Laura’s Psychology Blog

My Daughter Karen’s Social Media presentation (“Managing your on-line reputation) in one of my 4 classes. It was a busy day for Professor Freberg 2.0

Here is what I am reading today:

• auti-SIM game

“In a playground filled with gleeful shouts, you approach a group of children. Suddenly, your vision turns blurry and pixelated. The echoing screams become raucous.

It’s the experience of sensory overload, according to a new game called Auti-Sim. The simulation, created by a three-member team at the Vancouver Hacking Health hackathon, aims to raise awareness of the challenges of hypersensitivity disorder and help people understand how it can lead to isolation.”

• mapping RAINMAN’S brain in 3d

“Three-dimensional mapping of the brains of 7 adults with a rare brain birth defect has shed new light on the cause of autism.

Known as agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC), the defect is characterized by complete or partial absence of the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain. One of the primary genetic causes of autism, it was part of the brain physiology of Laurence Kim Peek, the savant portrayed by actor Dustin Hoffman in the 1987 film Rain Man.”

• people with power learn to dehumanize those under them

“The study, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that participants given more powerful roles in two experiments attributed fewer uniquely human traits—characteristics that distinguish people from other animals—to their peers who were given less powerful roles. “I think a lot of us have the intuition that some powerful people can be pretty dehumanizing,” said Jason Gwinn, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and lead author of the study. “But our goal was to test if power, when randomly assigned to ordinary students, would have that effect. That would say something about power itself rather than about the sort of people who have the drive to take power.”"

• give your brain and edge… chew gum!!

“Overall, participants who chewed gum had quicker reaction times and more accurate results than those who didn’t chew gum. This was especially true toward the end of the task, according to the study, which was published March 8 in the British Journal of Psychology. “Interestingly, participants who didn’t chew gum performed slightly better at the beginning of the task but were overtaken by the end,” Kate Morgan, of Cardiff University, said in a journal news release. “This suggests that chewing gum helps us focus on tasks that require continuous monitoring over a longer amount of time.”"

• brain adds cells in puberty

“…”These regions are important for social behaviors, particularly mating behavior,” said lead author Maggie Mohr, a doctoral student in neuroscience. “So, we thought maybe cells that are added to those parts of the brain during puberty could be important for adult reproductive function.” To test that idea, Mohr and Cheryl Sisk, MSU professor of psychology, injected male hamsters with a chemical marker to show cell birth during puberty. When the hamsters matured into adults, the researchers allowed them to interact and mate with females.”

• caffeine gives bees a BUZzZzzZzz

“We humans love us some caffeine. The mild stimulant have saved many a student, parent, and hard working adult from nodding over their desks. And it’s a natural product of plants like the coffee plant and the tea bush. But the question is, why do these plants have it in the first place?

It turns out that there are two answers to that question. First, caffeine is a natural pesticide, which can paralyze and kill insects that want to chomp on the leaves, berries, or other parts of the plant. It’s good for keeping a bug off your back.”

Here I am in the front row with my sister-in-law Laurie riding Splash Mountain!

Here is what I am reading today:

• what makes Parrot’s parrot?

“Scientists say they have assembled more completely the string of genetic letters that could control how well parrots learn to imitate their owners and other sounds.”

• the danger of cats to some women

“Women infected with the Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) parasite, which is spread through contact with cat feces or eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables, are at increased risk of attempting suicide, according to a new study of more than 45,000 women in Denmark. A University of Maryland School of Medicine psychiatrist with expertise in suicide neuroimmunology is the senior author of the study, which is being published online July 2 in the Archives of General Psychiatry.”

• the joy of being first

“How people make choices depends on many factors, but a new study finds people consistently prefer the options that come first: first in line, first college to offer acceptance, first salad on the menu — first is considered best.”

• renewing the brain?

“In a study published in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology, a team of scientists from ASU and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, led by Gro Amdam, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, presented findings that show that tricking older, foraging bees into doing social tasks inside the nest causes changes in the molecular structure of their brains.”

• are strawberries the real superfruit??

“Professor Paul Thornalley from Warwick Medical School heads the team that discovered extracts from strawberries positively activate a protein in our bodies called ‘Nrf2′ which is shown to increase antioxidant and other protective activities. This protein works to decrease blood lipids and cholesterol, the very things which can lead to cardiovascular problems.”

• what kind of face is best for passports?

“Dr Rob Jenkins and his team at the University of Glasgow took a sample of photos from the internet to show the wide range of differing images of one person. In a series of experiments, viewers unfamiliar with the subject of the photograph believed that the photos they were viewing were of different people — when in fact they were simply different presentations of the same person.”

• why we are musical

“The alternative that Henkjan Honing and Annemie Ploeger of the UvA propose is, first, to distinguish between the notion of ‘music’ and ‘musicality’, with musicality being defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by our cognitive system, and music as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality. And secondly, to collect accumulative evidence from a variety of sources (e.g., psychological, physiological, genetic, phylogenetic, and cross-cultural evidence) to be able to show that a specific cognitive trait is indeed an adaptation.”

• do your friends make you fat??

“Students were more likely to gain weight if they had friends who were heavier than they were. Conversely, students were more likely to get trimmer — or gain weight at a slower pace — if their friends were leaner than they were.

Results of the study by David Shoham, PhD, and colleagues are published in the journal PLoS ONE. Shoham is an assistant professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.”

rating movies that contain ‘smoking’

“New research from Norris Cotton Cancer Center estimates, for the first time, the impact of an R rating for movie smoking. James Sargent, MD, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at Norris Cotton Cancer Center, emphasizes that an R rating for any film showing smoking could substantially reduce smoking onset in U.S. adolescents — an effect size similar to making all parents maximally authoritative in their parenting, Sargent says.”

We love to take a walk every day and sometimes we find a little friend along the way!

Here is what I am reading today:

• age, genetics and exercise affect the brain!

“Exercise clears the mind. It gets the blood pumping and more oxygen is delivered to the brain. This is familiar territory, but Dartmouth’s David Bucci thinks there is much more going on.”

• why parents are happier

“Contrary to recent scholarship and popular belief, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without children, according to researchers from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University. Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada.”

• new tools for research: facebook and smartphones!

“Whether you’re an iPerson who can’t live without a Mac, a Facebook addict, or a gamer, you know that social media and technology say things about your personality and thought processes. And psychological scientists know it too — they’ve started researching how new media and devices both reveal and change our mental states.”

• Social media as good as sex??

“Posting views on Facebook and other social media sites delivers a powerful reward to the brain similar to the pleasure from food and sex, a Harvard study concludes. The study led by two neuroscientists and published this week concluded that “self disclosure” produces a response in the region of the brain associated with dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure or the anticipation of a reward.”

• UPDATED news on Phineas Gage

“Poor Phineas Gage. In 1848, the supervisor for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont was using a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch rod to pack blasting powder into a rock when he triggered an explosion that drove the rod through his left cheek and out of the top of his head. As reported at the time, the rod was later found, “smeared with blood and brains.”"

• self delusion and who you really AREN’T… Neuroscience  helps to answer

“THE problem of the self – what it is that makes you you – has exercised philosophers and theologians for millennia.

Today it is also a hotly contested scientific question, and the science is confirming what the Buddha, Scottish philosopher David Hume and many other thinkers maintained: that there is no concrete identity at the core of our being, and that our sense of self is an illusion spun from narratives we construct about our lives.

Bruce Hood’s The Self Illusion is a thoroughly researched and skillfully organised account of the developments in psychology and neuroscience that are helping to substantiate this unsettling vision of selfhood. He casts a long line, exploring subjects such as free will, the unconscious, the role of (false) memories in building identity, as well as myriad social psychology experiments showing how people behave differently according to the situation they are in. His aim is to illustrate the interchangeability of our multiple selves, and why much of our cognition seems to have evolved to protect the illusion that we are who we think we are.”

My colleague and daughter Karen (University of Louisville -- Assistant Professor of Strategic Communications) will be presenting on Social Media at the APS Convention in Chicago this month!

Here is what I am reading today:

• Harry Potter inspiration

“A self-writing diary in one of J K Rowling’s books on Harry Potter has inspired researchers to create a paper that spells out a person’s blood type. “

• alarm clocks make you fat??

“As if you needed another reason to despise your alarm clock. A new study suggests that, by disrupting your body’s normal rhythms, your buzzing, blaring friend could be making you overweight.

The study concerns a phenomenon called “social jetlag.” That’s the extent to which our natural sleep patterns are out of synch with our school or work schedules. Take the weekends: many of us wake up hours later than we do during the week, only to resume our early schedules come Monday morning. It’s enough to make your body feel like it’s spending the weekend in one time zone and the week in another.”

• use large fonts to elicit BIG emotions!

“WORDS IN ALL CAPS can be annoying, but since they look larger than their neighbors, they capture our attention. Words displayed in large fonts have a similar effect-and they also elicit stronger emotional responses, according to a new study. Researchers measured brain activity in 25 German adults while showing them 72 emotionally positive, negative, and neutral words. They included German words for gift, death, and chair….   “

• people love to brag? Neuroscience says YES!

“Talking about ourselves — whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter — triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money, researchers reported.”

• media distorts… bloggers rule?

““Superwoman has been rumbled,” declared a Daily Telegraph article in 2001 that chronicled how the human brain’s inability to “multitask” undercuts the prospects for a woman to juggle career and family with any measure of success. The brain as media icon has emerged repeatedly in recent years as new imaging techniques have proliferated—and, as a symbol, it  seems to confuse as much as enlighten.”

• Are you a Psychological Scientist??

“The Association for Psychological Science’s Annual Convention brings together psychological researchers and academics for an exciting program that covers the entire spectrum of innovative research in psychological science.

We’re pleased to offer you this Online Program with detailed information about every presentation and event at the APS Convention.”

LAURA’S Note: I hope to see you there!!

As I prepare for the APS Convention towards the close of this month, I am reminded of the farsighted wisdom of William James on instructing teaching and research in Psychology.

Psychology is a hub science(TM)

Here is what we are reading today:

• tweeting live brain surgery!

“Dr. Kim Dong of Houston’s Memorial Hermann hospital performed a brain tumor resection surgery on a young adult patient Wednesday morning. The operation was a routine one for him, but this time it came with a catch: His every move was live tweeted by hospital staff, with graphic photos and video posted to Twitter and other platforms along the way.”

• HOW we forget

“Despite the fact that forgetting is normal, exactly how we forget—the molecular, cellular, and brain circuit mechanisms underlying the process—is poorly understood.

Now, in a study that appears in the May 10, 2012 issue of the journal Neuron, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have pinpointed a mechanism that is essential for forming memories in the first place and, as it turns out, is equally essential for eliminating them after memories have formed.”

• academia is suppressing creativity — an OPINION

“…Unfortunately, in the academic world—where much of today’s scientific innovation takes place—researchers are encouraged to maintain the status quo and not “rock the boat.” This mentality is pervasive, affecting all aspects of scientific research from idea generation to funding to the training of the next generation of scientists.”

• planet of the apes is here! chimps are plotting

“”Santino,” a male chimpanzee at Furuvik Zoo in Sweden, is devising increasingly complex attacks against zoo visitors.

At first Santino was famous for throwing rocks and other projectiles at visitors who annoyed him. Now he has improved his technique, which requires spontaneous innovation for future deception. Researcher Mathias Osvath, lead author of a paper about Santino in PLoS ONE, explained what the clever chimp did:

“After a visitor group had left the compound area, Santino went inside the enclosure and brought a good-sized heap of hay that he placed near the visitor’s section, and immediately after that he put stones under it,” Osvath said.”

• reading a dog’s thoughts

“Fido’s expressive face, including those longing puppy-dog eyes, may lead owners to wonder what exactly is going on in that doggy’s head. Scientists decided to find out, using brain scans to explore the minds of our canine friends.

The researchers, who detailed their findings May 2 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, were interested in understanding the human-dog relationship from the four-legged perspective.”

• more genetic diversity today

“Since about 2,000 years ago (fewer than 100 generations), the human population has experienced an explosive growth after 8,000 years of moderate exponential growth.

This recent accelerated growth has created more genetic mutations and rare gene variants, which may play a role in boosting the risks of complex diseases in which genes play a role, say Cornell researchers in the May 11 issue of the journal Science.”

• visit brainfacts.org!

“The website offers a new way for people to learn more about how the brain works, how it drives thought and behavior, and its role in brain diseases and disorders. In this welcome message, Nicholas Spitzer, inaugural BrainFacts.org editor-in-chief, distinguished professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, and co-director of the UCSD Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, talks about this new opportunity to reach people.”

• association for psychological science convention in chicago

Be part of the BIGGEST convention ever!