orientation (with the "male" style). This leads us to the feeling vs thinking types, or at least my view of them. I believe the thinking type is better with abstracts (or they have an orientation to seeing through non-visible constructs) and the feeling type is better with concretes (or the constructs that are visible). The emotionality and people-orientation associated with the feeling type is merely a side product of the concrete orientation. That would explain a lot anyway. In fact I'm considering things like that Einstein and Newton might actually be "feeling" people. (please spare me but they have the feeling visual look). And that the feeling type is actually pretty good with "abstract thought" like mathematics or physics, as long as the operations are done in an obvious and grounded manner. I'm unsure about these things however (I'm still new to socionics), but I'm always open to discussion...

And another thing that the book deals with is the overall brain half orientation. I'm sure you've heard about it, they are specialiced in slightly different tasks. Especially, in relation to information, the right half is better at doing novel and uncertain tasks, the left one is better with routine and practiced tasks. The "right-to-left" ratio will change individually as you become more familiar about things, and it'll also change with age. There are however natural differences in brain half orientation between people. (Like at the extreme, handedness obviously.) This might explain, at least partially, the differences in rationality.

If you want to know more about things like these, going through something like cognitive style research ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_style ) will probably reveal some more parallels with the neuro/cognitive psychological and socionics personality typings...

12/19/2008 Craig
excellent article that i hadn't read in awhile. for what it's worth, i've observed that for the 3rd function, one can produce activity related to the information in that function adequately, but one's perception of the information which drives activity for that function is somewhat hazy.

with the 5th function, one can perceive related information when someone draws attention to it, but one cannot produce activity related to this function without help.

with the 4th function, both the perception of the information and the related activity connected to the information is limited.

with the 6th function both the perception and the production of the information is restricted to the actual information element. that is, if Fe was in the 6th position, one perceives Fe information well, but doesn't connect this information to Fi well. so Fe perception is higher than Fe production, and disconnected to Fi.

i've noticed this pattern more with irrationals than with rationals. with rationls, it could be that it is the 4th and 6th functions that are stronger than the 3rd and 5th. perhaps extraversion and introversion have an effect as well.