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Dario Nardi's Neuroscience of Personality

dimane

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hey if anyone bought the book do you think you could post INTP and ISTP descriptions...thanks
 

FFF

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I watched the video. It was good. I really wanna get that book... and add it to the collection of books I'm never gonna read.
 

animenagai

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I know this is an old thread, but I personally think that it's one of the best posts ever on typeC. Just watched the video too, great stuff. I'm definitely a Christmas tree. When I was young I actually tried to stimulate every region of my brain through message, movement, meditation etc. It's good to know that turning them off can also be a good thing. Gotta work on that.
 

Cimarron

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Glad someone dug this up, I hadn't seen it.

I thought this was going to be dumb...but on the contrary, it's amazing info to think about.
 

Mia.

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What was that from the non-Ni users about the whole Ni association with mysticism being a crock?

Anyone who would say that isn't working with a full deck, research or no. I have a Word document dedicated to musings and Ne gathered intell on this very phenomenon.
 

Mia.

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Functions and Neocortex Activity:

Introverted Feeling

Fi types:
  • Are consummate listeners who listen in a holistic way.
  • INFPs can deeply listen for up to 10 minutes at a time, ISFPs listen briefly and then move to action.
  • Show high activity in T3 and T4, which handle language.
  • Carefully compose their own speech, attending to both content and delivery.
  • Show high activity in F8, and are stimulated by rankings of importance.
  • Show the least activity in interior regions that aid logic.
  • Rely on left-brained (Fp1) decision making.

Extraverted Intuiting (Ne)

Ne types:
  • Often show a "Christmas Tree" pattern.
  • Often experience creative highs.
  • Provide fast, creative responses (sometimes too creative) – lol yes :D
  • Find it difficult to get "in the zone," and can do so only after practicing and internalizing an activity over weeks, months, or years.
  • Use regions that support imagination.

A "Christmas Tree" pattern is one in which the neocortex is active all over, each region is of high amplitude and out-of-sync with others. This pattern indicates cross-contextual thinking. This pattern is also very energy intensive, and may produce distractions and contradictions.

INFPs may get to the core of a person's psychology by listening for so long. INFPs are less likely to defend their own views or take action, though when they stop listening, region Fp1 becomes very active as they make a strong (and perhaps final) decision.

Based on Nardi's experiences, he would classify the strength of each functions as:

Ne: Perceive and play with patterns of relationships across contexts.
Fi: Listen with your whole self to locate and support what's important.

Yeah, sounds like me allright.
 
G

garbage

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Fi: Listen with your whole self to locate and support what's important.
By the way, this Fi "one-liner" description is probably the best that I've seen. (I wouldn't have noticed it if [MENTION=15004]mia_infp[/MENTION] hadn't pointed it out.)

I'm in the middle of the Google talk now. Good stuff :popc1:
 

Mia.

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By the way, this Fi "one-liner" description is probably the best that I've seen. (I wouldn't have noticed it if [MENTION=15004]mia_infp[/MENTION] hadn't pointed it out.)

I'm in the middle of the Google talk now. Good stuff :popc1:

Indeed to both. :)
 

Seymour

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hey if anyone bought the book do you think you could post INTP and ISTP descriptions...thanks

The section on Ti in the second "spoiler" of the OP is most applicable (since that's as close to he comes discussions INTPs and ISTPs in depth in terms of his research).

Here a couple of tidbits I didn't include in the Ti-section above:
  • Female Ti-types tend to be better listeners than male Ti-types
  • Male Ti-types have a hard time reporting back what was being said, when asked (they'd stopped listening and detached)

And from what I remember from the workshop (so this will be my paraphrasing from fallible memory) INTPs, in particularly, tend to detach to logically process. In fact, some of the other EEG regions turned Green (which seems to indicat a dissociated state) while those inner logic regions (F3, F4 in particular for INTPs) were highly activated.

Other workshop tidbits

Other things pointed out at the workshop:

  • Introverts tend to use the same region when responding to people and objects; this was less true of extraverts.
  • While Nardi's book show's one kind of "universal" engagement curve, it actually appears to be different for Ns vs Ss (according to some later research). Ns are more engaged by novelty and tended to be more motivated at novel tasks. Ss tended to be less motivated as tasks become less practical or important (writing one's name backwards instead of forwards, for example).
  • SPs are among the best at recalling contexual detail, but only when a situation is interesting enough (SFPs, in particular, are great with detail when a context is emotionally charged).
  • Ni types can be great a coming up with answers seemingly "out of nowhere" and tend to be solid generalists, but their holistic, whole-brain strategy isn't particularly good at coming up with answers quickly under stress. They may enter their "Zen" state, only to return without an answer, resulting in freezing under stress as they try to force solutions to appear.
  • ESTJs can enter an INFP-like "in the zone" listening state, but only when listening to authority figures (sorry peers and underlings!).

Si-types As specialists

One interesting thing Nardi talked about was how Si-types (especially Si-doms) tend to be specialists that use role-models, repetition and practice to "burn in" specialized skills. In fact, they tend to show very modal patterns of brain activity, so that their brain patterns may be quite different in different contexts (at work vs at home, for example). He contrasted that with Ni-doms (like Nardi himself, an INTJ), who tend to be generalists that can (given enough background information and the right environment) simulate expert thinking.


F8 (Fi?) and different types

A final thing he pointed out was that those types show a lot of activity in F8 seem to use F8 somewhat differently. INFPs seem to use F8 mostly for positive valuations. ISFPs tend to use it for both positive and negative valuations. Most Te-types tend to use it for negative valuations.

This made some sense to me, since it often seems like TJ deeply care about things when they are going wrong. It would help explain why TJs tend to see Fi (assuming F8 is a home to Fi) as largely dark and negative.

On a related note, ISTJs and INTJs were the most easily irritated with spikes of very high activity in T4.

T5 and different types

T5, the region of the neocortex related to attending to social feedback and feeling ashamed/embarrassed, is used heavily by Fe types (and seems to be an obvious fit for at least some qualities we associate with Fe).

Conversely, ISTPs tended to show the least activity in T5, with some ISTPs never showing any activity in the region no matter how embarrassing the situation in the lab. INTPs generally showed low activity in T5 as well. However, when that region finally activated for INTPs in the lab, it tended to spill over into neighboring speech and movement centers (which may be one reason why most of us, regardless of type, get clumsy and tongue-tied when embarrassed).

T5 is also used by heavily by male FPs, but far less so by female FPs... but what does that mean (Nardi didn't speculate on that, that I recall)? Could it mean that male FPs tend to feel more socially constrained than female FPs (and so perhaps are less likely to be visibly quirky)? Do male FPs learn to blend socially for some reason (social pressure)?

Of course, some studies have also shown that men tend to use T5 for facial recognition, which might explain a greater use of T5 in male FPs.
 

dadapolka

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Yay I've been looking for something like this for ages!

Would be interested in knowing more about this guy and whether he is respected scientifically etc
60 people is a small sample.
 

Mia.

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Yay I've been looking for something like this for ages!

Would be interested in knowing more about this guy and whether he is respected scientifically etc
60 people is a small sample.

Yes, one of the problems with his research is his extremely small sample size. There are sixteen types, and only 60 people were tested, which averages out to less than 4 people of each type. That's assuming there actually were 3-4 people of each type, which I would guess wasn't the case, with some types being over represented and others being under represented.
 

dimane

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The section on Ti in the second "spoiler" of the OP is most applicable (since that's as close to he comes discussions INTPs and ISTPs in depth in terms of his research).

Thanks for the info
I was going to buy the book but now I'm not so sure.
 

Southern Kross

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Introverts tend to use the same region when responding to people and objects; this was less true of extraverts.
This is odd. Could you elaborate on this further?

While Nardi's book show's one kind of "universal" engagement curve, it actually appears to be different for Ns vs Ss (according to some later research). Ns are more engaged by novelty and tended to be more motivated at novel tasks. Ss tended to be less motivated as tasks become less practical or important (writing one's name backwards instead of forwards, for example).
Interesting! Novelty is usually associated more with Ne than N in general, but I suppose it is not entirely unexpected. It is also interesting that Ns don't need a purpose or end goal to be motivated by a task and Ss prefer that it does. I didn't really think of this as being a specific difference between S and N - I thought of it as being more of a Je vs Ji thing. Perhaps these factors can work in tandem. :shrug:

ESTJs can enter an INFP-like "in the zone" listening state, but only when listening to authority figures (sorry peers and underlings!).
Does this apply only to literal authority figures or also to people they perceive to be an authority on a subject? In other words, do they simply respond to people in charge or do they also respond to those who command more knowledge and/or experience than themselves? Perhaps it is more generally driven by respect...

A final thing he pointed out was that those types show a lot of activity in F8 seem to use F8 somewhat differently. INFPs seem to use F8 mostly for positive valuations. ISFPs tend to use it for both positive and negative valuations. Most Te-types tend to use it for negative valuations.
What reason was given for this difference between INFPs and ISFPs?
 

INTP

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What reason was given for this difference between INFPs and ISFPs?

I think the reason was the activation of this area in eeg in both negative and positive things
 

Seymour

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Yay I've been looking for something like this for ages!

Would be interested in knowing more about this guy and whether he is respected scientifically etc
60 people is a small sample.

According to Nardi, 60 subjects is actually a pretty decent sample by the standards of many published EEG studies (many having 25 or fewer subjects). His approach used a combination of qualitative and quantitive data gathering. He describes it more as a "pilot study." He had a choice between doing something more focused and appropriate for publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, but that would have required establishing the exact study protocol in advance.

Since he didn't know exactly what he was looking for in advance, he opted to do a broader study without a pre-established protocol. That means he had less rigorous, statistically validated data than he might have (although he had some of that), but more qualitative data and flexibility. Ideally a series of more focused follow-up studies would be done, to reproduce and empirically validate what Nardi and his assistants observed.

And, it's true that he only had 3-5 people of each personality type (minimum of three, I recall). It's possible that the people he had for a given type were atypical for their type, or more similar to one another than average for same type individuals. It might be that some people involved were mistyped.

Nardi had previously co-published a small EEG study with a student, but otherwise hadn't been involved in EEG research.

Seymour said:
Introverts tend to use the same region when responding to people and objects; this was less true of extraverts.
This is odd. Could you elaborate on this further?

I'd like to, but he didn't go into it in great detail. All I foggily remember is introverts, when interacting with objects, show activation in brain regions that, for extraverts, only fire when interacting with people.

I don't know what that implies... it could mean all kinds of things. It could mean that introverts tend to find objects more stimulating than extraverts. It could mean that objects trigger people-related-associations more for introverts. It could mean that introverts carry around internal representations of people that are activated by non-people stimuli.

I have no real idea, but is interesting... and odd, as you said.


Interesting! Novelty is usually associated more with Ne than N in general, but I suppose it is not entirely unexpected. It is also interesting that Ns don't need a purpose or end goal to be motivated by a task and Ss prefer that it does. I didn't really think of this as being a specific difference between S and N - I thought of it as being more of a Je vs Ji thing. Perhaps these factors can work in tandem. :shrug:

I think Ni seeks novelty as well, just not necessarily as much external novelty. Most of the Ni folks I know tend to be continually feeding their interests (objective knowledge, culture, spirituality, etc). It seems like perhaps Ni needs information to align to produce better insights and predictions.

Does this apply only to literal authority figures or also to people they perceive to be an authority on a subject? In other words, do they simply respond to people in charge or do they also respond to those who command more knowledge and/or experience than themselves? Perhaps it is more generally driven by respect...

That's definitely possible. Still, I think SJs tend to have respect, on the whole, for the structure and utility of authority (NOT blind obedience to it, by any means). Given that, it would make sense that a sanctioned authority from a respected organization would start out being given more attention that a peer might.

But I agree that in a study with a handful of people of each type, it's not impossible it was luck of the draw.

What reason was given for this difference between INFPs and ISFPs?

Just what INTP said above: there was no reason given, it was just an observed pattern.
 

dimane

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I think what I really mean is what is the difference between NTP and STP
 

cascadeco

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I think that this sort of brain research is interesting; however the main issue I have is that things seem backwards.. although I realize you have to start somewhere. I feel like thousands of people would have to have their results recorded, *minus reporting mbti type first*, determine definite/solid patterns from that, and then once you have your solid groupings based on brain results alone, THEN you tackle mbti (have people take the test or self-report), and determine whether there is a definitive, absolutely consistent correlation between brain pattern/activity and one and only one type, and determine the validity of current typing methods/understanding, all in one bang. And probably/possibly redefine mbti and how typing is done/how types are determined, from that.

Anyway, the regions/descriptions I identified with most were F3, T4, T5, T6, 02, and Fp1. Least/ones I don't think I utilize much at all are C3 and 01, and possibly F8. All of the others I was neutral/undecided about.
 
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