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egleichman's picture

shying away from nurture

Submitted by egleichman on Sun, 04/18/2010 - 7:36pm.

Well I was going to talk about vision, but then I came across this article by LiveScience which seems to shed a new light on human perception:  (http://www.livescience.com/health/shy-brain-process-information-differently-100405.html).  The study suggests that the input/output systems in shy individuals are notably different from that of the extrovert.  One really interesting part of the study found that shy/introverted people may pay closer attention to sensory input, with more activity happening in the part of the brain that sorts stimuli than everyone else; shy/introverted people are, according to the article, more sensitive to loud sounds, caffeine, crowds, and pain.  

Could shyness be so predetermined?  Does this study suggest that a lot of nature, and maybe not so much nurture, play into a person's shyness since it's very much to do with how our brains handle sensory input?  And is the shy person evolutionarily favored because of his inclination to process input more slowly before acting upon it?

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