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BEATING
PANDEMIC WHEN SELF-
IMPROVEMENT
PLUS

FATIGUE
Top things our brains need
IS JUST AN
EGO BOOST
COVID
to help us get through the DELIRIUM
coming months
EVOLUTIONARY
ORIGINS OF
FRIENDSHIP
WITH COVERAGE FROM
FROM
THE
EDITOR

Your Opinion Matters!

Help shape the future
of this digital magazine.
Let us know what you
think of the stories within
these pages by e-mailing us:
LIZ TORMES

editors@sciam.com.

On the Other Side of That Pandemic Wall

As I write this, it’s been nearly one year since our editorial team decided to start working from home out of concern
for the novel coronavirus sweeping the country. To say that we’re living in a so-called new normal is a gross misno-
mer. The realities of social isolation, virtual remote learning, rolling lockdowns, and nearly half a million dead in the
U.S. are as far from normal as one could imagine. As the virus and its toll continue to deplete us, mental exhaustion
has started to kick in, as neuroscientist David Badre writes in this issue’s cover story (see “How We Can Deal with
‘Pandemic Fatigue’ ”). He has some insight into how behavioral science might help us get across the pandemic end
zone. The sooner the better.
Elsewhere in this collection, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman explores a new phenomenon whereby self-im-
provement efforts—yoga, smoothies, meditation—end up feeding the ego rather than engendering enlightenment
(see “The Science of Spiritual Narcissism”). And reporter Carrie Arnold investigates cases of COVID delirium and
what they might mean for future mental health (see “The Link between Delirium and Dementia”). Thanks for reading,
get some rest, and carry on.

On the Cover
Top things our brains need

GETTY IMAGES
Andrea Gawrylewski to help us get through the
Senior Editor, Collections coming months
editors@sciam.com

2
 WHAT’S March–April 2021
Volume 32 • Number 2

INSIDE
OPINION
26. The Mind-
Expanding Power
of Complementarity
Embracing divergent
perspectives at the
same time is a key to
understanding reality
28. The Ethical
KLAUS VEDFELT GETT Y IMAGES

Challenges of
Connecting Our
Brains to Computers
We must ensure
that companies, policy
makers and consumers
use neurotechnology in

FATINHA RAMOS
NEWS a responsible way
4. When Our Gaze 30. The Evolutionary
Is a Physical Force Origins of Friendship
Research documents The emergence of
FEATURES this crucial kind of
a strange illusion
14. How We Can Deal with “Pandemic Fatigue” relationship relied on
6. Forecasts of
The first step is to understand that it’s not the ability to recognize
ALAMY

Epilepsy Seizures
just about exhaustion or tiredness—or depleting the unique benefits
Could Become a Reality
a mental resource others have to offer
Making predictions
10. Electrical Brain 12. For a Better 17. The Science of Spiritual Narcissism
up to several days
Stimulation May Connection, Talk Self-enhancement through spiritual practices ILLUSIONS
in advance may help
Alleviate Obsessive- Instead of Typing can fool some of us into thinking we’re evolving 32. Looking- Glass?
with care
Compulsive Behaviors The phone is not as and growing when all we’re growing is our ego Look Again
8. Take This Quiz to
Noninvasive electrical awkward as you think, 21. The Link between Delirium and Dementia This illusion turns empty
See If You Are a Face
zaps, tuned specifically and you may have Delirium is very common on COVID wards. frames into mirrors
“Super-Recognizer”
to individual brain- a more satisfying Researchers are testing whether these
Many with this skill
activity patterns, appear interaction temporary bouts of confusion could bring
have a feeling they
to reduce checking, on permanent cognitive decline
are special. A freely
available test helps hoarding and other
them confirm compulsions for up to
their intuitions three months

3
NEWS

When Our Gaze

Is a Physical Force
Research documents
a strange illusion

Have you ever sensed that someone

might be watching you? You get a
prickly feeling at the back of your
neck and turn to see a stranger
staring at you across the room. It
sometimes seems that we can feel
a person’s gaze as a physical sensa-
tion. And, from a single glance, we
can tell a lot about a person, such as
their moods, intentions and focus. Is
their gaze dangerous, interesting or
attractive? Do they stare directly or
glance to the side? If “eyes are the
window into the soul,” then a glance

KLAUS VEDFELT GETT Y IMAGES

reveals far more than we know.
Recent studies demonstrate that
humans attribute gaze with physical
properties. We create tacit mental
schemes in which the visual atten-
tion of others is computed as a
forceful beam emitted from the
viewer’s eye and directed at the
object of interest. These mental
schemes allow us to take cognitive
shortcuts to process people’s visual
attention quickly and efficiently.
Gaze is an elemental form of
communication that can coordinate
activities and convey social dynamics
without a gesture or spoken word. It
requires a rapid interpretation of the
meaning behind another’s gaze, but
the trade-off for the speed of that
interpretation is the mistaken under-
standing of gaze as something that

4
 NEWS
can move things in our environment.
These studies show that this interpre-
tation is subconscious and automatic
and that it occurs even in those
who would consciously deny that
vision exerts any force.
You might expect that such an
erroneous interpretation would be
detrimental. In fact, while there seem
to be few if any adverse consequenc-
es, these findings may underlie rich
and diverse cultural references to the
outward force and power of the gaze.
The results of the experiment demon-
strate an ancient human idea linking
gaze with physical properties. This
notion, as old as the Greeks, is known
as the “extramission” theory of vision.
Extramission literally means “sending
out,” and the extramission theory is
the belief that vision is a force emitted
from the eye. It is an intuitive under-
standing of vision common among
children that persists among many
adults. In contrast, the modern visual
theory is called “intromission” and is
based on the notion that vision results
from light entering the eyes.
Using a series of ingeniously simple
experiments in one study, researchers
found that subjects associate gaze
with a physical force. Subjects viewed
a computer display that had an image
When we direct our gaze at something or someone,
others who notice subconsciously direct their gaze in the
same manner. We can take advantage of this tendency
to deliberately influence the gaze of others.
of a tube, roughly the size of the end toppling. Once again, the angle but that leads us to comprehend
of the paper towel roll, standing depended on Kevin’s perceived gaze it as something that affects objects
vertically on a table. At one end of the and was much greater when Kevin in the world.
table was an image of a face gazing at gazed straight at the tube compared To test this theory, researchers
the tube (researchers dubbed the with when Kevin was turned away. employed brain-imaging methods to
face avatar Kevin). Subjects were Finally, in a third experiment subjects demonstrate that gaze perception
instructed to tilt the tube toward were told that Kevin was either activates brain regions associated
Kevin’s image using specific keys looking directly at the tube or focused with motion. In this case, subjects
on a keyboard until they felt the tube beyond the tube at a wall at the other were presented images of moving
had reached the critical angle at end of the table. Once again, the dots or an image of a face gazing at
which it would tip over. The critical critical tilt angle was greater if a tree. Brain activity was measured
angle reported by subjects depended subjects thought Kevin was gazing using functional magnetic resonance
on whether Kevin was blindfolded. If at the tube rather than the wall. imaging (fMRI), which detects brain
Kevin was perceived as gazing at the Participants in this study were activity by measuring local brain
tube, the critical angle was greater screened for belief in extramission oxygen consumption. Areas of the
than when Kevin was blindfolded, sug- beforehand, and those who ex- brain involved in processing visual
gesting that his gaze was impressing pressed such a belief were excluded. motion (the right middle temporal
some force on the tube that needed So it is remarkable that all remaining cortical areas) and in understanding
to be overcome for the tube to fall. participants intuited a force based on the thoughts and intentions of others
Likewise, in a second experiment, gaze, even while they disavowed any (the right temporal parietal junction)
subjects were presented with the belief in such a force emanating from were involved in processing the face’s
image of Kevin either gazing at the the eye. What has emerged in this gaze when staring at the tree. But just
tube or gazing away in the opposite study is an implicit, unrecognized as with the blindfolded Kevin, these
direction and asked to report the cognitive shortcut employed by fMRI signals halted when the face in
critical angle of the tube before humans to rapidly process gaze these studies was blindfolded. Here
5
 NEWS
the brain processes the gaze as
movement even when no movement
occurs, again showing an extraordi-
nary misapprehension of reality.
Belief in the power of gaze appears
in stories and myths throughout the
centuries. Medusa turned people to
stone with her gaze. The catoblepas
and, more famously, the basilisk, both
described by Pliny the Elder, could
kill with the single glance. In Shake-
speare’s Venus and Adonis, Venus
complains of the pain caused by
Adonis’ glance: “Thine eye darts forth
the fire that burneth me.” While in
John Donne’s The Ecstasy, the
glances of the lovers intertwine and
bind them as if they were their
clasped hands. And, of course, no list
of cultural references to gaze would
be complete without mention of the
Jedi master or Superman.
Gaze is a powerful element of
social interaction. It reveals where
a person is focusing their attention,
and, when directed at us, it can have
a strong emotional effect. Gaze can
play a role in social organization, with
a direct gaze demonstrating social
dominance and gaze aversion indicat-
ing passivity. Eye contact can elicit
alertness and bodily awareness, while
indifference or aversion to eye
contact can signal emotional or
neurological disorders. When we
direct our gaze at something or
someone, others who notice subcon-
sciously direct their gaze in the same
manner. We can take advantage of
this tendency to deliberately influ-
ence the gaze of others. Magicians
take advantage of the ability
to redirect gaze and attention to
enhance their sleight of hand. Visual
artists can manipulate attributes of
a work of art such as luminosity in
order to direct visual gaze to specific
features of a painting. In dance, gaze
can be used to convey the power
dynamics between the characters on
stage, while musicians rely on gaze
as an essential means of communi-
cation, using it to help in cuing and
synchronization during the perfor-
mances of orchestras and choirs.
Gaze is a means of communication
that impacts us in many ways,
subconsciously and quickly, so
quickly and energetically that one
investigator described the effects
of gaze as “exuberant.” And while
magicians may know how to manipu-
late gaze to enhance their illusions,
the illusion of gaze as a physical
force is magic enough.
—Robert Martone
Forecasts of Epilepsy
Seizures Could
Become a Reality
Making predictions up to several
days in advance may help with care
Seizures are like storms in the brain—
sudden bursts of abnormal electrical
activity that can cause disturbances
in movement, behavior, feelings and
awareness. For people with epilepsy,
not knowing when their next seizure
will hit can be psychologically
debilitating. Clinicians have no way
of telling people with epilepsy
whether a seizure will likely happen
five minutes from now, five weeks
from now or five months from now,
says Vikram Rao, a neurologist at the
University of California, San Francisco.
“That leaves people in a state of
looming uncertainty.”
Despite the apparent unpredictabili-
ty of seizures, they may not actually
be random events. Hints of cyclical
patterns associated with epilepsy
date back to ancient times, when
people believed seizures were tied to
the waxing and waning of the moon.
While this particular link has yet to be
definitively proven, scientists have
pinpointed patterns in seizure-associ-
ated brain activity. Studies have
shown that seizures are more likely
during specific periods in the day,
indicating an association with sleep-
wake cycles, or circadian rhythms.
In 2018 Rao and his colleagues
reported the discovery of long-term
seizure-associated brain rhythms—
most commonly in the 20- to 30-day
range—which they dubbed “multi-
dien” (multiday) rhythms. By examin-
ing these rhythms in brain activity, the
group has now demonstrated that
seizures can be forecast 24 hours in
advance—and in some patients, up to
three days prior. Their findings,
published on December 17 in the
Lancet Neurology, raise the possibility
of eventually providing epilepsy
patients with seizure forecasts that
could predict the likelihood that one
will occur days in advance.
In its latest study, Rao’s group
conducted a retrospective analysis
of data collected during a nine-year
clinical trial with participants who had
a Food and Drug Administration–ap-
proved, implanted neurostimulation
device, NeuroPace, which uses a
type of electroencephalograph (EEG)
to monitor both seizures and interic-
6
 NEWS
tal epileptiform discharges—patho-
logical spikes in brain activity that
occur between seizures. (One of the
study’s authors, Thomas Tcheng,
is the senior director of preclinical
research at NeuroPace.)
Using data about the timing of
interictal epileptiform discharges and
past seizures, the team developed a
computational model that estimated
whether or not a patient was at risk
of a seizure in the subsequent hours
or days. Maxime Baud, an epileptol-
ogist at the University of Bern in
Switzerland and a co-author of the
study, explains that the researchers
were not trying to predict when,
exactly, the next seizure will happen
but rather to identify the probability
that a seizure would happen over
a given time period—akin to how
weather forecasts provide a percent-
age of the likelihood of rain or shine
on a given day.
When the researchers compared
their forecasts with the actual
occurrence of seizures in 18 partici-
pants, they found that in 15 of them
(83 percent), the algorithm per-
formed better than chance at
predicting seizures 24 hours in
advance. In two of the patients (11
percent), it was able to forecast
Epilepsy with edema,
represented by
the orange area.
seizures up to three days in advance.
To further validate the model, the
team applied it to another, larger data
set with 157 participants—this time,
assessing whether the algorithm
could forecast self-reported seizures,
which are the primary tool used for
assessment in the clinic. The re-
searchers found it could forecast
seizures over 24 hours in 103
participants (66 percent) and up to
three days ahead in 61 (39 percent).
In general, chances of a seizure were
highest during periods when both
circadian and multidien cycles of
brain activity were near their peak.
“Prior work has been mostly
focused on forecasting seconds to existing treatments, says Jacqueline the efficacy of devices such as
minutes to a few hours ahead of French, chief medical and innovation NeuroPace, which monitors brain
time. This group has built on the officer at the Epilepsy Foundation activity and delivers pulses of
work with multidien cycles to [intro- and a professor of neurology at New electricity when seizures are immi-
duce] a multiday predictor,” says York University, who was not involved nent to attempt to ward off the
Hitten Zaveri, a professor of compu- in this study. The major issue with event, Rao notes.
tational neurophysiology at Yale one of the main therapeutics used For some people, however, seizure
University, who was not involved in to prevent seizures, a class of drugs forecasts could prove more frustrat-
the research. “[The study] has clearly called benzodiazepines, is that if they ing than helpful. “If I told you that
been done very well, with good data are taken continuously, they lose tomorrow, there’s a 90 percent
and good observations.” their efficacy. (Long-term use can chance of rain, and you packed an
Forecasting on these longer also lead to addiction.) Limiting their umbrella, and it doesn’t rain, you
horizons could provide significant intake to days when people are at might be upset that you had to pack
benefit for people with epilepsy. high risk for seizures could make an umbrella. Or conversely, you might
One of the biggest advantages is that them more effective, French says. be upset with me if I said there’s a
ALAMY
it could help rectify deficiencies of Seizure forecasts may also improve 5 percent chance of rain tomorrow,
7
 NEWS
and you go outside in shorts, and it
rains,” Rao says. This dilemma is one
of the reasons a prospective trial—
in which participants are followed
forward in time (rather than doing
an analysis of previously collected
data)—would be beneficial, Rao adds.
Not only would such a study provide
more robust evidence that seizure
forecasting is indeed feasible,
researchers would also be able to
assess how participants actually use
this information. Only one prospective
study of a seizure advisory system
has been conducted to date: the
NeuroVista trial, which demonstrated
that it was possible to predict the like-
lihood of seizures minutes in advance.
One key limitation of Rao and
Baud’s forecasting technique is that
it requires a brain implant to record
neural activity. But Baud contends
that the interictal epileptiform dis-
charges used to generate these
forecasts can be picked up with the
less invasive measure of placing
EEG electrodes just under the scalp
(subscalp EEG). One of the next
steps is to attempt to use this method
to generate seizure forecasts as well.
Other groups are working on
completely different measures to
generate these kinds of seizure
forecasts. Philippa Karoly, a research
fellow at the University of Melbourne
in Australia, and her colleagues have
found evidence that multiday cycles
in heart rate are also associated with
seizure occurrence in patients.
(These results have been posted
onto medRxiv, a platform that hosts
papers that have not yet been
peer-reviewed.) “We believe that
we can measure these underlying
biological cycles not just from the
brain but also from the heart and
from other aspects of physiology that
are affected by the same triggering
factors that are driving
the cycles in the brain,” Karoly says.
The promise of seizure forecasts
could transform clinical practice. Still,
key questions, such as why multiday
cycles of brain activity exist in people
with epilepsy, remain unsolved.
Scientists speculate that fluctuating
hormones may play a role—or that
they may have something to do with
the underlying disruptions in the brain
associated with epilepsy. It is also
possible that multiday rhythms, like
circadian rhythms, are one aspect
of how every brain functions. “That’s
one very important question that has
not been answered yet,” Baud says.
—Diana Kwon
highest score ever was 97 percent,
Take This Quiz to and no one has ever achieved a
perfect score, the researchers
See If You Are a Face reported in PLOS One. They estimate
“Super-Recognizer” that they have identified about 2,000
Many with this skill have super-recognizers among the 50,000
a feeling they are special. A freely people who have taken the online
available test helps them confirm test since 2017.
their intuitions “What we have learned from
analyzing this test is that while all
super-recognizers are exceptional
Some people are truly exceptional at face recognition, some are better
at recognizing faces. Once they have than others,” says James Dunn, a
seen a person, they can often remem- psychologist at UNSW and lead
ber the individual’s face decades later. author of the study. “We hope that
Even if the person spotted was a with more people completing the test
youngster at the time and has mean- we can find the ‘Einstein of face
while become a grown woman or recognition,’ that special extraordinary
a man with a full beard, they can still individual who is the best of the best.”
make the ID. Other researchers in face recogni-
Psychologists at Australia’s tion have also weighed in. “This is
University of New South Wales an excellent advance in the field of
(UNSW) have been looking for these super-recognition research, and it
“super-recognizers” for years, using provides a powerful new tool for the
a specially designed online test. identification of individuals with supe-
On a typical face-recognition test, rior face-identification ability,” says
a super-recognizer will score 100 David Robertson, a lecturer in
percent. But the UNSW group went psychology at the school of psycho-
a step further and created a particu- logical sciences and health at the
larly difficult test on which most test University of Strathclyde, Glasgow,
takers will score between 50 and 60 who was not involved in the study.
percent on which but a super-recog- “I have no doubt that this test will
nizer will reach 70 percent. The be very useful in identifying people
8
 NEWS

with extraordinary face perception

abilities, which will prove useful not
just for our understanding of human
face-recognition ability but also for
appointing people to face-specific
roles within various professions (jobs
that require identifying people),”
says Kay Ritchie, a senior lecturer in
cognitive psychology at the Universi-
ty of Lincoln in England, who also
was not involved in the study.
In the study, Dunn and his col-
leagues describe people who have
taken the UNSW test and who had
an inkling they were better than
others at facial recognition. The
online test, which takes about 20
minutes to complete, then revealed
whether that talent was really ex-
ceptional. For instance, one woman
named Jessica knew she was better
at recognizing faces than her hus-
band. But it was only when the
UNSW team contacted her that she
found out how much better.“Then
a lot of things suddenly made sense
in my life,” she told the researchers.
Super-recognizers often learn to impression that she is a stalker. the lab to undergo further testing to An ascertained super-recognizer

DIMITRI OTIS GETT Y IMAGES

conceal their ability, the scientists
write. A woman named Sallie told
the team she has to pretend she
has never seen a person she remem-
bers well, for fear of giving the
The researchers hope to recruit
super-recognizers to examine,
among other things, how the brain
processes faces. To do this, high-lev-
el test performers may be invited to
confirm that their results are really
well above average.
These exceptional individuals
appear to have an innate ability that
cannot be achieved through training.
may be in demand from a range of
institutions that have an interest in
reidentifying people—from police to
intelligence agencies to casinos.
—Jan Dönges

9
 NEWS
Electrical Brain
Stimulation May
Alleviate Obsessive-
Compulsive Behaviors
Noninvasive electrical zaps, tuned
specifically to individual brain-
activity patterns, appear to reduce
checking, hoarding and other
compulsions for up to three months
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
(OCD) is marked by repetitive,
anxiety-inducing thoughts, urges and
compulsions, such as excessive
cleaning, counting and checking.
These behaviors are also prevalent in
the general population: one study in
a large sample of U.S. adults found
more than a quarter had experienced
obsessions or compulsions at some
point in their life. Although most
of these individuals do not develop
full-blown OCD, such symptoms can
still interfere with daily life. A new
study, published on January 18 in
Nature Medicine, hints that these
behaviors may be alleviated by
stimulating the brain with an electric
current—without the need to insert
electrodes under the skull.
Robert Reinhart, a neuroscientist
at Boston University, and his group
drew on two parallel lines of re-
search for this study. First, evidence
suggests that obsessive-compulsive
behaviors may arise as a result of
overlearning habits—leading to their
excessive repetition—and abnormali-
ties in brain circuits involved in
learning from rewards. Separately,
studies point to the importance of
high-frequency rhythms in the
so-called high-beta/low-gamma
range (also referred to as simply
beta-gamma) in decision-making
and learning from positive feedback.
Drawing on these prior observa-
tions, Shrey Grover, a doctoral student
in Reinhart’s lab, hypothesized with
others in the team that manipulating
beta-gamma rhythms in the orbito- Electrodes to administer noninvasive electrical brain stimulation—similar to the technique
frontal cortex (OFC)—a key region in highlighted in this story—are placed on the head of a test subject before he performs
a cognitive test at the Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) lab at the Air Force Research
the reward network located in the Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio on July 19, 2016.
front of the brain—might disrupt the
ability to repetitively pursue rewarding
choices. In doing so, the researchers quency brain activity influenced how in a task that involved associating
thought, the intervention could reduce well people were able to learn from symbols with monetary wins or losses.
obsessive-compulsive behaviors rewards. The team recruited 60 Previous work had shown that
associated with maladaptive habits. volunteers and first used electroen- applying stimulation based on the
J.M. EDDINS ALAMY
To test this hypothesis, Grover and cephalography to pinpoint the unique particular patterns of rhythms in
his colleagues carried out a two-part frequencies of beta-gamma rhythms a person’s brain may enhance the
study. The first segment was aimed in the OFC that were active in a given effectiveness of the procedure.
at identifying whether the high-fre- individual while that person took part The participants were then split into
10
 NEWS
three groups, all of whom received a
noninvasive form of brain stimulation
known as transcranial alternating
current stimulation (tACS), which was
applied to the OFC for 30 minutes
over five consecutive days. Each
group had a different type of stimula-
tion: One received personalized
currents tuned to an individual’s
beta-gamma frequencies. Another
was exposed to an “active” placebo,
consisting of stimulations at a lower
frequency. And the third was a
“passive” placebo group in which no
significant current was applied to
the brain. Those who received the
personalized beta-gamma stimulation
became less able to make optimal
choices on the reward-based learning
tasks—changes not observed in the
two placebo groups.
Further assessment of the partici-
pants’ behavior using computational
models of reward-based learning
suggested that the personalized tACS
disrupted the learning process by
making people more likely to try out
different options rather than sticking
with only one—even if they were less
likely to result in a reward.
These findings set the stage for
the second part of the study, in
which the team set out to examine
whether manipulating the beta-gam-
ma rhythms typically engaged during
reward-based learning would
influence obsessive-compulsive
behaviors. The researchers carried
out a similar set of experiments on
another set of volunteers: 64 people
who did not have a formal OCD
diagnosis but who exhibited symp-
toms such as checking, hoarding
and obsessing. Participants received
either personalized beta-gamma
stimulation or an active placebo.
Those in the personalized beta-gam-
ma group experienced a reduction in
compulsive behaviors that persisted
for up to three months. And those
with more of those OCD characteris-
tics prior to stimulation exhibited the
biggest changes.
According to Grover, the team
decided to study people with
symptoms of OCD but no diagnosis
of the disorder because researchers
have increasingly been viewing
obsessive-compulsive behaviors
on a mild-to-severe spectrum. And
even in the absence of clinically
diagnosed OCD, such symptoms
can cause significant distress. “By
examining a nonclinical population
exhibiting a range of obsessive-
compulsive behaviors, we were able
“[Neuromodulation] is certainly a
treatment that should be investigated
rigorously for conditions like OCD.”
—Trevor Robbins
to examine the effectiveness of [an
intervention] that may be helpful to
a larger pool of individuals,” Grover
says. Yet the researchers’ findings
also suggest “that if we were to
extend such an intervention to
individuals diagnosed with OCD
disorder or to other conditions of
compulsivity—gambling disorder,
addiction, some forms of eating
disorders—we might be able to
observe strong effects.”
The long-lasting effects on
obsessive-compulsive behaviors is
“quite impressive,” says Trevor
Robbins, a professor of cognitive
neuroscience at the University of
Cambridge, who was not involved in
this research. “[Neuromodulation] is
certainly a treatment that should be
investigated rigorously for conditions
like OCD.”
Carolyn Rodriguez, a psychiatrist
and neuroscientist at Stanford
University, who was also not involved
in the study, says that because it
was carried out in a nonclinical
population without a formal diagno-
sis, the implications of these findings
remain to be seen. “The neurobiolo-
gy of people who are nonclinical but
have these kinds of behaviors may
be different than individuals who are
diagnosed with OCD,” she adds.
“These findings are an interesting
start, [but] we need to understand
how it's relevant to people who have
OCD.” Rodriguez also points out that
there are already several treatments
available for the condition, including
medication, therapy and a Food and
Drug Administration–approved
device that utilizes transcranial
magnetic stimulation (TMS), a nonin-
vasive method that uses magnetic
fields to stimulate the brain. (Rodri-
guez is currently leading a clinical
trial of TMS for OCD.)
The potential therapeutic effects
of tACS on memory, food craving and
11
 NEWS
other neural processes have been
tested in dozens of studies in the
past. Questions have been raised
about whether this method actually
exerts any meaningful changes in the
brain, however. In the new study, what
exactly the high-frequency tACS did
to the brain remains unknown. But
Grover notes that the researchers’
two placebo conditions—particularly
the one that involves stimulating at a
different frequency—provide strong
evidence that the high-frequency
stimulation was responsible for the
behavioral effects the team observed.
Grover and his colleagues are
currently working on further experi-
ments to pinpoint the mechanisms
underlying their intervention. And
they hope to conduct studies with
clinical populations diagnosed with
OCD in the near future. “[The recent
paper] is just a preliminary step
toward further understanding why this
high-frequency activity is so important
for obsessive-compulsive behavior,”
Grover says. “The fact that we can
observe changes in these symptoms
even now suggests there may
actually be clinical benefit to this—and
gives us all the more reason to try to
extend the findings of this research.”
—Diana Kwon
For a Better
Connection, Talk
Instead of Typing
The phone is not as awkward
as you think, and you may have
a more satisfying interaction
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,
the term “social distancing” has been
at the center of public conversation,
but this phrase is a bit of a misnomer.
Taken literally, the phrase seems
to endorse social separation. But it’s
not “social” distance we are trying to
promote. It’s physical separation.
In fact, preserving social ties—even at
a distance—is essential for both
mental and physical health. The up a video chat? Modern technology people interact affect their sense
results of epidemiological meta- has provided us with many tools at of connection—and how expecta-
analyses, for example, indicate that our disposal. Not all tools foster tions about certain technologies
a lack of social support is on par with social connection equally, however. impact the communication media
smoking cigarettes as a risk factor for And often such seemingly small they choose to use. Note that these
morbidity and mortality and is even choices can make a big difference expectations can be misguided.
more harmful than other stressors, between cultivating stronger social Although voice-based interactions
such as obesity and air pollution. connections and giving in to growing (such as phone calls) can produce
Given this empirical fact, how might social distance. stronger connections, text-based
we best stay connected to others In a paper soon to be published in media (such as e-mails) are often
GETTY IMAGES
while maintaining physical distance? the Journal of Experimental Psycholo- preferred because of mistaken
Would we better off e-mailing a gy: General, Nick Epley and I tested beliefs about how social interactions
friend? Making a phone call? Setting whether the media through which will unfold. Any interaction we have
12
 NEWS
can come with advantages and
disadvantages, and decisions about
how to connect tend to be based on
expectations of these potential costs
and benefits. When people overesti-
mate the cost or underestimate the
benefit of voice-based communica-
tion, it can create a misplaced bias
for text-based media.
In one experiment, for instance, we
asked participants to reconnect with
someone that they hadn’t interacted
with recently, either through e-mail
or over the phone. Participants first
made predictions about what it would
be like to get in touch if they reached
out in these two ways. More specifi-
cally, these participants predicted how
connected and how awkward they
would feel in each situation. In this
experiment, they did generally intuit
that they’d feel more connected when
interacting via the phone than over
e-mail. But they also predicted that
talking on the phone could be more
uncomfortable than dashing off an
e-mail. Participants additionally
indicated which option they preferred.
Although these participants believed
that talking encouraged stronger
bonds, most of them said they’d rather
send an e-mail than call the person up.
Fears about awkwardness, it seems,
push individuals toward text-based
methods for communicating.
Our results showed that, contrary to
participants’ expectations, worries
about awkwardness are largely
unwarranted. In the next part of the
experiment, we had participants
actually reconnect using one random-
ly determined mode of communica-
tion—either e-mail or phone—and
then followed up with them after they
had done so. As expected, we found
that people do form meaningfully
stronger bonds when interacting over
the phone than over e-mail. More
mportant, though, there was no
difference in the amount of discom-
fort when reconnecting on the phone.
The human voice appears to provide
benefits for connection without the
expected costs.
In another experiment, we had
individuals connect with each other
by asking and answering a series
of relatively personal questions (for
example, “Is there something you’ve
dreamed of doing for a long time?
Why haven’t you done it?”). These
conversations took place by texting
in real time during a live chat, using
only audio or engaging in a video
chat. Once again, participants first
made predictions about how they
believed they would feel and then
actually had a discussion with some-
Although voice-based interactions
(such as phone calls) can produce
stronger connections, text-based media
(such as e-mails) are often preferred
because of mistaken beliefs about how
social interactions will unfold.
one else. We again measured awk-
wardness and connection, in this
case using statements such as how
much they would get to know their
conversation partner, how much they
would like that person, and how
strong of a bond they would feel.
Here participants didn’t expect that
the media through which they
communicated would matter. But
when they actually interacted, people
again felt significantly more connect-
ed—and notably, no more awkward—
when they communicated by talking
rather than typing. Interestingly, visual
cues didn’t add more to what voice-
based media already provided. Media
containing only audio, as in a phone
call, created as strong a sense of
connection as audiovisual media, and
both produced higher-quality social
interactions than text-based media.
Our work suggests that these
miscalibrated expectations can affect
how people choose to connect with
others and therefore how well they do
so. Misunderstanding the costs and
benefits of different interactions can
lead individuals to choose inferior
methods for connecting, leading them
to text, e-mail, or send a message
on Slack instead of picking up the
phone, which results in a more
positive interaction. In light of this
evidence, it is critical that we not only
focus on the content we are trying to
convey but also the context in which it
is conveyed. The next time you think
about how best to connect, consider
calling or setting up a video chat.
You’re likely to feel better as a result.
E-mail or text messaging can some-
times be useful for sending attach-
ments or scheduling a time to talk, to
be sure. Feelings of social connection,
however, are optimally facilitated by
one’s voice rather than their keyboard.
—Amit Kuma
➦ 13
How We Can
Deal with
“Pandemic
Fatigue”
The first step is to understand
that it’s not just about
exhaustion or tiredness—
or depleting a mental resource
By David Badre

GETTY IMAGES
14

he U.S. is tragically
T
nearing 500,000
COVID-19 deaths,
and case numbers and
hospitalizations are
still at record levels
around the world.
With vaccines now rolling out, there
is reason to hope that there is an end
in sight. By most estimates, however,
widespread vaccinations will not be
in place until the middle of the year
at the earliest. So we have some
ways to go yet with social distancing,
mask wearing and other pandemic
mitigation behaviors.
It is worrying, therefore, that the world is witnessing a
consistent decline in compliance with these mitigation
behaviors over time. For example, a Gallup poll from last
fall that tracked social distancing habits among Ameri-
cans found that the percentage of respondents avoiding
small gatherings declined by 40 points since the previous
April, while those avoiding public places declined by 25
points. Public health experts term this phenomenon
“pandemic fatigue,” and they cite it as a contributor to
the increase in incidence rates being witnessed here and
in Europe.
Understanding pandemic fatigue is challenging
because it is not one phenomenon and likely stems from
several causes. Some of these include political and social
trends, such as changes in libertarian attitudes or dimin-
ishing trust in scientific authorities. But pandemic
fatigue also occurs for people who are ostensibly on-
board with societal attempts to control spread of the
virus. So why would compliance with public health
advice decline in these people? Despite its name, pan-
demic fatigue in these cases is not really about exhaus-
tion or tiredness or depleting a mental resource. Rather
pandemic fatigue should be understood in terms of
motivation for the tasks we choose to do. As such, les-
sons from the psychology and neuroscience of cognitive
control may be informative.
Humans have a remarkable capacity to conceive of a
task they have never done before and plan and execute
the actions needed to do it. For example, most of us prob-
ably didn’t have a routine of wearing a mask around oth-
er people before last year. But once we understood that
it stemmed the spread of COVID-19, many of us started
doing so. It didn’t take hundreds of trials of training to
learn this behavior or, indeed, thousands of years of evo-
lution. Rather we incorporated mask wearing into our
daily lives almost immediately. Humans can link our
abstract goals, ideas, rules and knowledge to our behav-
David Badre is a neuroscientist at Brown University and
author of On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done.
ior at a speed and on a scale that no other species can
match and no AI yet built can emulate. We can do this
because of a class of function scientists term “cognitive
control,” a function that is supported by several interact-
ing systems and mechanisms that are uniquely elaborat-
ed in the human brain, including the prefrontal cortex.
More important, cognitive control is motivated. When
deciding to do a task, our control system balances at
least two factors: the value we get from doing that task
and the costs we will experience while doing so. The for-
mer is obvious. Experimental studies on people’s choic-
es about what tasks they would like to do tell us that
they prefer and engage more with tasks that lead to
desired outcomes, whether that outcome is money, good
health, companionship or whatever else they value. Yet
our control system also takes account of our mental effi-
cacy when computing this value, as in how much men-
tal investment is needed to gain from a particular task.
Thus, people won’t do just any amount of mental work
for any outcome. Difficult tasks, and particularly tasks
involving heavy mental investment, come with an aver-
sive experience of mental effort. People treat that mental
effort as a cost that discounts whatever value might be
gained from a task. The reasons for these effort costs are
still open, but one promising explanation is that they
derive from opportunity costs. We can’t do more than one
difficult task at a time. So we penalize difficult tasks
because they limit our ability to gain value by performing
other tasks. Thus, when we decide to perform a task, our
15
brain does a cost-benefit analysis: weighing our gains
against our mental pains.
Life during the pandemic is brimming with tasks
requiring control and mental effort, and so the wide-
spread subjective experience of mental exhaustion is not
surprising. We are constantly adjusting to new rules and
policies. Everything from working to getting groceries to
holiday shopping is different from what we know,
involves new rules and protocols, and so requires cogni-
tive control to plan out novel behaviors and monitor what
we’re doing every step of the way. And for many of us, we
are faced with ongoing costs of multitasking, dividing
attention between work, children and other priorities all
at once. To succeed in this environment requires heavy
engagement of our control systems, and so we experience
the cost of this mental effort. Changes in either the per-
ceived value or efficacy of these behaviors will make those
effort costs harder to tolerate over the long term, and
compliance will decline.
What can be done? It follows from this analysis that
addressing pandemic fatigue requires a robust and mul-
tipronged response that tackles not only the political and
social aspects but also motivation in terms of costs and
benefits of mitigation behaviors. One target is the oppor-
tunity cost. While we are social distancing or sheltering
in place or homeschooling our children, we are not doing
other valuable things. Many people are unable to work
remotely, businesses are slowed or closed, and we are
separated from loved ones. Thus, left on its own, the val-
ue in complying over time, discounted by its mental
effort, is increasingly outweighed by the value in not
doing so.
This is one reason that economic relief from a larger
individual stimulus relief package is needed—not only
because it provides economic relief but also because it
addresses this opportunity cost of compliance.
Second, as noted earlier, our willingness to invest men-
tal effort in a task is dependent on our belief about the
efficacy of doing so. The more difficult the task, the more
likely a positive outcome needs to be. Misinformation is
rampant, and we have lacked consistent guidance from
federal leadership about what effective actions to take,
from sanitization protocols to how to open schools safe-
ly. We need a clear set of guidelines that we know to be
effective from an expert source, such as the cdc, in order
to balance against our experienced effort costs.
Relatedly, once an effective set of rules is in place, we
need those rules to be as stable as possible. Planning and
adjusting to ever changing policies and procedures for
basic living can place near-constant demands on our con-
trol system to manage every task as new. In contrast,
keeping the situation stable allows us reduce effort costs
by integrating a consistent set of behaviors into our dai-
ly habits and routines.
Finally, living and working all together in the same
place, such as our homes, results in a state of immersive
multitasking. We do not have separate environments for
work tasks and home tasks, and so they interfere with
one another, which puts demands on our control system
that we experience as effort. And multitasking costs are
particularly severe for parents with young children. So
measures that help reduce this burden, such as safe pro-
cedures for opening schools and places of work, will
greatly help reduce these mental costs.
One fundamental facet of pandemic fatigue is motiva-
tional in nature and is related to the demands that life
during a pandemic places on our systems for cognitive
control and the mental effort costs this incurs. As we
have described, measures that help reduce the costs of
mental effort may help stem its downward pull. M
➦ 16
The Science
of Spiritual
Narcissism
Self-enhancement through spiritual practices
can fool some of us into thinking we’re evolving
and growing when all we’re growing is our ego
By Scott Barry Kaufman

ARTEM ERMILOV GETT Y IMAGES

17

“Ego is able to convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.”
—Chögyam Trungpa
purported benefit of mind-body spiritual prac-
A tices such as yoga, meditation and energy
healing is that they will help “quiet the ego,”
providing an effective antidote to the exalted
self. Indeed, such practices do have the potential for such
an awakening, allowing us to get more in touch with reali-
ty as it is right here and now, including the qualities we
don’t like about ourselves. Spiritual practices also have the
potential to help us cultivate compassion, concern and
unconditional positive regard toward others—things that
can truly evolve our consciousness as a species.
This is all much easier said than done, however. As has
been observed by many spiritual leaders, spiritual prac-
titioners and psychologists over the years, the ego has an
incessant need to be seen in a positive light and will
eagerly hijack whatever flow of consciousness it can use
for its own enhancement. As Indian philosopher Sri
Aurobindo noted: “At every moment [the seeker] must
proceed with a vigilant eye upon the deceits of the ego and
the ambushes of the misleading Powers of Darkness who
ever represent themselves as the one source of Light and
Truth and take on them a simulacrum of divine forms in
order to capture the soul of the seeker.”
Likewise, in his classic book Cutting Through Spiritual
Materialism, Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader Chögyam
Trungpa wrote: “Walking the spiritual path properly is a
very subtle process: it is not something to jump into
naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a
distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can
deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritu-
ality when instead we are strengthening our egocentrici-
ty through spiritual techniques.”
Psychologists have also pointed out the potential for
spirituality to serve as a tool of self-enhancement. Accord-
ing to William James, the “father of American psychology,”
any skill that increases its centrality in the self-system is
likely to breed a bias toward self-enhancement. As it turns
out, no domain of human skill has been found to be
exempt from this “self-centrality principle.” It seems to be
an inextricable part of human nature.
This includes the domain of spirituality. Self-enhance-
ment through spiritual practices can fool us into thinking
we are evolving and growing, when in fact all we are
growing is our ego. Some psychologists have pointed out
that the self-enhancement that occurs through spiritual
practices can lead to the “I’m enlightened and you’re not”
syndrome and spiritual bypass, by which people seek to
use their spiritual beliefs, practices and experiences to
avoid genuine contact with their psychological “unfin-
ished business.” In my recent book Transcend, I call it
Scott Barry Kaufman is a humanistic psychologist exploring
the depths of human potential. He has taught courses on in-
telligence, creativity and well-being at Columbia University, New
York University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
He hosts The Psychology Podcast and is author and/or editor of
nine books, including Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actual-
ization, Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative
Mind (with Carolyn Gregoire), and Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined.
“pseudo-transcendence”—transcendence built on a very
shaky foundation.
Just how much of a problem is all this, really? Perhaps
on the whole, spiritual practices really do help quiet the
ego, and spiritual narcissism isn’t that widespread. What
do the empirical data actually have to say on one of the
greatest paradoxes of our time, which is: If a major point
of yoga is quieting the ego and reducing focus on self, why
are there so many yoga pose pictures on Instagram?
SELF-CENTRALITY AND SPIRITUALITY
In the past few years a number of high-quality studies
have started to unearth the existence of spiritual narcis-
sism and self-enhancement among spiritual practices
that purport to quiet the ego. In one set of high-powered
studies, Jochen Gebauer and his colleagues looked at
both yoga and meditation practices.
In their first experiment, they followed 93 yoga stu-
dents for up to 15 weeks. They repeatedly assessed self-
enhancement levels among people directly after partici-
pating in yoga and among people who had not practiced
yoga within the past 24 hours. Self-centrality was mea-
sured by items such as “Focusing mindfully on the exer-
cises across the whole yoga class is...,” measured on a scale
of 1 (not at all central to me) to 5 (central to me).
They measured self-enhancement through a standard
measure of self-esteem, as well as by asking people the
degree to which they perceived themselves as better than
the average yoga student in their yoga class. They also
18
included a measure of “communal narcissism,” an often
underdiscussed form of narcissism in which one thinks that
they alone will save the world and that they are the most
helpful person of them all (for example, “I will be well
known for the good deeds I will have done”). Research
shows that communal narcissism is correlated with grandi-
ose narcissism and all of the entitlement, arrogance and
overconfidence that goes along with it (just applied to a
helping domain).
The researchers found higher levels of self-centrality as
well as self-enhancement (higher self-esteem, better than
average judgments, and communal narcissism) among
those who had just completed a yoga class compared with
those who hadn’t engaged in any yoga class in the past
24 hours. They also found suggestive evidence that the
augmented self-enhancement of the yoga practice played
a key role in the well-being benefits of yoga through in-
creases in self-esteem. This finding hinted at the idea that
the well-being benefits of this spiritual practice may actu-
ally come through boosting self-esteem and not through
ego quieting.
In their second experiment, they followed 162 medita-
tion practitioners for up to four weeks. They repeatedly
assessed meditation’s self-centrality and self-enhancement
directly after meditation and in the absence of prior medi-
tation. This time, they directly measured well-being, in-
cluding a comprehensive battery of measures of hedonic
well-being (happiness and high life satisfaction) as well as
eudaemonic well-being (higher levels of autonomy, envi-
ronmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations
with others, purpose in life and self-acceptance).
Their self-centrality questions included items such as
“How central is it for you to be free from envy?” And their self-
enhancement scale included items such as “In comparison
to the average participant of this study, I am free from envy.”
Again, they included a measure of communal narcissism.
The researchers found that after meditation, self-cen-
trality in meditation-relevant domains was exacerbated,
not diminished, and self-enhancement in meditation-
relevant domains was augmented, not curtailed. Addi-
tionally, increased levels of self-enhancement explained
the effect of meditation on higher well-being (both hedon-
ic and eudaemonic).
It’s important to point out that they sampled Western
participants, and the yoga and meditation programs the
participants engaged in—which included engagement in
hatha yoga and loving-kindness meditation—don’t nec-
essarily generalize to all yoga and meditation practices.
Nevertheless, the researchers did find greater self-
enhancement in the yoga and meditation conditions
even among very advanced mind-body practitioners.
These findings suggest that contrary to the purported
benefits of mind-body practices as “quieting the ego”
and reducing focus on self, they may actually boost
self-centrality and self-enhancement. Furthermore, and
intriguingly, it seems as though it is precisely those
self-related boosts that contributed to the well-being
benefits of the spiritual practices.
SPIRITUAL SUPERIORITY AND
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
In a more recent set of studies, Roos Vonk and Anouk
Visser conducted an exploration of “spiritual superiority.”
They interviewed several psychologists, spiritual trainers
and laypeople and asked them to describe people who
use spirituality as a self-enhancement tool. They then
translated these qualities to six items:
• I am aware of things that others are not aware of.
• I am more in touch with my senses than most others.
• I am more aware of what is between heaven and
earth than most people.
• Because of my education and experience, I am
observant and see things that others overlook.
• Because of my background and experiences, I am
more in touch with my body than other people.
• The world would be a better place if others, too, had
the insights that I have now.
In three studies, they assessed the relation between
their scale of spiritual superiority and other variables. In
study 1, they focused on people who engaged in some form
of spiritual training. Participants were recruited via mind-
fulness schools and energetic training centers, which aim
to train skills that classify as paranormal, such as reading
auras and regressing to previous lives. In studies 2 and 3,
participants were recruited via a popular psychology mag-
azine with a broad audience interested in psychological
and spiritual development. The comparison was with peo-
ple without any spiritual training.
Overall, the researchers found that the correlation of
spiritual superiority with self-esteem was lower among
the no-training group than those participating in any of
the spiritual training groups. Their measure of spiritual
superiority was related to “spiritual contingency of self-
worth,” the degree to which people derive higher self-
esteem from their spiritual practices (for example, “I feel
better about myself when I notice I develop myself spiri-
tually”). According to the researchers, this illustrates that
the self-enhancement function of spirituality is similar to
other contingency domains of self-esteem.
Interestingly, their scale of spiritual superiority was
more strongly correlated with communal narcissism
than self-esteem, providing evidence for the notion of
“spiritual narcissism.” Indeed, it’s important to distin-
guish between healthy self-esteem and narcissism. The
problem isn’t with self-esteem but with the pursuit of
self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem—consisting of a positive
evaluation of one’s self-worth and mastery—emerges nat-
urally and organically through the engagement of authen-
tic mastery and positive relationships rather than by pur-
19
suing self-esteem as the goal. Increases in healthy self-
esteem as a result of spiritual practices may be a good
thing and are not necessarily indicative of spiritual nar-
cissism, which is why it’s good that the researchers were
able to tie their measure of spiritual superiority to a spe-
cific form of narcissism: communal narcissism.
The researchers found differences depending on the
form of spiritual practice, however. Spiritual superiority
scores were consistently higher among those who came
from energetic-training centers than the mindfulness
trainees. In fact, those who underwent energy training
were more likely to claim special knowledge of mindful-
ness, more so than those who were actually in the mind-
fulness condition! The energetic healers were also espe-
cially likely to score high in “supernatural overconfi-
dence,” scoring high in items such as “When I randomly
open a book on a page number that is meaningful to me,
this is no coincidence,” “I can send positive energy to oth-
ers from a distance” and “I can influence the world around
me with my thoughts.”
While their study is correlational, it’s likely that there is
a bidirectional relation among these factors. It’s likely
that spiritual practices can be used as a tool to bolster the
narcissistic self, enhancing one’s feeling that one is spe-
cial and entitled to special privileges. But it’s also likely
that some spiritual training programs attract people with
strong personal development goals that are related to
Western narcissistic culture. As the researchers noted, the
idea of exploring one’s own personal thoughts and feel-
ings and becoming an “enlightened being” may be partic-
ularly attractive to people with high levels of both overt
and covert narcissism.
Taken together, the researchers concluded: “Our results
illustrate that the self-enhancement motive is powerful
and deeply ingrained so that it can hijack methods intend-
ed to transcend the ego and instead adopt them to its own
service.... The road to spiritual enlightenment may yield
the exact same mundane distortions that are all too famil-
iar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illuso-
ry superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (cling-
ing to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged
‘higher’ values.”
HEALTHY TRANSCENDENCE
Is there any way around the allure of spiritual narcis-
sism? It’s all well and good that gurus espouse the impor-
tance of quieting the ego (often while driving in their
Rolls-Royces), but in practice can we ever really override
the universal self-centrality principle and transcend spir-
itual narcissism?
I think we can, but I believe the first step is simply being
aware that it’s incredibly difficult to do so. One serious
obstacle to healthy transcendence, as I see it, is how spiri-
tual practices are “sold” to the masses. Yoga and mindful-
ness are big businesses in America. The purported bene-
fits of mindfulness meditation have generated a bil-
lion-dollar industry (see here, here and here). Yoga is the
most popular mind-body practice in Western societies.
Many of these programs offer a long list of promises,
including the reduction of stress and anxiety, along with
greater confidence, creativity, focus, achievement, success,
eating habits, sleep and even happiness.
Here’s the thing: Healthy transcendence doesn’t stem
from an attempt at distracting oneself from displeasure
with reality. Healthy transcendence involves confronting
reality as it truly is, head on, with equanimity and loving
kindness. As I put it in Transcend, healthy transcendence
“is not about leaving any parts of ourselves or anyone else
behind or singularly rising above the rest of humanity.
Healthy transcendence is not about being outside of the
whole, or feeling superior to the whole, but being a
harmonious part of the whole of human existence....
Healthy transcendence involves harnessing all that you
are in the service of realizing the best version of yourself
so you can help raise the bar for the whole of humanity.”
This involves seeing reality as clearly as possible. As
noted by Nancy Colier, author of The Power of Off: The
Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World, the point of
mindfulness “is to be able to see what is happening inside
ourselves, without ownership, judgment or action. And
simultaneously, to lose our great belief in and reverence
for the productions of our mind.... The dangerous habit is
this: The mindful witness itself is becoming yet another
form of ego, a new identity, a new somebody that we wear
with pride.”
Don’t get me wrong: I genuinely enjoy looking at all
the varied and intricate yoga poses on Instagram. But
from my reading of the yoga literature, it doesn’t seem as
though the theoretical intent of yoga is primarily for
physically attractive people to display with pride their
ability to twist themselves into a pretzel. Rather it seems
that the most growth-oriented benefits of mind-body
spiritual practices occur when we aren’t using them as a
tool for satisfying any of our basic needs—such as our
needs for security, belonging and self-esteem. Instead
such practices seem to lead to greater maturity, wisdom,
compassion, acceptance and unconditional positive re-
gard toward others when we repeatedly attempt to culti-
vate the ability to be witness to our mind and behaviors
so that we can catch when our crafty ego has hijacked the
system in a way that is detrimental to our own self-actu-
alization and self-transcendence.
Which has me thinking: Perhaps it is time for all of
these yoga and mindfulness centers to chill on all of the
extrinsic purported benefits they are claiming (“Better
health!” “Better sex!” “Amazing concentration!” “Great
success at work!”). Instead focus on the benefits of such
spiritual practices for allowing us to realize that these
concerns of the ego are just the ego doing its thing. That
awareness, in and of itself, is enough of a benefit to last an
enlightened lifetime. M
➦ 20
The Link
between
Delirium
and
Dementia
Delirium is very
common on COVID
wards. Researchers
are testing whether
these temporary bouts
of confusion could
bring on permanent
cognitive decline
By Carrie Arnold

FATINHA RAMOS
21
 Carrie Arnold is an independent public health
reporter based in Virginia.

her job as a physician at the Boston Medical Center, As clinicians face the immediate realities of confusion
and agitation on their wards, Inouye and other research-
Sondra Crosby treated some of the first people in her
IN region to get COVID-19. So when she began feeling
sick last April, Crosby wasn’t surprised to learn that
ers are concerned about the future. In the past decade
long-term studies have revealed that a single episode of
delirium can increase the risk of developing dementia
years later and accelerate rates of cognitive decline in
she, too, had been infected. At first, her symptoms felt those who already have the condition. The reverse is also
like those of a bad cold, but by the next day she was too sick to get true: having dementia makes someone more likely to
develop delirium. A set of simple steps, such as ensuring
out of bed. She struggled to eat and depended on her husband to a family member is present to help people orient them-
bring her sports drinks and fever-reducing medicine. Then she lost selves, can reduce the incidence of delirium by 40 per-
cent, but doctors struggle to follow that advice on
track of time completely. COVID-19 wards.
But the links between delirium and dementia have
For five days, Crosby lay in a confused haze, unable to had acute confusion—a symptom of delirium. Data pre- been difficult to untangle: researchers need to follow
remember the simplest things, such as how to turn on sented last November at the annual meeting of the Amer- patients for years to get results. The surge in people with
her phone or what her address was. She began halluci- ican College of Chest Physicians by scientists at the Van- delirium produced by the pandemic has focused atten-
nating, seeing lizards on her walls and smelling a repug- derbilt University Medical Center showed that 55 percent tion on the condition and provided scientists with a
nant reptilian odor. Only later did Crosby realize that she of the 2,000 people they tracked who were treated for unique opportunity to follow patients and determine if
had had delirium, the formal medical term for her COVID-19 in intensive care units (ICUs) around the and how delirium might affect long-term cognition.
abrupt, severe disorientation. world had developed delirium. These numbers are much Researchers have launched several studies to explore the
“I didn’t really start processing it until later when I higher than doctors are used to: usually about one third long-term neurocognitive impacts of COVID-19, includ-
started to come out of it,” she says. “I didn’t have the pres- of people who are critically ill develop delirium, accord- ing dementia, and Inouye and others hope that this work
ence of mind to think that I was anything more than just ing to a 2015 meta-analysis. will allow them to explore the links between the two con-
sick and dehydrated.” Delirium is so common in COVID-19 that some re- ditions in real time.
Physicians treating people hospitalized with COVID-19 searchers have proposed making it one of the disease’s If the pandemic can be said to have a silver lining,
report that a large number experience delirium and that diagnostic criteria. The pandemic has sparked physicians’ Inouye says, it has been to spur interest in how delirium
the condition disproportionately affects older adults. An interest in the condition, says Sharon Inouye, a geriatri- can lead to dementia—and vice versa. What’s more, says
April 2020 study in Strasbourg, France, found that 65 cian at the Marcus Institute for Aging and Harvard Med- Catherine Price, a neuropsychologist at the University of
percent of people who were severely ill with coronavirus ical School, who has studied delirium for over 30 years. Florida, the spread of COVID-19 “has highlighted the

22
blurring of the lines between delirium and dementia, espe- predicts a downward spiral over a period of months that How Common Is Delirium?
cially with more older adults in our populace.” leads to profound cognitive impairment, even to symp- Typically, almost one third of people who are critically
ill will have an episode of delirium; for COVID-19, the
toms of dementia.
proportion rises to more than half.
NEGLECTED CONDITION More formal studies have reinforced the link, to vary-
Inouye’s interest in delirium began when she landed her ing degrees. Inouye investigated a group of 560 people
31.8%
first job as an internal-medicine physician at a Veterans aged 70 or older who had undergone surgery and saw
Administration hospital in Connecticut in 1985. In her first that cognitive decline over the subsequent 36 months
Typical COVID-19
month there, she treated more than 40 people for a variety was three times faster in those who developed delirium
55%
of conditions. Six of them developed delirium during their than in those who did not have the condition. A 2020
stay; none seemed to return to their previous level of phys- meta-analysis of 23 studies showed that delirium during
ical and mental health. To Inouye, the connection between a hospital stay was associated with 2.3 times greater
her patients’ delirium and their poor prognosis was obvious. odds of developing dementia. And work by a team of
When she confessed her suspicions to her bosses, however, Brazilian scientists showed that in a group of 309 peo- THE COST OF DELIRIUM
they just shrugged. Their attitude, Inouye says, was that ple with an average age of 78 years, 32 percent of those In the U.S., the annual health-care costs
for delirium are higher than those for many other
delirium was just one of those things that happened. who developed delirium in hospital progressed to hav- conditions common in older adults.
“Why is it okay for older adults to come in the hospital ing dementia, compared with just 16 percent of those

"COULD COVID DELIRIUM BRING ON DEMENTIA?" BY CARRIE ARNOLD, IN NATURE, VOL. 588; DECEMBER 2, 2020
Cardiovascular disease
and lose their minds?” Inouye asked. Answering this ques- who did not become delirious. $258 billion
tion, she says, would be “an uphill battle my entire career.” What’s more, the longer a person is delirious, the
Shortly after, she began a two-year fellowship to study the greater their risk of subsequent cognitive impairment, Delirium
condition in depth. Her work showed that delirium occurs according to a 2013 study by psychologist James Jackson $152 billion
when several stressors converge. Preexisting vulnerabilities at Vanderbilt University and his colleagues. Work by
Diabetes
such as chronic disease or cognitive impairment can com- Inouye, Jackson and other researchers found that the $92 billion
bine with precipitating factors, including surgery, anesthe- reverse was also true: even after controlling for age,
sia or overwhelming infection to cause a sudden onset of existing dementia symptoms increased the chances of Nonfatal falls
confusion, disorientation and attention difficulties, espe- developing delirium. $19 billion

cially in older adults. Hip fractures

“Delirium easily occurs when the brain is unable to com- CAUSING CONFUSION $7 billion
pensate for a stressful situation,” explains Tino Emanuele Scientists still don’t agree whether the link between
Poloni, a neurologist at the Golgi Cenci Foundation outside delirium and dementia is strong only in those who
Milan, Italy. Researchers think that the underlying biologi- would have developed dementia anyway or whether DELIRIUM AND COGNITIVE DECLINE
People who experience delirium during hospitalization
cal causes are inflammation and an imbalance in neu- delirium increases the risk of cognitive decline even in are at increased risk of cognitive decline after discharge,
rotransmitters—chemical messengers such as dopamine individuals who are not predisposed to it. Nor can they according to a study of 309 patients n Brazil.
and acetylcholine. say precisely what it is about delirium that could pro- Dementia after no delirium
Inouye’s mounting clinical experience has taught her that voke dementia. If researchers could identify these con- 16%
regardless of what precipitates delirium, around 70 percent nections, then perhaps they could prevent delirium
of those with symptoms eventually recover completely. In from escalating into dementia. Dementia after delirium
the 30 percent who don’t, however, an episode of delirium “We don’t understand the mechanisms of delirium at 32%

23
all—we really don’t. And there is no successful manage-
ment of delirium from a pharmaceutical standpoint,”
Price says.
Scientists have developed three hypotheses to explain
how delirium might provoke dementia. One line of think-
ing holds that an accumulation of toxic cellular trash in
the brain could cause short-term delirium and lead to
longer-term damage. The body usually clears this molec-
ular rubbish by way of the bloodstream and the glym-
phatic system, which is a network of channels filled with
cerebrospinal fluid. Damage to vessels from an acute epi-
sode of delirium could persist and trigger dementia, or a
brain that experiences delirium could become more
prone to vascular problems in future.
The second suspect is inflammation, which often trou-
bles people who are hospitalized for infections, respirato-
ry distress or cardiovascular disease. Surgery and severe
infections can cause a build-up of cellular detritus in the
brain, which triggers more inflammation. This short-
term, all-hands-on-deck reaction safeguards the brain
because it clears the harmful debris, and the inflamma-
tion ultimately dies down. That is not the case for those
who develop delirium, Inouye says. Persistent inflamma-
tion can trigger an acute episode of delirium and cause
neurons and associated cells, such as astrocytes and
microglia, to deteriorate, leading to cognitive damage.
The third idea is what is known as the threshold Visits from relatives are a source of comfort for people with delirium, a common symptom of COVID-19, but many hospitals
hypothesis. Someone with dementia (even in the earli- have strict no-visitor policies.

est stages) has fewer connections between neurons and

can show damage to the insulation that wraps them and managed to find a way to cut rates of delirium in hospi- percent. Hospitals around the U.S. began instituting

MORTEZA NIKOUBAZ GETT Y IMAGES

helps convey signals—known as white matter. This loss
strips the neurological reserves that help the person
to cope with inflammation or infection, throwing them
over the edge not just into delirium but into a more
advanced dementia.
Even though the genesis of delirium and its molecular
connections to dementia remain unknown, Inouye has
tal. She created a program of simple strategies known
as HELP (Hospital Elder Life Program), which focus
on reducing sedation, even during mechanical ventila-
tion, paying close attention to nutrition and hydration,
and ensuring the presence of family members to help
reassure and orient patients. A 2015 meta-analysis
showed that these steps reduced delirium by around 40
these simple protocols. Then COVID-19 struck and made
this all but impossible.
DEMENTIA SURGE
As Crosby endured coronavirus-induced delirium in her
Boston bedroom, Poloni was treating delirious people
with COVID-19 in Lombardy—Italy’s ground zero for the

24
coronavirus. Many of Poloni’s atric function in people par-
patients already had dementia, ticipating in a trial to assess
and like many physicians, he “Is there going to be the safety and efficacy of hy-
was watching for common an increase in dementia droxychloroquine to treat co-
symptoms of respiratory infec- ronavirus. An international
tions such as fever, cough and
from people study is planned to measure
difficulty breathing. But some who had COVID-19 the prevalence of delirium in
of his patients did not show during adulthood people with COVID-19 in
those signs at all. Instead they ICUs, as well as identifying
mostly became “dull and
or midlife?” factors that predict long-term
sleepy,” Poloni said. Others be- —Natalie Tronson outcomes. A separate study in
came restless and agitated— Germany and the U.K. is also
all signs of delirium. It was so tracking neurocognitive out-
prominent that Poloni argued comes in people infected with
that delirium should be added to the virus’s diagnostic COVID-19 to determine how delirium affects brain func-
criteria. Inouye has made that argument, too, and it is tion months later. Another research project led by a
supported by a study she published last November show- team at Vanderbilt University is looking for an alterna-
ing that 28 percent of older adults with COVID-19 are tive to commonly used sedatives such as benzodiaze-
experiencing delirium when they present to the emer- pines, which are known to increase delirium. The
gency department. researchers are testing a sedative called dexmedetomi-
The high numbers of people who developed delirium dine to see whether it is a safer option for people hospi-
immediately made Inouye, Price and other researchers talized with COVID-19.
worry that the pandemic could lead to a surge in demen- Inouye and Tronson hope that the funding of these
tia cases in the coming decades, on top of the increase in long-term studies will lead to ongoing scientific interest
cases as a result of aging populations. “Is there going to in the delirium-dementia connection and that they pro-
be an increase in dementia from people who had vide some insight.
COVID-19 during adulthood or midlife?” asks Natalie “It’s going to be, I think, a little bit frightening and a
Tronson, a neuropsychologist at the University of Mich- little bit enlightening, both about how illness affects
igan. “What happens over the next decades, as the pop- dementia risk but also about what other lifestyle and
ulation ages more?” genetic protective factors can influence risk as well,”
To begin to find answers, institutes around the world Tronson says. “We’re learning quickly, but there’s still a
have funded a variety of studies into the long-term cog- lot of black boxes.” M
nitive effects of COVID-19, some of which will look at
delirium. Already underway in the U.S. is a study track- This article is reproduced with permission and was
ing people who have been treated in the hospital for first published in Nature on December 2, 2020.
COVID-19, many of whom developed delirium during
their stay. This study will measure cognitive and psychi-

➦ 25
 Frank Wilczek is Herman Feshbach Professor of
OPINION Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for his work on
the theory of the strong force.

PHYSICS

The Mind-Expanding
Power of
Complementarity
Embracing divergent perspectives at the same
time is a key to understanding reality

I
n his Pensees (“Thoughts”), Blaise Pascal wrote:
“By space the universe encompasses and swal-
lows me up like an atom.” In Leaves of Grass,
Walt Whitman wrote: “I contain multitudes.” On the
surface, Pascal and Whitman seem to be saying
very different things. Pascal says we are small;
Whitman says we are large.
Yet both are profoundly correct. Science not
only supports but amplifies their famous declara-
tions. Modern cosmology has revealed a universe
vastly larger than Pascal could have conceived in dictory, properties. Complementarity alerts us that broad vista, including our best current understand-
1660. And today we can appreciate the true com- answering different kinds of questions can require ing, the reasons why we trust it, its limits, its mean-
plexity of Whitman’s brain, which incorporates tens radically different approaches. ing—and some guesses about its future.
of billions of vibrant, interconnected neurons, more My goal in writing Fundamentals: Ten Keys to As a discipline to myself, and to make things
clearly than Whitman himself could in 1855. Reality was to unlock the treasure of what every- easily digestible and memorable for my readers,

GETTY IMAGES
Complementarity is the realization that a single one can know about the physical world. That trea- I decided to follow a long tradition, inspired by the
thing, when considered from different perspec- sure is not an attic crammed with dusty facts— Ten Commandments and the 10-fold lists you find
tives, can appear to have different, or even contra- though it contains many surprising facts—but a in many modern self-help books, by organizing

26
 OPINION
the presentation around 10 powerful statements:
the “Keys to Reality” promised in the subtitle.
My first key to reality, “There’s Plenty of Space,”
goes deep into the issues raised by Pascal and
Whitman, mentioned earlier. That was an obvious
starting point. Later choices were not always so
obvious, but I settled on a list of nine fairly easily.
I hoped that thinking and writing about those nine
would suggest another.
And that is what happened. My 10th key to
reality, which emerges from but in some ways
transcends science, turned out to be “Comple-
mentarity Is Mind-Expanding.” Complementarity is
an attitude toward life that I’ve found eye-opening
and extremely helpful. It has, literally, changed my
mind. Through it, I’ve become larger: more open
to imagination and more tolerant.
Let me give two important examples of com-
plementarity in action. The first is the complemen-
tarity between analysis and synthesis or, in popular
jargon, “reductionism” and “holism.”
There is immense satisfaction to be had in de-
scribing the world in terms of its most elementary
building blocks. It is tempting to say that this is the
ideal description, while other, high-level descrip-
tions are mere approximations—compromises that
reflect weakness in understanding. That attitude,
which makes the perfect the enemy of the good,
is superficially deep but deeply superficial.
To answer questions of interest, we often need
to change focus. To discover (or invent) new con-
cepts and new ways of working with them is an
open-ended, creative activity. Computer scientists
and software engineers are well aware that in de-
signing useful algorithms it is important to pay at-
tention to how knowledge is represented. A good
representation can make the difference between
usable knowledge and knowledge that is there “in
principle” but not really available, because it takes
too long, and too much trouble, to locate and pro-
cess. It’s like the difference between owning bars
of gold and knowing in principle there are vast
stores of gold atoms floating dissolved in the ocean.
For that reason, complete understanding of
the fundamental laws, if we ever achieved it, would
be neither “The Theory of Everything” nor “The
End of Science.” To do decent justice to reality,
we would still need new ideas and complementary
descriptions. There would still be plenty of great
questions left unanswered and plenty of great sci-
entific work left to do. There always will be.
The complementarity between humility and
self-respect is, I believe, the central message
of Fundamentals as a whole. It recurs as a theme
in many variations. The vastness of space dwarfs
us, but we contain multitudes of neurons and
of course vastly more of the atoms of which
neurons are made. The vastness of cosmic histo-
ry far exceeds a human lifetime, but we have
time for immense numbers of thoughts. Cosmic
energies outstrip what any human, or even hu-
manity as a whole, commands, but we have ample
power to sculpt our local environment and partici-
pate actively in life, love and adventures among
other humans. The world is complex beyond our
ability to grasp and rich in mysteries, but we know
a lot and are learning more. In each case, humility
is in order, but so is self-respect.
The word “complementarity” was introduced
into scientific and philosophical discourse by Niels
Bohr, a founder of modern quantum theory. Within
quantum theory, complementarity is not merely
helpful but essential. It arises in the interpretation
of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, according to
which it is impossible to predict both the position
and velocity of a particle simultaneously.
In quantum theory, the fundamental de-
scription of a particle is given by its wave function.
Theoretically, the particle’s wave function supplies
the answer to any question about the particle that
it makes sense to ask. We do not have empirical
access to the wave function itself, however, but
only to processed versions of it. One way of pro-
cessing gives us predictions about the particle’s
position; another way of processing gives us pre-
dictions about its velocity. Sadly, those two ways
of processing are mathematically incompatible.
In this setting, complementarity is a theorem: dif-
ferent questions correspond to different aspects
of reality, which do not yield to a single description.
Although Bohr first articulated complementari-
ty in the 20th century, once you’re alert to it, you
can find many traces of it in the science, literature
and art of earlier times. Pascal’s quote concludes:
“Through space the universe grasps me and swal-
lows me up like a speck; but through thought
I grasp it.” And Whitman’s, in context, is a wonder-
fully poetic celebration of complementarity:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
➦ 27
 OPINION Dario Gil is director of IBM Research, one of the world's largest and most influential
corporate research labs, with more than 3,000 scientists at 19 locations on six continents.
He is the 12th director in its 75-year history. He leads innovation efforts at IBM, directing
research strategies in AI, cloud, quantum and exploratory science. He is a founder and
co-chair of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium.

POLICY & ETHICS

The Ethical
Challenges of
Connecting Our
Brains to Computers
We must ensure that companies, policy makers
and consumers use neurotechnology
in a responsible way

T
his is neurotech—new, potentially revolution-
ary technology that promises to transform
our lives. With all the global challenges of
today, we need revolutionary technology to help
the world cope.
Neurotech is our, frankly, mind-blowing attempt
to connect human brains to machines, computers
and mobile phones. Although brain-computer

ANDRIY ONUFRIENKO GETT Y IMAGES

interfaces (BCIs) are the heart of neurotech, it
is more broadly defined as technology able to
collect, interpret, infer or modify information gen-
erated by any part of the nervous system. Why?
To develop therapies for mental illnesses and
neurological diseases. Beyond health care, it
could soon be used in education, gaming, enter-

28
 OPINION

tainment, transportation, and so much more. a person’s intended speech or movement. Such ulation. We have to anticipate and deal with the
But there are pitfalls: there are no widely accept- technology could eventually enable a patient with implications related to the development, deploy-
ed regulations or guardrails yet when it comes to language or movement difficulties—say, someone ment and use of this technology. Any neurotech
neurotech’s development or deployment. We need with locked-in syndrome—to communicate easier applications should consider potential conse-
them—we need them bad. We must have principles and more effectively. quences for the autonomy, privacy, responsibility,
and policies around neurotech, technology safe- Noninvasive neurotech is also used for pain consent, integrity and dignity of a person.
guards, and national and international regulations. management. Together with Boston Scientific, What if someone were to face employment dis-
IBM researchers are applying machine learning, crimination because the algorithms that power a
WHAT IS NEUROTECH, ANYWAY? the Internet of things, and neurotech to improve neurotech application used for hiring misinterpret
There are different types of it—some is invasive; chronic pain therapy. his or her neurodata? What if a criminal gets
some isn’t. Invasive brain-computer interfaces in- All of this is already quite impressive, but there ahold of the previous or current neurodata of the
volve placing microelectrodes or other kinds of is also neurotech that really pushes the envelope. secretary of defense and steals top secret infor-
neurotech materials directly onto the brain or even Not only can it sense or read neurodata, but it mation? Ethical concerns increase when we are
embedding them into the neural tissue. The idea can also modulate—invasively and noninvasively. not just monitoring someone’s neurodata but also
is to directly sense or modulate neural activity. This research is still in early stages, but it is ad- interpreting it, decoding the person’s thoughts—
Such technology has already improved the vancing rapidly. with implications for accuracy and mental privacy.
quality of life and abilities of people with different One astounding example is the work of Rafael One tricky aspect is that most of the neurodata
illnesses or impairments, from epilepsy to Parkin- Yuste, a neurobiologist at Columbia University. generated by the nervous systems is unconscious.
son’s disease to chronic pain. One day we might His team has recorded the neuron activity of a It means it is very possible to unknowingly or unin-
implant such neurotech devices into paralyzed mouse that was performing an action, such as tentionally provide neurotech with information that
humans, allowing them to easily control phones, licking for a reward. Later the researchers reacti- one otherwise wouldn’t. So, in some applications of
computers and prosthetic limbs—with their vated these same neurons and got the mouse to neurotech, the presumption of privacy within one’s
thoughts alone. In 2017 Rodrigo Hübner Mendes, perform the same action, even if the rodent did own mind may simply no longer be a certainty.
a paraplegic, used neurotech to drive a racecar not intend to do it at that moment. Other neuro- As new, emerging technology, neurotech chal-
with his mind. Recently an invasive neurotech de- scientists have used similar technologies to trans- lenges corporations, researchers and individuals
vice accurately decoded imagined handwriting fer learned tasks between two rodents brain to to reaffirm our commitment to responsible inno-
movements in real time, at a speed that matched brain and implant false memories into an animal’s vation. It’s essential to enforce guardrails so that
typical typing. Researchers have also showed mind. It’s remarkable. they lead to beneficial long-term outcomes—on
how invasive neurotech allows users with missing company, national and international levels. We
or damaged limbs to feel touch, heat and cold RISKS, ETHICS AND REGULATION need to ensure that researchers and manufactur-
through their prostheses. Still, neurotech is at the very dawn of its techno- ers of neurotech as well as policy makers and
There is also noninvasive neurotech that can logical journey. As it becomes more common- consumers approach it responsibly and ethically.
be used for similar applications. For example, place, we must consider the risks it might pre- Let’s act now to avoid any future risks as neuro-
researchers have developed wearables to infer sent, the ethics around it, and the necessary reg- tech matures—for the benefit of humanity.

➦ 29
 OPINION Debra Lieberman is an associate professor of psychology at the
University of Miami, editor in chief of the journal Evolution and Human
Behavior, and a 2020 Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.

EVOLUTION

The Evolutionary
Origins of Friendship
The emergence of this crucial kind of relationship
relied on the ability to recognize the unique
benefits others have to offer

A
s awful as 2020 was, its ability to reveal
the genuine strengths and weaknesses
of our relationships was an unexpected
boon. When severe trouble strikes, whether it be
a death in the family, divorce, lost fortune, public
cancellation or global crisis, true friends rise
above the posers.
Strange as it might sound, severe downturns
are watershed moments. They enable us to dis-
cern fair-weather friends from friends tried and
true. Flush times, when all is going well, do not
provide the clarifying moments that enable us to
see who will come to our aid when the chips are
down. In fact, the ironic implication is that during previously in close orbit but also the distressing tions for more than 20 years. Friendships are an

JUSTIN LEWIS GETTY IMAGES

times of good fortune, we might be less certain
of who our friends really are and only glean this
insight during times of hardship. Indeed, over
the past year, I’ve experienced the gratifying
strengthening of relationships with people not
unraveling of relationships I had thought beyond
question. Some relationships can withstand
intense stress; others break like brittle bones.
As an evolutionary psychologist, I have con-
ducted research on social relationships and emo-
important class of relationships that evolved in
response to the benefits of having additional peo-
ple beyond family invested in one’s welfare. But
how do we make other people care—that is, redi-
rect their time, money and social benefits to us

30
 OPINION
instead of to themselves or to their kin?
The answer: we make ourselves valuable.
The evolution of friendships relied on the ability
to recognize the unique benefits other people
have on offer. Benefits can include the usual sus-
pects of prestige, status and attractiveness, but
there are myriad reasons why you might value
another person: they are of the same political
party, they like the same kinds of foods, they like
to golf, surf or play chess, or they enjoy talking
endlessly about Star Wars. Friendships tend to
begin when one individual perceives value in an-
other and performs a beneficent act: “You can
borrow my phone if you need to make a call”;
“Can I help you carry that?” These actions serve
as a fishing line, cast out to see if the target indi-
vidual might be in the market for a new friend.
Signals of their gratitude are promising indicators
of a bite; anger and annoyance are indicators of
a lost lure.
What begins as a mere platitude, though, can
snowball into a deep engagement. If I demon-
strate that I value you, then, all else equal, it pays
for you to value me in return. Your increased valu-
ation of me can then lead me to care more about
you, and so forth. To the extent we can make our-
selves valuable to each other, we will have a vest-
ed interest in keeping each other around, which
comes in handy during times of misfortune.
The talk of value and benefits on offer sounds
calculated and coldhearted. It is. But this jargon
refers to the rationale behind why the thoughts
and feelings we experience exist. You do not con-
sciously calculate the likelihood that a person
values you or the downstream benefits that could
result from a relationship—instead the algorithms
doing these calculations generate outputs, which
percolate up from the unconscious as “liking.”
Have you ever met someone, talked for hours,
and left feeling like you’ve found a long-lost
brother, sister or soulmate? Chances are, you
noticed similarities and evaluated the kinds of
benefits future interactions might yield, which
generated a sense of immediate closeness.
Mutual valuation, when intense, can create story-
book relationships.
But the tricky part is deciphering which individ-
uals merely say they value us versus those who
would be inclined to stand by our side during
hardship. Talk is cheap and promises easily spo-
ken: “I’d totally help you out in a pinch”; “You can
ask me for money anytime”; “Feel free to stay at
my place.” Promises cost nothing when friends
don’t need help, money or a place to stay. As they
say, actions speak louder than words. The pan-
demic has therefore been an unexpected (albeit
unwanted) opportunity to test the tensile strength
of our relationships.
As 2020 retreats farther into the rearview, it is
as good a time as any to take stock of our rela-
tionships and to apply the old adage to ourselves
and to others: friends in need are friends indeed.
➦ 31
 ILLUSIONS Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde are professors
of ophthalmology at the State University of New York and the organizers
of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest. They have co-authored Sleights
of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday
Deceptions and Champions of Illusion: The Science behind Mind-Boggling
Images and Mystifying Brain Puzzles.

Looking-Glass?
Look Again
This illusion turns empty frames into mirrors

T
he image at the right contains one actual
mirror and three empty frames. Can you
work out which is which? The visual rid-
dle was created by Matt Pritchard, a U.K. magi-
cian. He won second prize in the 2020 Best Il-
lusion of the Year Contest with a related puzzle.
The conundrum highlights our perceptual
limitations regarding mirrors. Despite our
seemingly unlimited everyday experience with
reflecting surfaces, it turns out that most of
us understand ordinary mirrors much worse
than we think.
Pritchard’s discovery was serendipitous.
He was handling the frame of a broken mirror
when, looking through the empty square, he
mistakenly believed that he was looking at a re-
flection. “It was a lovely reality-twisting mo-
ment,” Pritchard recalls. The next day he set
out to reproduce the effect with the same emp-

MATT PRITCHARD
ty frame, twin cans of soda, and cutouts of
colored paper. “The illusions with Coke cans In this photograph by Matt Pritchard, one frame is an actual mirror and the other three are empty. The challenge for
led me down the path of playing with various readers is to distinguish reflection from reality. Solution: .rorrim lautca na ot sdnopserroc thgir rewol eht ni emarf eht ylnO

32
 ILLUSIONS

mirror-related illusions and exploring various ways

to trick the brain.”
Pritchard’s mind-bending experience might be
more common than one might imagine. In 2016,
while remodeling their kitchen, psychologist
F. Richard Ferraro and his wife, Jacqueline Lee
Foster Ferraro, accidentally placed two identical
lamps at both sides of a pass-through opening con-
necting their living room to the kitchen. Although the
couple knew that they owned both lamps, they
could not help but feel that they were looking at
a single lamp and its reflection. In a subsequent
paper published in the journal Perception, they pro-
posed that their misperception could be explained
by the so-called simplicity principle.
According to the simplicity principle, our brains
prefer the simplest explanations for the objects in
our visual environment. “In everyday life, it’s unlikely
[we] find symmetry like this, unless there has been
an intentional design behind it, or there is a mirror
between the two sets,” Pritchard explains. In other
words, we are more often right than wrong when we
guess that a symmetrical arrangement indicates a
single object and its reflection, rather than two dis-
connected objects at either side of a frame.
Pritchard reports that the illusion is largely
robust to viewing angle, binocular vision, and
even small discrepancies between an item and its
“reflection.” But several questions remain unan-
swered. “How did this mirror assumption arise?
From an evolutionary perspective … mirrors are
a relatively recent invention. At what stage of
human development do we learn about mirrors?”
Pritchard wonders.

➦ 33
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Another random document with
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 And, with a weary sigh, she threw herself into a great chair by the
fire; and thought, and listened, and dreamed away a long time,
before Charlie’s step and voice were heard again in the old house.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BROTHERS’ WALK.

When the host and his guest had gone out together, to the paved
yard, it was already night, and the moon was shining brilliantly.
Tom had saddled the horse, and at the first summons led him out;
and Harry, with a nod and a grin, for he was more prodigal of his
smiles than of his shillings, took the bridle from his fingers, and with
Charlie by his side, walked forth silently from the yard gate, upon
that dark and rude track which followed for some distance the
precipitous edge of the ravine which opens upon the deeper glen of
Carwell.
Very dark was this narrow road, overhung and crossed by
towering trees, through whose boughs only here and there an
angular gleam or minute mottling of moonlight hovered and floated
on the white and stony road, with the uneasy motion of the branches,
like little flights of quivering wings.
There was a silence corresponding with this darkness. The clank
of the horse’s hoof, and their own more muffled tread were the only
sounds that mingled with the sigh and rustle of the boughs above
them. The one was expecting, the other meditating, no very pleasant
topic, and it was not the business of either to begin, for a little.
They were not walking fast. The horse seemed to feel that the
human wayfarers were in a sauntering mood, and fell
accommodatingly into a lounging gait like theirs.
If there were eyes there constructed to see in the dark, they would
have seen two countenances, one sincere, the other adjusted to that
sort of sham sympathy and regret which Hogarth, with all his
delicacy and power, portrays in the paternal alderman who figures in
the last picture of “Marriage à la Mode.”
There was much anxiety in Charles’ face, and a certain brooding
shame and constraint which would have accounted for his silence. In
that jolly dog, Harry, was discoverable, as I have said, quite another
light and form of countenance. There was a face that seemed to
have discharged a smile, that still would not quite go. The eyelids
drooped, the eyebrows raised, a simulated condolence, such as we
all have seen.
In our moral reviews of ourselves we practise optical delusions
even upon our own self-scrutiny, and paint and mask our motives,
and fill our ears with excuses and with downright lies. So inveterate
is the habit of deceiving, and even in the dark we form our features
by hypocrisy, and scarcely know all this.
“Here’s the turn at last to Cressley Common; there’s no talking
comfortably among these trees; it’s so dark, any one might be at
your elbow and you know nothing about it—and so the old man is
very angry.”
“Never saw a fellow so riled,” answered Harry; “you know what he
is when he is riled, and I never saw him so angry before. If he knew I
was here—but you’ll take care of me?”
“It’s very kind of you, old fellow; I won’t forget it, indeed I won’t, but
I ought to have thought twice: I ought not to have brought poor Alice
into this fix; for d—— me, if I know how we are to get on.”
“Well, you know, it’s only just a pinch, an ugly corner, and you are
all right—it can’t last.”
“It may last ten years, or twenty, for that matter,” said Charlie. “I
was a fool to sell out. I don’t know what we are to do; do you?”
“You’re too down in the mouth; can’t ye wait and see? there’s
nothing yet, and it won’t cost ye much carrying on down here.”
“Do you think, Harry, it would be well to take up John Wauling’s
farm, and try whether I could not make something of it in my own
hands?” asked Charles.
Harry shook his head.
“You don’t?” said Charlie.
“Well, no, I don’t; you’d never make the rent of it,” answered Harry;
“besides, if you begin upsetting things here, the people will begin to
talk, and that would not answer; you’ll need to be d——d quiet.”
There was here a pause, and they walked on in silence until the
thick shadows of the trees began to break a little before them, and
the woods grew more scattered; whole trees were shadowed in
distinct outline, and the wide common of Cressley, with its furze and
fern, and broad undulations, stretched mistily before them.
 “About money—you know, Charlie, there’s money enough at
present and no debts to signify; I mean, if you don’t make them you
needn’t. You and Alice, with the house and garden, can get along on
a trifle. The tenants give you three hundred a year, and you can
manage with two.”
“Two hundred a year!” exclaimed Charlie, opening his eyes.
“Ay, two hundred a year!—that girl don’t eat sixpenn’orth in a day,”
said Harry.
“Alice is the best little thing in the world, and will look after
everything, I know; but there are other things beside dinner and
breakfast,” said Charles, who did not care to hear his wife called
“that girl.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives, my boy; you’ll want a hundred
every year for contingencies,” said Harry.
“Well, I suppose so,” Charles winced, “and all the more need for a
few more hundreds; for I don’t see how any one could manage to
exist on such a pittance.”
“You’ll have to contrive though, my lad, unless they’ll manage a
post obit for you,” said Harry.
“There is some trouble about that, and people are such d——d
screws,” said Charles, with a darkening face.
“Al’ays was and ever will be,” said Harry, with a laugh.
“And it’s all very fine talking of a ‘hundred a year,’ but you know
and I know that won’t do, and never did,” exclaimed Charles,
breaking forth bitterly, and then looking hurriedly over his shoulder.
“Upon my soul, Charlie, I don’t know a curse about it,” answered
Harry, good-humouredly; “but if it won’t do, it won’t, that’s certain.”
“Quite certain,” said Charles, and sighed very heavily; and again
there was a little silence.
“I wish I was as sharp a fellow as you are, Harry,” said Charles,
regretfully.
“Do you really think I’m a sharp chap—do you though? I al’ays
took myself for a bit of a muff, except about cattle—I did, upon my
soul,” said Harry, with an innocent laugh.
“You are a long way a cleverer fellow than I am, and you are not
half so lazy; and tell me what you’d do if you were in my situation?”
 “What would I do if I was in your place?” said Harry, looking up at
the stars, and whistling low for a minute.
“Well, I couldn’t tell you off hand; ’twould puzzle a better man’s
head for a bit to answer that question—only I can tell you one thing,
I’d never agone into that situation, as ye call it, at no price; ’twouldn’t
’av answered me by no chance. But don’t you be putting your finger
in your eye yet a bit; there’s nothing to cry about now that I knows of;
time enough to hang your mouth yet, only I thought I might as well
come over and tell you.”
“I knew, Harry, there was something to tell,” said Charles.
“Not over much—only a trifle when all’s told,” answered Harry; “but
you are right, for it was that brought me over here. I was in Lon’on
last week, and I looked in at the place at Hoxton, and found just the
usual thing, and came away pretty much as wise as I went in.”
“Not more reasonable?” asked Charles.
“Not a bit,” said Harry.
“Tell me what you said,” asked Charles.
“Just what we agreed,” he answered.
“Well, there was nothing in that that was not kind and conciliatory,
and common sense—was there?” pleaded Charles.
“It did not so seem to strike the plenipotentiary,” said Harry.
“You seem to think it very pleasant,” said Charles.
“I wish it was pleasanter,” said Harry; “but pleasant or no, I must
tell my story straight. I ran in in a hurry, you know, as if I only wanted
to pay over the twenty pounds—you mind.”
“Ay,” said Charles, “I wish to heaven I had it back again.”
“Well, I don’t think it made much difference in the matter of love
and liking, I’ll not deny; but I looked round, and I swore I wondered
any one would live in such a place when there were so many nice
places where money would go three times as far in foreign countries;
and I wondered you did not think of it, and take more interest
yourself, and upon that I could see the old soger was thinking of fifty
things, suspecting poor me of foul play among the number; and I
was afraid for a minute I was going to have half a dozen claws in my
smeller; but I turned it off, and I coaxed and wheedled a bit. You’d a
laughed yourself black, till I had us both a purring like a pair of old
maid’s cats.”
 “I tell you what, Harry, there’s madness there—literal madness,”
said Charles, grasping his arm as he stopped and turned towards
him, so that Harry had to come also to a standstill. “Don’t you know it
—as mad as Bedlam? Just think!”
Harry laughed.
“Mad enough, by jingo,” said he.
“But don’t you think so—actually mad?” repeated Charles.
“Well, it is near the word, maybe, but I would not say quite mad—
worse than mad, I dare say, by chalks; but I wouldn’t place the old
soger there,” said Harry.
“Where?” said Charles.
“I mean exactly among the mad ’uns. No, I wouldn’t say mad, but
as vicious—and worse, mayhap.”
“It does not matter much what we think, either of us; but I know
what another fellow would have done long ago, but I could not bring
myself to do that. I have thought it over often, but I couldn’t—I
couldn’t.”
“Well, then, it ain’t no great consequence,” said Harry, and he
tightened his saddle-girth a hole or two—“no great consequence; but
I couldn’t a’ put a finger to that—mind; for I think the upperworks is
as sound as any, only there’s many a devil beside mad ’uns. I give it
in to you there.”
“And what do you advise me to do?—this sort of thing is dreadful,”
said Charles.
“I was going to say, I think the best thing to be done is just to leave
all that business, d’ye mind, to me.”
Harry mounted, and leaning on his knee, he said—
“I think I have a knack, if you leave it to me. Old Pipeclay doesn’t
think I have any reason to play false.”
“Rather the contrary,” said Charles, who was attentively listening.
“No interest at all,” pursued Harry, turning his eyes towards the
distant knoll of Torston, and going on without minding Charles’
suggestion—
“Look, now, that beast ’ll follow my hand as sweet as sugary-
candy, when you’d have nothing but bolting and baulking, and
rearin’, or worse. There’s plenty o’ them little French towns or
German—and don’t you be botherin’ your head about it; only do just
as I tell ye, and I’ll take all in hands.”
“You’re an awfully good fellow, Harry; for, upon my soul, I was at
my wit’s end almost; having no one to talk to, and not knowing what
any one might be thinking of; and I feel safe in your hands, Harry, for
I think you understand that sort of work so much better than I do—
you understand people so much better—and I never was good at
managing any one, or anything for that matter; and—and when will
business bring you to town again?”
“Three weeks or so, I wouldn’t wonder,” said Harry.
“And I know, Harry, you won’t forget me. I’m afraid to write to you
almost; but if you’d think of any place we could meet and have a talk,
I’d be ever so glad. You have no idea how fidgety and miserable a
fellow grows that doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“Ay, to be sure; well, I’ve no objection. My book’s made for ten
days or so—a lot of places to go to—but I’ll be coming round again,
and I’ll tip you a stave.”
“That’s a good fellow; I know you won’t forget me,” said Charles,
placing his hand on his brother’s arm.
“No—of course. Good-night, and take care of yourself, and give
my love to Ally.”
“And—and Harry?”
“Well?” answered Harry, backing his restless horse a little bit.
“I believe that’s all.”
“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night,” echoed Charles.
Harry touched his hat with a smile, and was away the next
moment, flying at a ringing trot over the narrow unfenced road that
traverses the common, and dwindling in the distant moonlight.
“There he goes—light of heart; nothing to trouble him—life a
holiday—the world a toy.”
He walked a little bit slowly in the direction of the disappearing
horseman, and paused again, and watched him moodily till he was
fairly out of sight.
“I hope he won’t forget; he’s always so busy about those stupid
horses—a lot of money he makes, I dare say. I wish I knew
something about them. I must beat about for some way of turning a
penny. Poor little Alice! I hope I have not made a mull of it! I’ll save
every way I can—of course that’s due to her; but when you come to
think of it, and go over it all, there’s very little you can give up. You
can lay down your horses, if you have them, except one. You must
have one in a place like this—you’d run a risk of starving, or never
getting your letters, or dying for want of the doctor. And—I won’t
drink wine; brandy, or Old Tom does just as well, and I’ll give up
smoking totally. A fellow must make sacrifices. I’ll just work through
this one box slowly, and order no more: it’s all a habit, and I’ll give it
up.”
So he took a cigar from his case and lighted it.
“I’ll not spend another pound on them, and the sooner these are
out the better.”
He sauntered slowly away with his hands in his pockets to a little
eminence about a hundred yards to the right, and mounted it, and
looked all around, smoking. I don’t think he saw much of that
extensive view; but you would have fancied him an artist in search of
the picturesque.
His head was full of ideas of selling Carwell Grange; but he was
not quite sure that he had power, and did not half like asking his
attorney, to whom he already owed something. He thought how snug
and pleasant they might be comparatively in one of those quaint little
toy towns in Germany, where dull human nature bursts its
cerements, and floats and flutters away into a butterfly life of gold
and colour—where the punter and the croupier assist at the worship
of the brilliant and fickle goddess, and bands play sweetly, and
people ain’t buried alive in deserts and forests among dogs and
“chawbacons”—where little Alice would be all wonder and delight.
Was it quite fair to bring her down here to immure her in the
mouldering cloister of Carwell Grange?
He had begun now to re-enter the wooded ascent toward that
melancholy mansion; his cigar was burnt out, and he said, looking
toward his home through the darkness—
“Poor little Alice! she does love me, I think—and that’s something.”
 CHAPTER XIX.
COMING IN.

When at last her husband entered the room where she awaited him
that night—
“Oh! Charlie, it is very late,” said Alice, a little reproachfully.
“Not very, is it, darling?” said he, glancing at his watch. “By Jove! it
is. My poor little woman, I had not an idea.”
“I suppose I am very foolish, but I love you so much, Charlie, that I
grow quite miserable when I am out of your sight.”
“I’m sorry, my darling, but I fancied he had a great deal more to tell
me than he really had. I don’t think I’m likely, at least for a little time,
to be pressed by my duns—and—I wanted to make out exactly what
money he’s likely to get me for a horse he is going to sell, and I’m
afraid, from what he says, it won’t be very much; really, twenty
pounds, one way or other, seems ridiculous, but it does make a very
serious difference just now, and if I hadn’t such a clever, careful little
woman as you, I don’t really know what I should do.”
He added this little complimentary qualification with an instinctive
commiseration for the pain he thought he saw in her pretty face.
“These troubles won’t last very long, Charlie, perhaps. Something,
I’m sure, will turn up, and you’ll see how careful I will be. I’ll learn
everything old Mildred can teach me, ever so much, and you’ll see
what a manager I will be.”
“You are my own little treasure. You always talk as if you were in
the way, somehow, I don’t know how. A wife like you is a greater help
to me than one with two thousand a year and the reckless habits of a
fine lady. Your wise little head and loving heart, my darling, are worth
whole fortunes to me without them, and I do believe you are the first
really good wife that ever a Fairfield married. You are the only
creature I have on earth, that I’m quite sure of—the only creature.”
And so saying he kissed her, folding her in his arms, and, with a
big tear filling each eye, she looked up, smiling unutterable affection,
in his face. As they stood together in that embrace his eyes also
filled with tears and his smile met hers, and they seemed wrapt for a
moment in one angelic glory, and she felt the strain of his arm draw
her closer.
Such moments come suddenly and are gone; but, remaining in
memory, they are the lights that illuminate a dark and troublous
retrospect for ever.
“We’ll make ourselves happy here, little Ally, and I—in spite of
everything, my darling!—and I don’t know how it happened that I
stayed away so long; but I walked with Harry further than I intended,
and when he left me I loitered on Cressley Common for a time with
my head full of business; and so, without knowing it, I was filling my
poor little wife’s head with alarms and condemning her to solitude.
Well, all I can do is to promise to be a good boy and to keep better
hours for the future.”
“That’s so like you, you are so good to your poor, foolish little wife,”
said Alice.
“I wish I could be, darling,” said he; “I wish I could prove one-half
my love; but the time will come yet. I sha’n’t be so poor or powerless
always.”
“But you’re not to speak so—you’re not to think that. It is while we
are poor that I can be of any use,” she said, eagerly; “very little, very
miserable my poor attempts, but nothing makes me so happy as
trying to deserve ever so little of all the kind things my Ry says of
me; and I’m sure, Charlie, although there may be cares and troubles,
we will make our time pass here very happily, and perhaps we shall
always look back on our days at Carwell as the happiest of our
lives.”
“Yes, darling, I am determined we shall be very happy,” said he.
“And Ry will tell me everything that troubles him?”
Her full eyes were gazing sadly up in his face. He averted his
eyes, and said—
“Of course I will, darling.”
“Oh! Ry, if you knew how happy that makes me!” she exclaimed.
But there was that in the exclamation which seemed to say, “If only I
could be sure that you meant it.”
“Of course I will—that is, everything that could possibly interest
you, for there are very small worries as well as great ones; and you
know I really can’t undertake to remember everything.”
“Of course, darling,” she answered; “I only meant that if anything
were really—any great anxiety—upon your mind, you would not be
afraid to tell me. I’m not such a coward as I seem. You must not think
me so foolish; and really, Ry, it pains me more to think that there is
any anxiety weighing upon you, and concealed from me, than any
disclosure could; and so I know—won’t you?”
“Haven’t I told you, darling, I really will,” he said, a little pettishly.
“What an odd way you women have of making a fellow say the same
thing over and over again. I wonder it does not tire you, I know it
does us awfully. Now, there, see, I really do believe you are going to
cry.”
“Oh, no, indeed!” she said, brightening up, and smiling with a sad,
little effort.
“And now, kiss me, my poor, good little woman,—you’re not vexed
with me?—no, I’m sure you’re not,” said he.
She smiled a very affectionate assurance.
“And really, you poor little thing, it is awfully late, and you must be
tired, and I’ve been—no, not lecturing, I’ll never lecture, I hate it—but
boring or teasing; I’m an odious dog, and I hate myself.”
So this little dialogue ended happily, and for a time Charles
Fairfield forgot his anxieties, and a hundred pleasanter cares filled
his young wife’s head.
In such monastic solitudes as Carwell Grange the days pass
slowly, but the retrospect of a month or a year is marvellously short.
Twelve hours without an event is very slow to get over. But that very
monotony, which is the soul of tediousness, robs the background of
all the irregularities and objects which arrest the eye and measure
distance in review, and thus it cheats the eye.
An active woman may be well content with an existence of
monotony which would all but stifle even an indolent man. So long as
there is a household—ever so frugal—to be managed, and the more
frugal the more difficult and harassing—the female energies are
tasked, and healthily because usefully exercised. But in this indoor
administration the man is incompetent and in the way. His ordained
activities are out of doors; and if these are denied him, he mopes
away his days and feels that he cumbers the ground.
 With little resource but his fishing-rod, and sometimes, when a fit
of unwonted energy inspired him, his walking-stick, and a lonely
march over the breezy expanse of Cressley Common, days, weeks,
and months, loitered their drowsy way into the past.
There were reasons why he did not care to court observation.
Under other circumstances he would have ridden into the
neighbouring towns and heard the news, and lunched with a friend
here or there. But he did not want any one to know that he was at
the Grange; and if it should come out that he had been seen there,
he would have had it thought that it was but a desultory visit.
A man less indolent, and perhaps not much more unscrupulous,
would have depended upon a few offhand lies to account for his
appearance, and would not have denied himself an occasional
excursion into human society in those rustic haunts within his reach.
But Charles Fairfield had not decision to try it, nor resource for a
system of fibbing, and the easiest and dullest course he took.
In Paradise the man had his business—“to dress and to keep” the
garden, and, no doubt, the woman hers, suitable to her sex. It is a
mistake to fancy that it is either a sign of love or conducive to its
longevity that the happy pair should always pass the entire four-and-
twenty hours in each other’s company, or get over them in anywise
without variety or usefulness.
Charles Fairfield loved his pretty wife. She made his inactive
solitude more endurable than any man could have imagined. Still it
was a dull existence, and being also darkened with an ever-present
anxiety, was a morbid one.
Small matters harassed him now. He brooded over trifles, and the
one care, which was really serious, grew and grew in his perpetual
contemplation until it became tremendous, and darkened his entire
sky.
I can’t say that Charles grew morose. It was not his temper, but his
spirits that failed—care-worn and gloomy—his habitual melancholy
depressed and even alarmed his poor little wife, who yet concealed
her anxieties, and exerted her music and her invention—sang songs
—told him old stories of the Wyvern folk, touched him with such
tragedy and comedy as may be found in such miniature centres of
rural life, and played backgammon with him, and sometimes écarté,
and, in fact, nursed his sick spirits, as such angelic natures will.
Now and then came Harry Fairfield, but his visits were short and
seldom, and what was worse, Charles always seemed more
harassed or gloomy after one of his calls. There was something
going on, and by no means prosperously, she was sure, from all
knowledge of which, however it might ultimately concern her, and did
immediately concern her husband, she was jealously excluded.
Sometimes she felt angry—oftener pained—always troubled with
untold fears and surmises. Poor little Alice! It was in the midst of
these secret misgivings that a new care and hope visited her—a
trembling, delightful hope, that hovers between life and death—
sometimes in sad and mortal fear—sometimes in delightful
anticipation of a new and already beloved life, coming so helplessly
into this great world—unknown, to be her little comrade, all
dependent on that beautiful love with which her young heart was
already overflowing.
So almost trembling—hesitating—she told her little story with
smiles and tears, in a pleading, beseeching, almost apologetic way,
that melted the better nature of Charles, who told her how welcome
to him, and how beloved for her dear sake the coming treasure
should be, and held her beating heart to his in a long, loving
embrace, and more than all, the old love revived, and he felt how
lonely he would be if his adoring little wife were gone, and how gladly
he would have given his life for hers.
And now came all the little cares and preparations that so
mercifully and delightfully beguile the period of suspense.
What is there so helpless as a new-born babe entering this great,
rude, cruel world? Yet we see how the beautiful and tender instincts
which are radiated from the sublime love of God, provide everything
for the unconscious comer. Let us, then, take heart of grace when,
the sad journey ended, we, children of dust, who have entered so,
are about to make the dread exit, and remembering what we have
seen, and knowing that we go in the keeping of the same “faithful
Creator,” be sure that His love and tender forecast have provided
with equal care for our entrance into another life.
 CHAPTER XX.
HARRY APPEARS AT THE GRANGE.

It was about four o’clock one afternoon, while Charles was smoking
a cigar—for notwithstanding his self-denying resolutions, his case
was always replenished still—that his brother Harry rode into the
yard, where he was puffing away contemplatively at an open stable-
door.
“Delighted to see you, Harry. I was thinking of you this moment, by
Jove, and I can’t tell you how glad I am,” said Charles, smiling as he
advanced, yet with an anxious inquiry in his eyes.
Harry took his extended hand, having dismounted, but he was
looking at his horse, and not at Charles, as he said—
“The last mile or so I noticed something in the off forefoot; do you?
Look now—’taint brushing, nor he’s not gone lame, but tender like;
do you notice?” and he led him round a little bit.
“No,” said Charles, “I don’t see anything, but I am an ignoramus,
you know—no—I think, nothing.”
“’Taint a great deal, anyhow,” said Harry, leading him toward the
open stable-door. “I got your note, you know, and how are you all,
and how is Ally?”
“Very well, poor little thing, we are all very well. Did you come from
Wyvern?” said Charles.
“Yes.”
“And the old man just as usual, I suppose?”
“Just the same, only not growing no younger, you’ll suppose.”
Charles nodded.
“And a d—d deal crosser, too. There’s times, I can tell you, he
won’t stand no one nigh him—not even old Drake, d—d vicious.”
Harry laughed.
“They say he liked Ally—they do, upon my soul, and I wouldn’t
wonder, ’tis an old rat won’t eat cheese—only you took the bit out o’
his mouth, when you did, and that’s enough to rile a fellow, you
know.”
 “Who says so?” asked Charles, with a flush on his face.
“The servants—yes—and the townspeople—it’s pretty well about,
and I think if it came to the old boy’s ears there would be black eyes
and bloody noses about it, I do.”
“Well, it’s a lie,” said Charles; “and don’t, like a good fellow, tell
poor little Alice there’s any such nonsense talked about her at home,
it would only vex her.”
“Well, I won’t, if I think of it. Where’s Tom? But ’twouldn’t vex her—
not a bit—quite ’tother way—there’s never a girl in England wouldn’t
be pleased if old Parr himself wor in love wi’ her, so she hadn’t to
marry him. But the governor, by Jove, I don’t know a girl twelve miles
round Wyvern, as big an old brute as he is, would turn up her nose
at him, wi’ all he has to grease her hand. But where’s Tom? the nag
must have a feed.”
So they bawled for Tom, and Tom appeared, and took charge of
the horse, receiving a few directions about his treatment from Master
Harry, and then Charles led his brother in.
“I’m always glad to see you, Harry, but always, at the same time, a
little anxious when you come,” said Charles, in a low tone, as they
traversed the passage toward the kitchen.
“’Taint much—I have to tell you something, but first gi’ me a
mouthful, for I’m as hungry as a hawk, and a mug o’ beer wouldn’t
hurt me while I’m waitin’. It’s good hungry air this; you eat a lot, I
dessay; the air alone stands you in fifty pounds a year, I reckon;
that’s paying pretty smart for what we’re supposed to have for the
takin’.”
And Harry laughed at his joke as they entered the dark old dining-
room.
“Ally not here?” said Harry, looking round.
“She can’t be very far off, but I’ll manage something if she’s not to
be found.”
So Charles left Harry smiling out of the window at the tops of the
trees, and drumming a devil’s tattoo on the pane.
“Ho! Dulcibella. Is your mistress upstairs?”
“I think she is gone out to the garden, sir; she took her trowel and
garden gloves, and the little basket wi’ her,” answered the old
woman.
 “Well, don’t disturb her, we’ll not mind, I’ll see old Mildred.”
So to old Mildred he betook himself.
“Here’s Master Harry come very hungry, so send him anything you
can make out, and in the meantime some beer, for he’s thirsty, too,
and, like a good old soul, make all the haste you can.”
And with this conciliatory exhortation he returned to the room
where he had left his brother.
“Ally has gone out to visit her flowers, but Mildred is doing the best
she can for you, and we can go out and join Alice by-and-by, but we
are as well to ourselves for a little. I—I want to talk to you.”
“Well, fire away, my boy, with your big oak stick, as the Irishman
says, though I’d rather have a mouthful first. Oh, here’s the beer—
thank ye, Chick-a-biddy. Where the devil did you get that queer-
looking fair one?” he asked, when the Hebe, Lilly Dogger,
disappeared; “I’ll lay you fifty it was Ally chose that one.”
And he laughed obstreperously.
And he poured out a tumbler of beer and drank it, and then
another and drank it, and poured out a third to keep at hand while he
conversed.
“There used to be some old pewter goblets here in the kitchen—I
wonder what’s gone wi’ them—they were grand things for drinking
beer out of—the pewter, while ye live—there’s nothing like it for beer
—or porter, by Jove. Have you got any porter?”
“No, not any; but do, like a good old fellow, tell me anything you
have picked up that concerns me—there’s nothing pleasant, I know
—there can be nothing pleasant, but if there’s anything, I should
rather have it now, than wait, be it ever so bad.”
“I wish you’d put some other fellow on this business, I know—for
you’ll come to hate the sight of me if I’m always bringing you bad
news; but it is not good, that’s a fact; that beast is getting
unmanageable. By the law, here comes something for a hungry
fellow; thank ye, my lass, God bless ye, feeding the hungry. How can
I pay ye back, my dear? I don’t know, unless by taking ye in—ha, ha,
ha!—whenever ye want shelter, mind; but you’re too sharp, I warrant,
to let any fellow take you in, with them roguish eyes you’ve got. See
how she blushes, the brown little rogue!” he giggled after her with a
leer, as Lilly Dogger, having placed his extemporized luncheon on
the table, edged hurriedly out of the room. “Devilish fine eyes she’s
got, and a nice little set of ivories, sir. By Jove, I didn’t half see her;
pity she’s not a bit taller; and them square shoulders. But hair—she
has nice hair, and teeth and eyes goes a long way.”
He had stuck his fork in a rasher while making his pretty speech,
and was champing away greedily by the time he had come to the
end of his sentence.
“But what has turned up in that quarter? You were going to tell me
something when this came in,” asked Charles.
“About the old soger? Well, if you don’t mind a fellow’s talkin’ with
his mouth full, I’ll try when I can think of it; but the noise of eating
clears a fellow’s head of everything, I think.”
“Do, like a dear fellow. I can hear you perfectly,” urged Charles.
“I’m afraid,” said Harry, with his mouth full, as he had promised,
“she’ll make herself devilish troublesome.”
“Tell us all about it,” said Charles, uneasily.
“I told you I was running up to London—we haven’t potatoes like
these up at Wyvern—and so I did go, and as I promised, I saw the
old beast at Hoxton; and hang me, but I think some one has been
putting her up to mischief.”
“How do you mean?—what sort of mischief?” asked Charles.
“I think she’s got uneasy about you. She was asking all sorts of
questions.”
“Yes—well?”
“And I wouldn’t wonder if some one was telling her—I was going to
say lies—but I mean something like the truth—ha, ha, ha! By the law,
I’ve been telling such a hatful of lies about it myself, that I hardly
know which is which, or one end from t’other.”
“Do you mean to say she was abusing me, or what?” urged
Charles, very uncomfortably.
“I don’t suppose you care very much what the old soger says of
you. It ain’t pretty, you may be sure, and it don’t much signify. But it
ain’t all talk, you know. She’s always grumblin’, and I don’t mind that
—her ticdooleroo, and her nerves, and her nonsense. She wants
carriage exercise, she says, and the court doctor—I forget his name
—ha, ha, ha! and she says you allow her next to nothing, and keeps
her always on the starving line, and she won’t stand it no longer, she
swears; and you’ll have to come down with the dust, my boy.”
And florid, stalwart Harry laughed again as if the affair was a good
joke.
“I can’t help it, Harry, she has always had more than her share.
I’ve been too generous, I’ve been a d—d fool always.”
Charles spoke with extreme bitterness, but quietly, and there was
a silence of two or three minutes, during which Harry’s eyes were on
his plate, and the noise of his knife and fork and the crunching of his
repast under his fine teeth, were the only sounds heard.
Seeing that Harry seemed disposed to confine his attention for the
present to his luncheon, Charles Fairfield, who apprehended
something worse, said—
“If that’s all it is nothing very new. I’ve been hearing that sort of
thing for fully ten years. She’s ungrateful, and artful, and violent.
There’s no use in wishing or regretting now; but God knows, it was
an evil day for me when first I saw that woman’s face.”
Charlie was looking down on the table as he spoke, and tapping
on it feverishly with the tips of his fingers. Harry’s countenance
showed that unpleasant expression which sometimes overcame its
rustic freshness. The attempt to discharge an unsuitable smile or a
dubious expression from the face—the attempt, shall we bluntly say,
of a rogue to look simple.
It is a loose way of talking and thinking which limits the vice of
hypocrisy to the matter of religion. It counterfeits all good, and
dissimulates all evil, every day and hour; and among the men who
frankly admit themselves to be publicans and sinners, whose ways
are notoriously worldly, and who never affected religion, are some of
the worst and meanest hypocrites on earth.
Harry Fairfield having ended his luncheon, had laid his knife and
fork on his plate, and leaning back in his chair, was ogling them with
an unmeaning stare, and mouth a little open, affecting a brown
study; but no effort can quite hide the meaning and twinkle of
cunning, and nothing is more repulsive than this semi-transparent
mask of simplicity.
Thus the two brothers sat, neither observing the other much, with
an outward seeming of sympathy, but with very divergent thoughts.
 Charles, as we know, was a lazy man, with little suspicion, and
rather an admiration of his brother’s worldly wisdom and activity—
with a wavering belief in Harry’s devotion to his cause, sometimes a
little disturbed when Harry seemed for a short time hard and selfish,
or careless, but generally returning with a quiet self-assertion, like
the tide on a summer day.
For my part I don’t exactly know how much or how little Harry
cared for Charles. The Fairfields were not always what is termed a
“united” family, and its individual members, in prosecuting their
several objects, sometimes knocked together, and occasionally, in
the family history, more violently and literally than was altogether
seemly.
 CHAPTER XXI.
HARRY’S BEER AND CONVERSATION.

At last Harry, looking out of the window as he leaned back in his

chair, said, in a careless sort of way, but in a low tone—
“Did you ever tell Alice anything about it before you came here?”
“Alice?” said Charles, wincing and looking very pale. “Well, you
know, why should I?”
“You know best of course, but I thought you might, maybe,”
answered Harry, stretching himself with an imperfect yawn.
“No,” said Charles, looking down with a flush.
“She never heard anything about it at any time, then?—and mind,
my dear fellow, I’m only asking. You know much better than me
what’s best to be done; but the old brute will give you trouble, I’m
afeard. She’ll be writing letters, and maybe printing things; but you
don’t take in the papers here, so it won’t come so much by surprise
like.”
“Alice knows nothing of it. She never heard of her,” said Charles.
“I wish she may have heard as little of Alice,” said Harry.
“Why, you don’t mean to say”—began Charles, and stopped.
“I think the woman has got some sort of a maggot in her head. I
think she has, more than common, and you’ll find I’m right.”
Charles got up and stood at the window for a little.
“I can’t guess what you mean, Harry. I don’t know what you think.
Do tell me, if you have any clear idea, what is she thinking of?”
“I don’t know what to think, and upon my soul that one’s so deep,”
said Harry. “But I’d bet something she’s heard more than we’d just
like about this, and if so, there’ll be wigs on the green.”
“There has been nothing—I mean no letter; I have not heard from
her for months—not since you saw her before. I think if there had
been anything unusual in her mind she would have written. Don’t
you? I dare say what you saw was only one of those ungoverned
outbreaks of temper that mean nothing.”
“I hope so,” said Harry.