Thanks for the prompt, Keith, but I'll let Damasio speak for himself.
The book in question ('Descarte's Error, etc') is available on
amazon.com, and there's enough in the synopsis there to show why I
said what I did. I guess I was so amazed by his conclusion as to want
to see if that reaction would be shared.
My own research in the area is kind of informal. The sun is so fierce
in these parts that skin cancer and dehydration are ever-present
dangers. You have to hide in cool, dark, places, taking plenty of
liquid. So most of my basic work is done in bars. But that's OK, as
that's your best chance to run across the local pilot population. The
risk you do take is the occasional emotional bias in your results.
Actually, my real interest lies in how emotional response interferes
with decision-making by diminishing available cognitive power, to the
point of either total reality-avoidance or incapacity - mental
collapse. But there's enough in my book and other writings on that.
However, I do take it further, and, like Dick, I actually conduct
training for pilots on how to assay their emotional responses, thus
seeking to, through familiarity with them, to get people to be able to
control or suppress the emotional reflexes that will accompany that
rare event, the emergency, or a really tough decision, such as to
admit situational confusion or other form of near- or impending
incapacity. Strenthening defences diminish risk.
Curiously, Keith, I do use comparison between physiology and
psychology as a 'training aid'. Physiological cues can be made,
through familiarity, to become reliable indicators of 'present mental
state'. Awareness of, for example, ones own 'anxiety responses',
enables control over them, at least in the training environment. It
transforms reflex into reaction. I do believe it transfers into the
cockpit, but I'm not advanced enough to state that with certainty.
Dick, I really look forward to your coming contribution.
Cheers
Doug