Posts
May 22, 2013
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A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times Review of Books reviewed David Sheff’s new book Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy. After noting some highlights in the book, editor Mick Sussman aptly concluded that Sheff has “performed a vital service by compiling sensible advice on a subject for which sensible advice [...]
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Learning something new—each day, if possible—is the key to having a healthy brain as you age.
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Article: Reducing caloric intake delays nerve cell loss Caloric restriction has been talked about for some time now in the science community and not just as a dieting method for … Continue reading →
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12:44 PM | The Tyranny of Formatting
Scene: It is 4 am in the morning and the grant is due the next day. You have 12 pages to tell a story that will determine whether or not you can pay your salary and support your lab next year. You delete a sentence on page 5. The document swells to 13 pages. Oh [...]
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12:30 PM | Dogs can haz brainscanz and EEG?
Canine cognition is a hot topic these days, using experiments and brain imaging as research tools. The trouble with brain imaging work is that it is invasive, to the extent that animals may have to be sedated or anaesthetized for the study. All that changed with the amazing work of Gregory Berns et al and the first-ever fMRI study on awake, unrestrained dogs last year. Now Miiamaaria Kujala et al in Finland have shown that it is also possible to do a non-invasive EEG with dogs.An EEG
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Berns, G., Brooks, A. & Spivak, M. (2012). Functional MRI in Awake Unrestrained Dogs, PLoS ONE, 7 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038027
Kujala, M., Törnqvist, H., Somppi, S., Hänninen, L., Krause, C., Vainio, O. & Kujala, J. (2013). Reactivity of Dogs' Brain Oscillations to Visual Stimuli Measured with Non-Invasive Electroencephalography, PLoS ONE, 8 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061818
Ma, H., Qin, L., Dong, C., Zhong, R. & Sato, Y. (2013). Comparison of Neural Responses to Cat Meows and Human Vowels in the Anterior and Posterior Auditory Field of Awake Cats, PLoS ONE, 8 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052942
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As Twitter has grown in popularity, a number of research studies have examined motivations for using this microblogging platform. A recent study drawing on the framework of Terror Management Theory, made the intriguing finding that when confronted with a reminder of one’s eventual death, extraverts increased their Twitter usage while introverts avoided it altogether. Extraverts and introverts appear to have different ways of coping with existential threats that could affect their use of
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Qiu L, Leung AK, Ho JH, Yeung QM, Francis KJ & Chua PF (2010). Understanding the psychological motives behind microblogging., Studies in health technology and informatics, 154 140-4. PMID: 20543286
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12:05 PM | What’s Up Doc? ADHD at the Doctor’s Office
Nelson Santos via Compfight As an adult with ADHD, I’ve never been at a loss for questions and this is especially true when I’ve given someone tacit permission to poke, prod, x-ray, and provide potent chemical substances meant to assist healing or at least mask my symptoms. With this in mind, I felt even more [...]
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12:03 PM | laughter stuff
There was a special issue of the Psychologist devoted to psychology and humour, and Sophie Scott contributed an article about laughter. You can find the special issue here and Sophie's article here. There are some links to short films about laughter here:
TEDx talk
UCL mini lecture on laughter
Learning to laugh
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Earlier this week, I blogged about our new VerbCorner project. At the end, I promised that there would be more info forthcoming about why we are doing this project, about its aims and expected outcomes, why it's necessary, etc. Here's the first installment in that series.
Computers and language
I just dictated the following note to Siri
Many of our best computer systems treat words as essentially meaningless symbols that need to be moved around.
Here's what she wrote
Many of our best
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11:52 AM | The mystery of the missing experiments
Can experimental findings look too good to be true?
Last week I wrote a blog post about some experiments showing a counterintuitive finding regarding how the need to urinate affects decision making. It’s since been brought to my attention that these experiments (along with dozens of others) have ...Read More
Francis G. (2012). The Psychology of Replication and Replication in Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7 (6) 585-594. DOI: 10.1177/1745691612459520
Francis G. (2012). Publication bias and the failure of replication in experimental psychology, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19 (6) 975-991. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-012-0322-y
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10:32 AM | The Origins of Anxiety
According to author and psychiatrist Jeffrey P. Kahn, M.D., in his book Angst: Origins of Anxiety & Depression, today’s disorders might’ve been yesterday’s valuable social instincts. Today’s panic disorder might’ve prevented our ancestors from venturing to potentially dangerous places, far away from their families and tribes. Today’s social anxiety might’ve maintained social hierarchies and peace [...]
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Mr. Lonely 1Does Smoking Pot Offer Relief to the Lonely? A new paper by the original Tylenol and social pain researchers claims that it does (Deckman et al., 2013). Let's take a closer look.Comfortably Numb: Marijuana Use Reduces Social Pain, Research FindsMarijuana use buffers people from experiencing social pain, according to research published online on May 14 in Social Psychological and Personality Science."Prior work has shown that the analgesic acetaminophen, which acts indirectly
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Deckman, T., DeWall, C., Way, B., Gilman, R. & Richman, S. (2013). Can Marijuana Reduce Social Pain?, Social Psychological and Personality Science, DOI: 10.1177/1948550613488949
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So either (1) I am a genius in communication after all ( p = 0.03), having provoked John Cook and Scott Johnson to offer thoughtful reflections by strategically feigning a haughty outburst (I acknowledge that I expressed my frustration in a manner that I am not proud of). Or (2) Cook & Johnson are sufficiently motivated by virtuous commitment to intellectual exchange to create one notwithstanding my bad manners (p = 0.97).
I don’t propose we conduct any sort
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9:08 AM | The Special Issue Spotter
We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to:
Psychotherapy Outcome (Psychotherapy).
Asexuality (Psychology and Sexuality). Editorial is open access.
Poverty and Class (virtual special issue from British Journal of Educational Psychology). Open access.
Australian Forensic Psychology (virtual special issue of the Australian Psychologist). Open access.
The Teenage Brain (Current Directions in Psychological Science).
Specificity, Methodology and Psychopathology of Emotional Attention […]
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While most partners want someone to care if they run away with the neighbor, using jealousy to evoke a sign of love from a partner, or feeling jealous of your partner’s interest in something or someone other than you—takes its toll. Often confused with envy which is the emotion you feel when you want something [...]
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Melanie Oldham 2013 Mental Health Hero Cartoon-A-Thon Drawing by Chato Stewart My name is Melanie Oldham. I am bipolar. I am also a wife, a mother, a court reporter. At the age of 40, I decided I was drinking too much alcohol. I checked myself into a rehab. After five days of getting all the [...]
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What does terror smell like? Well, if you're a mouse, terror smells like something that's going to eat you. Maybe a cat, a fox, or a large bird. As prey animals, mice need all the help they can get in avoiding potential predators. And they get a lot of help from smell. Most predators produce [...]
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“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” Psychologist William James Our needs for attention and appreciation may be basic, and grounded in survival as a child, but for some people, those needs are especially potent. In a recent article, Ben Kingsley commented about being a performer as a child, like [...]
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This article from YourTango was written by Julie Orlov. Words are powerful. They can cut you, heal you, inspire you, and stop you from certain actions. Learning the language of a strong, healthy relationship or marriage takes time and diligence, but saying some words regularly may cause irreparable damage. Here are five words that are destined to [...]
May 21, 2013
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9:47 PM | El papel de la histamina en la memoria
Cuando escuchamos la palabra "histamina", seguramente la asociamos inmediatamente con las alergias. Sin embargo, la histamina es un importante neurotransmisor que permite múltiples funciones cerebrales. La memoria es una de tales funciones. Por eso, a continuación veremos una cuidadosa presentación acerca del papel de la histamina en la memoria. Esperamos sea de su interés y agrado. ¡No olviden
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Chris Curry 2013 Mental Health Hero Cartoon-A-Thon Drawing by Chato Stewart Chris Curry is a therapist, public speaker, author and musician who focuses all aspects of his professional life around mental health and the reduction of stigma. Author of addiction memoir, ‘Completely in Blue’ (on amazon), mental health stigma blogger, mental health counselor, musician in [...]
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Adult males diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood face nearly twice the odds of becoming obese according to a new study published online at Pediatrics. Witness the latest chapter of ADHD, the Diagnosis Eating Away at America:The prospective study included 207 white men diagnosed with ADHD at an average age of 8 and a comparison group of 178 men not diagnosed with childhood ADHD, who were matched for race, age, residence and social
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The new holy bible of psychiatric diagnosis is about to go on sale tomorrow. No matter what our conclusions of it are, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) is destined to be a best seller as it is the defacto guide to mental illness that most all institutions, physicians, therapists, healthcare providers [...]
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Why is it that families are kept so far out of the loop when it comes to a loved one’s health? The quick, easy answer, of course, is the nation’s health insurance portability and accountability act (HIPAA). Physicians are able to share only certain information with the family unless the patient agrees to more. The [...]
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3:15 PM | It’s official…
Well folks, I’ve finally been made legitimate. No, I haven’t received my doctorate yet (that won’t be happening for awhile!) Instead my rogue bastardized blogging days are over – I’ve been made an official Nature Publishing Group blogger, writing for … Continue reading →
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When I learned the new DSM had finally been released, I immediately thought of the scene from the movie The Jerk in which Navin R. Johnson (aka Steve Martin) clutches a phone book, jumps up and down and proclaims: “The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!” I don’t know why [...]
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Earlier this month, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske presented former Friends star Matthew Perry with the Champion of Recovery Award for “giving a voice to millions of Americans in recovery.” How has the 43-year-old actor done that, you ask? By being so vocal about his own addiction and recovery and supporting President Obama’s efforts to [...]
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2:22 PM | Narrative Transportation
This is a draft of an article I submitted to Nautilus Magazine, a “new magazine on science, culture, and philosophy,” for their issue entitled In Transit. Nautilus already had plans to cover the topic of my story, narrative transportation, so they politely declined my submission, which I share here with you. Their magazine is off to a great start, I encourage you to check it out.
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I’m in Norway. Just stepped off the plane in fact.
Am going to be giving an address at a conference sponsored by the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. The conference is for professional science communicators (mainly ones associated with universities), and the topic is how to promote effective public dissemination of and engagement with the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report, which will be released officially in October.
Obviously, I will stress that it
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12:00 PM | Changizi News
Cognitive scientist and author Mark Changizi's recent writings, arrayed for easy access here.
