From the Brain of Matty

stimulation overload (31.01.08 10:08 pm)

Yesterday my colleague who has an honours degree in psychology, and whose psychology-related anecdotes I therefore believe wholesale without question, told me about some research he'd heard of that proposed a relationship between introversion, stimulus overload, and base-line brain activity. Basically it boiled down to this: brains have an ideal level of function. People whose brains idle at a lower RPM (so to speak) seek external stimulus to push the brain activity up. These people are called extroverts. On the other hand, people whose brains never slow down tend to avoid external stimulus. These people are called introverts. Introverts tend to suffer worse from environmental distractions and stimulation overload. I am a fairly introverted person, and I can't tolerate lots of loud noise. It literally makes it hard for me to think, and when it's really bad, makes me almost feel ill. I'm compelled to leave the noisy place, and often don't remember leaving the room.

The conversation came up because yesterday at lunch I lost a game of ping-pong 21-11 to someone I usually score much higher against, because for the last two thirds of the game the group of people behind me were having an extremely boisterous conversation, and I couldn't see the ball properly. Last night I went to pick up some pizza for dinner, and while driving home Led Zeppelin's Kashmir came on the radio. On a whim, I turned it up really loud. I find that music (especially good music) isn't as unbearable as noise, but I had it playing loud enough that all my mental activity was dedicated to driving. I felt like I was in some kind of zen state — there was awareness of self, and not much else. I couldn't consciously predict what I would do next while driving, and I couldn't remember anything I'd just done, but I managed to drive home fine, and my mind was almost blank the whole way. (Fortunately my autopilot is pretty good while driving.) It was a really good drive. I also find that pure evenly-distributed white noise (like tv static or rain) isn't as bad as more irregular noise. The worst thing is people talking. I hate the television when it's turned up loud (the way my parents in law have it most of the time.) I don't like people whose spoken conversation can be heard from another room. Constant noise hurts.

That's why I spend so much time in the back room, on the computer.

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