vaughanbell

Scientists to study speed dating (again)

Professor Richard Wiseman talks about an upcoming study on speed dating in a BBC news story and is quoted as saying “This is the first time that speed dating has been used to assess the psychology of compatibility”.

It seems Professor Wiseman has a short memory, as several studies have been published on speed dating, including a paper published last year in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior that was quite widely discussed (funnily enough, just around the time of last year’s Valentine’s Day).

Wiseman’s experiment is to be carried out at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in April and reflects a trend for using speed dating in science education events. It even featured (rather unsuccessfully) in the tepid BBC series Secrets of the Sexes and, in a slightly more informed format, as a segment on Radio 4’s All in the Mind.

Link to ‘Scientists to study speed dating’ from BBC News.

Brain pin

Online badge retailer Lapel Pin Planet have designed a handcrafted pewter pin in the shape of the brain. It’s stylish and sure to be a conversation piece.

Although, I suspect many of the conversations will start something like “Hey, nice badge, hang on, where’s the middle temporal gyrus?”.

Hopefully though, if anyone notices that the badge isn’t anatomically correct in its finer details, you’ve got a good excuse to kick-back with some neuroscience chit-chat.

Link to handcrafted brain pin.

On lighting fires

If you’re not already tired of Valentine themed stories in the news, LiveScience have an interesting article discussing some of the recent developments in understanding the psychology and neuroscience of love and attraction.

It’s not the most critical article in the world, taking most of the results from the studies as given, but does provide some useful pointers for the current state of work in this area.

Link to article ‘The Rules of Attraction in the Game of Love’.

Sweet nothings for your neuroscience honey

Interesting fact for Valentine’s Day: The retina is the only part of the central nervous system that is visible from outside the body.

So when you’re looking deep into the eyes of your true love, you can say…

“Darling, you have the most beautiful central nervous system I have ever seen.”

And if that doesn’t send shivers down their spine, Ode to Psyche by John Keats is possibly one of the most beautiful love poems to feature the mind and brain, as this excerpt shows:

And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,
  With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,
  Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
  That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
  To let the warm Love in!

Link to full text of Ode to Psyche by John Keats.

Internet mind control and the diagnosis of delusions

A recent paper in the medical journal Psychopathology has analysed the links between websites of likely-delusional people who publish their experiences of ‘mind control’ on the internet, and has concluded that they challenge the psychiatric criteria for the diagnosis of delusions.

One of the defining features of a delusion is that it should not be a belief “ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture”. Nevertheless, some researchers have noted that there is no clear measure of what is ‘ordinarily accepted’.

It is also possible that cultures or subcultures could be based around beliefs that would otherwise be diagnosed as delusional. Until now, however, there have been no obvious examples of such subcultures identified.

In the Psychopathology paper, ten websites reporting psychosis-like ‘mind control’ experiences were identified. The reports were anonymised and independently blind-rated by three psychiatrists who confirmed that they reflect experiences stemming from psychosis.

The links between the websites were then analysed using a technique called social network analysis that allows the social network of the authors to be inferred.

This analysis suggested that the authors of the reports were part of a ‘small world‘ social network, based around the content of likely-delusional beliefs (click here to see the network structure in a popup window).

This contradicts the current definition of a delusion, suggesting that it is becoming increasing redundant as technology shapes and re-shapes social networks.

It also suggests that, according to the current definition, anyone can ‘cure’ themselves of a delusion by using the internet to find or form a community of others who share the same belief!

Importantly, however, the researchers make clear that this research does not imply that all of the internet ‘mind control’ community are psychotic, as reports were chosen to specifically reflect psychosis-like experiences.

It is interesting, however, that the identified authors are also likely to be an active part of a wider, non-psychotic community, who may have similar, although differently motivated, concerns.

Link to abstract of study.
PDF of paper.

Disclaimer: This paper is from my own research group.

Johnny panic and the bible of dreams

Every day from nine to five I sit at my desk facing the door of the office and type up other people’s dreams. Not just dreams. That wouldn’t be practical enough for my bosses. I type up also people’s daytime complaints: trouble with mother, trouble with father, trouble with the bottle, the bed, the headache that bangs home and blacks out the sweet world for no known reason. Nobody comes to our office unless they have troubles. Troubles that can’t be pinpointed by Wassermanns or Wechsler-Bellvues alone.

Maybe a mouse gets to thinking pretty early on how the whole world is run by these enormous feet. Well, from where I sit, I figure the world is run by one thing and this one thing only. Panic with a dog-face, devil-face, hag-face, whore-face, panic in capital letters with no face at all-it’s the same Johnny Panic, awake or asleep.

When people ask me where I work, I tell them I’m Assistant to the Secretary in one of the Out-Patient Departments of the Clinics’ Building of the City Hospital. This sounds so be-all end-all they seldom get around to asking me more than what I do, and what I do is mainly type up records. On my own hook though, and completely under cover, I am pursuing a vocation that would set these doctors on their ears. In the privacy of my one-room apartment I call myself secretary to none other than Johnny Panic himself.

Dream by dream I am educating myself to become that rare character, rarer, in truth, than any member of the Psycho-analytic Institute, a dream connoisseur. Not a dream-stopper, a dream-explainer, an exploiter of dreams for the crass practical ends of health and happiness, but an unsordid collector of dreams for themselves alone. A lover of dreams for Johnny Panic’s sake, the Maker of them all.

There isn’t a dream I’ve typed up in our record books that I don’t know by heart. There isn’t a dream I haven’t copied out at home into Johnny Panic’s Bible of Dreams.

This is my real calling.

Excerpt from Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by poet and author Sylvia Plath. Plath suffered from severe depression throughout her life, and this piece was based upon her experiences of being in a psychiatric hospital.

A century of intelligence

ABC Radio’s science show Ockham’s Razor marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the intelligence test by examining its history and impact on modern psychology.

The programme traces the development of the modern IQ test from the initial efforts of psychologist Alfred Binet and its roots in educational testing, to its controversial involvement in social and political debates.

mp3 or realaudio of programme audio.
Link to programme transcript.

2006-02-10 Spike activity

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

PLoS Medicine have a review article on the links between cannabis and psychosis.

Psychologist Petra Boyton casts a critical eye on media reports that ‘sexual chemistry lasts just two years’.

The Royal College of Nursing debate ‘harm minimisation‘ measures for people who self-harm.

Beta-blocker drug propranolol could reduce the impact of painful memories if taken after severe trauma.

Wired magazine discuss recent research into developing an eye test for Alzheimer’s disease.

The touch of a loved one’s hand can induce in measurable stress-reducing responses in the brain during tense times.

BBC Radio 4’s health issues show ‘Case Notes’ has a half-hour special on the neuroscience and treatment of stroke.

The brain continues with significant development after the age of 18 (via /.).

New Scientist on research that shows that the brain only has to send a movement command to create the sensation of movement.

The New York Times has an insightful article on the media obsession with pretty brain images and what they actually tell us.

Article in Wired on an inventor of retinal implants (via BoingBoing).

Augmenting the mind with high technology

A couple of news stories have discussed the ‘Better Humans?’ report featured earlier on Mind Hacks:

One article from The Guardian (actually an excerpt from the full report) on potential abuses of technology as ‘mind control’ by neuroscientist Steven Rose; and another on Radio 4’s Today Programme that interviewed Steven Rose and philosopher Nick Bostrom (realaudio here) about using biotech to extend life and optimise the brain.

If you want to read the report in full, it has now been published and is available for free download at the Demos site.

I’ve not read it yet, but I’m hoping that it will provide a bit of balance to the somewhat wide-eyed and uncritical acceptance of neuroscience stories that tend to make the media.

Link to article ‘We are moving ever closer to the era of mind control’.
Realaudio of interview with Rose and Bostrom on Radio 4.
Link to ‘Better Humans?’ report.

SciAmMind on ‘Halle Berry’ neurons and neurofeedback

A new edition of Scientific American Mind has been released and includes two web-published articles: one on recent research on grandmother cells (or ‘Halle Berry neurons’ as they’re becoming known) and another on the use of neurofeedback as a therapy and cognitive enhancer.

‘Halle Berry neurons’ are brain cells that supposedly activate in response to a single face, and are so named because a photo of Ms Berry was used in a recent experiment experiment that seemed to support this “one neuron – one face idea”, that was previously derided as being unrealistic.

The jury is still out on whether they exist or not, but the article considers evidence for and against the hypothesis.

Neurofeedback is a technique where brain activity is measured and shown to the subject, who can then attempt to control it by altering their mental state.

The brain activity can be measured from areas that could be linked to problems a person has (such as poor attention or concentration) and so the technique can be supposedly used to ‘train the brain’ to work more efficiently.

The article considers the evidence that it can be effective, although it is still not a mainstream treatment, partly because there are no widely agreed standards for how it should be administered.

Link to artice ‘One Person, One Neuron?’.
Link to article ‘Train Your Brain’.

Mindfulness-based therapy in Time Magazine

Time magazine talks to psychologist Steven Hayes in an article about the development of ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’ – an increasingly popular treatment for mental disorder.

I’m not familiar with the name, but it seems to be a form of mindfulness-based therapy, originally developed by a team at Cambridge University, inspired by Buddhist meditation techniques, and known to be highly effective in treating depression.

The article contains a summary of both ACT and the current most popular and most evaluated form of psychological therapy: cognitive behaviour therapy or CBT.

The Time article is a little overzealous in its enthusiasm, suggesting that ACT outperformed CBT when applied to a wide range of mental disorders, when, in fact, Hayes himself wrote an encouraging but balanced review article in which he stated “there are not enough well-controlled studies to conclude that ACT is generally more effective than other active treatments”.

Nevertheless, the article is an interesting insight into Hayes himself, and a good account of some of the core principles behind modern psychological treatments for mental illness.

Link to article ‘Happiness isn’t normal’.
Link to information on mindfulness-baded therapy from Oxford University.

Super Bowl brain scans with added hype

The ‘complete results‘ from the Super Bowl brain scans are online, and it does indeed seem as if the exercise has been mostly hype.

Cardinal sins:

1) Not giving the comparison conditions and experimental design. This makes the reported results essentially meaningless.

2) Interpreting brain activity in certain areas to mean a certain response from viewers, even when they actually report something else.

female subjects may give verbally very low ‘grades’ to ads using actresses in sexy roles, but their mirror neuron areas seem to fire up quite a bit, suggesting some form of identification and empathy.

Mirror neurons tend to fire when anyone else’s actions are viewed, there is no evidence that approval or liking of the person doing the actions has any bearing on the response.

3) Assuming activation in the ‘mirror system’ equals empathy.

4) Assuming activation of the amygdala is a measure of fear.

There is a big jump in amygdala activity when the dinosaur crushes the caveman… The scene looks funny and has been described as funny by lots of people, but your amygdala still perceives it as threatening

The amygdala can be active when someone experiences happiness or joy. Equally, it could have been active because people found the scene funny.

5) Finishing on an advert for the neuromarketing company involved.

Link to ‘Complete results’.
Link to previous Mind Hacks post on same.

What can brain scans tell us about Super Bowl ads?

To cut a long story short – don’t believe the hype. At least as it’s described in a story doing the rounds.

According to the report, neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni and his team brain-scanned people while they watched the Super Bowl adverts to see which “won”.

This is part of an emerging science called neuromarketing, which uses the techniques of cognitive neuroscience to try and evaluate and design better product promotions.

Iacoboni claims that “a good indicator of a successful ad is activity in brain areas concerned with reward and empathy” (which seems controversial at best, but we’ll move on).

The tricky bit comes when you try and measure brain activity from participants who are watching adverts.

The images generated from fMRI brain scanning are not pure ‘maps’ of brain activity. All of the brain is active all of the time, so to infer which areas are most involved, neuroscientists compare brain activity between different conditions.

These conditions are designed very carefully in scientific experiments, and in the most common form of comparison (‘subtraction’) they are identical, apart from the one thing that the researchers want to investigate.

It is, therefore, impossible to interpret the results of a brain scanning study without knowing how the experiment was designed and exactly what was being compared with what.

As this hasn’t been made clear, the results could be due to any number of things not related to how good the advert was.

From a previous study done on political ads by the same marketing company, it looks as if they just average the activation of a certain brain area over the course of the ad. They then base their conclusions of the effect of the ads on the assumed functions of these brain areas.

The difficulty is that the functions of these areas are still controversial. For example, with the Super Bowl ads, Iacobini claims that activation in the ‘mirror system’ is a measure of empathy. This is still highly contentious and is presumably based on conclusions from an earlier study of his.

Because of this uncertainty, it is difficult to know that any difference is not due to one advert having more movement in it than the other. Or perhaps more people. Or happier people. Or even something unrelated like a faster tempo in the music… despite the advert being otherwise rubbish.

The previous study on political ads (that made the front page of The New York Times no less) was completed while America was winding up for the 2004 presidential elections, and the current one was completed during the 24 hours after the Super Bowl.

Sounds like the ‘neuromarketing’ company involved in these stories is doing some pretty effective marketing of their own. Apparently more details will be forthcoming. I look forward to reading more (but remain skeptical!).

Link to ‘Who really won the Super Bowl? The Story of an Instant-Science Experiment’.

Fear of clowns

Coulrophobia [fear of clowns] is most commonly triggered by a traumatic experience in childhood, said Steven Luel, a psychologist in New York specializing in anxiety and phobias.

Indeed, that was the case with Wallace. At the age of 6, she met her first clown at the circus, an encounter she still remembers clearly 25 years later.

“A clown got right up in my face, and I could see his beard stubble under his makeup. He smelled bad and his eyes were weird,” she said. “I guess I never got over it.”

Enough said.

Link to article (with fantastic title) ‘Fear of Clowns: No Laughing Matter’ from INS News.

Psychologist Tania Lombrozo has collected suggestions for the menu of the fictional (but delicious sounding) cognitive science caf√©. It’s both full of psychology in-jokes and gives a lighthearted crib-sheet for some of the most influential thinkers in the field.

Some of my favourites include:

The Turing Tester
Half Brie with apricot jam on a French roll, half vegan alternative ‚Äî we bet you won’t know which is which!

The Wason Cheese Selector
Grilled Portobello mushroom with cheese. If cheddar, then sesame bun. (Please check your order carefully.)

The Piagetian
A sandwich in four stages: sensational baguette, quantities of Swiss cheese that are anything but conservative, the concrete crunch of walnuts, and a dash of Cayenne pepper lead to this sandwich‚Äôs formal elegance.

Beauty in body and mind

From Nancy Etcoff’s book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (ISBN 0385478542):

“People judge appearances as though somewhere in their minds an ideal beauty of the human form exists, a form they would recognise if they saw it, though they do not expect they ever will. It exists in the imagination.” (p11)

“Attitudes surrounding beauty are entwined with our deepest conflicts surrounding flesh and spirit. We view the body as a temple, a prison, a dwelling for the immortal soul, a tormentor, a garden of earthly delights, a biological envelope, a machine, a home. We cannot talk about our response to our body’s beauty without understanding all that we project onto our flesh.” (p20)

Author: vaughanbell