January 2009 – Page 3

How does it feel?

Our Bullshit Blue Monday competition is so popular, even the PR company that promote the day have entered!

In a comment to our original post, one of the founders of Green PR has entered a formula into the competition, and includes a long-winded rant suggesting that our criticisms of the nonsense formula are “snide”, a “‚ÄòLord of the Flies‚Äô-like, vendetta”, and are “too hidebound by logic”.

I’ve added my response below the fold so everyone can enjoy the comedy gold.

By the way, this is your last chance to get your entries in for our competition to invent a formula that describes what total bullshit these formulas are. Either leave it as a comment on any of the Bullshit Blue Monday posts or email me via this web form.

The best entry gets a prize!

Continue reading “How does it feel?”

Freud and the Uncanny Realm of the Unconscious

Chrome Fetus Comics has a wonderfully bizarre online comic entitled ‘Sigmund Freud and the Uncanny Realm of the Unconscious’ where our intrepid psychoanalyst battles the dark forces of the planet psyche.

It actually makes a pretty good stab at describing Freudian theories, or, as well as can be expected in the 50s sci-fi comic book theme.

This isn’t the only comic to feature Freud as a super hero. ‘The New Adventures of Sigmund Freud’ comic is also well worth a look.

Link to ‘Freud and the Uncanny Realm of the Unconscious’ (thanks RA!)
Link to ‘The New Adventures of Sigmund Freud’.

Learning Makes Itself Invisible

This month I am guest blogging at School of Everything, the website that helps people who want to learn meet people who want to teach. I’ll be posting here and there about what psychologists know about learning. Below is my first post…

Once you have learnt something you see the world differently. Not only can you appreciate or do something that you couldn’t appreciate or do before, but the way you saw the world before is now lost to you. This works for the small things as well as the big picture. If you learn the meaning of a new word, you won’t be able to ignore it like you did previously. If you learn how to make a cup of out of clay you won’t ever be able to see cups like you used to before.

This means it is hard to imagine what it is like for someone else who hasn’t learnt what you’ve learnt. The psychologist Paul Bloom calls this the curse of knowledge in the context of being unable to model what other people don’t know, rather than on what you yourself used not to know. If you’ve ever organised a surprise party for someone, or had another kind of secret, you’ll know the feeling. It seems so *obvious* what you are keeping hidden, but usually the person you are hiding it from doesn’t catch on. They don’t catch on because the clues are only obvious to you, knowing the secret, and you find it hard to imagine what they see not knowing it.

The reason this occurs is because of two facts about the mind that are not widely appreciated. The first is that memory is not kept in a separate store away from the rest of the mind’s functions. Although there are brain regions crucial to memory, the memories themselves are not stored separately from the regions which do perception, processing and output. Unlike a digital computer, your mind does not have to fetch stored information when it needs it, instead your memories affect every part of your perception and behaviour.

The second important fact about the mind is related to the first. It is that learning something involves changing the structures of the mind that are involved in perception and behaviour. Memories are not kept in a separate store, but are constituted by the connections between the neurons in your brain. This means that when you learn something — when you create new memories — it isn’t just *added* to your mind, but it changes the structures that make up your mind so that your perceptions, behaviour and potentially all of your previous memories are changed too.

We can see this in microcosm if we look at a small example of what is called one-shot perceptual learning. What do you think this is?

Now probably you don’t know, but I would like you do savour the feeling of not knowing. Try and taste, like a rare wine, what the perceptual experience is like. You can see the parts of the picture, the blacks and the whites, various shapes, some connected to others and some isolated.

If you now look at this popup here then you will have this taste washed out of your mind and irrevocably removed. It will be gone, and you will never be able to recover it. This is why I asked you to savour it. Now look at the original again. Notice how the parts are now joined in a whole. You just cannot see the splotches of black and white, the groups, the isolated parts, again. When you learn the meaning of the whole picture this removed the potential for that experience. Even the memory is tantalisingly out of reach. You can’t recover an experience that you yourself had two minutes ago!

One-shot learning is unusual. Most learning happens over a far longer time-scale, so it is even harder to keep a grip on what it was like to not know. All of us will have had the experience of a bad teacher who simply couldn’t see why we had a problem — they simply couldn’t see that we couldn’t understand or do what was obvious or easy to them. A good teacher has to have the dual-mind of knowing something, but also being able to empathise with someone who doesn’t know it, someone for whom what is obvious isn’t obvious yet. It is because learning has this tendency to make itself invisible that teaching is such a difficult and noble tradition.

Cross-posted at schoolofeverything.com

Link A Mindhacks.com post in which I discuss a similar thing in the context of the role expectations play in our perception.

The reference I took the picture from: Rubin, N., Nakayama, K. and Shapley, R. (2002), The role of insight in perceptual learning: evidence from illusory contour perception. In: Perceptual Learning, Fahle, M. and Poggio, T. (Eds.), MIT Press.

Remote Diagnosis Disorder

I’ve just found this funny post on ‘Remote Diagnosis Disorder’, satirising the tendency for people to diagnose each other with mental disorders on the basis of nothing but whims and prejudice.

People afflicted with this personality disorder suffer from an uncontrollable urge to diagnose individuals as suffering from one or more psychological disorders, specifically individuals which the RDD sufferer has had little or no direct personal interaction with. RDD sufferers often diagnose specific mental illnesses and may go so far as to offer treatment suggestions.

Rather than conducting a formal psychological exam, including a structured face-to-face or verbal evaluation, RDD sufferers are inclined to make snap diagnoses based on data such a very brief personal interaction, the opinions of third parties, asynchronous and/or indirect interaction (such as email), and the imaginary neuro-associations they‚Äôve created for the people they diagnose.

It’s particularly pertinent with the current tendency for media to obsess over the mental health of celebrities often digging up media commentators to give their arm chair ‘diagnoses’.

For example, the media provisionally diagnosed Britney with schizophrenia, histrionic personality disorder, bipolar disorder, post-partum depression, multiple personality disorder, drug addiction and post-partum psychosis, to name only a few that turned up in a five-minute web search.

You may be interested to know that most associations for mental health professionals ban the discussion of specific people in the public eye, because ignorant speculation from afar can be harmful, and if you’ve actually worked with the person you’re bound by medical confidentiality rules.

Link to Steve Pavlina on ‘Remote Diagnosis Disorder’.

‘Human terrain’ style teams to deploy in Africa

Wired reports that social scientists are being sought as contractors by the US Military to support their Africa Command in the form of a “socio-cultural cell”.

Rather than being directly employed by the US Army, as with members of the existing Human Terrain System (HTS), the cells look like they’ll be operated by risk management firm Archimedes Global – who, if the link from the article is correct, have a website that is so generic as to actually be slightly sinister.

The Wired news item cites a job ad, which isn’t online, but clearly describes a Human Terrain style set-up:

According to the job ad, the teams will work support AFRICOM’s Special Analysis Branch, which among other things will provide “operational multi-layered analysis and Joint Intelligence Preparations of the Operational Environment.” Cells will include personnel with expertise in “human terrain, all-source and Geo-spatial analysis.” A second socio-cultural cell will stand up within six months.

I am interested in why the US Military has recently begun to specifically deploy ‘Human Terrain’ teams to understand the structure of society when they already have an extensive PSYOPS service.

I found this fascinating 2004 defence report from the UK Government in the parliamentary records that describes the British military’s “information operations” that suggests that a ‘human terrain’ style focus, including the use of civilian social scientists, is already well integrated:

DTIO [Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations] provides strategic guidance on targeting and the cross-government information campaign, as well as advice to Ministers and the Chiefs of Staff. In DTIO itself, the staff of 98 includes a psychiatrist, an anthropologist and other specialist staff.

At the strategic level the British have been paying an American consultancy firm, the Redon Group, to provide advice on information campaigns for some five years. DTIO also has contacts with a variety of experts in the United Kingdom in universities and other institutions.

And as we discussed back in June, British PSYOPS already includes anthropology in its core techniques.

The report also hints that at the time, the US military was not addressing these issues, with a British Air Vice Marshal suggesting that the American forces were lacking a sensitive knowledge of the local cultures and that the UK forces were better at understanding the needs of the people.

However, it’s interesting that US military chose to address these issues by create a new ‘human terrain’ programme rather than simply assigning their existing PSYOPS units to the task.

Link to Wired on ‘Human Terrain’ teams for Africa.
Link to 2004 UK Government report on ‘Information Operations’.

The dialectics of the borderline

Time magazine has an interesting piece on borderline personality disorder (BPD), a sometimes stigmatised diagnosis that implies the patient has unstable impulsive emotional reactions and tumultuous relationships.

In contrast to popular perception, the ‘borderline’ part doesn’t imply the condition is between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ but that the patient is on the borderline between a psychotic and non-psychotic disorder, as low-level distortions of perception (fleeting hallucinated voices for example) and magical or paranoid thinking are not uncommon.

The stigma of the diagnosis comes from the fact that people with the label are widely considered by mental health professionals to be ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’. The fact that self-harm is common in this group often leads to informal negative labels indicating that the patient is a ‘cutter’ or ‘manipulative’.

This has been borne out by various studies. Two studies have found that the label of personality disorder is associated with staff perceiving the person as less deserving of care, more difficult, manipulative, attention-seeking, annoying, and more in control of their suicidal urges and debts – even when everything else about them is the same.

A study specifically with psychiatric nurses found that they were more likely to offer belittling or contradicting responses to statements from patients with the diagnosis.

Borderline is, perhaps, one of the mythologised conditions in psychiatry.

The fact that many mental health professionals believe that the condition is ‘lifelong’ and ‘untreatable’ is contradicted by studies that have found that the majority of people who have the diagnosis improve drastically. The most comprehensive study has found that 75% of patients with BPD no longer qualify for the diagnosis after six years.

The article also discusses one of the most promising new treatments – a type of psychotherapy called dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) – that has been found in early trials to improve the emotional tolerance, self-control and day-to-day functioning of patients with BPD.

It was invented by psychologist Marsha Linehan (who according to the article, used to be a nun), based in part on the Buddhist techniques of mindfulness and emotion regulation.

The Time piece is a little overly-dramatic in places, but is generally well-written and avoids the usual clich√©s associated with BPD and is well worth a look.

Link to Time on ‘The Mystery of Borderline Personality Disorder’.

Predictably Irrational and relative value

ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind just broadcast an interesting interview with behavioural economist Dan Ariely, where he discusses some of his fascinating work on our cognitive biases and why we find it so difficult to judge what will benefit us most.

I’m pretty sure it’s a repeat, but I mention it as I’ve almost finished the unabridged audiobook of his recent bestseller Predictably Irrational which is thoroughly excellent.

The first thing that strikes me is ‘wow, you’ve done so much interesting research’, as the book is largely about studies he has personally been involved with.

The second thing is ‘damn, I wish I’d thought of that’ as the studies are often cleverly conceived and tackle real-world corners of our reasoning and judgement.

The chapters on anchoring and on decoy options are particularly fascinating and he gives a vivid example of how decoy options work.

He notes that the UK magazine The Economist was offering a web only subscription for $59, a print subscription for $125 dollars, and a print-and-internet subscription also for $125.

It seems no-one would choose the print-only subscription – it seems obsolete – but its mere presence affects our reasoning and boosts the sales the more expensive option.

In a study to test this, Ariely gave participants the choice between these three subscription options, and to another group of participants, the choice only between web-only and print-and-internet subscriptions.

in the three option condition 16 people chose the internet-only subscription, none the print-only subscription and the other 84 chose the print-and-internet option.

As the print-only is obselete, it should make no difference whether it is part of the choice or not, when it isn’t there, in the two choice condition, the reverse pattern emerged. The majority, 68 people, chose the cheaper online option, while only 32 took the print-and-internet option.

In other words, the print-only is a decoy and it makes us think that the print-and-internet option is a better deal because it has something ‘free’, when in reality, this impression is just created because we’ve just been presented with a decoy worse deal

This relates to one of Ariely’s main points that he returns to throughout the book, that we tend to make relative judgements, and manipulating the context can skew our perceptions of value.

It struck me that this is how most people experience pitch and musical notes. A few people have ‘perfect pitch‘ and can label tones without reference to other tones. I wonder if some people have ‘perfect pitch’ with regard to this sort of value judgements.

The Predictably Irrational website is also very good, where Ariely has a regularly updated blog and has created free video summaries of each of the chapters.

All come highly recommended.

Link to AITM interview with Dan Ariely.
Link to Predictably Irrational website.

Personal genomics as a psychological mirror

Psychologist Steven Pinker explores the impact of personal genome sequencing services and how this information may help us understand our behaviours and preferences in an article for The New York Times.

Pinker is known for advocating that many psychological traits and cognitive abilities are highly heritable. He’s recently volunteered to have his entire genome sequenced and made freely available on the internet and so he explores what this information can actually tell us about ourselves.

One aspect of this information is that it can indicate the future course of your life – such as the vastly increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease if you’re the carrier of two ApoE Œµ4 alleles.

Like James Watson, Pinker has opted not to find out his ApoE Œµ4 status, preferring to avoid any additional “existential dread” that the knowledge might cause.

However, other genes predict weaker tendencies and ‘cognitive genetics’, the science of how genes interact with our mental functions, is beginning to blossom:

Dopamine is the molecular currency in several brain circuits associated with wanting, getting satisfaction and paying attention. The gene for one kind of dopamine receptor, DRD4, comes in several versions. Some of the variants (like the one I have) have been associated with ‚Äúapproach related‚Äù personality traits like novelty seeking, sensation seeking and extraversion.

A gene for another kind of receptor, DRD2, comes in a version that makes its dopamine system function less effectively. It has been associated with impulsivity, obesity and substance abuse. Still another gene, COMT, produces an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, the home of higher cognitive functions like reasoning and planning. If your version of the gene produces less COMT, you may have better concentration but might also be more neurotic and jittery.

The article covers a great deal of ground, aiming to educate about some of the basic principles of genetics as well as tackling the implications of knowing more about our own genetic codes.

By the way, if you’re interested in a thorough grounding in the science of behavioural and cognitive genetics, I highly recommend the somewhat expensive but very well written and remarkably comprehensive book Behavioural Genetics.

Link to NYT piece ‘My Genome, My Self’.

The morbid attractions of sweet anaesthesia

The New Republic magazine has an excellent article about drug addiction among anaesthetists. It tracks the story of one rising star in the speciality who became addicted and discusses discussing why opioid dependence is still a problem in the field.

It’s probably worth stressing that while anaesthetists have the highest rates of opioid addiction among doctors, the absolute rates are still actually quite low.

A 2002 study found level of drug abuse in the US to be 1.0% among faculty members and 1.6% among residents (junior doctors), and ‘drug abuse’ here doesn’t entail addiction – it just describes illicit use of controlled substances.

However, the increased rates of drug use are certainly cause for concern, this is from a review article on ‘Addiction and Substance Abuse in Anesthesiology’ published last year:

Anesthesiologists (as well as any physician) may suffer from addiction to any number of substances, though addiction to opioids remains the most common. As recently as 2005, the drug of choice for anesthesiologists entering treatment was an opioid, with fentanyl and sufentanil topping the list. Other agents, such as propofol, ketamine, sodium thiopental, lidocaine, nitrous oxide, and the potent volatile anesthetics, are less frequently abused but have documented abuse potential. Alcoholism and other forms of impairment impact anesthesiologists at rates similar to those in other professions.

The New Republic article is an engaging look at this issue that manages to tackle both the human issues and the view from the medical literature.

If you’re interested in the history of anaesthesia, ABC Radio National’s In Conversation recently had a fascinating discussion with historian Stephanie Snow, who’s just written a book on the subject called Blessed Days Of Anaesthesia.

It has loads of intriguing nuggets of information, such as the fact that resistance to the introduction to effective pain killing was bolstered by moral arguments as to the necessity of pain, but also scientific theories about the nervous system that suggested it was essential during operations to keep the body functioning.

A fascinating insight into early thinking about the value of pain.

Link to The New Republic article ‘Going Under’ (via MeFi).
Link to In Conversation on ‘Blessed Days Of Anaesthesia’.

(28 Dec 2011: updated links – thanks Tom!)

I struggle, fight dark forces in the clear moon light

A study just published online by the journal Schizophrenia Research has found a marked relationship between insomnia and paranoia in both the general public and in patients with psychosis.

The study, led by psychologist Daniel Freeman, was cross-sectional, meaning they just looked at whether the two things were associated and so it can’t say for definite which causes which.

In other words, it’s impossible to say whether lack of sleep triggers paranoia, or whether paranoid thoughts are more likely to keep us up at night.

However, the study also measured anxiety, known to affect sleep, and it accounted for part but not all of the sleeplessness, suggesting that both paranoia and insomnia probably feed into each other.

Sleep has an interesting relationship to mental illness. While sleeplessness and disturbed circadian rhythms have been linked to mood disorders for many years, sleep deprivation is known to have an antidepressant effect and is sometimes used to treat the most severe cases of depression.

By the way, the title of the post is taken from the lyrics to Faithless’ dancefloor masterpiece Insomnia which also gives a wonderful description of insomnia fuelled paranoia – although I suspect it also refers to the after effects of a night of drugs-based clubbing so probably not exactly what the researchers had in mind.

Link to PubMed entry for study.

Full disclosure: Two of the study authors are research collaborators.

2009-01-09 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

A free Critical Neuroscience <a href="http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/11/14/critical-neuroscience-conference-at-ucla/
“>conference is being held in ~~Berkeley~~ UCLA on Jan 30th. Check the link for more information or see this jpg poster.

BPS Research Digest looks at interesting research suggesting that Tetris might work as a ‘cognitive vaccine’ against the development of trauma.

US Government claims futuristic security checkpoints have remarkably terrorist detecting capability on the basis of a Windows desktop shot and an unreleased ‘test’, reports TechFragments.

The Guardian has an extended book review article where neuroscientist Steven Rose discusses the latest theories about the human brain.

The excellent Developing Intelligence finds an interesting <a href="The Science of Mind-Reading: SVMs Extract Intentions from Neural Activity
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2009/01/svms_decode_intentions_the_sta.php”>video on ‘brain scan mind reading’.

The New York Times profiles Emily Yudofsky who just set up a fledgling ‘neuromarketing’ company.

Children with developmental language disorder are the topic of a recent Health Report programme from ABC Radio National.

Neuroanimations is a site intended for neurosurgeons that describes various brain pathologies with, unsurprisingly, animations.

The UK is suffering a shortage of people who donate their brains after death for essential research into conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, reports BBC News.

RadioLab just broadcast another one of their wonderfully produced shows. This one on <a href="Radiolab diagnosis
http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/12/30/diagnosis/”>diagnosis. Excellent apart from the slightly over-enthusiastic brain scans to diagnose psychiatric disorders bit.

An essay discussing why kindness is seen in such a bad light in modern times is printed in The Guardian, looks to be an extract from a forthcoming book.

Cognitive Daily examines research on the pain killing effects of your favourite music.

BBC Radio 4’s Case Notes has a special on the sense of taste.

Neuroskeptic has an excellent takedown of much of the recent misinformed coverage about ‘why men like computer games‘.

Gregory Petsko discusses the coming neurological epidemic in a talk for TED.

Furious Seasons casts a skeptical eye over a recent American Journal of Psychiatry paper trying to explain why there’s such a large placebo response in antidepressant drugs trials in children.

People overestimate their reactions to racist comments, according to new research covered by Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Bullshit Blue Monday a downer on Wikipedia

Is this the most incompetent Wikipedia edit ever? Green Communications, the PR company who promotes the Blue Monday ‘worst day of the year’ bullshit festival, recently tried to ‘anonymously’ delete criticism from the Blue Monday Wikipedia page without realising their IP address was a complete giveaway.

This obviously failed, and they just tried to paste on a whole block of text onto the bottom of the article that started with (and I kid you not):

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS ALL FACTUALLY CORRECT. IF YOU DISPUTE IT PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR.

Spank me nanny! Spank me!

Actually, they originally tried to do this from an anonymous IP address that didn’t track back to Green Communications, but then blew their cover by using a registered account to reinsert the text – time under the name ‘Honest Green’ and with the added power caps.

Now, I’m going to assume that the information is ALL FACTUALLY CORRECT so I want to address the last line of their bolt-on Wikipedia press release:

The on-going campaign is run by Wakefield-based public relations company GREEN Communications, on a non-commercial basis as part of its own corporate social responsibility activities.

Let’s make this clear. Green Communications – I applaud your efforts for running non-commercial PR campaigns aimed at promoting mental health. It’s a vastly neglected area that gets scant attention in the press.

However, the reason that the ‘Blue Monday’ / worst day of the year formulae rubbish gets the back up of medical doctors, psychologists and researchers is not just that it’s ridiculous.

It’s that promoting the misunderstanding of science and psychology actually harms people’s ability to make informed choices about their mental health.

It devalues genuine evidence-based work in the area and misleads people as to what they need to consider when trying to manage their own emotions, or, if the need arises, decide on what sort of help or treatment they want when things get too difficult to manage their own.

So, I’d like nothing more than next year, you run a non-commercial PR campaign aimed at empowering and informing people about depression that wasn’t based on misinformation.

You’re an award winning PR company, so I’m sure you can find an equally catchy way of grabbing people’s attention that doesn’t involve obvious drivel.

UPDATE: Just a reminder that you can still enter our Bullshit Blue Monday make up your own nonsense formula competition where you could win a prize!

Link to Bullshit Blue Monday antidote from Ben Goldacre.
Link to Bullshit Blue Monday antidote from Petra Boyton.

Inside the mind of an autistic savant

New Scientist has an interesting interview with Daniel Tammet, a young man with with Asperger’s syndrome, synaesthesia and amazing savant memory skills.

Tammet has also been the subject of scientific investigation, with a 2007 study published in the journal Neurocase examining how activity in his brain is related to his exceptional recall.

Tammet is interesting because savantism is usually associated with people with quite profound autism who are not easily able to communicate their experiences. Owing to the fact that Tammet is highly articulate, he describes how his experiences his mind in wonderful detail.

You also excel at learning languages. How do you pick them up so quickly?

I have synaesthesia, which helps. When there is an overlap between how I visualise a word and its meaning, that helps me remember it. For example, if a word that means “fire” in a new language happens to appear orange to me, that will help me remember it. But more significant is my memory and ability to spot patterns and find relationships between words. Fundamentally, languages are clusters of meaning – that is what grammar is about. This is also why languages interest me so much. My mind is interested in breaking things down and understanding complex relationships.

A documentary about Tammet, called The Boy with the Incredible Brain is available on Google Video and shows him at work as well as talking to neuropsychologists about savant skills.

Link to interview with Tammet at NewSci.
Link to documentary The Boy with the Incredible Brain.

Laughing gas increases imagination, suggestibility

A new study has found that laughing gas, a common anaesthetic used by dentists, increases the vividness of imagination and also increases suggestibility, making people slightly more likely to experience hypnosis-like suggestions.

The study, just published in the medical journal Psychopharmacology, stems from the informal observations of dentists that patients under laughing gas (nitrous oxide) sedation are particularly suggestible and the researchers aimed to test this out in more detail.

The researchers randomised patients at a dental surgery to either receive a nitrous oxide and oxygen mix, or just oxygen, with the patients not knowing which they were receiving. Two weeks later they were invited back and given which ever type of gas mix they hadn’t already had.

While inhaling each gas mix, the participants were asked to complete a measure of imaginative ability, rating the clarity and vividness of their visual imagery, as well as being given various suggestions – without the hypnotic induction – from the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale.

This includes suggestions that your hands might move of their own accord, to suggested temporary paralysis, to a suggestion to experience hallucinated sounds – to name but a few.

The researchers found that nitrous oxide boosted imaginative ability considerably, and increased suggestibility modestly but reliably.

The paper discusses the small but interesting literature on which drugs affect suggestibility, and reviews some of the past studies which have tested some quite surprising substances in this way:

Little research has investigated the effects of other drugs upon suggestibility in a controlled manner. Sjoberg and Hollister (1965) administered lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline and psilocybin separately and in combination to participants and measured imaginative suggestibility before and after drug administration.

Gibson et al (1977) measured the effect of benzodiazepine administration upon hypnotic suggestibility, and Kelly et al (1978) tested the effect of cannabis intoxication upon the imaginative suggestibility of participants initially scoring low to medium on a standardised scale.

Details of these studies and the resulting changes in suggestibility are given in Table 2 [see further down this page for a web version]. The greatest changes in suggestibility, in order of decreasing size, are evident after administration of nitrous oxide, cannabis, LSD, mescaline, combination of [LSD+mescaline+psilocybin] and diazepam.

So it seems that nitrous oxide may have a particular suggestibility boosting effect.

By the way, the study was led by psychologist Matt Whalley, who also runs the excellent Hypnosis and Suggestion website, undoubtedly the best internet resource for scientific information on hypnosis.

Link to study.
Link to PubMed entry for same.
Link to excellent Hypnosis and Suggestion website.

The attractive face unmasked

Science News has an excellent cover article discussing the psychology of facial attractiveness and rounds-up some of the latest cognitive science research in the area.

It covers research on quite well-worn areas, such as symmetry, masculinity and femininity in faces, but also picks up on some of the new developments that have been tackled only recently.

Other missing elements in evaluating beauty have begun to emerge with the use of new technology. Video techniques have allowed for dynamic rather than static interpretations of beauty.

‚ÄúReal faces move,‚Äù says Edward Morrison of the University of Bristol in England. ‚ÄúIf you show someone a moving face, they can recognize it quicker. There is more information.‚Äù

And it turns out that how faces move may contribute to how good they look. In a 2007 paper [pdf] in Evolution and Human Behavior, Morrison reported that more of the movements known to be indicators of femininity ‚Äî blinking, nodding and head tilting ‚Äî made women‚Äôs faces more attractive to male and female volunteers.

‚ÄúMovement can convey important meanings,‚Äù Morrison says. ‚ÄúIf that person likes you or doesn‚Äôt. If that person is being aggressive. If the person is being flirtatious. The face can start to convey these kinds of things.‚Äù

Link to ScienceNews piece ‘It‚Äôs written all over your face’.

The science of ‘voodoo’ brain correlations

The Neurocritic has an excellent post explaining the science of why some of the most widely reported brain scanning studies on social interaction are flawed.

The new analysis has been led by neuroscientist Edward Vul and we reported on this bombshell last week, but this new post clearly explains the problems for those not wanting to plough through the original academic text.

The paper stems from the observation that some of the correlations between brain activity and psychological states in some of these headline studies are remarkably high, one as high as .88

A correlation is a test of how much two measures are related. A correlation of 1 means that the two measures are perfectly in sync, every change in one is mirrored by changed in the other, whereas a correlation of 0 means that there is no syncing at all. Any number in between gives a sliding scale of how much ‘syncing’ there is .

So a correlation of .88 is pretty impressive and suggest near-perfect syncing. Except that it’s higher than would be possible based on how accurate the two measures are.

Imagine that you have a 10cm rule than can only measure to the nearest centimetre. It means that the accuracy of your ruler is only 90% because it fudges any part-centimetre length down the nearest centimetre.

It would be almost impossible to get a perfect correlation using this ruler, because there’s 10% randomness – or 10% out-of-syncness, in every measurement.

And once you know how much randomness there is, you can estimate the maximum correlation you can get because you know the randomness is not going to reliably sync with anything else.

Edward Vul and his team did this with these headline social brain imaging studies and found that some produced correlations higher than would be possible from what we know of how accurate the brain scanning and psychological measures are. So something must be up.

It turns out that some studies deliberately picked out brain areas based on which voxels [micro areas] already had high correlations, while others only reported correlations from a spot in an area that was already the most active.

In other words, they were only selecting the cream of the crop but were reporting it as if it was the general picture.

Neurocritic goes into this in more detail in relation to specific studies, and it’s well worth checking out for the gory details.

Importantly, the researchers of the flawed studies weren’t trying to ‘fake’ results, there were using a common method which Vul has discovered is flawed.

He has called for the researchers to use a more representative form of analysis and correct their findings. We’ll see what happens.

Link to Neurocritic on ‘Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience’.
pdf of Vul’s paper.