The mind of Pinocchio

Neuroscience between memory, lies and fake news.

Presentazione di libro
Secondary school, University students, Teachers
EXMA

Guest: Gianfranco Denes

We are born to believe, but we soon learn to lie: the presuppositions, already present at two years of age, are fiction (the child uses the banana or currently a square object like a telephone) or the use of the narrative imperfect I was the mother and you are the father. In this chat I will try to define, in neurological and functional terms, what are the mechanisms that allow us to contradict the principle of truth either consciously, as in lies, or as an effect of brain damage in which the negative aspects, the amnesia, can be accompanied by the production of lies in good faith or confabulations: their analysis is essential to understand how the past is organized in our mind and brought back to the present.
The lie does not emerge spontaneously like the truth, but requires the implementation of at least three components: the inhibition of the true response; the shift from the true answer to the false one; keeping the answer, whether true, false or invented on purpose, in memory while formulating the answer. The neurological substrate is obviously complex, involving the memory system, both long and short term, and the ability to intuit the mental state of the person being lied to. The false answer must in fact be plausible, otherwise it is immediately identified and cataloged as fabrication or fantasy.
Detecting lies is often difficult and the result of the various experimental techniques (lie detectors) is questionable to say the least. Finally, the lie is often aimed at oneself, as in self-deception (we believe we are better than we are) or at a large audience, becoming viral: the growing disconnect between history and memory, between knowledge of historical facts and their mystification together with the ease of diffusion is the basis of the popularity of fake news, the content of which often responds to our desires.

Gianfranco Denes

Medicine degree. Specialty in Neurology. Associate Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Padua. Adjunct professor of Neurolinguistics (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice). From 1997 to 2005 director of the neurology unit at the Venice Civil Hospital. 1972 – Research fellow Aphasia Research Unit, Boston University 1980 – Research fellow, Applied Psychology Unit, Medical Research Unit. Cambridge, UK 1995-96 Visiting Professor Inserm Unit of Neuropsychology Paris. His works have been accepted by the best journals of Neurology and Neuropsychology Editor of the Manual of Neuropsychology, Zanichelli, and Psychology Press. For Zanichelli he published Parlare con la Testa (Talking Heads, Psychology Press) for Carocci Cerebral plasticity (Cerebral Plasticity, Psychology Press), La Mente di Pinocchio (il Pensiero Scientifico, Psychology Press)