Tuesday, November 23, 2010
How nerve cells grow
How nerve cells grow: "Brain researcher Hiroshi Kawabe has discovered the workings of a process that had been completely overlooked until now, and that allows nerve cells in the brain to grow and form complex networks. The study shows that an enzyme which usually controls the destruction of protein components has an unexpected function in nerve cells: it controls the structure of the cytoskeleton and thus ensures that nerve cells can form the tree-like extensions that are necessary for signal transmission in the brain."
Effects of Self-Efficacy on Exercise - Email study
Effects of Self-Efficacy on Exercise - Email study: "Self-efficacy is a major part of my PhD research. (Bandura, 1986) describes Self-efficacy as , "one's self-judgements of personal capabilities to initiate and successfully perform specified tasks at designated levels, expend greater effort, and persevere in the face of adversity". It's an important area in physical activity research as not many people will attempt an activity they don't think they are capable of, never mind stick to it. Luszczynska and Tryburcy (2008) examined the effects of an intervention to try and increase Self-efficacy beliefs regarding physical activity. Another interesting aspect of the study is that it was entirely carried out by email on-line. They also give the participants access to there ongoing self efficacy scores and the means for the study. This is involves social comparison with other participants and is an aspect of my own research. The paper involves participants from a general population and also groups with diabetes and CVD. The authors report positive findings for the intervention.
...
...
Luszczynska, A., & Tryburcy, M. (2008) Effects of a Self-Efficacy Intervention on Exercise: The Moderating Role of Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases. Applied Psychology, 57(4), 644-659. DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2008.00340.x Effects of a Self-Efficacy Intervention on Exercise: The Moderating Role of Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases
Conservative versus liberal brains.
There are a bunch of stories on this subject which I'll try and link to this same page.
One key thing to remember that is mentioned in this article is that when you go to extremes of any viewpoint or behavior you will always see differences in brain behavior. However, it should also be noted that you see slight differences in brain behavior between ANY two people. No two brains are exactly alike. And when they talk about "hard wiring" - that is a very ambiguous term and the controversy surrounding it is increasing.
Basically, when reading about this "conservative vs. liberal" research, remember that there are plenty of questions behind basic science and basic definitions of terms that isn't settled, not to mention that the authors of the various studies could easily have a particular ax to grind.
Report explains declining school performance
Report explains declining school performance: "Housing segregation, making schooling a community matter, special teaching groups, individualization and the right to freely choose which school to attend are factors explaining why Swedish school children perform worse than 20 years ago according to research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden."
The Brain: a Bottleneck of Processing
Yep - our minds are absolutely mind-bogglingly complex, and can perform the most amazing computational feats, but there are still a number of things that we just stink at.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
A common thread links multiple human cognitive disorders
A common thread links multiple human cognitive disorders: "A new study reveals that a common underlying mechanism is shared by a group of previously unrelated disorders which all cause complex defects in brain development and function. Now, research, published by Cell Press in the February 16th issue of the journal Developmental Cell, helps to explain why these different chromatin abnormalities all interfere with proper gene expression patterns necessary for normal development and mature brain function."
How compassionate meditation can reduce stress
How compassionate meditation can reduce stress: "
Can you train yourself to be compassionate? A new study says, yes. According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin, cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make you more empathetic to other peoples' mental and emotional states.
According to Richard Davidson, the lead researcher, professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the HeathEmotions Research Institute, who studied a group of Tibetan monks who were master meditators, they exhibited significant activity in the brain's insula, which is important in detecting emotions and monitoring responses such as heart rate and blood pressure. In addition the temporal parietal juncture area of the right brain, associated with processing empathy became very active. Davidson reported that these two areas of the brain, studied with an fMRI, underwent significant activation in the test subjects.
The researchers concluded that an individual's capacity to cultivate compassion which involves regulating thoughts and emotions, may be useful in preventing depression, and that self-compassion, which is a necessary first step in developing compassion for others can be developed through compassionate meditation.
In another study by researchers at Emory University's center for Collaborative and Contemplative Studies, researchers concluded that compassionate meditation improved individuals' responses to stress. They reported that the test subjects, practicing compassionate meditation, showed reductions in inflammation and distress in response to stressors. This study reflects numerous studies which show that meditation is an effective method for controlling high blood pressure.
Together these two studies demonstrate that practicing compassionate meditation can be beneficial both to the individual and in relationships with others.
"
Are We In Control of Our Own Decisions?
Are We In Control of Our Own Decisions?: "Visual illusions can be a metaphor for rationality. When an illusion is proven to just be a trick, your intuition fools you in a repeatable predictable way and there is no way around it. Vision is the best thing that Humans can do. We have been evolutionarily designed to use our sight. If illusions can trick our best sense then it is not hard to imagine that if we are making mistakes in something we are so good at then what are the chances that we dont make mistakes in other areas that we are not as good at? Things that we dont have an evolutionary reason to do with no specialized part of the brain like vision has and something we dont spend many hours of the day doing. We may make many more mistakes and not even realize that we are making them. Cognitive illusions are harder to demonstrate than visual illusions. For an example, organ donor percentage in European countries can be seperated into two groups, countries that have a very high percentage of donors and countries with very low percentages of organ donors. When asked some thought it had something to do with cultural issues or it had to do with how much the people cared about society or maybe that it was about religion. However, the graph shows countries that are thought to be very simple but demonstrate different behaviors. It turns out it actually has to do with the forms that the people must fill out at the DMV. The forms in the countries with low numbers of donors have a choice that says 'check the box below if you want to participate in the organ donor program.' What happens is people dont check the box so they dont join. The countries that have a lot of donors have a form that says, 'Check the box below if you dont want to participate in the organ donor program.' When people get this they dont check but they do join. This means that even though we feel like we make all the decisions in our lives ourselves, many of our decisions are nit residing within us. The person that designed the form will have a huge influence in what you will do. You might think that if you were to encounter one of those forms that you would change your behavior but you have such a feeling that you are in control of your own behaviors that it is very hard to believe that we actually have an illusion of making a decision. Some may think that this happens because it's something no one really cares about and it's after you're dead so it doesn't effect you, but in reality its exactly the opposite. It is because we care and it is such a complex desicion that we dont know what do do so we leave the box blank and we pick whatever it is that was chosen for us. This is also examined when making decisions of different kinds. For example the choice between an all expence paid trip to Rome or and all expence paid trip to Paris. They are both different but it is difficult to choose. Then if you introduce a choice that is inferior to one of the other choices it is much easier. If you have the choice between an all expence paid trip to Paris and two seperate trips to rome except one of the trips does not include coffee with breakfast then the trip that does include coffee with breakfast suddenly becomes the superior choice and even begins to look more superior to paris. It is the same with physical attraction. An experient was done where a group of people were asked to pick between two faces to take on a date but half of the group was given those same two faces with a third face that was similar to one of the other faces but slightly uglier. This was to see whether the uglier version would work in favor of the more attractive person and it was true. This is usually how people pick someone to take bar hopping. They choose someone that looks similar to them but a little uglier. When we build physical things we understand our limitations and we buld around them. when it comes to the mental world such as designing things like healthcare, retirement and the stock markets we forget our limitations. If we understand our cognitive limitations in the same way we understand our physical limitations we could design a better world.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
"
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
How to Relax Effectively with Progressive Muscle Relaxation
How to Relax Effectively with Progressive Muscle Relaxation: "
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
A no-nonsense video that combines Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) narration with ambient, peaceful images. Promotes relaxation and sleep. A good coping technique, proven effective for stress and anxiety.
Meditation and health: Why do we tend to look toward the East?
Meditation and health: Why do we tend to look toward the East?: "
Research demonstrates that meditation is good for our body, mind, and spirit. Yet we tend to only look towards the East and ignore the West when it comes to learning, practicing, and valuing meditative skills. This is a big mistake.
All of the religious and spiritual traditions offer thoughtful and effective contemplative and meditative practices and techniques. Mindfulness meditation, associated with the Buddhist tradition, is the approach that has gotten a lot of attention in recent years and perhaps has been the most successfully integrated into secular mental and physical health care. Practitioners such as Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center have helped to popularize this form of meditation and secularize it so that it is acceptable to both professionals and clients alike, regardless of religious tradition or involvement.
Mindfulness meditation is an excellent example of how a particular religiously based technique can be adapted to help others when it is in a form that is both understandable and acceptable to people who have no particular religious or spiritual affiliations. Clients can use the principles and techniques of this form of meditation to lower stress, improve their psychological and physical health, and ultimately improve the quality of their lives. The same is true for yoga. Yoga studios can be found throughout the United States and even in shopping and strip malls. Yoga is a complative and meditative practice associated with the Hindu tradition but has often been secularized to the point that it can feel like an exercise class. The remarkable success of mindfulness meditation and yoga in popular and professional practice underscores the interest in Eastern approaches to meditation and contemplative practices.
Curiously, most people seem to believe that meditation techniques are found only in the Eastern traditions and thus focus on approaches such as yoga, Taoism, prana, chi, Buddhism, Zen, mindfulness, and so forth. Many completely ignore meditative traditions from the Christian (e.g., centering prayer, the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius), Jewish (e.g., Hasidic and Kabbalistic dillug and tzeruf approaches), Muslim (e.g., Sufism's zikr approach), and other Western traditions. Perhaps the Western traditions haven't done as well in promoting their meditative techniques.
Sadly, many conclude that Eastern traditions alone (especially those from India, Japan, and China) offer anything of value when it comes to meditation.
This is problematic because 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian, 2 percent as Jewish, and about 3 percent as Muslim; thus about 90 percent of Americans identify with a Western religious tradition according to Gallup polling. Many feel that they have to abandon their tradition to secure meditative benefits or are fearful of trying meditative practices since they believe that they are from a tradition different from their own.
While almost anyone can learn from and certainly benefit from Eastern approaches, it seems reasonable to include Western approaches too. We should look to the West as well as to the East to learn and use meditative approaches. In doing so, we are likely to enhance our physical and mental health.
Doing the right thing for our body, mind, and spirit includes using meditative and contemplative practices...from the East or from the West.
"Recent Findings Don't Prove there's a Ghost in the Machine (Sorry Saletan)
Recent Findings Don't Prove there's a Ghost in the Machine (Sorry Saletan): "When I took intro to psychology (way too long ago), the graduate instructor posed the following question to the class: Does your brain control your mind, or does your mind control your brain? At first I thought this was a trick question -- coming from most neuroscientists or cognitive scientists it would be -- but she meant it seriously.
On Tuesday, William Saletan at Slate posed the same question. Bouncing off recent evidence that some supposedly vegetative patients are in fact still able to think, Saletan writes, 'Human minds stripped of every other power can still control one last organ--the brain.'
Huh?
Every neuroscientist I've talked to would read this as a tautology: "the brain controls the brain." Given the gazillions of feedback circuits in the brain, that's a given. Reading further, though, Saletan clearly has something else in mind:
We think of the brain as its own master, controlling or fabricating the mind ... If the brain controls the mind this way, then brain scanning seems like mind reading ... It's fun to spin out these neuro-determinist theories and mind-reading fantasties. But the reality of the European scans is much more interesting. They don't show the brain controlling the mind ... The scans show the opposite: the mind operating the brain.'
Evidence Mind is Master
As I've already mentioned above, the paragraph quoted above is nonsensical in modern scientific theory, and I'll get back to why. But before that, what evidence is Saletan looking at?
In the study he's talking about, neuroscientists examined 54 patients who show limited or no awareness and no ability to communicate. Patients brains were scanned while they were asked to think of motor activities (swinging a tennis racket) or navigation activities (moving around one's home town). 5 of the 54 were able to do this. They also tried to ask the patients yes-no questions. If the answer was 'yes', the patient was to think about swinging a tennis racket; if 'no', moving around one's home town. One patient was able to do this successfully.
Note that the brain scans couldn't see the patient deciding 'yes' or 'no' -- actually, they couldn't see the patient deciding at all. This seems to be why Saletan thinks this is evidence of an invisible will controlling the physical brain: 'On the tablet of your brain, you can write whatever answer you want.'
The Mistake
The biggest problem with this reasoning is a misunderstanding of the method the scientists used. FMRI detects very, very small signals in the brain. The technology tracks changes in blood oxygenation levels, which correlates with local brain activity (though not perfectly). A very large change is on the order of 1%. For more complicated thoughts, effect sizes of 0.5% or even 0.1% are typical. Meanwhile, blood oxygen levels fluctuate a good deal for reasons of their own. This low signal-to-noise ratio means that you usually need dozens of trials: have the person think the same thoughts over and over again and average across all the trials. In the fMRI lab I worked in previously, the typical experiment took 2 hours. Some labs take even longer.
To use fMRI for meaningful communication between a paralyzed person and their doctors, you need to be able to detect the response to an individual question. Even if we knew were to look in the brain for 'yes' or 'no' answers -- and last I heard we didn't, but things change quickly -- its unlikely we could hear this whispering over the general tumult in the brain. The patients needed to shout at the top of their lungs. It happens that physical imagery produces very nice signals (I know less about navigation, but presumably it does, too, or the researchers wouldn't have used it).
Thus, the focus on visual imagery rather than more direct 'mind-reading' was simply an issue of technology.
Dualism
The more subtle issue is that Saletan takes dualism as a starting point: the mind and brain are separate entities. Thus, it makes sense to ask which controls the other. He seems to understand modern science as saying the brain controls the mind.
This is not the way scientists currently approach the problem -- or, at least, not any I know. The starting assumption is that the mind and brain are two ways of describing the same thing. Asking whether the mind can control the brain makes as much sense as asking whether the Senate controls the senators or senators control the Senate. Talking about the Senate doing something is just another way of talking about some set of senators doing something.
Of course, modern science could be wrong about the mind. Maybe there is a non-material mind separate from the brain. However, the theory that the mind is the brain has been enormously productive. Without it, it is extremely difficult to explain just about anything in neuroscience. Why does brain trauma lead to amnesia, if memories aren't part of the brain? Why can strokes leave people able to see but unaware that they can see?
Descartes' Error
A major problem with talking about the mind and brain is that we clearly conceptualize of them differently. One of the most exciting areas of cognitive science in the last couple decades has looked at mind perception. It appears humans are so constructed that we are good at detecting minds. We actually over-detect minds, otherwise puppet shows wouldn't work (we at least half believe the puppets are actually thinking and acting). Part of our concept of mind is that it is non-physical but controls physical bodies. While our concept of mind appears to develop during early childhood, the fact that almost all humans end up with a similar concept suggests that either the concept or the propensity to develop it is innate.
Descartes, who produced probably the most famous defense of dualism, thought the fact that he had the concept of God proved that God exists (his reasoning: how can an imperfect being have the thought of a perfect being, unless the perfect being put that thought there?). Most people would agree, however, that just because you have a concept doesn't mean the thing the concept refers to exists. I, for instance, have the concept of cylons, but I don't expect to run into any.
Thus, even as science becomes better and better at explaining how a physical entity like the brain gives rise to our perceptions, our experience of existing and thinking, the unity of mind and brain won't necessarily make any more intuitive sense. This is similar to the problem with quantum physics: we have plenty of scientific evidence that something can be both a wave and a particle simultaneously, and many scientists work these theories with great dexterity. But I doubt anyone really has a clear conception of a wave/particle. I certainly don't, despite a semester of quantum mechanics in college. We just weren't set up to think that way.
For this reason, I expect we'll continue to read articles like Saletan's long in the future. This is unfortunate, as neuroscience is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and society, in a way quantum physics has yet to do. Consider, for instance, insanity pleas in the criminal justice system, lie detectors, and so on.
On Tuesday, William Saletan at Slate posed the same question. Bouncing off recent evidence that some supposedly vegetative patients are in fact still able to think, Saletan writes, 'Human minds stripped of every other power can still control one last organ--the brain.'
Huh?
Every neuroscientist I've talked to would read this as a tautology: "the brain controls the brain." Given the gazillions of feedback circuits in the brain, that's a given. Reading further, though, Saletan clearly has something else in mind:
We think of the brain as its own master, controlling or fabricating the mind ... If the brain controls the mind this way, then brain scanning seems like mind reading ... It's fun to spin out these neuro-determinist theories and mind-reading fantasties. But the reality of the European scans is much more interesting. They don't show the brain controlling the mind ... The scans show the opposite: the mind operating the brain.'
Evidence Mind is Master
As I've already mentioned above, the paragraph quoted above is nonsensical in modern scientific theory, and I'll get back to why. But before that, what evidence is Saletan looking at?
In the study he's talking about, neuroscientists examined 54 patients who show limited or no awareness and no ability to communicate. Patients brains were scanned while they were asked to think of motor activities (swinging a tennis racket) or navigation activities (moving around one's home town). 5 of the 54 were able to do this. They also tried to ask the patients yes-no questions. If the answer was 'yes', the patient was to think about swinging a tennis racket; if 'no', moving around one's home town. One patient was able to do this successfully.
Note that the brain scans couldn't see the patient deciding 'yes' or 'no' -- actually, they couldn't see the patient deciding at all. This seems to be why Saletan thinks this is evidence of an invisible will controlling the physical brain: 'On the tablet of your brain, you can write whatever answer you want.'
The Mistake
The biggest problem with this reasoning is a misunderstanding of the method the scientists used. FMRI detects very, very small signals in the brain. The technology tracks changes in blood oxygenation levels, which correlates with local brain activity (though not perfectly). A very large change is on the order of 1%. For more complicated thoughts, effect sizes of 0.5% or even 0.1% are typical. Meanwhile, blood oxygen levels fluctuate a good deal for reasons of their own. This low signal-to-noise ratio means that you usually need dozens of trials: have the person think the same thoughts over and over again and average across all the trials. In the fMRI lab I worked in previously, the typical experiment took 2 hours. Some labs take even longer.
To use fMRI for meaningful communication between a paralyzed person and their doctors, you need to be able to detect the response to an individual question. Even if we knew were to look in the brain for 'yes' or 'no' answers -- and last I heard we didn't, but things change quickly -- its unlikely we could hear this whispering over the general tumult in the brain. The patients needed to shout at the top of their lungs. It happens that physical imagery produces very nice signals (I know less about navigation, but presumably it does, too, or the researchers wouldn't have used it).
Thus, the focus on visual imagery rather than more direct 'mind-reading' was simply an issue of technology.
Dualism
The more subtle issue is that Saletan takes dualism as a starting point: the mind and brain are separate entities. Thus, it makes sense to ask which controls the other. He seems to understand modern science as saying the brain controls the mind.
This is not the way scientists currently approach the problem -- or, at least, not any I know. The starting assumption is that the mind and brain are two ways of describing the same thing. Asking whether the mind can control the brain makes as much sense as asking whether the Senate controls the senators or senators control the Senate. Talking about the Senate doing something is just another way of talking about some set of senators doing something.
Of course, modern science could be wrong about the mind. Maybe there is a non-material mind separate from the brain. However, the theory that the mind is the brain has been enormously productive. Without it, it is extremely difficult to explain just about anything in neuroscience. Why does brain trauma lead to amnesia, if memories aren't part of the brain? Why can strokes leave people able to see but unaware that they can see?
Descartes' Error
A major problem with talking about the mind and brain is that we clearly conceptualize of them differently. One of the most exciting areas of cognitive science in the last couple decades has looked at mind perception. It appears humans are so constructed that we are good at detecting minds. We actually over-detect minds, otherwise puppet shows wouldn't work (we at least half believe the puppets are actually thinking and acting). Part of our concept of mind is that it is non-physical but controls physical bodies. While our concept of mind appears to develop during early childhood, the fact that almost all humans end up with a similar concept suggests that either the concept or the propensity to develop it is innate.
Descartes, who produced probably the most famous defense of dualism, thought the fact that he had the concept of God proved that God exists (his reasoning: how can an imperfect being have the thought of a perfect being, unless the perfect being put that thought there?). Most people would agree, however, that just because you have a concept doesn't mean the thing the concept refers to exists. I, for instance, have the concept of cylons, but I don't expect to run into any.
Thus, even as science becomes better and better at explaining how a physical entity like the brain gives rise to our perceptions, our experience of existing and thinking, the unity of mind and brain won't necessarily make any more intuitive sense. This is similar to the problem with quantum physics: we have plenty of scientific evidence that something can be both a wave and a particle simultaneously, and many scientists work these theories with great dexterity. But I doubt anyone really has a clear conception of a wave/particle. I certainly don't, despite a semester of quantum mechanics in college. We just weren't set up to think that way.
For this reason, I expect we'll continue to read articles like Saletan's long in the future. This is unfortunate, as neuroscience is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and society, in a way quantum physics has yet to do. Consider, for instance, insanity pleas in the criminal justice system, lie detectors, and so on.
Read the blog: http://gameswithwords.fieldofscience.com/
"
Do the research: http://coglanglab.org
Quantum Psychology?
Quantum Psychology?: "Let me be frank; I think “The conjunction fallacy and interference effects” (ungated version) is a horrible misuse of math and indicates an embarrassing failure of peer review.
The author, Riccardo Franco, introduces a parameter that does doesn’t have any foundation in the phenomena it is trying to explain, nor is it shown to aid in [...]...
"
The author, Riccardo Franco, introduces a parameter that does doesn’t have any foundation in the phenomena it is trying to explain, nor is it shown to aid in [...]...
Franco, R. (2009) The conjunction fallacy and interference effects. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 53(5), 415-422. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmp.2009.02.002 The conjunction fallacy and interference effects
"
Sparking Creativity in the Workplace
Sparking Creativity in the Workplace: "
Admit it. When do you get your best ideas? When you're sitting at your desk striving for an answer, or when you're doing something off-task like driving, walking, or puttering around the house?
On the surface, daydreaming seems like the antithesis of 'work,' yet it's truly at the core of our most important type of productivity--creative problem-solving. That's why some of the most innovative companies in the world feature programs that give key employees the time and space to think creatively, i.e. daydream--Google offers a 20% program, 3M has a 15% program, and Gore & Associates (Gore-Tex, etc.) features 'dabble time.' All three companies credit these programs as the source of their most successful products.
While many of us can see the relationship between daydreaming and creativity in the arts and even science, we've been slower to come around to its usefulness in business. Say the word 'visionary' however, and we understand how having a vision--a mental image or plan--can help someone start a breakthrough company or service.
Yes, I know. All the work and focus must follow to have an idea come to fruition. But the original idea and the motivation to fulfill that idea are birthed in a daydreaming state, and we do our most creative problem-solving when the mind wanders. While daydreaming, we can:
1) Envision-model and simulate in our mind's eye
2) Think uncensored thoughts-necessary for originality
3) Free associate-make random connections and come up with novel solutions
4) Tap into the most complex regions of the brain
Why Encourage Creativity at Work?
The new economy demands it. Global competition and the fast pace of technological change have left many of us scrambling. In addition, we've become much more of a thought-based economy than a widget-based one, and such an economy has a voracious appetite for ideas and innovation.
In addition, no one can rest on his or her laurels anymore. It used to be people apprenticed their way up the ladder, eventually becoming the wise elder of their trade. Now we all have to scramble just to stay relevant. Those who actually want to be ahead of the curve are going to have to be visionary. Those businesses or individuals lost only in the tunnel vision of task will be left behind.
Encouraging creativity is also good for attracting and retaining quality employees, always an issue even in this bad economy. Encouraging your employees to think creatively also helps to ensure that ideas stay under your roof, instead of having them take their ideas somewhere else or start a competing business.
How to Spark Creativity at Work
• Tell people you want their ideas then give them some amount of time and space to think creatively (i.e. daydream!). Instead of fearing that you're losing an employee's clocked-in time to creative thinking, look at it from another angle--you are gaining much wider access to a person's creative energies by encouraging them to explore ideas whenever the inspiration strikes, which is often outside of prescribed work hours. Offering up as little as thirty minutes of work time a week for exploratory thought could send the message that creativity is valued, no matter when, where, or how ideas are conceived.
• Ask 'what if' questions and encourage speculative thinking.
• Accept risk and a certain amount of failure. I believe it was Edison who said 'to have one good idea, have a lot of them.'
• Provide a forum for idea sharing and give feedback.
• Get rid of your old-school ideas about daydreaming, and start doing it. Go ahead--I'm giving you permission. Among the many benefits of daydreaming-it's fun, and we can all use some of that.
© Amy Fries
image: istock.com/PeskyMonkey
For more information, check out
Daydreams at Work: Wake Up Your Creative Powers
.
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality: "It is a long-standing argument among religious believers that religiosity were necessary for morality. In a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences article (requires subscription), Pyysiäinen and Hauser argue that morality can arise and indeed can be found without and before any religious education and thus religion is a by-product of pre-existing cognitive properties of the brain. Indeed, religion is not ubiquitous, as for instance the Hadza's religion has been described as 'minimal', and yet, cooperation and morality are - as in all human cultures - thriving. In fact, there is a clear negative correlation between socioeconomic status and supernatural beliefs, further arguing that religiosity is not really all that important for morality to evolve or to persist. Pyysiäinen and Hauser cite a series of studies in moral psychology showing that moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas are unaffected in individuals without any religious background. In their press release, the authors conclude: "This supports the theory that religion did not originally emerge as a biological adaptation for cooperation, but evolved as a separate by-product of pre-existing cognitive functions that evolved from non-religious functions," says Dr. Pyysiäinen. "However, although it appears as if cooperation is made possible by mental mechanisms that are not specific to religion, religion can play a role in facilitating and stabilizing cooperation between groups."Perhaps this may help to explain the complex association between morality and religion. "It seems that in many cultures religious concepts and beliefs have become the standard way of conceptualizing moral intuitions. Although, as we discuss in our paper, this link is not a necessary one, many people have become so accustomed to using it, that criticism targeted at religion is experienced as a fundamental threat to our moral existence," concludes Dr. Hauser.This leaves open some other, less social cognitive factors contributing to the origin of religiosity, to which to authors allude towards the middle of their article: "[...] the concept of God is based on extending to non-embodied agents the standard capacity of attributing beliefs and desires to embodied agents. According to this view, religious beliefs are a by-product of evolved cognitive mechanisms." The authors are referring to 'theory of mind'. Besides this, still social capacity, there are several other factors contributing to the origins of religion. One such factor is of course our concept of causality and our hunt for last causes. However, the factor that is, of course, closest to my own field of research is that religion works as an operant behavior. This means that religion, for instance, can provide us with a feeling of control where, ultimately, there is none (think rain dance). This is not counter-intuitive and so I'm not the only person who has realized that this may be an important contributing cognitive factor. There is even prior evidence that when experiencing or remembering an experience of lack of control, these cognitive capacities for imagining control and order are enhanced.These insights leave us with a set of pre-existing cognitive abilities providing a fertile ground on which the evolution of religion could occur as a by-product: Our capacity to detect agency (so helpful in our social interactions that we see it even in non-living objects), together with the concept of causality imply that everything happens for a reason and that this reason is the intention of someone. This someone can be controlled using certain rituals as evidenced, for instance, by the rain occurring after a rain-dance. This someone obviously punishes you if you do not perform these rituals, so of course this someone will also punish you if you do not cooperate or otherwise violate the rules of the in-group. In this way, religion provides you with a sense of order and controllability in an uncontrollable world which, in turn, keeps you sane, your society functioning and thus competitive and alive. As one of the commenters on the press release noted, 'competitive' may be the key word here, with religion providing a further tool for promoting self-sacrifice and suicidal fighting which might have provided some particularly religious groups with a competitive advantage.Methinks it's about time for someone to develop a computer model for the evolution of religion, the data are starting to provide enough parameters for such a project.Also in reply to one of the comments on the authors' press release, a very pertinent video via Pharyngula:Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser (2010). The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product? Trends in Cognitive Sciences : 10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007...
"
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser. (2010) The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. info:/10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007
"
Why The Media Seems Biased When You Care About The Issue
Why The Media Seems Biased When You Care About The Issue: "
"
Research shows both pro-Arabs and pro-Israelis watching the same news reports think it is biased against their own side.
The media may well be biased, in fact it would be a miracle if it were permanently and perfectly balanced, that isn't what this post is about.
Instead this is about how you and I perceive the presence or absence of bias in the media.
This study, conducted in the 1980s, helps to explain a lot of the heat and light that gets produced by those commenting on media bias across the political spectrum, including the remarkably vitriolic outpourings often seen in the comment sections of newspaper websites and across the internet.
The Beirut massacre
Robert P. Vallone and colleagues from Stanford University invited 144 Stanford undergrads who held a variety of views on the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict to watch some of the news coverage of the Beirut massacre (Vallone et al., 1985). The Beirut massacre was the killing of between 328 and 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians by Lebanese militia forces in September 1982.
At the time the story received huge media coverage around the world with much speculation about whether Israeli forces had allowed it to happen (a subsequent commission held the Israeli government indirectly responsible).
Some of the participants recruited for the study were moderate in their initial views, others were specifically recruited from both the pro-Arab and pro-Israeli student associations. Each was asked for their views about the conflict, its history and where their sympathies lay. Here's what they found:
- 68 were pro-Israeli,
- 27 were pro-Arab,
- 49 had mixed feelings.
All the participants then watched a series of news segments taken from US networks (NBC, ABC and CBS). Afterwards they were asked to rate whether overall it was for or against Israel. They used a scale of 1 (heavy pro-Arab bias) to 9 (heavy pro-Israel bias) where a rating of 5 was fair and impartial.
The results
Here are the average ratings for the news coverage from each group:
- Pro-Israeli: 2.9 (perceived a marked pro-Arab bias)
- Neutral: 3.8 (perceived a slight pro-Arab bias)
- Pro-Arab: 6.7 (perceived a marked pro-Israeli bias)
As you can see the pro-Israeli participants thought the news reports were biased against Israel while the pro-Arab participants thought the news reports were biased against Arabs. This is impressive because everyone was watching exactly the same news reports. Even more surprising was that each thought that when someone neutral saw the coverage, it would persuade them to side with the opposite position.
Notice that those who claimed to be neutral thought the coverage had a slight pro-Arab bias. This could be a hint of actual media bias or could be just an unacknowledged bias in those initially declaring themselves neutral.
Causes of the hostile media phenomenon
The study demonstrates what the authors call the 'hostile media phenomenon': people's tendency to view news coverage about which they hold strong beliefs as biased against their own position.
There were two mechanisms at work here:
- The truth is black and white: partisans generally thought that the truth about the Arab-Israeli debate was black and white. Any hint of shades of grey in the news reports was interpreted by partisans as bias towards the other side. In other words: any balanced report will seem biased to partisan viewers.
- The news report was too grey: as well as thinking the Arab-Israeli issue was either black or white, partisans also perceived that the specific news report they watched was too grey.
Put simply: when we care about an issue, we tend not to notice all the points we agree with, and focus on the ones we don't.
Admitting bias
Whether the news actually is biased in one particular outlet about an issue that you care about can be very hard to quantify.
What we can say from this study is that people who care about a particular issue will tend to find media bias everywhere, whether or not it really exists. Not only that but they are unlikely to admit this fact to themselves since this study, amongst others, also shows how remarkably resistant we are to admitting to our own biases, even when they are categorically demonstrated to us.
» From PsyBlog's archives: 7 Reasons Leaders Fail.
» You can also follow PsyBlog on Twitter and Facebook.
» Positive psychology workbooks - intelligent self-help - download now.
Religiosity tied to socioeconomic status.
Religiosity tied to socioeconomic status.: "Gregory Paul makes an interesting comment on an article by Cullota that was the subject of my Nov. 17 post. I think his point that belief in gods and an afterlife is unlikely to be a "strongly genetically programmed result of major selective evolutionary pressures such as social cohesion" is a good one. But, I assume he would agree that there is genetic/development programming of things like the facial muscles that are specialized for signaling affiliative gestures that are universal across cultures. Here is his letter:
The Science News Focus story 'On the origin of religion' (E. Culotta, 6 November 2009, p. 784) did not incorporate the growing body of psychosociological research that is revealing the crucial role of socioeconomics in the origin and popularity of religion, as well as in creationism (1–6). Some hunter-gatherers have minimal religion (7), and those who do not believe in the gods and an afterlife have spontaneously expanded in prosperous democracies until they are the majority in some nations, such as France, Sweden, and Denmark (1, 3, 4). Because religion is not universal, as implied in the News Focus article, serious religiosity cannot be the strongly genetically programmed result of major selective evolutionary pressures such as social cohesion (8).
In modern nations, nonreligion and the acceptance of evolution become popular when the middle class majority feels sufficiently secure and safe, thanks to low income inequality, universal health care, job and retirement security, and low rates of lethal crime; this has occurred to greater and lesser degrees in most first-world countries, from Japan to Scandinavia (1–6). Religion thrives when the majority seek the aid and protection of supernatural powers because they are impoverished, as in the third- and second-world countries or, in the case of the United States (the most religious and creationist first-world country), because the majority of Americans fear losing their middle-class status as a result of limited government support, high levels of social pathology, and intense economic competition and income disparity (1–6). Prosperous modernity is proving to be the nemesis of religion.
References
* 1. G. Paul, Evol. Psychol. 7, 398 (2009); www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07398441_c.pdf.
* 2. T. Rees, J. Relig. Soc. 11 (2009); moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2009/2009-17.html.
* 3. P. Zuckerman, Soc. Compass 3, 949 (2009). [CrossRef]
* 4. P. Norris, R. Inghelart, Sacred and Secular (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2004).
* 5. A. Gill, E. Lundsgaarde, Rational. Soc. 16, 399 (2004). [CrossRef]
* 6. S. Verweii, P. Ester, R. Naata, J. Sci. Study Relig. 36, 309 (1997). [CrossRef] [Web of Science]
* 7. F. Marlowe, in Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers, and the 'Other,' S. Kent , Ed. (Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington, DC, 2002), pp. 247–281.
* 8. C. N. Wade, The Faith Instinct (Penguin, New York, 2009).
How framing affects our thought processes
How framing affects our thought processes: "A take-away restaurant near my house offers customers free home delivery or a ten per cent discount if you pick up. It sounds much better than saying you get no discount for picking up and suffer a ten per cent fee for delivery – this is the power of ‘framing’. Now David Hardisty and colleagues have dug a little deeper into framing, to show first, that these kinds of effects can interact with people's political persuasion, and second, that they can act by altering the order of people's thoughts.Hundreds of online participants chose between various flights, computers and so on. In each case they could plump for a cheaper option or a more expensive, greener option, the latter including either a 'tax' to help reduce carbon emissions, or an 'offset' to do the same – depending on how the choice was framed. Whether the expensive option was framed as a tax or offset made no difference to Democrat (left-wing) participants. By contrast, Republicans (right-wing) and Independents were much less likely to choose the more expensive option when it was labelled as a tax.In a second study the researchers added a technique known as 'concurrent thought listing', which involved the participants sharing their thoughts as they made their product choices.This process revealed that when the expensive option was labelled as a tax, the Republicans and Independents, but not Democrats, had a consistent tendency to weigh-up the advantages of the cheaper option first before they considered the benefits of the greener choice. This is significant because past research shows that when we appraise options in sequence, the first item we consider tends to be favoured. Consistent with this, the tax frame led Republican participants to not only consider the cheaper option first but also to generate more supporting evidence for it. By contrast, when the expensive, greener option was labelled as an offset, political affiliation was no longer associated with the order in which options were considered, nor the weight of evidence generated for each option. A final study tested whether the order in which we consider options really does have a causal role in our decision making. Participants of all political persuasions were instructed to consider the benefits of the greener, more expensive option first, whether it was labelled as a tax or offset. Despite this instruction, 54 per cent of Republicans failed to comply (showing just how averse they were to the 'tax' label). However, among those participants who did comply, this instruction had the effect of eliminating the interaction between framing and political affiliation – that is, the Republicans were no longer repelled by the greener, expensive option even when it was labelled as a tax.‘Policy makers would be wise to note the differential impact that policy labels may have on different groups,’ the researchers concluded. ‘What might seem like a trivial semantic difference to one person can have a large impact on someone else.’_________________________________Hardisty, D., Johnson, E., & Weber, E. (2009). A Dirty Word or a Dirty World?: Attribute Framing, Political Affiliation, and Query Theory. Psychological Science, 21 (1), 86-92 DOI: 10.1177/0956797609355572...
"
Hardisty, D., Johnson, E., & Weber, E. (2009) A Dirty Word or a Dirty World?: Attribute Framing, Political Affiliation, and Query Theory. Psychological Science, 21(1), 86-92. DOI: 10.1177/0956797609355572 A Dirty Word or a Dirty World?: Attribute Framing, Political Affiliation, and Query Theory
"
how does language shape the way we think?
how does language shape the way we think?: "Have you ever thought about...your thoughts?
"
do you think in english? spanish? korean? polish? italian? french?
and if you know more than one, or two languages, do you some how control the different languages in your head so you think in that language? I am korean, and it is true, and i do find it odd that when i think, i often talk to myself in my head and it can be english, or korean, or spanish even. but does the exposure of different languages only alter the way we think in our heads (talking to ourselves) or is there more to it?
The impact of language to our brains is phenomenal. Languages shape the way we think about space, time, colors and objects. Studies have found the effects of language on how people's interpretations, reasoning, understanding, and how people perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people's minds, choose to take risks and even in the way they make decisions. What would your life be life if language didn't exist? How would we socialize and make friends or get a job? Language is communication from not only one person to another to also to ourselves. So, is language a tool for communication, or does it shape our thoughts as well?
For instance, people who speak english would describe directions with the words right, left, up and down, where as people in Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia, describes direction and space by the words north, south, east and west-meaning that these people always have to be direction oriented. Not only does language changes the perception of direction and space, but the perception of time is also altered. English speakers tend to talk about time with horizontal spatial metaphors; 'the best is ahead of us' 'the worst is behind us'. Mandarin speakers talk about time with vertical spatial metaphors; 'next month is down month' 'last month is the up month'). English speakers talk about duration in terms of length; 'that was a short talk' 'the meeting didn't take long'. Spanish and Greek speakers prefer to talk about time in terms of amount; using words such as 'much''big' and 'little', rather than 'short' and 'long'. Research into such basic cognitive abilities as estimating duration shows that speakers of different languages differ in ways predicted by the patterns of metaphors in their language.
The last example that language shapes the way we think is the use of grammatical gender. In spanish and other Romantic languages, nouns are either masculine or feminine. What it means for a language to have grammatical gender is that words belonging to different genders get treated differently grammatically and words belonging to the same grammatical gender get treated the same grammatically. Languages can require speakers to change pronouns, adjective and verb endings, possessives, numerals, and so on, depending on the noun's gender. In a study, German and Spanish speakers were asked to describe objects having opposite gender assignments between the two different languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a 'key' — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like 'hard,' 'heavy,' 'jagged,' 'metal,' 'serrated,' and 'useful,' whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say 'golden,' 'intricate,' 'little,' 'lovely,' 'shiny,' and 'tiny.' 'In fact, you don't even need to go into the lab to see these effects of language; you can see them with your own eyes in an art gallery. Look at some famous examples of personification in art — the ways in which abstract entities such as death, sin, victory, or time are given human form. How does an artist decide whether death, say, or time should be painted as a man or a woman? It turns out that in 85 percent of such personifications, whether a male or female figure is chosen is predicted by the grammatical gender of the word in the artist's native language. So, for example, German painters are more likely to paint death as a man, whereas Russian painters are more likely to paint death as a woman.' (taken from the article.)
The fact the use of different languages alters the way we perceive the world, and the objects we look at and changes the perception of space is amazing. The way i am thinking about where i am sitting right now, typing this response would be different to an australian or someone from spain. From the perception of space, time and even nouns, languages changes the way we think. These studies show that linguistic processes effect even down to the most fundamental thought processes which unconsciously shapes our brain altering perception. Language is important to how we all deal with experience with each other and how we view the world.
Bonuses generate more heat than light
Bonuses generate more heat than light: "
The engaging behavioural economist Dan Ariely has just become a columnist for Wired UK and in his first article he describes how the promise of performance-related pay often backfires leading people to do more but perform worse.
To see the effect of bonuses on performance, Nina Mazar (assistant professor of marketing, Toronto University), Uri Gneezy (professor of economics and strategy, University of California, San Diego), George Loewenstein (professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon, Pennsylvania) and I conducted three experiments. In one we gave subjects tasks that demanded attention, memory, concentration and creativity. We asked them, for example, to assemble puzzles and to play memory games while throwing tennis balls at a target. We promised about a third of them one day's pay if they performed well. Another third were promised two weeks' pay. The last third could earn a full five months' pay. (Before you ask where you can participate in our experiments, I should tell you that we ran this study in India, where the cost of living is relatively low.)
What happened? The low-and medium-bonus groups performed the same. The big-bonus group performed worst of all.
Link to 'Bonuses boost activity, not quality' in Wired UK.
Full disclosure: I'm a contributing editor to Wired UK. I have never received a bonus in my life, but if I do, I hope to spend it beautiful on women and fast cars, although, in reality, I will probably buy a laptop.
"Comatose Communications - PVS Patient Brain Scans Show Potential of Awareness (VIDEO)
Comatose Communications - PVS Patient Brain Scans Show Potential of Awareness (VIDEO): "
(TrendHunter.com) British and Belgian researchers have found that some people presumed to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be able to communicate with the assistance of brain scans. In research experiments,…"
(TrendHunter.com) British and Belgian researchers have found that some people presumed to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be able to communicate with the assistance of brain scans. In research experiments,…"
Brain Scanning Software Showdown
Brain Scanning Software Showdown: "You've just finished doing some research using fMRI to measure brain activity. You designed the study, recruited the volunteers, and did all the scans. Phew. Is that it? Can you publish the findings yet?
Unfortunately, no. You still need to do the analysis, and this is often the trickiest stage. The raw data produced during an fMRI experiment are meaningless - in most cases, each scan will give you a few hundred almost-identical grey pictures of the person's brain. Making sense of them requires some complex statistics.
The very first step is choosing which software to use. Just as some people swear by Firefox while others prefer Internet Explorer for browsing the web, neuroscientists have various options to choose from in terms of image analysis software. Everyone's got a favourite. In Britain, the most popular are FSL (developed at Oxford) and SPM (London), while in the USA BrainVoyager sees a lot of use.
These three all do pretty much the same thing, give or take a few minor technical differences, so which one you use ultimately makes little difference. But just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's more than one way to analyze a brain. A paper from Fusar-Poli et al compares the results you get with SPM to the results obtained using XBAM, a program which uses a quite different statistical approach.
Here's what happened, according to SPM, when 15 volunteers looked at pictures of faces expressing the emotion of fear, and their brain activity was compared to when they were just looking at a boring 'X' on the screen (I think - either that it's compared to looking at neutral faces; the paper isn't clear, but given the size of the blobs I doubt it's that.)
Various bits of the brain were more activated by the scared face pics, as you can see by the huge, fiery blobs. The activation is mostly at the back of the brain, in occipital cortex areas which deal with vision, which is as you'd expect. The cerebellum was also strongly activated, which is a bit less expected.
Now, here's what happens if you analyze exactly the same data using XBAM, setting the statistical threshold at the same level (i.e. in theory being no more or less 'strict') -
You get the same visual system blobs, but you also see activation in a number of other areas. Or as Fusar-Poli et al put it -
This begs two questions: why the difference, and which way is right?
The difference must be a product of the different methods used. By default SPM uses a technique called statistical parametric mapping (hence the name) based on the assumption of normality. FSL and BrainVoyager do too. XBAM, on the other hand, differs from more orthodox software in a number of other ways; the most basic difference is that it uses non-parametric statistics but this document lists no less than five major innovations (Edit: although see the comments below this post)
The biggest question, though, is: should we all be using XBAM? Is it 'better' than SPM? This is where things get tricky. The truth is that there's no right way to statistically analyze any data, let alone fMRI data. There are lots of wrong ways, but even if you avoid making any mistakes, there are still various options as to which statistical methods to use, and which method you use depends on which assumptions you're making. XBAM rests of different assumptions from SPM.
Whether XBAM's assumptions are more appropriate than those of SPM is a difficult question. The people who wrote XBAM presumably think so, and they're very smart people. But so are the people who wrote SPM. The point is, it's a very complex issue, the mathematical details of which go far beyond the understanding of most fMRI users (myself included).
My worry about this paper is that the average Joe Neuroscientist will decide that, because XBAM produces more activation than SPM, it must be 'better'. The authors are careful not to say this, but for fMRI researchers working in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and whose greatest fear is that they'll run an analysis and end up with no blobs at all, the temptation to think 'the more blobs the merrier' is a powerful one.
Fusar-Poli, P., Bhattacharyya, S., Allen, P., Crippa, J., Borgwardt, S., Martin-Santos, R., Seal, M., O’Carroll, C., Atakan, Z., & Zuardi, A. (2010). Effect of image analysis software on neurofunctional activation during processing of emotional human faces Journal of Clinical Neuroscience DOI: 10.1016/j.jocn.2009.06.027
"
Unfortunately, no. You still need to do the analysis, and this is often the trickiest stage. The raw data produced during an fMRI experiment are meaningless - in most cases, each scan will give you a few hundred almost-identical grey pictures of the person's brain. Making sense of them requires some complex statistics.
The very first step is choosing which software to use. Just as some people swear by Firefox while others prefer Internet Explorer for browsing the web, neuroscientists have various options to choose from in terms of image analysis software. Everyone's got a favourite. In Britain, the most popular are FSL (developed at Oxford) and SPM (London), while in the USA BrainVoyager sees a lot of use.
These three all do pretty much the same thing, give or take a few minor technical differences, so which one you use ultimately makes little difference. But just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's more than one way to analyze a brain. A paper from Fusar-Poli et al compares the results you get with SPM to the results obtained using XBAM, a program which uses a quite different statistical approach.
Here's what happened, according to SPM, when 15 volunteers looked at pictures of faces expressing the emotion of fear, and their brain activity was compared to when they were just looking at a boring 'X' on the screen (I think - either that it's compared to looking at neutral faces; the paper isn't clear, but given the size of the blobs I doubt it's that.)
Various bits of the brain were more activated by the scared face pics, as you can see by the huge, fiery blobs. The activation is mostly at the back of the brain, in occipital cortex areas which deal with vision, which is as you'd expect. The cerebellum was also strongly activated, which is a bit less expected.Now, here's what happens if you analyze exactly the same data using XBAM, setting the statistical threshold at the same level (i.e. in theory being no more or less 'strict') -
You get the same visual system blobs, but you also see activation in a number of other areas. Or as Fusar-Poli et al put it -Analysis using both programs revealed that during the processing of emotional faces, as compared to the baseline stimulus, there was an increased activation in the visual areas (occipital, fusiform and lingual gyri), in the cerebellum, in the parietal cortex [etc] ... Conversely, the temporal regions, insula and putamen were found to be activated using the XBAM analysis software only.
*
This begs two questions: why the difference, and which way is right?
The difference must be a product of the different methods used. By default SPM uses a technique called statistical parametric mapping (hence the name) based on the assumption of normality. FSL and BrainVoyager do too. XBAM, on the other hand, differs from more orthodox software in a number of other ways; the most basic difference is that it uses non-parametric statistics but this document lists no less than five major innovations (Edit: although see the comments below this post)
- 'not to assume normality but to use permutation testing to construct the null distribution used to make inference about the probability of an 'activation' under the null hypothesis.'
- 'recognizing the existence of correlation in the residuals after fitting a statistical model to the data.'
- using 'a mixed effects analysis of group level fMRI data by taking into account both intra and inter subject variances.'
- using '3D cluster level statistics based on cluster mass (the sum of all the statistical values in the cluster) rather than cluster area (number of voxels).'
- using 'a wavelet-based time series permutation approach that permitted the handling of complex noise processes in fMRI data rather than simple stationary autocorrelation.'
The biggest question, though, is: should we all be using XBAM? Is it 'better' than SPM? This is where things get tricky. The truth is that there's no right way to statistically analyze any data, let alone fMRI data. There are lots of wrong ways, but even if you avoid making any mistakes, there are still various options as to which statistical methods to use, and which method you use depends on which assumptions you're making. XBAM rests of different assumptions from SPM.
Whether XBAM's assumptions are more appropriate than those of SPM is a difficult question. The people who wrote XBAM presumably think so, and they're very smart people. But so are the people who wrote SPM. The point is, it's a very complex issue, the mathematical details of which go far beyond the understanding of most fMRI users (myself included).
My worry about this paper is that the average Joe Neuroscientist will decide that, because XBAM produces more activation than SPM, it must be 'better'. The authors are careful not to say this, but for fMRI researchers working in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and whose greatest fear is that they'll run an analysis and end up with no blobs at all, the temptation to think 'the more blobs the merrier' is a powerful one.
Fusar-Poli, P., Bhattacharyya, S., Allen, P., Crippa, J., Borgwardt, S., Martin-Santos, R., Seal, M., O’Carroll, C., Atakan, Z., & Zuardi, A. (2010). Effect of image analysis software on neurofunctional activation during processing of emotional human faces Journal of Clinical Neuroscience DOI: 10.1016/j.jocn.2009.06.027What Zaps a High Achiever’s Performance Lights a Low Achiever’s Fire
What Zaps a High Achiever’s Performance Lights a Low Achiever’s Fire: "
"
High achievers do many things well, particularly when they’re convinced that excellence requires their utmost performance. Low achievers, however, have a hard time getting motivated and often find themselves coughing in the dust of the high achievers’ hustle.
But like so many generalizations, this one has a limit.
A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology uncovered a variable that knocks this scenario on its head, and it has everything to do with what makes low achievers tick.
Researchers conducted multiple studies to evaluate how participants’ attitudes toward achievement influenced their performance. In one study, participants were “primed” with high-achievement words (related to winning, excellence, etc.) flashed on a computer screen. Each word appeared only for an instant, too fast for conscious deliberation. Participants with high-achievement motivation performed significantly better on tasks after being primed with the words than those with low-achievement motivation.
In another study, participants completing a verbal proficiency task (word-search puzzles) were interrupted, and then given a choice to either resume the task or switch to a task they perceived as more enjoyable. Those with high-achievement motivation were significantly more likely to return to the verbal task than the low achievers.
The results of those studies are predictable and buttress what we generally know about high and low achievers. But the final study was different. Participants were primed with high-achievement words (e.g. excel, compete, win) and then asked to complete a word-search puzzle. But instead of describing the task as a serious test of verbal proficiency, the researchers called it “fun.”
The results: participants with high-achievement motivation did significantly worse on the task than low achievers.
The study authors believe that when high achievers are primed to achieve excellence, the idea that a task is “fun” undercuts their desire to excel. If something is enjoyable and fun, how could it possibly be a credible gauge of achievement?
Conversely, low achievers who are similarly primed with achievement words perceive a “fun” task as worthwhile. Not only is their motivation to perform improved, so is their ability.
This intriguing twist says much about why one-size-fits-all educational strategies so often fail. For students motivated to achieve excellence, making tasks entertaining may actually undermine their performance. Likewise, for those not normally motivated to achieve, describing a task as urgent and serious yields the predictable result.
It also sheds light on the “lazy genius” phenomenon. Everyone has known someone who is remarkably intelligent but gets mediocre grades and doesn’t seem to care. Clearly, low-achievers are not necessarily less intelligent or less capable than high-achievers; instead, they just don’t respond well to status quo motivational cues. A jolt of enjoyment could turn that around.
Hart W, & AlbarracÃn D (2009). The effects of chronic achievement motivation and achievement primes on the activation of achievement and fun goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 97 (6), 1129-41 PMID: 19968423
Newsweek: Do Antidepressants Work? For Many People, YES!
Newsweek: Do Antidepressants Work? For Many People, YES!: "
I admire Newsweek writer Sharon Begley’s work … especially when she explains ways we can try to rewire our brain. But I found last week’s cover story irresponsible. If, for no other reason, than its title and subtitle: “The Depressing News About Antidepressants: Studies Suggest That the Popular Drugs Are No More Effective Than a Placebo. In Fact, They May Be Worse.”
Then I may as well kill myself.
That’s how I would have read the article four years ago, before I started questioning all the information available today on mood disorders and drug treatment, before I started working with a physician from Johns Hopkins who could help me tease out the hope from articles like this, so I wasn’t tempted to take my life upon reading there was no way out of the darkness.
In fact, on the way to my consultation at the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Clinic, I read a similar article in O magazine: a compilation of interviews with folks about how antidepressants zap creativity, dull emotions, destroy creativity, flatten libidos, and a list of other things. Shaking with anxiety and tears coming down my face, I almost told Eric to turn around, that I was foolish to think that there was hope for me, that I was a lost case, and that, if the article was right, I would only be making matters worse.
Thank God I threw the article into the backseat and went on with my consultation.
I don’t know why the main body of research behind the article is so surprising: antidepressants work better for those with severe depression than for those who suffer from mild to moderate depression. Can’t we say that as part of the subtitle, to help out the folks who are banking on medical intervention to lighten their crushing and burdensome load?
I’ve always maintained that if a person has mild to moderate depression, then he should start with his diet, sleep, exercise. Try yoga or some acupuncture sessions. In many cases, that’s enough!
For folks like me, though, who are/were hanging on to life by a very thin and fraying thread, antidepressants can save lives. They have certainly given me back my life. I know that. Because I tried absolutely everything else I could to make the death thoughts go away, and they continued to stalk me until I found the right medication combination. Now, instead of putting 95 percent of my energy into NOT taking my life, I can invest it into helping others not take their own lives and to giving back. Which is why I think magazines like Newsweek, with so much power over the information we process, should be more careful than to say: Sorry folks, for those of you so desperate, well, you may as well give up and take a gun to your head.
John Grohol always provides a number of insights to media stories with unfortunate sticking power. In a recent post, “Are Antidepressants Really That Ineffective?” he writes:
Newsweek’s Sharon Begley has a lengthy article discussing the growing body of evidence that calls into question decades’ worth of prescriptions. It seems to be journalists’ favorite “go to” story now in mental health, because there’s a black-and-white controversy — do antidepressants work or don’t they?
People mistakenly believe that one type of research is somehow superior to another form of research. However, data is data and research is research. All things being equal, if it’s done in as objective a manner a human being can do it, then it’s all good and informative. A study conducted 20 years ago is just as valid today, as long as the design of the study was solid and unbiased. And a single-case experimental design, while not very generalizable, can still lead — and has led — to valuable insights into human behavior.
So I get a little concerned when we do give more weight to the most recent study, or the most recent meta-analysis. They have their place, but their place is in context — understanding the body of research as a whole. (Because meta-analyses never take into account the entire body of research on a drug or topic — they always have inclusion and exclusion criteria, criteria that can directly impact the results they find.)
To see another article about this issue go ’round and ’round the bend with both sides, but not really bringing anything new to the discussion, is a little frustrating. I think it’s pretty obvious that if a drug was supposed to help people, but didn’t, people would stop taking it and doctors would eventually stop prescribing it. Since it’s unethical to prescribe placebos to patients outside of a research study, what choice do doctors and patients have — the drug works. (Well, not always, of course, but in many people who take it, and who keep trying a different antidepressant if the first one doesn’t work, according to the results of the STAR*D study.)
In other words, can we please get back to a forest view of mood disorders so that, while we’re busy analyzing the lady bug on the bark of a tree, we don’t miss the guy with one leg off the bridge? Antidepressants aren’t fool proof. Unfortunately. Sometimes you have to try a few before you feel relief, and for some people (especially those who suffer from mild to moderate depression, that can benefit more from other kinds of therapies), SSRIs might not work at all.
But let me say this loud and clear: There is hope. Depression is treatable. It is, as William Sytron wrote in his classic, “Darkness Visible,” “conquerable.” And much of that has to do with the drugs that are available today.
Multitaskers....don't.
Multitaskers....don't.: "
A study found that the people that multitask the most are the least effective at it. It would be interesting to evaluate ADHD symptoms in the study sample, and see how it correlates with multitasking effectiveness.
In the MSNBC.com article, Clifford Nass Ph.D. said,
'Is multitasking causing them to be lousy at multitasking, or is their lousiness at multitasking causing them to be multitaskers?' Nass wondered. 'Is it born or learned?'
Read the article here:
"ASSOCIATIVE MEMORIES:
ASSOCIATIVE MEMORIES: “AI researchers in the 80s ran into a problem: the more their systems knew, the slower they ran. Whereas we know that people who learn more tend to get faster (and better in other ways) at whatever it is they’re doing.”
Moms influence how children develop advanced cognitive functions
Moms influence how children develop advanced cognitive functions: "Executive functioning is a set of advanced cognitive functions -- such as the ability to control impulses, remember things, and show mental flexibility -- that help us plan and monitor what we do to reach goals. A new study of 80 infant-mother pairs finds that the ways moms act when they're playing and solving puzzles with their babies can explain some of the differences in children's development of executive functioning."
New Studies Reveal That Schizophrenia Isn't Just A Mental Illness [Medicine]
New Studies Reveal That Schizophrenia Isn't Just A Mental Illness [Medicine]: "
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that the effects of schizophrenia appear to extend beyond the brain. And now there's talk of a blood test to diagnose schizophrenia being rolled out within a year.
Because schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder, it was previously believed that the signs of the illness would be contained only within the brain. However, the team at the Cambridge Institute for Psychiatric Research, led by Sabine Bahn, has identified genetic markers of the disorder in cell division, the immune system, and glucose metabolism. They have found that one of the best peripheral indicators of schizophrenia is a systemic problem in protein expression in the skin cells of the patient's arms.
According to Bahn:
'It's clear that schizophrenia has a very strong genetic component. Most genes are not used only in the brain. If there is an underlying abnormality at the genetic level that leads to pathology in the brain, the assumption can be made that there should also be dysregulation in the peripheral system. It may not lead to pathology, but it may reflect the pathology in the brain.'
The researchers estimate that about 40% of the changes seen in the brains of schizophrenics can be observed elsewhere in their bodies. Although Bahn originally focused on skin cells, she has now shifted to immune cells, which are closer in function to the neurons of the brain. She hopes this will better clarify just how the genetic and psychiatric components of schizophrenia interact.
The main caveat with this study that independent researchers have raised is that these peripheral indicators might not do much to improve our understanding of the root causes of the disorder. However, even if the theoretical implications of this work proves somewhat limited, Bahn hopes the practical implications will be enormous:
Bahn nevertheless believes peripheral-cell-based diagnostics will be useful. She and her coworkers have identified schizophrenia biomarkers in serum, and working with the company Rules-Based Medicine, located in Austin, Texas, and Lake Placid, N.Y., she expects that a serum-based test to aid in the diagnosis of schizophrenia will be launched sometime this year.
'We've identified a signature of numerous protein biomarkers, which give a very high sensitivity and specificity,' Bahn says. 'We've looked at hundreds of samples from patients and controls and other disorders that are related to schizophrenia.'
Currently, it can take several years to definitively diagnose a patient as schizophrenic. These new tests could reduce that figure dramatically. A schizophrenic's long-term well-being can be substantially improved with early detection of the condition.
Brain Scan Shows Vegetative Patient Responding To Yes-or-No Questions
Brain Scan Shows Vegetative Patient Responding To Yes-or-No Questions: "
In a study that challenges the diagnosis of vegetative state, doctors found that the brain of a seemingly unconscious, vegetative man responded to yes-or-no questions in the same fashion as an alert, conscious person. This discovery not only complicates the medical definition of consciousness, but seems to call into question centuries of philosophy dealing with the nature of life and the self.
The study covered 54 patients in a supposed vegetative state. Of those 54, five showed some signs of consciousness. Three of those five showed the ability to deliberately respond to stimuli at bedside. Most amazingly though, one of the patients managed to answer a series of yes-or-no questions by altering his brain activity, as measured by a MRI machine.
The questions referred to the patient's family, and included queries like 'do you have any brothers?'. When the patient was asked 'is your father's name Alexander?' (it is), his brain assumed a configuration nearly identical to that of a conscious control subject saying 'yes'. Similarly, when asked 'is your father's name Thomas?', the MRI read brain activity identical to a control person's 'no' answer.
So far, wider communication remains impossible, although advances in brain implants may soon change that. However, as that technology enables more and more communication between the seemingly unconscious and the outside world, medicine and society will bump up against the problem of quickly defining consciousness for the sake of treatment, when any solid definition of the mind has eluded philosophers for millennia.
"From music to sports: Autonomy fosters passion among kids
From music to sports: Autonomy fosters passion among kids: "Parents take heed: children and young adults are more likely to pursue sports, music or other pastimes when given an opportunity to nurture their own passion. According to a three-part study led by Genevieve Mageau, a psychology professor at the University of Montreal, parental control can predict whether a child develops a harmonious or obsessive passion for a hobby."
Brain dopamine receptor density correlates with social status
Brain dopamine receptor density correlates with social status: "(Elsevier) People have typically viewed the benefits that accrue with social status primarily from the perspective of external rewards. A new paper in the Feb. 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier suggests that there are internal rewards as well."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)