Why did Luis Suarez sink his teeth into Giorgio
Chiellini's shoulder? - Is he a victim of child-
like impulsivity or could he be a vampire?
Neither of these is the case, so let me review
four possible reasons for his extraordinary
behaviour. 1. The Internal Robot Anyone who watched
Suarez seize the moment to score when
England's Steven Gerrard headed a long goal
kick back towards his own goal, was amazed by
the speed-of-light response of Suarez to an
unpredicted - nay, unpredictable - event. Here was near-instantaneous judging of an
unfamiliar situation and the execution of a
brilliant, complex set of bodily responses to it.
Here was a sort of genius at work. To engage in this sort of cognition at lightning
speed, you must rely on parts of the brain
which function far too fast to be consciously
monitored. This includes regions called the
cerebellum and striatum, where highly
complex mental operations can be partially automated and "run off" at high speed. But to let these automatic systems - think of
them as very smart internal robots if you like -
do their work, you need to "switch off", or at
least tone down, potentially interfering
activity from the ponderously slow parts of the
brain involved in conscious thinking and decision-making. To unleash his genius, in
other words, Suarez has to enter a mental zone
of relative mindlessness. The upside of inhabiting this zone is that you
can let the robots do their work. But the
downside is that among them are one or two
little devil-robots - negative habits which can
only be let free when the conscious mind is
turned down. And one of these - unfortunately for Suarez and Chiellini - is the troubling little
habit of biting. 2. Arousal The expression of genius on the
soccer field requires high levels of
physiological arousal - a state of super-
alertness involving racing heart, dilated pupils,
rapid breathing and super fast reactions. This
state is common to many different types of emotion - excitement, fear, challenge, anger
and sex, for instance. Suarez needs peak levels of arousal for his
brain to perform its magic, but if arousal gets
too high, it can tip the person over into
muddled thinking and consequent strange
behaviours. It is a bit like the "death zone" for
airliners, which, at high altitudes, must keep their speed within very narrow limits if they
are not to break up on one hand, or stall on the
other. Suarez's peak performance can tip into a state
of confusion, where emotions are muddled up
because of their common physiological
underpinning. So, for instance, excitement or
fear can easily be misinterpreted by the robot
mind as anger - hence the biting. So why can't he say to himself "Oh, I'd better
not do this or else I will get a 9 match ban?"
First, the part of his brain capable of thinking
this only does so about half a second after his
robot brain has activated the bite. Second, it is
a bit like asking someone in the peak of sexual arousal to suddenly stop and consider whether
their partner might have a sexual disease or
not - once a person is in this state, then the
slow-acting high level brain areas find it very
hard to keep up with the fast-acting robot
brains. 3. Tension-reduction Millions of people across
the world do things to themselves which hurt -
for instance pulling out their hair or even
cutting themselves. A common reason for
these self-harming acts is that they release
unpleasant tension. Even though the long- term consequences are bad - baldness, scarred
arms or, dare I say, 9 match bans - the
immediate effects are rewarding, a blessed
relief from unbearable tension. I have little doubt that Chiellini and his
colleagues would have been niggling and
harassing Suarez in and out of the box and that
tension and frustration would have been
building up in him. In his robot-mind state, the
bite may well have given him that moment of relief - followed of course by dreaded
realization of its consequences, but too late. 4. The Satisfaction of the Bite What I am about
to say here is speculative. But I wonder
whether there is some primitive, visceral,
perhaps almost sexual pleasure at sinking
one's teeth into something or someone. Young
children seem to gain enormous satisfaction in it, but learn to inhibit it. I wonder whether
Suarez actually has satisfying revenge
fantasies where he imagines himself sinking
his teeth into someone who has offended or
harmed him? I imagine he has bitten quite a few people in
his life, and it is probably a pretty effective
deterrent against aggression in the sort of
tough environments where he was brought up. Should he be punished? Of course he should.
Some new little robot-routines involving fear
of consequences have to be programmed into
his cerebellum and that can't be done without
punishment. But the outrage against the bite is not
particularly rational. Is a bite really worse than
someone deliberately breaking another
player's leg to finish his sporting career - as we
have seen at least one famous, respected ex-
player, now manager, do? The shock-horror should be confined to real sporting cruelty,
not to theatricals which have no long-term
effects. Thursday's sentence of 9 international games
is about right.

Source: http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5533752