A conversation with Lionel Naccache: from the mysteries of the brain to investment bias

On the sidelines of an event in Paris where he was speaking as part of our LO Femmes* series, we were lucky enough to have a fruitful exchange with Lionel Naccache, to get his scientific view on all the things that are involved in building our world view, our outlook on gender and our capacity to look ahead and invest. These are all subjects that have an influence on our investment biases. 

The central subjects studied by this eminent neurologist concern consciousness and subjectivity. He has recently received two prestigious awards for his work. Lionel Naccache thus sheds some light on the fundamental question: why do I perceive the world this way?

Passionate about the study of our brain, he is just as passionate about sharing and popularising his findings, so that everyone can learn a little more about this organ, which is as misunderstood as it is essential, and even mysterious.

As a specialist in cognitive neuroscience, do you think that there are gender biases inherent in the structure of our brain?

I have not noticed very different results in terms of gender in the studies we are conducting. These negative results do not rule out their existence, but they do allow us to assess their small scale on a cognitive and cerebral level. The architecture of the brain is the same for both genders, so I would not be able to distinguish between the brain of a man or a woman by looking at an MRI! Of course, we all have cognitive biases but they are much more evident on psychological and cultural levels than in the structure of the brain. These social-cultural biases are often internalised by individuals, and this has been verified by empirical tests.

Do you have an example in mind?

There was a well-known test that was conducted on schoolboys and schoolgirls, based on a simple exercise. Scientists showed them the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure – a collection of squares, circles, triangles and other geometric figures – and asked them to reproduce it from memory. When children are told that it is a geometry exercise, girls do less well than boys. But if scientists say that it is a drawing exercise, the girls do better than the boys, even though the test is exactly the same! So simply by changing the object of the exercise, we can see that certain gender biases are already evident in children. The most harmful and strongest biases are those that individuals have constructed for themselves, ones that shape their perception.

In your latest work, Le cinéma intérieur (The Inner Cinema), you explain how we all build our own perception, both of the world around us and of ourselves. What are the key factors that shape this perception? Personal experience, education, society or even the times in which we are living?

We are obviously influenced by a multitude of factors, most of which operate without our knowledge in an unconscious way. All of them have an impact on our interpretation of reality and of ourselves. In all these situations, our brain is constantly producing subjective meanings. This is what I refer to as “fictions” in my essay Le Nouvel Inconscient (The New Unconscious), published in 2006. I do not call them fictions to assert that they are necessarily incorrect or inaccurate, but rather to emphasise that they allow people to “make sense” of the world around them. In this regard, we are indeed creatures of fiction. This fundamental idea has become commonplace today when we think of the fictions that we hold most dear (emotional life, politics, spirituality, etc.). But it’s actually a very basic need of our brain, which is constantly searching for meaning, even when the only thing it sees is a simple object. All this operates subconsciously, producing our own interpretation of the world. In other words, this inner cinema is running within us all the time, even during the most trivial actions of our everyday lives, and knowing this allows us to get back to the sources of our complex fictions.

So where should we start if we want to “change films” and modify our inner cinema?

The first step is obviously to realise that we are the ones who build our own stories. We must therefore get to know ourselves better, to distance ourselves a bit. Indeed, if we lack objectivity, we will only see what we are looking for and what fits our interpretations, and miss out on all the rest. Once we become aware of this, we must also be careful not to fall into a kind of “integral relativism” trap, telling ourselves that everything is just an interpretation. Because we must not make any mistakes here: our personal interpretation of the world is not only an individual matter, it is also a part of the world, and it engages us because it will guide our actions. And we know very well that in the name of an interpretation or a conviction, human beings are capable of being at their best and their worst.

Read also: Women breaking barriers: deconstructing unconscious gender bias in wealth management