Neuropsychology and Performance Anxiety | Priyanka Potdar | TEDxNapaValley
The speaker introduces an experimental approach to combat performance anxiety by merging Neuroscience with artistic education. She details how typical performance anxiety triggers the body's fight-or-flight response, leading to poor performance, and proposes that techniques like biofeedback and group lessons can reduce this cycle. The ultimate goal is to use neurotechnology to reform traditional performing arts instruction.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker: Unnamed individual; previous experience included bowing in the wrong direction on stage and forgetting a chord at the piano.
- Setting: A lecture setting, with presentation slides referencing brain areas and experimental setups.
- Context: Discussing the difficulty of performing arts and proposing scientific methods to improve instruction.
## Theses & Positions
- Music holds great value despite not being tangible, and this value is rooted in the neuropsychology of music.
- Performance anxiety is a self-perpetuating cycle: Apprehension $\rightarrow$ Physiological Arousal $\rightarrow$ Reduced Dexterity $\rightarrow$ Negative Interpretation $\rightarrow$ Threat.
- Reducing the effect of the evaluative response through biofeedback can reduce performance anxiety.
- Applied scientific research can reform the Performing Arts instruction by combining disciplines.
- Individuals can "combine any two passions and truly make a difference with it."
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Neuroneurodactics:** A concept mixing Neuroscience with the art of teaching, touted as the future.
- **Frontal cortex:** Area of the brain responsible for providing satisfaction after performing a piece.
- **Auditory cortex:** Area of the brain that recognizes and values beats and rhythms, allowing the brain to process them.
- **In the Zone:** State achieved by prominent performing artists while playing a piece, where they are not thinking about the performance but simply going through with it.
- **Fight or flight response:** The biological system triggered by threat perception, involving the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenals releasing hormones instructing the body to run.
- **Evaluative response:** The realization, upon performance, that something has been done wrong (e.g., putting a hand over the mouth after a mistake).
- **Mastery (in learning):** Indicated by EEG findings showing a "huge blue region" (memory consolidation), suggesting the information has been absorbed and the individual is ready to perform.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Performance Anxiety Cycle:**
1. Apprehension about performance $\rightarrow$
2. Psychophysiological arousal (clammy hands, increased body temperature) $\rightarrow$
3. Reduced dexterity $\rightarrow$
4. Negative interpretations of performance $\rightarrow$
5. Threat $\rightarrow$
6. Fear and apprehension about performance (repeating the cycle).
- **Training Intervention Goal:** To break the negative cycle by reducing the effect of the evaluative response using biofeedback.
- **Ideal Performance Sequence:**
1. **Initial Practice:** Activation visible in the frontal region (showing roughness/unmastery).
2. **Memory Consolidation:** Time allowing absorption of information (signaled by "huge blue region").
3. **Performance Readiness:** State where the individual is ready to play.
- **Group Lesson Benefit:** Allows students to accustom themselves to the venue and enjoy the art with less competition, reducing performance stress compared to high-stakes annual auditions.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Event Leading to Insight:** The speaker's experience playing a sonata and forgetting a chord, leading to stopping and feeling incapable.
- **Historical Gap:** The time between the speaker's piano incident and meeting the neuropsychologist.
- **Current Research Focus:** Moving from general knowledge of music's brain effects to how to *apply* Neuroscience to reform teaching methods.
- **Development of Solution:** Experimentation leading to the "performance pyramid" and the concept of multiple group lessons.
## Named Entities
- **Stanford University School of Medicine:** Location of the experimental neuropsychologist's work.
- **Albert Bandura:** Psychologist quoted regarding self-doubt.
## Numbers & Data
- Age when the speaker first struggled publicly: **10 years ago**.
- Age when the speaker performed the sonata: Unknown, but involved piano performance.
- Age when the speaker met the neuropsychologist: **16**.
- Time frame for anxiety development: **Two months leading up to a recital**.
- Comparison point for learning curve: Learning is never a straight line; it involves bad days followed by mastery.
## Examples & Cases
- **The Initial Failure:** Attempting to play a sonata, sweating, feeling clammy hands, and stopping.
- **The Learning Curve:** Described as never being a straight line, involving bad days followed by reaching Mastery after numerous trials.
- **The Experiment:** A girl playing in front of peers who messed up, resulting in an evaluative response (covering mouth).
- **Group Lesson Visualization:** Pictures showing "adorable kids... learning and learning from each other being friends" versus a solitary performance setting.
- **EEG Visualization:** Visual comparison showing initial rough state (frontal activation) versus mastered state (huge blue region).
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Grand piano:** Used in the initial failed performance.
- **Electrodes (EEG):** Devices used to pick up brain signals, described with a "little Rainbow wire."
- **EEG Machine/Computer:** Used to receive and display brain signals as waves.
## References Cited
- **Albert Bandura:** Psychologist whose statement about self-doubt is cited.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Traditional Approach:** Weekly lessons $\rightarrow$ homework $\rightarrow$ recital/orchestra performance (structured, high competition).
- **Proposed Alternative:** Multiple group lessons $\rightarrow$ rehearsal at performance venues $\rightarrow$ recital (reduces competition, allows acclimatization).
- **Biofeedback:** A method used to reduce the effects of an evaluative response.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- Controversy surrounding the field because people prefer the status quo; "everybody wants to stick to the status quo."
- The current teaching model relies on the traditional cycle of preparation and performance.
## Methodology
- **Experimental Neuropsychology:** Combining neuroscience findings with educational methods.
- **Biofeedback:** A technique used to reduce the negative impact of performance evaluation.
- **EEG Measurement:** Using electrodes to measure brain activity differences between non-mastered and mastered skill execution.
- **Applied Scientific Research:** The overarching methodology used to reform teaching practices.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- To reduce anxiety, educators should adopt practices that move away from cutthroat competition toward collaborative, gradual skill acquisition.
- The speaker recommends that individuals use their combined passions to enact meaningful change: "go against the grain and change your life today."
## Implications & Consequences
- The potential of combining fields (e.g., neuroscience and arts) to solve deep-seated human problems like performance anxiety.
- Mastery in performance is measurable via neurological markers (EEG).
## Verbatim Moments
- *"the human brain starts working the moment you're born but never stops until you fall in love or come up to speak on stage"*
- *"I looked at the audience and I actually bowed in the other direction in the corner because I was freaking out so much"*
- *"I forgot the next chord suddenly my hands started sweating"*
- *"we talked about a concept called neuroneurodactic basically this concept was mixing Neuroscience with the art of teaching which is the future"*
- *"how many of you in the audience have heard of Music actually affecting the right portion of the brain"*
- *"the frontal cortex actually works to provide satisfaction after we're done playing a piece"*
- *"we have threat perception when I came up to that piano"*
- *"I think that's how we can tell if we actually hook you up hook you up to a computer that's how we can tell that you haven't mastered your piece yet"*
- *"the amazing part that I learned about this experiment was that there was a lot of um controversy about it because everybody wants to stick to the status quo nobody wants to change"*
- *"go against the grain and change your life today"*