Category: Other People

“In leading his patients to understand that breakdown was nothing to be ashamed of, that horror and fear were inevitable responses to the trauma of war and were better acknowledged than suppressed, that feelings of tenderness for other men were natural and right, that tears were an acceptable and helpful part of grieving, he was setting himself up against the whole tenor of their upbringing. Men who broke down, or cried, or admitted to feeling fear, were sissies, weaklings, failures. Not men. And yet he himself was a product of the same system‚ĶCertainly the rigorous repression of emotion and desire had been the constant theme of his adult life. In advising his young patients to abandon the attempt at repression and to let themselves feel the pity and terror their war experience inevitably evoked, he was excavating the ground he stood on”.

The thoughts of army psychiatrist W.H.R. Rivers from the novel Regeneration by Pat Barker. In Regeneration, the first of a trilogy, Barker blends fact with fiction in her depiction of the relationship between Rivers and the celebrated poet Siegfried Sassoon, at Craiglockhart during the First World War. More excerpts to follow next week.

Cognitive Daily and The Washington Post cast a sceptical eye over the recently released documentary Unknown White Male which claims to depict two years in the life of someone with a curious form of amnesia.

Cognitive Daily examines the representation of memory in the film, and how closely it accords with what is known about the psychology of knowledge and remembering.

Reporting on the controversy over the film’s truthfulness, The Washington Post analyses the inconsistencies in the film, and the opinions of those who support and doubt the main character’s condition.

The Post quotes memory and amnesia researcher Hans Markowitsch and, rather endearingly, calls him a ‘neural psychologist’.

Link to discussion from Cognitive Daily.
Link to ‘A Trip Down Memory Lane’ from The Washington Post.

This video is a 1972 documentary about the beginnings of ARPANET, the forerunner to the modern internet, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense

In one scene, a woman is seen typing Chinese symbols into a computer, echoing a beautifully whimsical scene from John Searle‘s famous ‘Chinese room‘ thought experiment.

Searle’s experiment addresses the question of whether information processing would be sufficient to account for consciousness, and includes people in a room, typing Chinese symbols into a computer.

Link to ‘Computer Networks’ video (via BoingBoing).

I went to the Royal College of Surgeons’ Hunterian Museum on Saturday.

They have the left hemisphere of Charles Babbage‘s brain, in a jar, on display.

If you were designing an advert to encourage university students to drink less alcohol, which wording do you think would work better?

“Most university students drink too much, with dire consequences for their future health”.

OR

“University students are healthier than you think, most have fewer than four drinks when they go out”.

A growing body of research on the misperception of norms suggests the second type of statement may work better. University students consistently overestimate how much their peers drink, and importantly, it’s this misperception that correlates with how much they choose to drink themselves.

“In point of fact, the norm among college students is to drink moderately if at all. And promoting this good news is an essential element of the health promotion strategy known as the social norms approach”.

From an article in The Scientist magazine on the science of encouraging healthy behaviour. (Note, to celebrate their relaunch, all 20 years of content is currently accessible for free at The Scientist website).

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’.

As Tom said, Valentine’s is fast approaching. Just in time, Christopher Bale and colleagues have published a study in Personality and Individual Differences on what 142 female and 63 male undergraduates thought of 40 different chat up lines as featured in mini stories about a man attempting to woo a woman.

It was thumbs down to jokes, empty compliments and sexual references (“Well hey there, I may not be Fred Flintstone, but I bet I can make your Bed Rock!”) and thumbs up to lines revealing helpfulness, generosity, athleticism, culture (“It’s a fine instrument wouldn’t you say? A Steinway concert grand if I’m not mistaken”, he said pointing to a nearby piano) and wealth (“Hi, my name’s William, I’m one of the owners here, would you like to dance?”).

The student participants gave their verdicts by saying how likely the woman was to continue the conversation.

Surprisingly perhaps, the male and female participants tended to agree on which lines were likely to be successful.

The poor ratings for jokey chat up lines were unexpected but the researchers said that could be due to their failing to give different categories to wit – “spontaneous jokes that fit the context exactly, are genuinely funny, and require intelligence” and humour – “the pre-planned jokes and one-liners which were ineffective and do not demonstrate intelligence”.

Link to abstract.
Link to Christopher Bale talking about the work (last five minutes or so of the recording).

American Scientist reviews two new books on the scientific history of the synapse and the early work on neural communication, particularly focusing on the life and work of pioneering Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

In his Nobel Prize winning work, Cajal discovered the synapse and first argued that the neuron was the fundamental unit of the nervous system. Although this is now accepted as fact, at the time it was highly controversial.

The review is more than simply an opinion on the two books, but is actually a fantastic summary of his life and times, and the scientific discoveries which changed the world.

Link to review entitled ‘A Lot of Nerve’.

“It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment – but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?”

Lord Byron in the Ravenna Journal, 1821-22.

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Shaun Gallagher sits in the hot seat and is interviewed by Science and Consciousness Review who quiz him about how the body and its actions shape our thoughts, and how this can break down to produce bizarre experiences of being controlled by outside forces.

Gallagher draws on the neuroscience of action and the philosophy of consciousness in his interview, in line with much of his previous work.

I think these experiences of ownership and agency [of actions] are manifested at the level of the level of first-order, pre-reflective, phenomenal consciousness. That is, I don’t need to reflect on what I’m doing to generate these experiences. Rather, they are part of and implicit in what my movement feels like.

Link to ‘An Interview with Shaun Gallagher’.
Link to Shaun Gallagher’s homepage.

“Everybody complains of their memory, but nobody of their judgement”.

French writer François de La Rochefoucauld comments on the limits of human insight.

Science fiction author Philip K. Dick experienced unpredictable altered states of consciousness and his work contains some of the best descriptions of psychosis you are likely to find anywhere.

BBC Radio 4 just broadcast a programme, archived online, that discusses PKD’s kaleidoscopic and life-changing “2-3-74” experience, where he believed he was being contacted by an interdimensional entity called VALIS and that 1970’s California was just an illusion disguising the fact that the 1st century Roman empire still existed.

Link to programme ‘Confessions of a Crap Artist’ (via BoingBoing).
Link to PhilipKDickFans.com

ABC Radio’s Science Show hosts a wide-ranging and engaging conversation with neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, where she discusses the latest scientific and ethical implications of brain science.

Professor Greenfield is constantly involved in drawing out science from the sometimes stuffy world of academia into the public eye and is one of the liveliest figures in contemporary neuroscience (I still have fond memories of her presenting the Christmas Lectures in a red leather cat suit).

She also has an extensive knowledge of philosophy and history, meaning she often has a different perspective from other researchers in the field.

mp3 or realaudio of Susan Greenfield at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
Link to transcript of programme.

Autism Diva is the name of an author who comments on the science and politics of autism. On her blog she maintains a distinctly positive view of the condition, is unashamedly critical of many mainstream views and keeps tabs on the developments in the research world.

She presumably has an autistic spectrum diagnosis herself and certainly has a child with autism. The blog is far from a dispassionate analysis but is an engaging example of the thoughtful activism being promoted by a growing number of the autistic community.

One part of the blog, Autism Diva’s profile page, reminded me of the wonderfully straightforward way of communication that many people with autism prefer and made me laugh out loud:

About Me
Autism Diva loves the truth.

Interests
autism, the truth

Link to Autism Diva’s blog.
Link to Wikipedia article on autism.

Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, is 100 this week and discusses his controversial discovery in an article in the New York Times.

Hofmann’s birthday is being marked by a symposium in Switzerland, where scientists, visionaries and artists are meeting to discuss the impact of the compound on society and how it may be put to good use in the future.

Link to article “Nearly 100, LSD’s Father Ponders His ‘Problem Child'”.

UPDATE: The Independent has another (probably better) article on LSD, Hofmann and the symposium.

“There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.”

Psychologist and philosopher William James writes under the influence of laughing gas, as reported in his essay on the subjective effects of nitrous oxide.