Harry Thompson, Holmes Chapel school, UK Human nature is such that we respond more forcefully to emotional appeals than to facts.
For example, perceived uncertainty increases people's response to aversive stimuli if they occur: we respond more emotionally to adverse outcomes when they are uncertain.
"Given the way the human brain is wired we respond more strongly to negative and novel events," says Vinita Mehta, a clinical psychologist in Washington DC.
I would argue that an equally profound one has taken place in the past 50 years, and that we respond more readily to art that is finally unresolved, inexplicable and mysterious.
We respond more to a child drowning right before our eyes than to the plight of a child we don't see and whom we know (only by description) to be in danger of dying of starvation in some distant country; and, similarly, we respond more to the "clear and present" danger faced by miners we hear are trapped underground than to dangers we know will arise in some indefinite future.
We respond more and react less, because we (the mind) have learned how to direct the brain as it keeps the trading floor open all day, every day.
In conclusion, we found that pSTS responded more to sequences of faces that changed in expression and gaze, but did not change in identity, compared with similar sequences that changed in identity.
No brain region showed the reverse interaction, that is, we found no areas that responded more to the accent of the out-group.
We also found that market activity responded more to news with higher topicality.
It's all (and only) about the need to procreate, and although it's most often described in terms of visual attributes, in fact when we're "in lust", we're responding more to scent than to sight.
