The Cortex Chronicles (1d)—Punting and Thinking (Twice)

One year ago on Round and Square (8 September 2011)—Displays of Authenticity: Iowa Corn Trophy
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Coach K(ongzi) RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal 

So now that we have thought about the cultural rules of American tackle football (punting) and the nuances of brain chemistry...not to mention trolley cars with at least one zombie reference, we are ready to bring things back to coaching, decision-making, and keeping one's job in the tumultuous world of big-time, television-centered, gridiron warfare. It all swirls around the crucial question for the times in which we live:

Should more coaches go for it on fourth down?

[b] Falsifiable Encounter RF

If you thought I was just playing with the seriousness of the times in which we do live, you were mistaken. This question, by extension, is far more relevant to everyone from Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao to Angela Merckel and Barack Obama than you might have guessed. I'm just going to point that out "this once." It's your job to fill in the rest. Just remember that we're not "playing" here on Round and Square. 

As odd as it might sound, this stuff matters.

Don't forget that this series deals with the human frontal cortex and "its" adventures with life out there in the real world, even if that world is one-hundred yards long and has big white stripes across every five yards of terrain. I left you in a sort of hanging punt yesterday when I told the trolley car story and then pretty much just said "g'night." What I fell asleep pondering was the issue I hoped you had caught from the Fable of the Trolley Punts. Is there any similarity—even if quite distant—between the decision-making required in these very different situations? Is deciding to hit a button and switch tracks anything like deciding to go for it on fourth-and-three from your own thirty-nine?

One of the great coaches of all time was considering this very question while in the midst of conversation with one of his "players" on a cool autumn day in 500 BCE.* The underling had a story to tell, and he wanted the "coach's" reaction. Here is how it went in the abbreviated world of classical Chinese narrative form.
*The calendrical particulars are purely imaginary...but still within twenty years (and six months) on either side.

          Ch'i Wen-tzu always thought three times before taking action. When the 
          Master was told of this, he commented, 'Twice is quite enough."[1]

[c] Disciple smack-down RF

You may or may not know that The Analects is (are) filled with little put-downs such as this. Confucius seemingly enjoyed letting his assistant coaches and players posture a bit before tamping down their little interpretive insurrections. Still, this may be the best decision-making advice ever given in the ancient world. My own untested theory is that Confucius had a cognitive science lab in the back room of his teaching center, off in the thick woods outside of Qufu (and beyond).

His lab results have been disseminated widely.

Ever hear of a little test called the SAT (or ACT or GRE or MCAT or LSAT or GMT)? I thought so. Have you ever heard the consistently offered advice to test-takers that, while they should never just react quickly—or "emotionally"—to questions, they should almost never scratch out answers and go with something else once they have committed (and don't rush an answer in the first place). Have you ever heard that? I thought so. Why not? Well, as that ancient Chinese professor of Neurobiology and Cognitive Science might have said, your first think-through may-or-may not be tinged with limbic strains. A second thought will likely put it squarely into the ol' frontal cortex, where to the best of your ability (this varies significantly across the population) you will make a careful decision. Mark your test here. A third thought will only muddy the biochemical waters.* Twice is quite enough; just answer the darned question and move on to the next one.
*Again, this is meant to be a literary play upon things that a cognitive science would describe differently.

Hmmm. Professor Confucius sounds like he's been thinking about punting.

And this is where the pigskin really meets the trolley car. If you recall the message from the New York Times article that began this series of posts, you will remember that truly terrible decisions (even ones merely perceived as such by majorities of fans, players, and, well, the owner) can get a coach fired. Careful decisions don't usually get them fired until lots of other stuff starts to go wrong. The football coach's frontal cortex is ever at the ready* to lead toward a punt on fourth-and-two from the fifty yard line. 
*Literary imaginative language that wouldn't appear in a neuroscience paper; get used to it. 

And here's where it gets interesting. The head coach is in charge of a whole array of assistant coaches, all of whom are linked closely to him, at least in the short-run and often much longer. They have families...and mortgages...and they don't get paid as much as he does (the world of football coaching is uni-gendered so far). He knows this. In a manner of speaking that is only relevant in the world of football coaching, making a (seemingly) rash decision to go for it when most others would say "punt" usually won't get him fired right away. The more likely short-term result is that, at the end of a mediocre season marked by losses caused by faulty decisions, several assistant coaches will lose their jobs.

[d] Vinceglorious RF

Like...five of them. Like that.

Think this is a stretch? I think not...or at least that the stretch is not worth eschewing just because death by trolley is not exactly the same thing as firing by punt. 

Let's take a break, and we'll return tomorrow for our penultimate punting post. Just so you are clear on this, though, I am saying that (at least in this little punting-post world) the head football coach is driving the trolley car (or standing on the bridge next to an out-of-shape lineman). Things can go one of two broad ways: badly...or terribly badly. This is the way that most experienced coaches think about football anyway. Soaring greatness and deft touch are great, but you channel those wary muses for little tinges of glory once a decade or so. The vast majority of the time, coaches are more like cribbage players than skateboarders. They rarely soar; they almost always try to get it right just a little more often than they get it wrong...and they try especially hard not ever to get it terribly wrong. 17-14 will do, and on to next week's game.

They are driving the trolley and kicking the ball down the field from a careening downhill car (sort of). They shout out their instructions, think twice (but we hope not thrice), close their eyes...and hope for the best.

See you tomorrow.

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[e] Incremental RF

Notes
[1] Confucius, The Analects (New York: Penguin Classics, 1979), 79.

Bibliography
Confucius. The Analects [Translated by D.C. Lau]. New York: Penguin Classics, 1979.