Hello, my names Laura Freberg and I am a Tetris Addict.
Here is what we are reading today:
“The research, led by psychological scientist Emily Cogsdill of Harvard University, shows that the predisposition to judge others based on physical features starts early in childhood and does not require years of social experience. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Prior research has shown that adults regularly use faces to make judgments about the character traits of others, even with only a brief glance. But it’s unclear whether this tendency is one that slowly builds as a result of life experiences or is instead a more fundamental impulse that emerges early in life.”
- google glass gets banned #glass
“A San Francisco South of Market bar, often frequented by a high-tech crowd, has banned patrons from wearing Google Glass while inside the establishment.
The Willows, a bar at Folsom and 12th streets, has put up a sign, with a picture of Google Glass encircled in red, with a big slash through the center. Willows co-owner Trista Bernasconi said they are being proactive.”
“While the team’s study results are likely to cause quite a stir, particularly among those lower in physical stature, it does add to a growing body of research that suggests there are physical, mental and in some cases emotional differences between people related to body size”
“Dr Gall and her colleagues had shown previously that exposure to passive smoking in childhood reduced the ability of the main artery in the arm to dilate in response to blood flow in adulthood. This new study adds to the evidence on the dangers of passive smoking for children.”
“”Even though direction-sensing cells in the retina have been known about for half a century, what they actually do has been a mystery- mostly because no one knew how to follow their connections deep into the brain,” said Andrew Huberman, an assistant professor of neurobiology, neurosciences and ophthalmology at UC San Diego, who headed the research team, which also involved biologists at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. “Our study provides the first direct link between direction-sensing cells in the retina and the cortex and thereby raises the new idea that we ‘know’ which direction things are moving specifically because of the activation of these direction-selective retinal neurons.””
“Kakapos live life at a slow pace. Males don’t start breeding until they are about four years old, and females around six years of age. Their life expectancy is over 90 years.”
“While men need to be exceptionally attractive to tempt women to consider casual sex, men are far less choosy. These findings (1) by Dr Achim Schützwohl, from the Department of Psychology at Brunel University in the UK, and his team are published online in Springer’s journal Human Nature.”
27 Comments
Kelly Kreulen · March 6, 2014 at 4:49 pm
I found the “men are less choosy in one night stands” article to be interesting and I can completely understand why that might be true. For one, it is relevant to the discussion we had in class about men and women’s sexuality. Women are more likely to be choosy because they are the child bearers and are more likely to subconsciously care about the genes of men. Also, testosterone levels are correlated with promiscuity and obviously males would have higher testosterone levels.
Kelly Kreulen · March 6, 2014 at 5:03 pm
The “height and IQ” article caught my attention because I am particularly tall for a female (5′ 11″). Although these researchers found some evidence of their claim that taller people are smarter, I am not convinced of this. It was stated in the article that they did not use standard IQ tests which is a strike against them and I think they could do other tests that prove the opposite. Furthermore, from my personal experience I have met a large share of people that are shorter but a lot smarter than me.
jclary · March 6, 2014 at 9:41 pm
I thought it would be interesting to read the google glass article since I participated in several different research projects this quarter involving them. I think that it was a little ridiculous that people were being banned from wearing google glasses inside a restaurant for other customers fearing that they might be recorded. For one thing, you can also record conversations on your phone without people knowing. I think its more of a status symbol because its so high tech and very expensive. Maybe people get jealous when they see it or most of the people that do have it have an arrogant way about carrying themselves. I don’t really mind them, but I do think that they are somewhat pointless since we already have a phone that does pretty much all the same things.
jclary · March 6, 2014 at 9:48 pm
I was interested in the article regarding height and IQ because I am shorter in stature. The article said that people that are taller tend to have a higher IQ! At first I was offended by this as I consider myself to not be any less smart than taller people. However, when looking at the bigger picture and development of people in childhood it makes more sense. People that are taller are probably better fed and have the proper nutrition in childhood allowing their brain to get the aduequate amount of glucose for energy and development. This does not mean that all short people are malnutritioned, but it could be a factor that could cause a lower IQ later on.
Luke Simon · March 7, 2014 at 10:51 am
The article about how men have lower standards than women for casual sex is spot on. Every weekend at cal poly this correlation can be observed. Men try to get with women and usually get turned down because they are not “exceptionally attractive” in the woman’s eyes. However, the male usually moves on to another woman quickly until he is successful or it is time to go to bed. That’s also why a lot of the times women are more likely to regret a casual sexual encounter, while the man is more likely to be stoked. This all goes back to the main idea that men are wired to “inpregnate as many women as possible” while women are wired to be highly selective about their mates.
Luke Simon · March 7, 2014 at 11:06 am
The height an IQ article was not only controversial but not very reliable. One or two tests is not enough evidence to prove that taller people are smarter than shorter people. There are many variables that contribute to a person’s overall intelligence that do not involve a person’s stature. Not to mention many people are intelligent in many different ways, and the IQ test can’t possibly test all of these factors. Therefore, although their data may have been significant, it does not seem very reliable according to what this article says.
alexhertz · March 7, 2014 at 4:35 pm
I found the “passive smoking” article to be an interesting change from the typical second-hand smoking studies. I feel that these studies often focus on adults, but identifying the effects on children creates an even more compelling argument for reduction in cigarette and tobacco use. You often hear that parents will step outside to smoke so they aren’t smoking in front of their children, but for the times that they choose not to go to a separate location, the effects are overwhelming. The study also referred to an increase in “smoke-free” zones (and other legislative changes), which made me think about Disneyland, a place constantly filled with children. Even though Disney creates these zones, there are still children all around, and eliminating the zones all together would not only reduce risk to children, but also to those that choose to smoke in them.
alexhertz · March 7, 2014 at 4:45 pm
I enjoyed how the “first impression from faces” article compared the impressions kids make with the impressions adults make. As we talked about in class, children often acquire mood, facial and emotional expressions from what they observe in adults. I think this article ties in perfectly with that concept because it identifies not only how kids are able to correlate facial expression with characteristics, but also that they are able to do it well. Facial features are often the key to our first impressions, and it appears to be a behavior we have had since a young age. It makes me wonder how kids would asses my facial features and character when I used to babysit.
agarrett127 · March 7, 2014 at 10:15 pm
I found “Height and IQ” article to be pretty interesting and could see why it could cause quite a stir among people, especially those of shorter stature. It’s hard for me to completely buy into this article as it does not include any of the results or specific tests done on the participants. Also, the article only states that there is a correlation between IQ and height, and correlation does not prove causation. The article also mentions that the study based the participants’ intelligence off of “mental reaction times, linguistic ability, processing speed, and powers of recall” and did use standardized IQ tests. With this, I see that there are a lot of flaws in how this study was conducted and stating that IQ and height are correlated without using an actual standardize IQ test is somewhat puzzling to me. However, I do find it interesting that there was some type of correlation with this study. It just so happens that one of my smartest friends also is my tallest friend so based off of personal experience I could see where there could be some truth to these findings, but this could also just be coincidental.
agarrett127 · March 7, 2014 at 10:35 pm
The article “Men are less choosey in one night stands” was not really surprising to me in the slightest. Men tend to be much more interested in casual sex than women, which has some evolutionary backing and possible scientific explanations as to why this is true. Women are much more choosey when it comes to mating as it is “expensive” for women to make eggs. Men are constantly making millions of sperm regularly, so for them sex is “cheap.” With this, the parental investment for women is much greater than men. I believe this directly relates to this article as women tend to be more choosey when it comes to mating whereas men do not have to be as choosey. One thing that I found particularly interesting about this article was that there were differences across cultures, as German men were more choosey than Italian men who in turn were more choosey than American men. This also says so much about the culture that we are a part of. I could see this being a direct result of media influences, as casual sex is regularly portrayed in American television and movies. It would be interesting to see if this study could include even more cultures to see if there is a strong cultural aspect to one night stand choosiness as well.
tabithaahearn · March 8, 2014 at 11:45 am
I found the article regarding the genetic link of height and intelligence to be really interesting. The reason being, is that my roommate is currently doing her senior project on a study regarding the correlation between height and likelihood of being hired for a job. The article made the claim that 70% of genetic traits relating height and intelligence are biological, and the remaining 30% depend on the environment. I find it interesting that a person’s ability to do well academically, be intelligent, or even receive a job could be related to biological factors.
tabithaahearn · March 8, 2014 at 11:50 am
I genuinely enjoyed the article regarding the ban of google glasses. In class last week, I was able to experiment with a pair of the glasses and found myself shocked by what the glasses could do. I managed to locate restaurants, call different phone numbers, and search the web. While experimenting with the glasses, I somehow managed to take a picture of a person in the room without them noticing. I was reminded of this as I read the article, as I can see a huge invasion of privacy occurring with these glasses, as the technology is so advanced, people are not aware of what they can do. Allowing the glasses to be worn in public places, could permit the wearers to take videos, pictures, or other information from other people without their knowledge.
Bekah Shore · March 8, 2014 at 2:02 pm
I thought the “first impressions from faces” article gave some good input into how children are able to be consistent in judging a persons trustworthiness based on their face alone. When I read the article, I kept thinking about the idea of symmetry in judging whether someone is attractive or not. Granted, children are not going off of what they think is attractive or not in the way that we learned in class. But its possible that children are drawn towards someone for their trustworthiness based on if they seem more approachable. Looking more approachable could relate to attractive qualities people possess. It might be an advantage to have children be better at determining trustworthiness in adults, because this could lead to better judgement in situations such as when children are approached by strangers. The findings of the article did mention though that the judgements children make may not be accurate, so there’s still inconsistency in whether or not children evaluating trustworthiness is sound. It would be interesting for further research to see if children even younger than the sample age they tested would exhibit the same ideas when associating faces to traits.
Bekah Shore · March 8, 2014 at 2:13 pm
I read the “motion sensing cells” article. I thought it was interesting that the cortex could process direction sensing cells in our eyes. As a biology major, it still intrigues me that the brain is capable of such dynamic plasticity, especially with a structure like the cortex. The cortex plays so many different roles; in memory, consciousness, thought, attention, and in the context of this article, perceptual awareness. The article also talked about how the research could have implications for the treatment of certain diseases, such as dysgraphia. Dysgraphia is a motor disorder affecting the ability to write, so it would be interesting to see if other diseases could be affected by these new findings, including Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s is a motor disorder and a prominent one at that. It’s possible that the link between motion sensing cells in the eyes and motor movement could be involved in several motor degeneration-type disorders or diseases.
wesleychoy · March 8, 2014 at 2:33 pm
I found that the article “Young children form first impressions from faces” was consistent with what I had been learning from my cross-cultural psychology class. In that class we learned that there were 6 universal facial expressions between the human race which included, happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, anger, and fear which would agree with the notion that young children are born with a capacity to read facial expressions in addition to learning from social contexts over time. Babies’ ability to read adults expressions also seems to innate as babies are extremely vulnerable and need to able to figure out whether other humans are good or bad.
wesleychoy · March 8, 2014 at 2:44 pm
The study that found a genetic link between height and iq was particularly surprising to me because I had never thought before there would be a correlation between taller people and higher IQ. Taking a step back, this notion actually seems reasonable noting that being taller is a genetic advantage which would normally correlate with other genetic advantages in a person. As taller people are also rated higher and more liked, another explanation could be their higher IQ scores are actually resulting from an invisible advantage gained in society from being taller which would allow them to fully reach their potential compared to their shorter counterparts. On the other side, I think while the averages shows that taller people are on average smarter, I think being shorter can actually be an advantage to some, possibly like the idea of the Napoleon complex pushes shorter people to work harder (even if they might be slightly more angry than others).
Silvano J. Gonzalez · March 8, 2014 at 11:48 pm
I think the article about a bar banning Google Glass makes one think about several things: privacy, safety, and accessibility of technology. The main issue that the bar had with the Google Glass is the fact that it could be used as a recording device. A smartphone can do the same thing, but it appears that the issue is that someone wearing a Google Glass could record a situation and be inconspicuous about it. I wonder how this situation will play out when Google Glass actually gets past the beta phase and is released to the public. The story mentioned in the article about the social media consultant is quite ironic, as if she was indeed attacked by patrons, her use of the Google Glass as a recording device could have been useful, and her use of the Google Glass as a recording device was probably the initial reason that patrons of Molotov’s attacked her. If the Google Glass if effective at recording it might even be able to play role in the safety of people, such as might have been the case in the Molotov’s incident. But it should be noted that the Google Glass will also create a new area of technology, and be a new, very visible indicator of how much someone is willing to spend on tech. Just like with any other technology, some will have more access to it than others. Only time will tell how all these aspects of the Google Glass will change society.
Silvano J. Gonzalez · March 8, 2014 at 11:48 pm
One of my favorite aspects about neuroscience is that there are so many new discoveries occurring all the time. The article about “motion-sensing cells” caught my eye because it is one of these fascinating discoveries. Another aspect of neuroscience that I really appreciate is that it reveals that the brain, and the human body in its entirety, is a complex system with many connections and pathways, some of which have yet to be discovered. This discovery of a connection between direction-sensing cells in the retina and cells in the cortex is interesting in and of itself, but I also appreciate that it has many practical implications. It’s great that this knowledge can be put to use. This means that more discoveries are likely to result from this discovery, since now it is likely that research will be done in order to put this new knowledge into a practical application such as treating disabilities in motion processing and conditions such as dysgraphia. The article even states that the new knowledge could even help treat or re-wire these systems if they were to be damaged by neurodegenerative diseases like glaucoma or Alzheimer’s. This to me shows just how important neuroscience is to our society. Like many other sciences, it is a pursuit of knowledge that can ultimately yield a greater good. Aside from this, I find the connections between the brain and the body to be intriguing and captivating and I hope to have many more chances to learn about the human brain.
eilamarinero · March 9, 2014 at 4:27 pm
A couple of months ago I saw an episode of the Simpsons that really reminds me of this whole “google glass” situation. Homer’s boss, Mr.Burns, gives all of his employees’s glasses that are very similar to google glass. However, Mr.Burns is evil at heart and his ultimate goal was to spy on his workers. He could see everything that Homer saw and did which is an invasion of privacy.
In response to the bar issue, I am sure anyone who has gotten drunk can relate to doing things they regret and wouldn’t normally do if they were sober. Everyone makes mistakes and recording people without their consent in unethical and can lead to ruining people’s careers and reputation.
kdouglas · March 9, 2014 at 6:42 pm
The article on height and intelligence was informative and well-written. It was clear that while there is a positive correlation between height and intelligence, correlation does not equal causation. I found this article interesting because I’m significantly taller than average and I do well with linguistic processing, which is one of the areas measured. It makes sense that there are common or similar genes that impact height and intelligence. Height has been long known to be genetic except in cases of malnutrition, and genes also have been shown to influence how smart a person is and in which areas they are smart. I love how the article was clear about how the findings in the study were not the case for everyone. Nature and nurture interact, so there are more factors to consider in height and intelligence besides genes.
kdouglas · March 9, 2014 at 6:58 pm
The article on smoking and the effects on the arteries is very logical. The finding that the arteries are thicker in children with a parent who smokes may shed light into the arteries and their role in heart disease. Heart disease is more likely among people who smoke, and it can be caused by artery blockage. Second-hand smoke has significant effects on children and makes them more prone to many health issues. It follows that children whose parents smoke are more likely to have heart disease due to their thickened arteries than their peers whose parents do not smoke. This should serve as a reminder for people that smoking and its effects are serious and that they affect more people than just the person who chooses to smoke. It’s not easy to quit, but the moral is that starting to smoke leads to serious consequences, and exposure to tobacco should be avoided at all costs.
jnlui · March 9, 2014 at 9:50 pm
The article about children and first impressions was very interesting, because it states that children as young as already have a predisposed idea of certain traits. At such a young age children have no say in what goes on in their life, for the most part, parents or guardians take responsibility for them and their choices. So children many times learn traits, habits, and lifestyle traits from adults around them. With this study though, it can show that they may pick who they decide to mimic or listen to, and not just because they like one adult over another. Rather it can no be linked to trustworthiness, showing that children stick too or mimic adults that they trust. It is also interesting that they are consistent to truth worthiness, possibly proving that trustworthiness has a certain look to it.
jnlui · March 9, 2014 at 9:50 pm
The study on genetic link and height is unique in that it is comparing something that is not commonly associated with IQ. I don’t know if I completely agree with the results. It is possible that the average of tall peoples IQ is higher than those of average or short peoples IQ. But I don’t think that it has to do with height. Rather I think it is because the ratio of tall people to short or average is low or lacking in comparison. The average consist with the majority of the people, meaning that the IQ is definitely at average. So those in the tall height range can only be lower or higher than the average, since they have a smaller concentration to start with.
lesliewong · March 9, 2014 at 10:15 pm
Apparently studies show that intelligence correlates with height. As a person who is short, it makes me wonder if height and intelligence is actually due to environmental factors, not solely on genetics. It is apparent that the taller someone is, the more intimidating he or she can be, which may lead to inhibiting factors (for those who are short), like being less outspoken. It is hard to imagine that short people are considered less intelligent than those who are tall. Background history and also environmental factors (as mentioned above) should be considered when determining one’s IQ.
tabithaahearn · March 10, 2014 at 12:42 pm
I enjoyed reading the article regarding first impressions from faces. It is an interesting idea, that impressions may not be all environmentally related. Rather, some kind of fundamental impulse developed in early life may impact this. While I realize the article was not declaring this a fact, I find myself disagreeing with an assumption that judgments are not environmentally related. I find myself making certain assumptions and judgments based on the influences of where I have grown up, what type of people I have grown up around, as well as the morals, values and ideals I have grown up learning.
nmarston · March 14, 2014 at 8:40 am
I found the height article quite interesting. I could see how many people could feel offended while reading the article but it is important to note that researchers recognized that their could be other factors that contributing to higher IQ. It’s not that all short people are dumber and all tall people are taller; it is merely an average of populations that produced their findings. Also results could stem from genetic factors and environmental factors. It is important to state all of these facts because people shouldn’t believe that height alone determines intelligence.
eilamarinero · March 14, 2014 at 9:22 pm
Study finds genetic link between height and IQ
I thought this article was rather humorous because it makes such a huge claim in saying that shorter people have lower IQs. From my personal experience I can definitely saw this is false. The smartest people I know are actually short. Short people, especially men already get enough insults, this one is taking it a little too far..