“…no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.”
From the novel Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.
2006-01-06 Spike activity
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Brain Waves considers the role of ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin and the potential for a love spray.
Town tries soft lighting to calm violent drinkers.
In contrast to one of last year’s controversial claims, a new study provides evidence that suicide risk does not increase when adults start using antidepressants.
The development of anorexia linked to earlier birth problems.
Mental health think tank demands major overhaul to UK psychiatric services.
New York Times on the psychology and neuroscience of cuteness.
Blog The Genius discusses theories from a recent book on the neuropsychology of memory.
A couple of good articles from Wired (via BoingBoing):
* Man with a cochlear implant hacks his own device to allow him to listen to music again.
* The new technology of brain scan lie detection raises new ethical concerns.
On a related note, New Scientist reports on a drive to develop ‘a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed’. Best of luck.
Newsweek discusses the popularity and effectiveness of ‘e-therapy‘ (online version is accompanied by advert titled ‘find out happy you really are’ – wtf?)
Cognitive Daily discusses research on ‘How do kids decide robots are worth talking to?’
Sex review and predictions – ’05 to ’06
Sex and relationship psychologist Petra Boyton has just posted her review of sexual health, science and media trends of 2005 as well as her predictions for 2006.
As the media is increasingly keen on psychological angles to sex stories and pharmaceutical companies are now starting to push the pills and ills of sexual behaviour in earnest, it’s worth being aware of where the evidence could stop and the spin begins:
2006 is going to be the year of the sex addict.
Many new television series in the pipeline that will be outlining this condition ‚Äì either showing it to be an epidemic or offering training for men who are ‘cheaters’ to curb their behaviour. Despite no agreement on sex addiction, or concern from the psychiatric and medical professions of sexual behaviour being pathologised or misdiagnosed, television researchers are ignoring this evidence and making programmes anyway.
Petra also mentions Mind Hacks as ‘not always about sex, but very good nonetheless’, which is probably one of the most unusual complements we’ve had in a while.
Link to ‘Sex Review of 2005’
Link to ‘Sex Predictions and Trends for 2006’
Survivors of stroke
ABC Radio’s Health Report has a special on stroke – where the blood supply is cut off by damage or obstruction to blood vessels in the brain – and interviews two survivors about their experiences: Robert McCrumb, the literary editor of The Observer newspaper and Ishbel, a 9 year old girl who suffered a stroke when she was 7.
The stroke survivors describe the immediate effects, the treatment, the aftermath and their own tips for coping with stroke-related brain injury.
Robert McCrumb wrote a book about his experiences called My Year Off (ISBN 0330352407), and wrote an insightful article for The Observer marking ten years since it first occurred.
The programme also talks to Roger Rees, a professor of disability research, who talks about the impact of the disorder on the mind and brain, and medical approaches to recovery.
mp3 or realaudio of programme audio.
Link to programme transcript.
Link to Robert McCrumb’s article ‘Memoirs of a survivor’.
Link to ‘What is a stroke?’ from the Stroke Association.
Information integration and consciousness
There’s a raft of new articles just appeared on Science and Consciousness Review, including a speculative but fascinating article on information states in the brain and consciousness.
The article by Henri Montandon discusses the ideas and implications of researcher Giulio Tononi who argues that an entity is more conscious the more information it can bring to bear on life experiences.
There’s plenty more news stories just been added as well, so have a wander through and enjoy.
Link to Science and Consciousness Review.
PsyBlog returns
You spend all day waiting for a bus, then two come along at once… PsyBlog has risen from its slumber to rub its eyes and stare 2006 in the face. A welcome return.
Dangerous ideas
Online boffin brigade Edge have asked a wide range of contemporary thinkers to outline their own ‘dangerous ideas‘.
The list includes a number of cognitive scientists, and an even wider selection of authors commenting on mind, brain and culture. Most of them, although fascinating, don’t strike me as very dangerous. A few did make me particularly prick up my ears though:
Cognitive neuroscientist Stephen Kosslyn offers a set of hypotheses concerning a scientific theory of God, anthropologist Helen Fisher suggests SSRIs affect love and predicts of dire consequences for society as a result and philosopher Barry Smith argues cognitive science may have limited relevancy for everyday life.
…and once you’ve read all the commentaries, dig those photos!
Link to The Edge Annual Question 2006: What is your dangerous idea?
UPDATE: The newly returned Mixing Memory has some interesting comments on some of the cognitive science ideas.
Brain police
Aahh ah ahahahaaa, aahh ah ahahahaaa
What will you do if we let you go home,
And the plastic’s all melted,
And so is the chrome?
Who are the brain police?
One of the deeper questions in neuroscience, posed by Frank Zappa in the lyrics of the song ‘Who are the brain police?’. As far as I know, Frank never got a clear answer to his question.
Nothing to see here!
I’ve taken advantage of the holidays to have a big server move and shift mindhacks.com to a different machine… If you see this post, it worked! If you notice any glitches around the site, please do let me know at matt at mind hacks dot com. Thanks!
Tantalizing science
Neuroscience, the investigation of brains, is a child of the Enlightenment, born of the belief that nothing is out of bounds to science. Like her sister, genetics, she grew up in the twentieth century, overshadowed by their older sibling physics, who has changed all our lives and has blood on her alter to prove it. Genetics promises even greater accomplishments, boasting of how she will one-day conquer the world. Compared to these shadowy teenagers, neuroscience is a quiet Cinderella. But some say that she will outstrip her sisters, changing not only the world we live in, not only the bodies we are born with, but the thoughts and selves and cultures we create.
Stirring words from physiologist Kathleen Taylor in her fascinating book on the history and science of ‘Brainwashing‘ (p105, ISBN 0192804960).
Link to previous post on Brainwashing.
Explaining religion
Last Saturday’s Guardian featured an essay by Andrew Brown on science’s attempt to explain why so many people the world over are religious.
Brown says that many religions have existed without a belief in eternal life, thus undermining the argument that by promising an afterlife, religion evolved as a way for humans to cope with their mortality.
A more plausible explanation, he says, is that religion is a by-product of an aspect of our minds and behaviour that evolved for some other purpose. According to biologist David Sloan Wilson, one such purpose could be coherent and successful group behaviour. Consider how lust inspires us to mate, which has the evolutionarily advantageous knock-on effect of producing babies. Similarly, the pursuit of the sacred inspires us to religion, which has the evolutionary advantageous knock-on effects of causing us to form coherent groups and to follow rules.
Link to Guardian essay.
Mixing Memory returns
I assumed cognitive science blog Mixing Memory had gone missing in action during October, only to have it burst back into life after a mysterious period of radio silence. It’s one of my favourite reads on the net so it’s great to see it back again.
Link to Mixing Memory.
All in the Mind on autism and autistic pride
The lastest edition of BBC All in the Mind is a special on autism, discussing the experience, science and politics of the condition.
The programme talks to scientists and people affected by autism, including Wendy Lawson, a member of the growing Autistic Pride movement – which is trying to reframe autism as a part of normal neurodiversity rather than as a pathology in itself.
It also discusses the latest findings and theories of autistic abilities, disabilities and experience from the cognitive and neurosciences with psychiatrist Anthony Bailey and neuroscientist Helen Tager-Flusberg.
Link to All in the Mind autism special webpage.
Realaudio archive of progamme.
Link to previous post on Autistic Pride.
an appropriate error
Anna Airoldi, the translator of Mind Hacks into Italian has noticed a fantastic error in the published book. She writes
(170) 1st paragraph of “How it works”;
I’m not entirely sure this is a real typo, considering the topic discussed in the paragraph, but “conservations” shouldn’t just be “conversations”?
She’s absolutely right – it should be ‘conversations’ not ‘conservations’. But although it is an error, in this case it is an appropriate error, because it appears in Hack #52 ‘Robust Processing Using Parallelism’ which discusses how we can read errorful or ambiguous sentences using multiple interacting levels of information to construct meaning. Normally this is a good thing, but it appears that in this particular instance the meaning was so obvious that our normally diligent editing process didn’t spot the mistake (my mistake in origin, incidentally)!
2005-12-30 Spike activity
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Slate asks the question “Is Anorexia Genetic?: What the newest theory leaves out”. A commentary on a recent Newsweek article discussed previously on Mind Hacks.
“Language affects ‘half of vision'” says somewhat misleading title that belies some interesting research in colour perception and categorisation.
Scientific American considers recent research on the psychology of suicide bombers and discounts popular myths about the perpetrators.
People consistently pour larger measures of alcohol into short wide glasses than tall thin ones.
Language Log investigates the science behind recent media claims that Agatha Christie novels are ‘good for the brain’.
The Distorted Tune Test
Ever wondered if you are tone-deaf? The Distorted Tune Test page can help. You listen to 25 simple tunes and judge whether they are played correctly or not (it takes about five or six minutes). Based on your responses, you’ll be told how well you can judge pitch. If the results suggest you are tone-deaf then you are eligable to take part in a US National Institute of Health study into the conditions, so that’s some compensation.
Mind Hacks 