Shy people perceive the world in a different manner and display a more intense cerebral activity when faced to certain stimuli. It appears that this lets them analyze information in a more profound way. Introvert individuals are also more attentive to detail, which differentiates them from extroverts.
Scientists from Stony Brook University from New York, Southeaster University and the Academy of China arrived to this conclusion after analyzing the mechanisms that regulate introversion.
They discovered that shy people’s brains perceive the outside world in a different manner thanks to the “Sensitivity for Sensory Perception”, or SPS. It turns out that approximately 6% of the world’s population behaves in an inhibited way. This is due to a congenital predisposition that makes this people more sensitive to stimuli than the median, thus, they need more time to think things over and make decisions.
Scientists chose 16 people from a group of volunteers and asked them to watch 2 similar pictures and observe the details in them while they studied their brains through fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance).
Timid people displayed differences with respect to the extroverted. It took them more time to observe the pictures and their cerebral activity was more elevated in the areas that involve visual and sensory perceptions. Their brains not only elaborated the visual perception but it was also activated for a more profound elaboration of the information.
Which are the areas of the brain that are triggered in coy people? According to recent studies, in those individuals with pathological shyness or Social Anxiety Disorder, the areas that are activated are related with the valorization of socially relevant stimuli: the amygdala, cortex, prefrontal and insular medial.
“This is due to an incremented sensibility to socially negative or new stimuli, considered by them as threatening”, says Francisco Doria Medina, the Stress and Anxiety chief from the Insitute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), and adds that “this persistent fear activates the cerebral centers that show up as more intense in the images obtained in the study”.
Shyness is a symptom that is triggered in order to take distance from a potentially tormenting social situation. “These individuals are sensitive to approval or disapproval from others”, explains Hugo Lerner, psychoanalyst and member of Buenos Aires’ Psychoanalytical Asociation.
Lerner adds that “today, science tries to explain a wide array of conducts through biological processes. But the individual is constructed in a social context: it is much more complex than a collection of neurons”.
Article source, Clarin newspaper [in spanish]
Image credit, A Journey to Joy
Article by Fernando
The guy in charge of this blog - husband, Psychologist, former Manager, Blogger, Job Coach, Recruiter and Information Junkie. Yes, I am all that.
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Excellent! Shy people have more active brains! Just as I expected! LOL
Wow, this explains a lot. I always felt like I used less of my brain because it’s difficult for me to easily conversate with people, but who knew that I actually use more of my brain. I guess with me constantly overthinking things, this makes a lot of sense.
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October 5, 2011 at 10:52 pm
It also means that you think before opening your mouth ;)
Fernando invites you to read..Expat: Moving Checklist
I agree to you Fernando. Shy people can think more before they will action so that they can not get into the wrong place of mistakes!
TracyAnn0312 invites you to read..SMS
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