vaughanbell

Ask philosophers about the mind

Ask Philosophers is a site where anyone can pose a question to be answered by some of the leading lights in world philosophy, including specialists in the philosophy of mind.

Scientists are often disappointingly dismissive of philosophy, usually without a good understanding of the breadth and depth of the modern discipline.

Philosophers are increasingly taking the role of ‘theoretical scientists’ – by understanding the scientific data in great detail and applying the tools of conceptual analysis to make sure current theories are conceptually water tight (or highlighting areas where they are not).

This is particularly important in the cognitive and clinical sciences because many philosophical problems are encountered on a day-to-day basis.

For example, the mind-body problem – that tries to understand the relationship between physical biological processes and thought – comes into stark relief when a clinician encounters a patient with brain injury.

Similarly, the age-old philosophical problems of understanding belief and knowledge become particularly important when the medical community have to define what it is to have a delusion – something that is usually considered a form of ‘damaged’ belief.

In the Ask Philosophers philosophy of mind section there are already some fantastic questions and answers online.

One person asks if a person who is given medication to make her forget a potentially terrifying surgical experience was ever actually afraid, another asks about whether it is possible to think about the thought you are thinking.

Anyone can pitch a question, so if you have any burning queries, philosophy’s finest are waiting for your challenge.

Link to Ask Philosophers Mind section.

2005-10-07 Spike activity

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

Users are more likely to agree with opinions when they’re delivered by a computer generated head that mirrors their movements.

The Times discusses a recent meeting on the ‘Science of Happiness and the new focus on ‘positive psychology’.

An outbreak of a rare form of the brain infection encephalitis threatens parts of India.

PINs, codes and passwords strain the brain (via BrainBlog).

Scientific American discusses research on what are being increasingly called ‘Halle Berry neurons‘ (see also previously on Mind Hacks).

Clowns help children cope with uncomfortable surgery but annoy Doctors (I love the image of a Clown squirting surgeons with trick flowers during surgery, much to the child’s delight).

A symposium on LSD is announced for 2006, on the centenery of its ~~discovery~~ discoverer (via MetaFilter).

Do computer harm children’s development? Yes, argues educator Lowell Monke.

Brains needed!

The UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank is asking people to donate their brains after they die, to aide the fight against Parkinson’s disease.

The service, located in London’s Imperial College, gets only one donation from someone with a healthy brain compared with 25 donations from people with Parkinson’s disease.

Postmortem brains of healthy people are essential so researchers can compare diseased tissue with unaffected tissue and draw valid and accurate conclusions about the condition.

Parkinson’s disease is known to occur when dopamine neurons die in the brain’s nigrostriatal pathway. It is not clear exactly why this happens, however.

Research that compares the postmortem brains of affected and unaffected people is, therefore, an essential part of understanding why this occurs, hopefully leading to the development of new treatments.

So, if you want to help in this essential research, you can will your brain to the Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank.

Link to UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank (Thanks Dr Petra!).

Scientific American web awards

Scientific American have given out their 2005 Science & Technology Web Awards and Mind Hacks made the list:

For anyone who ever fell asleep in their own drool while trying to read a neuroscience textbook, welcome to Mind Hacks, Tom Stafford and Matt Webb’s riveting companion blog to their book of the same name, which takes a decidedly fun approach to neuroscience. Emphasizing an empirical approach to understanding one’s own brain, the site reports on the latest developments in such areas as reasoning, memory, attention and language, plumbing the depths of journals and magazines, obscure Web sites and personal experience. A hearty banquet results: the musings of a man mistaken for a sex bot, an interview with a software developer, and reflections on why we laugh are all on the highly unpredictable and entertaining menu.

It’s always great to get awards but it’s even better to hear that there’s plenty of people out there enjoying what we’re doing and finding new angles on the fascinating world of psychology and neuroscience.

Link to Scientific American Science & Technology Web Awards 2005.

UK ‘Kinsey report’ reveals 1950s sex lives

BBC News describes a suppressed sexual behaviour survey conducted in the 1950s, in the wake of the Kinsey Reports that first described the then shocking truth about the sexual behaviour of American participants.

The British survey followed the Kinsey’s studies by only a few years, but reportedly revealed information considered too uncomfortable to publicise and subsequently remained unpublished (although the BBC story doesn’t indicate who was responsible for suppressing it).

Findings in the survey included:

One in four men admitted to having had sex with prostitutes, one in five women owned up to an extra-marital affair, while the same proportion of both sexes said they had had a homosexual experience.

The techniques used in the study would be considered vastly unethical by today’s standards, and were even dodgy when compared to the research methods used by Kinsey on the other side of the Atlantic.

The research is further discussed in a BBC television programme called Little Kinsey to be shown on BBC Four on Wednesday 5 October, at 2100 BST.

Link to “Britain’s secret sex survey”.

Non-invasive neuroprosthetics

Nature reports that by simply recording the brain’s electrical signals from electrodes on the scalp, researchers have enabled trained participants to reliably control computer equipment, a feat normally associated with physical implants in the brain.

This is part of the growing science of neuroprosthetics, that aims to create technology that directly interfaces with the brain.

It is being particularly championed for people with paralysis, who do not have the use of their limbs, or people with damaged sensory organs, who might have their senses improved by technological replacements.

Previous trials of the technology have resulted in electronic implants to replace damaged retinas and a microchip implant that allows a paralysed man to control a computer.

These sorts of technologies typically require complex, experimental and invasive surgery, so being able to control technology via a skull cap and surface electrodes would be a more convenient option.

One of the disadvantages, well known to scientists who use forms of EEG recording to research the brain, is that the skull ‘smears’ the signal from the brain. Furthermore, muscle activity can introduce large amounts of electricial noise into the recording.

To get round this, mathematical analysis is used to filter out the unwanted interference, usually by averaging over several trials of the same task, allowing underlying brain activity to be inferred.

This is not an exact science, however, meaning the moment-to-moment ‘decoding’ of electrical activity needed for instant control of technology is more difficult to acheive.

Link to article ‘Computer users move themselves with the mind’.

‘Connectome’ call for human brain mappers

An article in open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology reviews current knowledge and calls for a comprehensive map of the brain’s connections.

Echoing the aims of the Human Genome Project the authors argue that a detailed ‘connectome’ is needed to fully understand how different areas of the human brain interconnect.

There is already a good understanding about how some areas of the brain connect, but it is currently not available in a single database, and there are crucial pathways that are not described in sufficient detail.

Having accurate information about the physical layout of the brain would allow a better understanding of the significance of brain activity from neuroimaging studies, and the effects of brain damage on areas not directly affected by the injury.

The paper in PLoS Computational Biology is part of a growing trend to integrate measures of activity (typically attributed to averaged or relatively rough locations in the brain) with detailed anatomical maps.

A recent toolkit released for SPM – a popular brain scan analysis package – allows researchers to judge the probability of activity arising from different areas in the brain, each is which is distinguished by differences in the microscopic structure of the neural tissue.

Link to article ‘The Human Connectome: A Structural Description of the Human Brain’.

2005-09-30 Spike activity

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

People who are known to be pathological liars may show differences in the white matter in the frontal lobes of the brain.

Cognitive therapy may be as effective as antidepressants as a treatment for severe depression, finds recent study.

Satirical piece proclaims Tom Cruise to lecture on the ‘The Modern Science of Mental Health’.

Brain scanners useful as lie detectors claims new study – and even good enough to “detect terrorists” claims another (dig those “fund me!” buzzwords).

Research on brain function during sleep suggest that the coherent activity of wakefullness connectivity breaks up into ‘islands’ during the night.

BrainBlog reports that UK soap Coronation Street will feature a character with dementia.

The psychology of religion

Online boffin club Edge has an article by psychologist Daniel Gilbert that discusses a psychological approach to understanding religious belief.

One of the difficulties with combining science and religion is that science typically deals with predictions that can be falsified by experiment (allowing theories to be created and tested) whereas the main spiritual tenants of religion tend to take the form of non-falsifiable hypotheses.

For example, many forms of the hypothesis that ‘there is a God’ cannot be falsified, as it is not clear what evidence would constitute a refutation.

This is in contrast to many other hypotheses associated with religion, such as creationism, that makes specific predictions that can be falsified – e.g. in one of its forms, that the world was created only a few thousand years ago.

Gilbert starts off his article with a commonly produced but mistaken assumption: “no one has yet produced a shred of empirical evidence for the existence of God”.

Here he mistakes ’empirical’ for ‘experimental’, as empirical evidence is that which is based on experience and observation, of which experiments are only a certain type (albeit ones that are formalised and highly valued).

There is certainly plenty of empirical evidence about. Many religious people will be able to provide examples of how they have personally experienced the effect or presence of ‘supernatural’ influence in their lives, or can provide examples where many people witnessed a supposed example of divine intervention.

The question is not over whether there is evidence, but whether it is valid (the phenomena was genuinely as experienced) and how it should be interpreted (whether it supports the concept of the divine, or a particular idea of ‘God’).

Link to article “The Vagaries of Religious Experience”.

Population control – for hire

Slate reports on the rise of psychological population control, often called PsyOps, as a form of commercial service.

According to the report, a company called Strategic Communications Laboratories Ltd was advertising itself at a notable London arms fair, suggesting that it could fool the population into believing any number of things in an attempt to divert attention from a presumed ‘actual’ catastrophe or similar dangerous situation.

When the Slate reporter suggested it sounded like propoganda, a member of staff was quoted as denying the fact, saying:

“If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that’s going to save lives, that’s fine,” says Mark Broughton, SCL’s public affairs director. “That’s not a word I would use for that.”

The company’s website suggests otherwise though, stating they can provide training “for up to 250 staff, including specialised (and tailored) persuasion and propaganda courses.”

Their entry in the Defence Suppliers Directory further outlines the sort of work they’re willing to undertake:

Campaigns may range from homeland security and compliance issues to humanitarian and healthcare behaviour changes. In special circumstances the company will undertake political projects, especially if the sovereignty of the country is at stake, and – very occasionally – corporate campaigns.

Research has shown that attitudes and behaviour correlate poorly. However, SCL claim they can specifically influence behaviour: “for instance – you require a significant number of the electorate to vote for you, it is far more important to get their vote than it is for them merely to hold a favourable attitude towards you.”

The PsyOps field is certainly a murky one. As a tool it could be used both to prevent public panic during an emergency, and to prop up a failing government that would otherwise fall.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult to judge whether such companies are having a positive or negative effect on society, because by their very nature, it is difficult to see how and where they are influencing public behaviour.

Link to Slate article “You Can’t Handle the Truth: Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream”.
Link to SCL website.
Link to SCL entry in Defence Suppliers Directory.

Synapse wins Science visualisation contest

The National Science Foundation and the journal Science recently ran a competition to produce the best scientific images. The winner in the illustration category was an image of a neuron, moments before it transmits a signal across the synapse.

The full size version of the image is both strangely beautiful and visually stunning.

Science also has a short article to accompany the image, that describes how it was created and the biological techniques it was based on.

Link to Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Stoned again

Slashdot: “Turns out, those endless news reports and blog entries in April about ‘texting makes you stupid’ were inaccurate“.

Didn’t we have this back in April? Maybe all that weed is affecting my memory…

‘Subliminal’ marketing ploys of tobacco giants

The Sunday Observer reports on the increasingly subtle (or perhaps, desperate) ways in which tobacco firms are aiming to advertise their product in light of the increasing bans on explicit tobacco advertising.

‘All that former advertising money has to go somewhere,’ said one industry insider. ‘The tobacco firms are looking to create extensive “design languages” in bars and clubs and other venues through the use of particular types of furniture or material which will make people think of their brands.’

Link to article “Tobacco firms’ subtle tactics lure smokers to their brand”

On believing that you are dead…

This week’s edition of Radio National’s All in the Mind examines the curious phenomena of delusions – the unusual beliefs that sometimes arise during mental illness or after brain injury.

Some of these beliefs can be quite striking, such as believing you are dead or don’t exist – known as Cotard’s delusion, or believing that a close relative, usually a spouse, has been replaced by an identical looking impostor – known as the Capgras delusion.

These forms are relatively uncommon though, with the more prevalent types including (for example) the belief that you are being persecuted, or that people on the television or radio are talking about you.

Although the diagnostic criteria that define delusions describe them as false, fixed and culturally out-of-place beliefs, it is becoming increasingly clear that this is not an adequate definition.

For example, you can be pretty sure that ‘being dead’ is a false belief, but it’s much more difficult for a clinician to judge whether someone is or isn’t the subject of a conspiracy.

Furthermore, psychiatrist and philosopher Bill Fulford has pointed out that some cases of delusion may turn out to be true beliefs, noting that about 10% of cases of delusional jealousy involve actual infidelity.

Some beliefs diagnosed as delusional may not even be falsiable. For example, someone who has the distressing and unshakeable belief that “The devil is listening to my thoughts” cannot be proved wrong on the basis of any objective evidence.

All in the Mind tackles these and other fascinating aspects of the topic by visiting the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science who are focusing on delusions with their belief formation project.

The programme visits the researchers and discusses some of the pressing scientific issues and unusual beliefs they encounter.

mp3 or realaudio of programme audio.
Link to further information and transcript (to appear later in the week).
PDF of article ‘Beliefs about delusions’.

SciAm Mind: ‘Smart drugs’ and consciousness

The new edition of Scientific American Mind has hit the shelves and two articles are freely available online: one on ‘smart drugs‘ and the other on the problem of consciousness.

The article on ‘smart drugs’ or ‘cognitive enhancers’ is by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga – most renowned for his work on split-brain patients.

Gazzaniga examines the ethical implications of having a society cranked-up on pharmaceutical brain enhancers, and looks at the science behind some of the most recent developments in the field.

He makes one particularly interesting point in relation to the relatively developed field of memory enhancing drugs, which have the potential to make the important process of forgetting more difficult:

For a society that spends significant time and money trying to be liberated from past experiences and memories, the arrival of new memory enhancers has a certain irony. Why do people drink, smoke marijuana and engage in other activities that cause them to take leave of their senses? Why are psychiatry offices full of patients with unhappy memories they would like to lose? And why do victims of horrendous emotional events such as trauma, abuse or stressful relationships suffer from their vivid recollections? A pill that enhances memory may lead to a whole new set of disorders.

The article on consciousness is by Christof Koch, who highlights recent research which has looked for the ‘neural correlates of consciousness’ – i.e. which parts of the brain are active when conscious experience is known to occur.

This is a common but controversial approach to understanding consciousness, and one that has been championed by Koch in his own work.

Additional articles that appear in the print edition only include a discussion of the developing mind of infants and what it could tell us about the differences between men and women, the psychology of child-parent interaction and how it is understood (or misunderstood) by the courts, plus an exploration of synaesthesia.

Link to Scientific American Mind.

2005-09-23 Spike activity

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

Tiny protein tubes in the brain known as ‘microtubules’ may be linked to mental illness say neuroscientists. One for Penrose to wave around in the next consciousness debate.

Men and women not so psychologically different claims US psychologist.

Large-scale study finds older and newer antipsychotic medication of broadly equal effectiveness (via ScienceBlog).

The first face transplant is considered anew. A 2002 article (PDF) asks what might the psychological effects of such a transplant be ?

New York Times considers what swearing tells us about the organisation and development of the brain (grabbed from BoingBoing)

A microsensor is being developed that could be injected into the brain of a person with motor neurone disease to transmit important information to doctors.

Cognitive Daily has a great article on the interaction between race and the perception of attractiveness in others.