Summary of how the brain works: high road, low road, heuristics and interpretation. How evocative and descriptive communication strategically use and combine the functions of our brain.

1. The Brain and Communication
Excerpt from
“How Communication Works”
viralstorytelling.com

2. Any message or form of communication provides a
stimulus, interpreted by the brain following either
the high road or the low road.

3. The low road is linked to the emotional and
archaic brain which dictates quick reactions based
on heuristics – known reactions/interpretations to
given problems that don't require reasoning.

4. The high road requires more time and attention
and activates the most recent parts of the brain.
The high road the preferred way of taking
motivated decisions when there is no specific
element of stress involved.

5. Since the roads are physical routes taken by the
electrical information of our nervous system, there
is no in-between; our brain rapidly elaborates
which road a message is going to take, and then it's
one or the other.

6. Reasoning may follow, in time, an initial emotional
response – but not the other way round.

7. Evocative communication follows this principle:
the message produces a stimulus for the emotional
brain, calling for a reaction of the low road to apply
a known heuristic.

8. Descriptive communication usually follows the
evocative moment, when there is a chance to do
so.

9. Storytelling is a common technique combining the
evocative principle of a protagonist we identify with
and a description of what gets in her way.