# Dario Nardi's Neuroscience (of the Cognitive Functions)



## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

I put off watching a youtube video where Dario Nardi presents his work on cognitive function preference and how it relates to different regions of the brain being activated. It was a rather long video but I recommend watching it if you take this stuff seriously, and also to double-check anything I might say.











Dario Nardi brings up a lot of good points about the functions. What struck me in particular is when he mentioned that without knowing which regions of your brain are active when you're doing different tasks, you're really just engaging in a lot of subjective speculation about your own function preferences.

Unfortunately, we don't all have access to EEG scanners and a professor to run lots of tests on us over the course of many weeks in order to determine our function preferences, but what we can at least engage in is a study of the brain, and try to make an educated guess about it instead of just wildly speculating based on really arbitrary lines of reasoning based on missing or incomplete information.

It starts by becoming familiar with the regions of the brain that Nardi studied. Note what each region is used for primarily, and then try to test yourself on your own by subjecting yourself to novel tests that engage those regions of the brain. Then you can compare which regions of the brain you felt the most comfortable with using to Nardi's studies and _maybe_ get a more informed idea about your possible type/function preferences.

Although, you still have to bare in mind - and you'll see this yourself if you watch his lecture - that even if you had a perfect map of your brain region activity and all of that, you'd still only have about a 50% chance that your brain activity was nearly identical to some specific type preference. There's still a very large chance that it might be off in some ways. However, the chance of it being totally different is almost nill, so there's that.

Make sure, too, that when you do test yourself, you do it in a way that denies you access to your most comfortable brain regions. So, for instance, he gives an example of a student who learned a French method for doing math that involved sounding out the problems in their mind, which activated the regions on either side of the brain that handled hearing sounds and forming words, which meant that the student couldn't be around people talking or lots of background noise if he wanted to do math. He needed total quiet so that those regions of his brain weren't being stimulated except by himself.

That's what you have to keep in mind when designing a test for yourself. Figure out ways of "getting out of your comfort zone" and forcing yourself to approach problems by accessing a region of your brain you wouldn't normally, and simultaneously _denying_ yourself access to regions you normally would.

If that sounds complicated, I agree with you, but without access to the kind of setup Nardi has, I guess it's the best we folks can do if we're trying to get closer to an objective understanding of our preferences. I mean, it's still subjective, but it's better than blind guessing.


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## kitsu (Feb 13, 2013)

I found this on an old thread, I think it's a nice summary of his findings



> Extraverted Sensing (Se)
> Se types:
> Show a "tennis hop" brain pattern.
> Easily go "in the zone" in a crisis situation.
> ...


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## Octavian (Nov 24, 2013)

His work is certainly exciting to think about. It's just too qualitative. Far from being accepted by the scientific community. I certainly think that he is onto something and if I suspend my Te, I do think he's capturing what Jung referred to as the cognitive functions, but we'll have to wait for him to take his work further.


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## aniareilean (Apr 27, 2014)

Well, keep in mind that his sample size comprised of only 60 UCLA college aged, 19-22ish students (lol I go to this university currently! But unfortunately he left in 2012 though :c) -- I feel like he should have taken more diverse sample size in terms of age? Also, the way he structured his experiment was that he got this sample size two weeks to study the MBTI and assess themselves on what type they identify with... there could also be the chance that they mistype themselves? Also, there might be other brain activity going on there that can't be detected by the EEG (since it only captures activity in the neocortex) that are interesting to explore. I think Nardi was capped by his budget, hence his tiny sample size and why only the EEG machine? 

I think he had like, 8 ENFPs or something, which I found really odd. Anyway, if his sample size is only 60 people, and assuming that he wanted to equally divide between 16 personalities, that would only average about 4 types of each kind. Can you even draw conclusions on something like that and make broad sweeping generalizations of all personality types that operate like this?

His research is definitely very interesting to ponder on though! I just wish it was done on a larger scale because as it is, I feel like it's kind of inconclusive. Because cognitive functions are based on how we operate in our minds, right? So it would follow that perhaps similar brain patterns would be similar among the same personality types (albeit variations here and here).


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## LostFavor (Aug 18, 2011)

thatkillsme said:


> Well, keep in mind that his sample size comprised of only 60 UCLA college aged, 19-22ish students (lol I go to this university currently! But unfortunately he left in 2012 though :c) -- I feel like he should have taken more diverse sample size in terms of age? Also, the way he structured his experiment was that he got this sample size two weeks to study the MBTI and assess themselves on what type they identify with... there could also be the chance that they mistype themselves? Also, there might be other brain activity going on there that can't be detected by the EEG (since it only captures activity in the neocortex) that are interesting to explore. I think Nardi was capped by his budget, hence his tiny sample size and why only the EEG machine?
> 
> I think he had like, 8 ENFPs or something, which I found really odd. Anyway, if his sample size is only 60 people, and assuming that he wanted to equally divide between 16 personalities, that would only average about 4 types of each kind. Can you even draw conclusions on something like that and make broad sweeping generalizations of all personality types that operate like this?
> 
> His research is definitely very interesting to ponder on though! I just wish it was done on a larger scale because as it is, I feel like it's kind of inconclusive. Because cognitive functions are based on how we operate in our minds, right? So it would follow that perhaps similar brain patterns would be similar among the same personality types (albeit variations here and here).


I believe he's done more personal research since. I don't know if he's published any of it though.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

LostFavor said:


> I believe he's done more personal research since. I don't know if he's published any of it though.


Research... or business...

From http://www.darionardi.com/Welcome.html:



> Dario’s system and methodology for neuroscience of personality is covered a pending patent. ...
> 
> Recently, Dario is developing use of EEG with small TV and film audiences, gamers, students, and work groups to objectively evaluate and improve the effectiveness of particular media, material, and processes, such as the likely reception of a pilot TV show.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

reckful said:


> Research... or business...
> 
> From http://www.darionardi.com/Welcome.html:


That is the trouble with trying to do anything useful in this department.
You may end up broke and without anything.
Better just monitize it while it still has the allure.

Me myself just play poker, 
I had some people wanting to learn MBTI and did one little seminar on request.
It felt totally fake for me and pay vs effort was not worth in in a million years.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

I really appreciate what Dario did but my problem is that I don't think he actually understands the Jungian functions (not his fault only, I blame Berens mostly because he worked with her) nor does he know how to properly identify people's types outside of simplistic MBTI typing methods. 

Hence I feel I cannot trust his results at all because I am not sure his methodology is sound. Someone else also mentioned problems with his sample size which is another can of worms unrelated to his ability to apply and understand Jungian typology.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

ephemereality said:


> I really appreciate what Dario did but my problem is that I don't think he actually understands the Jungian functions (not his fault only, I blame Berens mostly because he worked with her) nor does he know how to properly identify people's types outside of simplistic MBTI typing methods.
> 
> Hence I feel I cannot trust his results at all because I am not sure his methodology is sound. Someone else also mentioned problems with his sample size which is another can of worms unrelated to his ability to apply and understand Jungian typology.


Well that is the way it goes.
I'm fine with it, as long as I can rip of penny pinching Si doms and reckless Se/Ne doms,
while staying the hell out of the Ti doms way in poker. =D
I've long since given up on any this having any significant impact trough me on a grand scale.
It always stops at the quadra "checkpoint" anyway.


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