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Cultural Neuroscience and the Military: Applications, Perspectives, Controversies

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Advances in Culturally-Aware Intelligent Systems and in Cross-Cultural Psychological Studies

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library ((ISRL,volume 134))

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Abstract

As we are entering the golden age of brain research and the Biotechnological Revolution in Military Affairs (BIOTECH RMA), not only civilian entities in research endeavors such as the American BRAIN initiative or the European Human Brain Project, but also security and defense communities start exploring the cognitive area of human activity. Brain research, however, due to numerous technological and other limitations, does not cover the complexity of the mind, and the cultural variety of the individuals involved. Culturally influenced cognitive, affective and even physical domains embrace emotional antecedents, conditioning, moral reasoning, perception and gaining situational awareness, communication, approach to death, somatic health, aggression, responding to narratives, group relations and many others. However, only a limited amount of other research has been performed and reported on in this aspect. Therefore, the chapter analyzes the existing evidence on the culture-brain nexus and its numerous implications for human functioning in a variety of domains, reviews the existing solutions and projects that leading military institutions already realize in the cognitive field, and in the light of newest findings of cultural neuroscience, proposes new potential solutions and enhancements for the design and conduct of military training and conduct of non-kinetic aspects of military operations. The aim of the research piece is to expand on the added value of the cultural neuroscience research to the field, and to discuss the resulting reservations and controversies of a situation in which winning “hearts and minds” might no longer be a metaphor.

What seems astonishing is that a mere three-pound object, made of the same atoms that constitute everything else under the sun, is capable of directing virtually everything that humans have done: flying to the moon and hitting seventy home runs, writing Hamlet and building the Taj Mahal – even unlocking the secrets of the brain itself.

—Joel Havemann

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Transhumanism is an ideological and philosophical current that promotes radical human evolution aided by technology, in particular in the fields of neurobiology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. It aims at overcoming human physical and mental limitations, improving global social relations and achieving a new stage of human species development. Major representatives of the current are, among others, Raymond Kurzweil, Max More, Nick Bostrom, David Pearce, James Hughes Natasha Vita-More or Zoltan Istvan. An official portal that gathers the major thinkers and practitioners of the current is Humanity Plus (H+) http://humanityplus.org/.

  2. 2.

    The major techniques used to study the brain are: single-unit recording of neuron’s activity, event-related potentials (ERPs) that records patterns of brain activity to a stimulus, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) that has great spatial but poor temporal resolution, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and its more advanced event-related version (efMRI), that have superior temporal and spatial resolution but provide indirect measurements through blood oxygenation levels, Magneto-EncephaloGraphy (MEG) that deals with magnetic fields that result from brain activity, and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and its repeated variation—the rTMS, that uses brief pulses of current that produces a short-lived magnetic field that inhibits neural processing in the area affected [4].

  3. 3.

    It is crucial to draw the distinction between cultural and social neuroscience and neuroanthropology. The subject of interest for all three interdisciplinary branches is the bidirectional culture-nervous system-behavior relation, however they use various approaches, methodology and research tools. Cultural neuroscience explains mental phenomena in terms of a synergic product of mental, neural and genetic events, and analyzes how cultural traits shape brain function, and the human brain gives rise to cultural capacities and their transmission across various timescale. It applies the tools from cultural psychology, neuroscience and neurogenetics. Social neuroscience on the other hand, uses the methodologies and tools developed to measure mental and brain function to study social context of cognition, emotion, and behavior. And neuroanthropology provides the hands-on insight into those matters, as it confronts the neuroscientific findings with field work, joining methods and paradigms of cultural anthropology and neuroscience, and looks at field-based variations by drawing on anthropology, which has over a century of research on human variation. Problem scale (local, intrapopulation level) and of theoretical models (practical and embodied), separate the fields [7].

  4. 4.

    MK ULTRA was the code name of a CIA project realized in the years 1950–1975, that comprised experiments on human subjects. Its aim was to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control [9].

  5. 5.

    Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is a chemical mainly found in the brain, bowels and blood platelets. It carries signals along and between nerves - a neurotransmitter. It is considered to be especially active in constricting smooth muscles, transmitting impulses between nerve cells, regulating cyclic body processes and contributing to wellbeing and happiness [11].

  6. 6.

    Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter, in the brain playing a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Most types of reward increase and a variety of addictive drugs increase dopamine neuronal activity.

  7. 7.

    The dimensions of culture that are most widely used in cultural neuroscientific research are those designated by Geert Hofstede, a social psychologist from Netherlands, who based his research on IBM cross-company studies since 1970s. While investigating diversity of organizational cultures in affiliated companies, he discovered categories that help systematize them through major values that govern them. Those six dimensions of culture are: Masculinity v. Femininity, High v. Low Power Distance, Long v. Short-term Orientation, Individualism v. Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance and Indulgence v. Restraint (6th dimension added by Michael Minkov in 2010). For more details see [12]. Despite critical voices on his theory (for instance that the models present static, national cultures which fail to embrace the inner dynamics and heterogeneity of cultures), and the emergence of other cultural dimensions models, such as those of Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, Hofstede remains a classic in interdisciplinary cross-cultural research, from neurogenetics to marketing.

  8. 8.

    The reason of that might be an inborn defect, major hemisphere damage resulting from a serious accident or the very rare neurosurgery procedure of hemispherectomy. More about the cases in [16].

  9. 9.

    We will see to American solutions since U.S. Army has the most extensive experience in the field.

  10. 10.

    The P300 brainwave is a signal detectable in the brain that is produced 300 ms after a stimulus occurs, only if the visual information is selected by the brain as of utmost importance. What is interesting, it is hardly ever perceived consciously. More on the projects in [2].

  11. 11.

    Modafinil is Food and Drug Administration approved medicine used primarily in treating narcolepsy. In healthy individuals it enables prolonging the waking time by several times, with no side effects yet recoded. It is a popular performance enhancer in the American academic world as well.

  12. 12.

    The illusion tests the visual perception of the length of two equally long lines with different endings: .

  13. 13.

    The Author directs and conducts, among others, the Cross-Cultural Competence for CSDP Missions and Operations Course for the European Security and Defence College and the HUMINT officers pre-deployment training for the Polish Armed Forces.

  14. 14.

    The most common military tactical training and mission rehearsal simulation software is the Virtual Battlespace (VBS) immersive training package from Bohemia Interactive Simulations, with more than 19 NATO nations and nine partner nations as well as three NATO entities are current users of VB [42].

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  1. State Security Institute, National Security Faculty, War Studies University, al. Chruściela 103, Block 25, 00-910, Warsaw, Poland

    Kamila Trochowska

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  1. Kamila Trochowska
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Correspondence to Kamila Trochowska .

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  1. LIP6 (Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris 6), UPMC (Université Pierre et Marie Curie), Paris, France

    Colette Faucher

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Trochowska, K. (2018). Cultural Neuroscience and the Military: Applications, Perspectives, Controversies. In: Faucher, C. (eds) Advances in Culturally-Aware Intelligent Systems and in Cross-Cultural Psychological Studies. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67024-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67024-9_13

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