THE ROAD™ Road Rage: Changing Perception

Shifts in perception result from reinterpretation of new or existing data supplied from the environment. On the road, there is rarely any new data to facilitate a change in perception, so we need to supply the alternative point of view ourselves.

All we need to do is to provide a new alternative belief that our brain can flip to whenever a potentially stressful driving event occurs. The brain can do this. The Necker cube below demonstrates how the brain works.

THE NECKER CUBE

When you stare at it, the cube will appear to shift or flip. First, one of the large squares seems closest to you and the, suddenly, the other one does. No matter how hard you try to keep one of the squares in the forefront, you cannot. Moreover, the more you look at it, the faster the switching occurs. If you even make your mind up to look at it only one way and then say, "I will not allow myself to look at it any other way," the image will shift before you can finish the sentence.

The reason for the shifting is that the sensory input coming through your eyes to your brain permits two equally valid conclusions. Interestingly, the brain does not see the image as a flat two-dimensional drawing of interconnecting lines (which it really is), but as a three-dimensional cube. Previous data already in the brain converts the lines into a familiar object, a cube. Thus stimulated, the brain fills in the missing third dimension and that is the way the image appears to us. However, the brain cannot compute which square is closest. Each one is possibly closest and our perception keeps switching.

This exercise reveals an operation of the brain that goes beyond "willpower". You actually see two different perceptions; you believe two different "beliefs". you believe whatever your brain concludes at any given moment. Your willpower has nothing to do with it.

On the road, if you can conceive of and believe in another, equally probable, conclusion your brain will flip over to that point of view. If the alternative conclusion is less stressful, you will automatically become less angry. Even if you flip back and forth as you did with the Necker cube, the time you spend viewing the incident with the less stressful conclusion will reduce your overall anger level.

Seeing things from another, more positive point of view can be less than easy on the road. No matter how much we try to find some redeeming quality in the person who has just cut in front of us, little helps; we remain furious. The reason for the difficulty in switching our point of view on the road is that, unlike with the Necker cube, we are not aware of all the cubes we are reacting to. Indeed, it may not be that having someone cut in front of us, in itself, is what makes us mad; rather, we may believe that in the act of cutting in front of us the other driver has got the better of us - that is what makes us furious.