Category: Nonsense

Mental health professionals, user support groups, friends and family. Good news has arrived. Someone has found a cure for all mental illnesses and all that is needed is that you hit them on the ears until they lose consciousness.

This ‘cure’, apparently christened the Kadir-Buxton Method, is detailed on a website so weird that I’m not entirely sure it isn’t a hoax, but it’s quite entertaining either way.

Apparently, it’s the “biggest breakthrough in Medicine since my invention Microsurgery” [sic] and the core of the technique is “striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time” to render the person unconscious.

No really, it is.

The procedure is painless and the patient regains consciousness faster the less hard the double blow is struck. With practice, I am able to render the patients unconscious for only thirty seconds. Other individuals have faired even better.

At this point I would like to explain the difference between a stun and a punch. With the Kadir-Buxton Method, a patient standing on one leg whilst holding a rose would still be standing on one leg and holding a rose when they were cured. With a punch, the patient would be lying prone on the floor, and could well have dropped the rose. And just to add insult to injury, they would still be mentally ill. Try it for yourselves if you do not believe me.

Actually, hitting the ears can be dangerous as the air pressure can burst the ear drums, so it’s really not recommended.

However, an equally serious side-effect is that the ‘patient’ might hit you back.

Link to frankly odd Kadir-Buxton Method (thanks Liz!).

Spiked has a video of cognitive neuroscientist Dr Lisa Saksida doing yoga in front of the fire while explaining why there is no such thing as mind brain duality.

Spiked asked several scientists what they would say if they could teach the world just one thing about science.

Saksida gives a wonderfully straightforward explanation of why the mind and brain are just different reflections of the same thing, but why it’s also useful to describe them separately at times.

I wish people understood that there is no mind/brain duality. Specifically, I wish people understood that there is no such thing as a purely psychological disorder. Every event in your psychological life, and therefore every psychological change, is reducible in theory to events and changes in your brain. We should therefore not judge people differently, according to whether they are considered to have a ‘psychological’ as opposed to a ‘neurological’ problem.

Of course, a lack of mind/brain split does not mean that we should abandon all talk of psychology. Psychology and neuroscience are two ways of studying the same thing, and both are essential for understanding the human condition.

She explains this, and more, while practising yoga in front of a log fire, serenely circled by candles. Needless to say, it’s a thoroughly calming experience.

Link to Dr Saksida on yoga and mind-brain non-duality (thanks Vicky!).

Someone’s created some satirical descriptions of the personality types classified by the Myers-Briggs personality test, that include categories such as ‘The Egghead’, ‘The Conman’ and ‘The Evil Overlord’.

The Myers-Briggs isn’t used so much by research psychologists, largely because it isn’t as reliable as some of the newer ‘Big Five‘ personality measures which dominate the field.

It is not unusual for people to fill one in themselves though (there are many versions online) and get a rating of whether they are Extroverted or Introverted, Sensing or iNtuitive, Feeling or Thinking, Judging or Perceiving.

Each of these gets compressed into a short letter string, and each is supposed to represent some particular personality type.

This new satirical interpretation of the personality types makes a sly commentary on some of the more outlandish descriptions you can read online.

ESFP: The National Enquirer Headline

An ESFP is a spontaneous, outgoing, charismatic, fun-loving person like the guy you used to room with in college–you know, the one who was found floating face-down in the reservoir with the homecoming queen’s underwear in his teeth.

The strongest element of the psychological makeup of an ESFP is his easygoing, impulsive approach to life. ESFPs often build their careers out of dating supermodels, being involved in scandals, and appearing regularly in such newspapers as “The National Enquirer” and “The Weekly World News.” ESFPs often die in bizarre circumstances, usually involving jealous boyfriends, exotic dancers, escaped pythons, feather boas, and falls from the penthouse floor of high-rise apartments; those who don’t, usually die of veneral diseases.

Link to satirical Myers-Briggs interpretation (via MeFi).
Link to good Wikipedia page on the Myers-Briggs.

A new series of the whimsical comedy series Vent, about the thoughts of a man in a coma, has just begun on Radio 4. It’s darkly comic, surreal and occasionally deeply touching.

It flips between the thoughts and memories of Ben, a man in a coma, and the visits of his friends and family to his unconscious body.

It’s by comedy writer Nigel Smith, who was inspired by his own experiences of falling into coma after suffering a demyelinating brain stem lesion.

Link to audio archive of Vent (full archive in ‘All Vent programmes’ link).

There’s a copy of a wonderful 1948 article magazine available online entitled ‘Pills That Increase Your Intelligence’ from Modern Mechanix .

It discusses the possibilities of ‘smart drugs’ and is full of archaic language that makes it equally shocking and endearing.

Can you feed your brain some special food to make it smarter? Scientists have always laughed at the idea. Now they aren’t quite so cocksure. Maybe your brain does have faster speed and quicker getaway when it runs on certain fuels. New scientific discoveries indicate that brain power can be stepped up by swallowing tablets. These pills are not stimulating drugs but concentrates of a food element you eat every day.

Let’s look into the strange story of one particular brain. It wasn’t a very good brain. In fact, it belonged to a fourteen-year-old imbecile boy who had an intelligence quotient of 42 (the average I. Q. is 100). Every year the boy grew twelve months older, but his mental age increased only four and a half months. He kept running an intelligence deficit. Then he was fed little white pills, a dozen and a half daily. Within two months his mental age leaped ahead one year and five months. Sixty days on brain pills and his mental age increased as much as it had in the last five years!

It sounds much like the ‘miracle cure’ claims that conditions like autism attract to the present day.

Link to 1948 Modern Mechanix article (via Bad Science).

Language Log is doing a sterling job of keeping up with the increasing pace of Dr Alfred Crockus’ research, and seem to have found an important neuroanatomical link between the Crockus and another surprisingly neglected brain area, Shatner’s Bassoon.

The Crockus is the shameless and unintentionally hilarious invention of educational consultant Dan Hodgins, which he claims is four times larger in girls and so supports his own ideas about teaching (incidentally, he’s currently ‘on tour‘ if you want to hear his crockus first hand).

Shatner’s Bassoon was the invention of satirist Chris Morris, who persuaded various media figures that it was an area of the brain targeted by the fictional street drug ‘cake‘.

Several TV personalities and David Amess, a Tory MP, took part in Morris’ spoof TV programme with absolutely no insight into the completely ridiculous premise of the whole affair.

The best bit is when they do an earnest public education announcement, warning of the drug’s dangers and informing the viewers that it may be sold under the names of looney toad twat, russell dust, chronic basildon donut, Joss Ackland’s spunky backpack, bromicide, ponce on the heath, cool thwacks, and Hattie Jacques’ portentious cheese wog.

The video is available online, and it is a testament both to the fact that people are easily blinded by scientific sounding nonsense, and to the fact that celebrity endorsement of good causes can be as much about their public profile as it is about the cause itself.

David Amess went as far as asking a question about “cake” in parliament which you can read in Hansard, the official parliamentary record.

Interestingly, the Home Office assumed his question about ‘cake’ referred to 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-benzylamphetamine (MDBZ), one of the drugs synthesised by legendary psychedelics researcher Alexander Shulgin. The description of the drug appears in his book PiHKAL – a sort of Principia Psychedelica of mind-bending phenethylamines, of which ecstasy (MDMA) is probably the best known.

Morris’ spoof news series, The Day Today and Brass Eye, function equally well as hilarious entertainment and a careful analysis of the language of news media we’ve come to uncritically accept.

As a result, Chris Morris taught me more about deconstructing the media than Derrida ever did.

Language Log has been just as funny lately, and is doing an equally important job in pointing out how the language of neuroscience is now so all-pervasive, that people are willing to make up areas of the brain to support their point of view.

As an aside, if anyone knows of any other fictional brain areas, do get in touch. I feel these need collecting in one place.

Link to Language Log on ‘The Crockus and the Bassoon’.
Link to Brass Eye on ‘cake’.

The excellent Language Log have discovered that an ‘expert’ invited to give a talk to a district education group not only invented a completely bogus part of the brain called the ‘crockus’, but claimed that it’s four times larger in girls and used this fact to back up recommendations for the teaching of children.

Language Log writer Mark Liberman notes that a study found a minor sex difference in the pars opercularis, a genuine brain area in the approximate location of the fictional ‘crockus’.

Although the study found the opposite pattern (it tends to be larger in boys), Liberman wondered whether the speaker may have misremembered both the name of the genuine brain area and the gist of the study.

So, he emailed the speaker to ask more.

In response, he got an answer that would be comically brilliant if it wasn’t deadly serious:

Thanks for asking….The Crockus was actually just recently named by Dr. Alfred Crockus. It is the detailed section of the brain, a part of the frontal lope. It is the detailed section of the brain. You are right, it is four times larger in females then males from birth.

This part of the brain supports the Corpus Callosum (the part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. The larger the crockus the more details are percieved by the two sides of the brain.

Dr Alfred Crockus, we salute you sir!

Link to Language Log on ‘High Crockalorum’ (via BadScience).

A new book on unusual experiments covers a study by psychologist Russell Clark that involved good-looking researchers approaching strangers of the opposite sex and telling them that they had seen them around and found them very attractive. Then they either asked them for a date, to come back to the researcher’s apartment, or to go to bed with them.

If this seems strangely familiar, it’s because the main set up line for the study (“I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?”) was used almost verbatim for the main hook of the pop song ‘Would you…?’ by Touch and Go.

If you don’t recognise the name, you’ll almost certainly recognise the song, as it was a huge hit in ’98 and has been used almost constantly since for adverts, television and radio.

The original video doesn’t seem to be available online, but there’s a quirky version on YouTube where some Belgian students have created their own video.

It is, as far as I know, the only pop song with lyrics based on the protocol for a psychology experiment.

The results of the study? As if you had to ask, almost all the men said yes, none of the women did.

It doesn’t even come close to the greatest psychology study ever completed though, which also involved beautiful women, sex and danger. But that’ll have to wait for another time.

Link to abstract of study.
Link to brief write-up (via BB).
Link to fan tribute to Touch and Go’s ‘Would you…?’

Silent for three years, Osama Bin Laden just released a video tape in which he name drops academic Noam Chomsky, suggesting that while in hiding, he’s become familiar with the American researcher’s extensive work.

Exclusively, Mind Hacks publishes a deleted section from an earlier draft of Bin Laden’s latest speech that lays out his demands for the science of linguistics:

People of America: while the cognitive revolution started within your own shores and changed the face of the world, it seems the lessons of the destruction of behaviourism have not been learnt.

Through the careful analysis of Chomsky, it was clear that language could not be entirely accounted for by the influence of environment and culture on a general learning mechanism. While some heeded the messages, some of your brethren remained unconvinced.

Now that the spector of connectionism has raised its ugly head and has been inappropriately glorified by the power of technological corporations, our understanding of the role of transformational grammars in language development is threatened.

And I tell you, artificial intelligence is a false god that provides correlative and not causal models of language acquisition. The infallible methodologies are the comparative study of world languages and lesion analyses of those who must be treated with mercy owing to their acquired dysphasias.

Those who stray from the path will be doomed to repeated the errors of the empty vessels of strict behaviourism and the Standard Social Science Model. Every just and intelligent one of you who reflect on this will be guided to the truth.

Rumours that Steven Pinker has been taken in for questioning have not been verified.

The image is taken from the psychiatry section of the Science and Society picture library and depicts a male anti-masturbation device from the late 19th / early 20th century, and, believe it or not, was considered an effective way of preventing insanity.

Masturbation was long linked to madness in both folk and professional medicine and this belief lasted, even among professionals, until the early 1900s.

It was thought a particular mental health risk in children, as illustrated by this excerpt from a 1988 article on the development of child psychiatry in 19th century Britain.

William Acton, trained in surgery and venereal diseases, published The functions and disorders of the reproductive organs, in youth, in adult age and in advanced life in 1857. It gained immediate popularity and went through six editions in 18 years, despite it’s many discrepancies, premature conclusions and emotional prejudices (Marcus, 1966).

Typical of most authors of the time, Acton on the one hand postulates that normal childhood is essentially asexual, on the other describes over many pages the many sexual disorders of childhood — a conflict that is never resolved. Again, without further explanation, a causal connection between masturbation and a whole array of consequences is drawn: the boy would become haggard, thin, antisocial, hypochondriacal, would lose his spontaneity and cheerfulness and would turn into a timid coward and liar. The final state was one of idiocy, epilepsy, paralysis and even death.

These prejudices were considered valid scientific facts, so that the Scottish psychiatrist David Skae even created the term “masturbatory insanity” ‚Äî a separate nosological disease caused exclusively by masturbation, with characteristic features (Skae, 1874). This term was taken up by Henry Maudsley (1868); the 1879 edition of Pathology of mind included a chapter devoted to the insanity of masturbation (Maudsley, 1879), which was later changed to insanity and masturbation (Maudsley, 1895).

I’ll save you the gory details, but these beliefs led to supposed ‘treatments’ and ‘preventative measures’ that stretched from devices like the one pictured, to what would now be considered brutal genital mutilation of both boys and girls.

If you think that these were fringe beliefs, it’s worth remembering that Henry Maudsley was otherwise considered the greatest psychiatrist of his generation.

Link to picture from Science and Society image library.

Many thanks for everyone who sent in their entries for our AAICS (Awkward Acronyms In Cognitive Science) competition. There were many worthy entries all of which illustrated the seductive allure of the acronyms to cognitive scientists who obviously had too much coffee.

In 4th place, Dr Rebecca Achtman suggested the seemingly defunct support group YAWN: Young Adults With Narcolepsy.

3rd place, sent in by Dr Robert Volcic, is the wonderfully contrived SOMAPS: Multilevel systems analysis and modeling of SOmatosensory, Memory, and Affective maPs of body and objects in multidimensional Subjective space. Wow.

Patrick Squires sent in the 2nd placed entry, with the enigmatic BIRP: Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

But the winner, sent in by Sandra Kiume, is truly lovely ACHOO syndrome: Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome). It’s the condition where sunlight causes sneezing.

I suspect there were more researchers assigned to the acronym than the syndrome.

Sandra gets a copy of David Lodge’s Thinks and everyone else gets the eternal respect of Mind Hacks readers for their unique and eclectic knowledge of the cogntive science world.

The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art create beautiful knitted and needlecraft brain images based on brain scans.

Now neuroscientist Mark Dow has put one of the creations in a brain scanner, creating a 3D MRI of a knitted brain based on an MRI scan of a brain.

Needless to say, it was discovered by the ever-unpredictable Omni Brain.

I also notice that The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art has been joined by a new brain-based online art extravaganza: The Gallery of Wooden Brain Art.

Link to Omni Brain with 3D knitted brain scan movie.

An unknown gent has had a brain tattooed on the top of his head, revealed by a picture of a peeled back tuna can. Actually, a few visual neuroscience things have popped up this week, so I’ve collected them here.

Omni Brain found a cartoon of what brain surgeons might be thinking during neurosurgery. If Dr Katrina Firlik’s book is anything to go by, it probably isn’t far off.

The BPS Research Digest found an eerily silent animation of deep brain stimulation.

And the ever-excellent xkcd online science comic had a great panel about the cognitive neuroscience of planning the ultimate tree house.

Also, this is your last chance to get your submission in for our awkward acronyms in cognitive science (AAICS) competition. The winner will be announced Monday and will get my spare copy of David Lodge’s Thinks.

From the entry for ‘madness’ taken from the Cassel Dictionary of Superstitions (ISBN 0304365610):

“It is said that the mad are chosen by God and enjoy the special favour of Heaven. Accordingly, it is thought that particularly lucky throughout Europe to live in the same house as someone who is mad and historically the mad have been well cared for by their local community. Meeting such a person in the street is itself a lucky event in the folklore of fishermen, who interpret such an encounter as confirmation that the day’s catch will be a good one.”

Ben Goldacre has found a so-awful-lets-hope-it’s-a-hoax article that suggests that people with Down Syndrome and people from Asia might be genetically similar, because, well, they do similar things.

Strictly speaking, of course, they’re quite right. In fact, apart from an extra 21st chromosome, most people, no matter where they come from, are genetically similar to people with Down’s.

So why are Asian people singled out in particular? Ah, because apparently, they like similar sorts of arts and crafts:

The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative-reabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working ceramics, book-binding, etc., that is renowned, remind the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases or the use of chop-sticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations.

The original grammar is left intact so you can fully appreciate the theory in all its glory.

Still not convinced? Well, there’s also the fact that both Asian people and people with Down Syndrome “adore having several dishes displayed on the table and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate”. Uncanny isn’t it?

The article is published in the journal Medical Hypotheses which was founded by the late Dr David Horrobin. Horrobin had a theory that schizophrenia might be linked to the metabolism of Omega-3 fatty acids, and these could be used to treat the disorder.

Initially, the idea was laughed at, although now, some limited evidence exists for its role in mental illness.

Reflecting on his experiences, Horrobin founded Medical Hypotheses, a journal where researchers could publish any ideas, no matter how far-out, to encourage creative thinking in medicine.

You could tell that Horrobin got up people’s noses, because when he died, a famously bitchy obituary was published in the British Medical Journal. So bitchy, in fact, that for the first time, an apology was printed the week after.

True to its mission, Medical Hypotheses remains the eccentric uncle of academic medicine.

The trouble with eccentric uncles though, is that sometimes they get pissed at family gatherings and embarrass themselves.

This is exactly what seems to have happened on this occasion as the article incoherently rambles about something we can’t quite make out, but we know is likely to offend if it keeps going on about it.

Luckily, one of the comments from the Bad Science post links to a much more entertaining Medical Hypotheses article:

Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia?

See what you’re missing?

Link to Bad Science on embarrassing MedHyp article (with full-text).
Link to abstract of footwear / schizophrenia article.

This week’s edition of satirical newspaper The Onion has a cutting ‘news’ story on both the Iraq war and psychology, highlighting the absurdity that arises from trying to quantify the bleedin’ obvious and discussing the shortcomings of the study in the press.

The story supposedly concerns a study investigating the psychological impact of the Iraq war on civillians.

“Almost all the Iraqis we interviewed said the war had ruined their lives because of the incalculable loss of friends and family,” Pryztal said. “But to be totally honest, these types of studies can be skewed rather easily by participant exaggeration.”

Psychologists and anthropologists have thus far largely discounted the study, claiming it has the same bias as a 1971 Stanford University study that concluded that many Vietnamese showed signs of psychological trauma from nearly a quarter century of continuous war in southeast Asia.

“We are, in truth, still a long way from determining if Iraqis are exhibiting actual, U.S.-grade sadness,” Mayo Clinic neuropsychologist Norman Blum said. “At present, we see no reason for the popular press to report on Iraqi emotions as if they are real.”

Pryztal said that his research group would next examine whether children in Sudan prefer playing with toys or serving as guerrilla fighters and killing innocent civilians.

The Onion has a long and proud history of satirising psychology and psychologists, inspiring stories that are often as funny as they are painful.

Link to story ‘Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die’.