Philosophy posts
- September 30, 2012
- 12:30 PM
- 259 views
Drug Use- A side effect of society
by Drexid in Neurobrainstorm
Drug use is amplified and in some situations caused by our society. An alternate way of living could prevent drug use and addiction.... Read more »
Johnson MW, Strain EC, & Griffiths RR. (2010) Effects of oral caffeine pretreatment on response to intravenous nicotine and cocaine. Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology, 18(4), 305-15. PMID: 20695686
Unterwald EM, Rubenfeld JM, Imai Y, Wang JB, Uhl GR, & Kreek MJ. (1995) Chronic opioid antagonist administration upregulates mu opioid receptor binding without altering mu opioid receptor mRNA levels. Brain research. Molecular brain research, 33(2), 351-5. PMID: 8750897
- September 20, 2012
- 03:35 AM
- 362 views
Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 2
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
Part 1 of this article discussed Daryl Bem’s studies on precognition and the failure of subsequent studies to replicate his results. This second part discusses reasons for the incompatibility of parapsychology with modern science and possible reasons why interest in this field persists in spite of its continued failure to establish its validity. Belief in the paranormal is commonly associated with magical thinking and mystical belief. Many parapsychologists seem to be motivated by a desire to establish the reality of a nonmaterial dimension of existence, and in particular that of the human soul. ... Read more »
Alcock, J. E. (1987) Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 263-291. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00054467
MacPherson, J. S., . (2011) Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(4), 446. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.002
- September 19, 2012
- 04:11 AM
- 453 views
Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 1
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
In 2011, Daryl Bem published a remarkable paper describing a series of experiments which he claimed provided evidence that people can be influenced by events before they have happened. This paper naturally provoked an enormous amount of controversy. Multiple attempts to replicate Bem’s findings have failed, suggesting that his results were due to methodological shortcomings rather than a breakthrough discovery about the nature of reality. Individual differences in personality traits associated with magical thinking may help explain why interest in parapsychology persists in spite of repeated failures to establish any credible evidence of the existence of psi. ... Read more »
Bem DJ. (2011) Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of personality and social psychology, 100(3), 407-25. PMID: 21280961
Galak J, Leboeuf RA, Nelson LD, & Simmons JP. (2012) Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi. Journal of personality and social psychology. PMID: 22924750
Ritchie SJ, Wiseman R, & French CC. (2012) Failing the future: three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem's 'retroactive facilitation of recall' effect. PloS one, 7(3). PMID: 22432019
- September 13, 2012
- 09:07 AM
- 378 views
Extreme beliefs about "extremism": Religious incivility and the Libya riot
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
According to some commentators, the recent riot in Libya in which an embassy was burned and four Americans killed may be viewed as an extreme response to "extremism" embodied in an offensive video. Aggression is not an automatic response to provocation but depends on values that condone violence. Regard for the "sacred" cannot form a universal moral basis. ... Read more »
Anderson, Craig A., & Bushman, Brad J. (2002) Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 27-51. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231
Cohen D, Nisbett RE, Bowdle BF, . (1996) Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: an "experimental ethnography". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 945-959. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.945
Graham J, & Haidt J. (2010) Beyond beliefs: religions bind individuals into moral communities. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 14(1), 140-50. PMID: 20089848
- September 12, 2012
- 01:29 PM
- 425 views
What Do Animals Think of Their Dead?
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
You’re running around, going about your day, and suddenly you see a dead guy lying in the sidewalk. What do you feel? Sad? Scared? Do you look around to see if you might be in danger too? Would you feel any differently if the dead body on the sidewalk were that of a squirrel, and not a human? Do animals share these same emotional and thought processes when they come across their own dead?Teresa Iglesias, Richard McElreath and Gail Patricelli at the University of California at Davis pondered this philosophical question themselves. Then they set off to scientifically test it. A western scrub-jay collecting peanuts from a windowsill. Photo by Ingrid Taylar at Wikimedia.Teresa, Richard and Gail had noticed that when a live western scrub-jay encounters a dead western scrub-jay, it hops from perch to perch while calling loudly, a response the researchers called a “cacophonous reaction”. This boisterous response usually attracts other scrub-jays, which either join in with their own cacophonous reaction or just sit quietly observing. Is this truly a response to seeing their own dead?The researchers put bird feeders bated with peanuts in backyards all over Davis, California (with the permission of the backyard-owners, of course). Once they find a feeder, western scrub-jays take the peanuts one at a time and fly off to cache them away before returning for another peanut. While the scrub-jays were away caching a peanut, the researchers put a collection of painted wood pieces on the ground, arranged to vaguely look like a dead scrub-jay. Then they snuck away to watch if the scrub-jays responded when they returned. Several days later, they came back to the same feeders, waited until the scrub-jay was away caching a peanut, and then placed an actual scrub-jay carcass and feathers (usually found somewhere in the area). Then they snuck away again to watch if the scrub-jays responded any differently when they returned. Watch the behavior of western scrub-jays before and after the placement of a dead scrub-jay. The “after” response starts about one minute into the video. Video by Teresa Iglesias.And in a nutshell, they did. When the scrub-jays returned to find a dead scrub-jay, they called like crazy and hopped around in a full-blown cacophonous reaction. In most cases, this reaction attracted other scrub-jays who joined in the lively response. Additionally, when the dead scrub-jay was present, they took 90% fewer peanuts. None of this ever happened in response to a pile of painted wood. When a scrub-jay returned to find painted wood, it went about its day, calling at normal rates and collecting peanuts as usual. One jay was so unconcerned by the painted wood, it even cached peanuts under it! A western scrub-jay thinks the painted wood makes a good peanut-hideaway. Video by Teresa Iglesias.This convinced the researchers that the scrub-jays were not simply responding to something new near the feeder, but were instead responding to dead bodies. But does it matter whether the body is a conspecific (the same species) or a heterospecific (different species)? And what do these group responses mean? Are they gathering in mourning? Or is their response a way of hollering, “Look out! Something out there is killing us!”?To find out, the researchers did the same thing they had done before, but this time, they placed either a scrub-jay carcass or a mounted great horned owl (a scrub-jay predator). Interestingly, the scrub-jays responded with the same cacophonous reactions and avoided the peanuts in both cases. However, the scrub-jays called for longer and defensively swooped at the mounted owl, something they didn’t do to the scrub-jay carcass. To check if this heightened response to the owl mount was due to its lifelike position, they repeated the study, comparing scrub-jay responses to a scrub-jay carcass or a mounted scrub-jay. Although the dead-looking carcass always elicited cacophonous aggregations, mounted scrub-jays only elicited cacophonous aggregations a third of the time. But when jays did respond to the scrub-jay mounts, they often swooped at it as if it were a competitor, something they never did to a scrub-jay carcass.What does this all mean? Western scrub-jays respond to conspecific (scrub-jay) carcasses not just because their appearance is surprising, but because they may represent some kind of risk. They seem to recognize that the carcass is not a living threat, because they don’t swoop at it like they do to both owl and scrub-jay mounts. But they do produce an alarm response, much as they do when a predator is present. So their responses to dead scrub-jays are not so much “funerals” in the way that people mourn and reflect on their dead, but rather a way to announce a risk of getting hurt or killed.Are western scrub-jays uniquely aware of the risk a dead conspecific may represent? Maybe not. Although this was the first comprehensive study of this phenomenon, similar behavioral responses to dead conspecifi... Read more »
Iglesias, T.L., McElreath, R., & Patricelli, G.L. (2012) Western scrub-jay funerals: cacophonous aggregations in response to dead conspecifics. Animal Behaviour. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.08.007
- September 3, 2012
- 08:14 PM
- 446 views
The Optimism Bias in Science
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
"I have always believed that scientific research is another domain where a form of optimism is essential to success: I have yet to meet a successful scientist who lacks the ability to exaggerate the importance of what he or she is doing, and I believe that someone who lacks a delusional sense of significance will wilt in the face of repeated experiences of multiple small failures and rare successes, the fate of most researchers" -Daniel KahnemanThe Brain: Irrational, Positive, DeceptiveI just finished reading The Optimism Bias by Tali Sharot. The book explains that most people have an "Optimism Bias," a tendency to over-estimate how smart, good-looking, and capable they are as well as the likelihood that good things will happen to them. Sharot points out that in a 1981 study (Swenson O) 93% of participants rated themselves as in the top 50th percentile (i.e. 'above average') for driving ability. Other studies have shown that this "Better than Average Effect" applies to many aspects of our self-image. Think about yourself right now... do you think you are smarter than average? better looking than average? nicer than average? etc. You probably do. And even though it is logically impossible for 93% of people to be better than the 50% mark, you probably still think that you are actually better/smarter/nicer. So even though you think you are smarter than most people, the reality is that most people think they are smarter than most people. Similarly people under-estimate the likelihood that bad things will happen in their life and over estimate the likelihood that good things will happen. Ask any newly engaged couple what they think their chances of divorce are, and if not too offended by such a rude question, they will probably rate the chance of divorce as very low or even zero. However reality says that they actually have a 41-50% chance of divorce. divorce cake (source)But as Sharot claims, this optimistic skew to reality is actually beneficial. Which newly engaged couple would actually get married if they fully realized and believed that their chances of staying married were no better than the chance of flipping heads or tails on a coin? The irrational belief that we are somehow exceptional is motivating. Sharot even suggests that the optimism bias is so prevalent in our species and culture that people who realistically evaluate their situation are not the norm, and may even be clinically depressed. While The Optimism Bias has a great premise and recounts some exciting research, I thought the book in general was way too long. Some very simple concepts (like that people have an optimism bias) were repeated over and over and over, and some (interesting) concepts were introduced that had pretty much nothing to do with optimism (like that memories are unreliable). The book didn't really teach me much about how the brain works, but it did set me thinking about how a strong optimism bias is an essential trait in academia. As the Kahneman quote above states, most scientists face critique after critique and failure after failure. Successes are few and far between and the same sense of realism that would prevent many a marriage, would also prevent a potential scientist from entering a Ph.D. program. Who would even apply to graduate school if they fully understood and believed the dismal statistics about finishing Ph.D. programs and the subsequent tenure-track job search. We have to believe that we are special, that our work is crucial, and that our contributions are significant. No scientist will succeed if they get their peer-reviewed paper back from a journal and immediately think: 'yep, the third reviewer is correct, this work is flawed and has little impact, I should quit and become a cab driver.' A near-delusional sense of significance and an "it's not me, it's them" attitude is required to stand by your ideas and abilities in the face of these kinds of criticisms. © TheCellularScaleSharot T (2011). The optimism bias. Current biology : CB, 21 (23) PMID: 22153158... Read more »
Sharot T. (2011) The optimism bias. Current biology : CB, 21(23). PMID: 22153158
- August 21, 2012
- 06:12 PM
- 368 views
No, Really; What About The Men?
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
If you’re the kind of person who has frequented internet discussion boards, you’ll know that debates over sexism can get a bit heated. You might also have noticed that many problems men faced are not infrequently dismissed on the grounds … Continue reading →... Read more »
Mustard, D. B. (2001) Racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. federal courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 285-314. DOI: 10.1086/320276
- August 17, 2012
- 12:31 AM
- 880 views
Reason versus faith? The interplay of intuition and rationality in supernatural belief
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
Recent papers have suggested that religious and paranormal beliefs are supported by “intuitive” thought processes and that engaging in “analytical” thought processes can weaken these beliefs, at least temporarily.... Read more »
Gervais, W. M., . (2012) Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief. Science, 336(6080), 493-496. DOI: 10.1126/science.1215647
Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Seli, P., Koehler, D. J., . (2012) Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief . Cognition, 123(3), 335-346. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003
Shenhav, A., Rand, D., . (2011) Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. DOI: 10.1037/a0025391
- August 15, 2012
- 05:05 AM
- 620 views
Geoengineering: taking control of our planet’s climate?
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Concerns about the likely consequences of continuing climate change have greatly increased interest in geoengineering – whether the Earth’s climate could be deliberately modified to counteract global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2010, the Royal Society hosted a Discussion Meeting: ‘Geoengineering: taking control of our planet’s climate’ that critically assessed many of the schemes currently being considered. The meeting also took stock of the relationship of geoengineering to conventional greenhouse gas mitigation as well as how geoengineering is perceived by the public. Papers in this issue directly reflect the outcome of that Discussion Meeting.... Read more »
Andy Ridgwell, Chris Freeman, & Richard Lampitt. (2012) Geoengineering: taking control of our planet's climate?. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 13 , 370 (1974), 4163-4165. DOI: 10.1098
- August 9, 2012
- 02:48 PM
- 198 views
Is music a result of sexual selection? [Revisited]
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Cover of NRC Cultureel Supplement.It was Darwin’s hunch: music, as widespread as it is in our human culture, could well be a result of sexual selection, one of the two selection mechanisms he proposed to be at the basis of our evolution (the other being natural selection).Today an article by Wim Köhler appeared in the Dutch newspaper NRC elaborating on this idea: the potential evolutionary advantage of ‘mooizingers’ - those who perform well musically.Music as a result of sexual selection has been adapted by psychologist Geoffrey Miller in his often cited book The Mating Mind, in which he suggests music to be one of the many social and cultural behaviors that we use to impress the opposite sex. At first it seems convincing idea…However, there is a lot to bring in against this hypothesis (see earlier blogs). The most striking being simply the absence of empirical evidence! (The only evidence that Miller brought forward was the amount of offspring Jimi Hendrix produced - officially three!?)Cognitive biologist Tecumseh Fitch (Vienna University) and his colleagues recently designed an experiment to put the sexual selection hypothesis to the test: does the ability to produce complex musical sounds reflect qualities that are relevant in mate choice contexts, supporting the idea of music to be functionally analogous to the sexually-selected acoustic displays of some animals, such as songbirds? If this hypothesis is correct, women may be expected to show heightened preferences for more complex music when they are most fertile -- was the reasoning of the Vienna research team. To to test this hypothesis the Vienna team used computer-generated musical pieces and ovulation predictor kits. The researchers found that women prefer more complex music in general, but they found no evidence that their preference for more complex music increased around ovulation. As such these findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that a heightened preference/bias in women for more complex music around ovulation could have played a role in the evolution of music. More empirical research is needed of course, but for the time being and considering the empirical evidence that is available, there is no study, as yet, that supports the sexual selection hypothesis for music. Charlton, Benjamin D., Filippi, Piera, & Fitch, W. Tecumseh (2012). Do Women Prefer More Complex Music around Ovulation? PLoS ONE, 7 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035626Honing, H., & Ploeger, A. (2012). Cognition and the Evolution of Music: Pitfalls and Prospects Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01210.x... Read more »
Charlton, Benjamin D., Filippi, Piera, & Fitch, W. Tecumseh. (2012) Do Women Prefer More Complex Music around Ovulation?. PLoS ONE, 7(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035626
Honing, H., & Ploeger, A. (2012) Cognition and the Evolution of Music: Pitfalls and Prospects. Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01210.x
- August 9, 2012
- 11:23 AM
- 409 views
Is music a result of sexual selection?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Cognitive biologist Tecumseh Fitch (Vienna University) and his colleagues recently designed an experiment to put the sexual selection hypothesis to the test: does the ability to produce complex musical sounds reflect qualities that are relevant in mate choice contexts, supporting the idea of music to be functionally analogous to the sexually-selected acoustic displays of some animals, such as songbirds. ... Read more »
Charlton, Benjamin D., Filippi, Piera, & Fitch, W. Tecumseh. (2012) Do Women Prefer More Complex Music around Ovulation?. PLoS ONE, 7(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035626
Honing, H., & Ploeger, A. (2012) Cognition and the Evolution of Music: Pitfalls and Prospects. Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01210.x
- July 24, 2012
- 12:43 PM
- 328 views
The end of world records in athletics? And genetic enhancement.
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
The 2012 Olympics are coming closer, and, as such, have been a popular blog topic lately. And I’ll join in since I came across an article that looks at the progression of running speeds in three animals: dogs, horses and … Continue reading →... Read more »
Desgorces, F.-D., Berthelot, G., Charmantier, A., Tafflet, M., Schaal, K., Jarne, P., & Toussaint, J.-F. (2012) Similar slow down in running speed progression in species under human pressure. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02563.x
Gaffney, G.D., & Parisotto, R. (2007) Gene Doping: A Review of Performance-Enhancing Genetics. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 807-822. DOI: 10.1016/j.pcl.2007.04.004
- July 22, 2012
- 08:48 PM
- 518 views
Do small men think like big women?
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
Endless research has been conducted on the neurological differences between women and men. However, a study out of the University of Florida explains that almost all of the anatomical differences previously reported can be accounted for simply by adjusting for total brain size.(Lady Gaga is an excellent source of exaggerated imagery)Leonard et al., (2008) recruited 100 men and 100 women and imaged their brains. They showed that men generally have larger brains that women (not surprising, men generally have larger bodies than women). Leonard et al., 2008 Figure 2But what is fascinating is that when comparing specific regions, the gender of the brain mattered less than the size of the whole brain. In other words if you had a small male brain, it would look almost indistinguishable from a large female brain. (See their Figure 3)What I find most interesting in this paper is that it refutes the much purported "Corpus Callosum Myth". Corpus Callosum (source)The Corpus Callosum is main white matter connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. The "Corpus Callosum Myth" is that female brains have larger corpus callosa than male brains. I have to admit that I am not immune from gender bias. When I first heard that women had larger corpus callosa than men, my immediate thoughts were towards how that could make sense. I thought "ah, well then maybe that is why women are better at seeing the big picture or at multi-tasking" and other thoughts along those lines. What I definitely did NOT think was "I bet that was a small, poorly controlled study which did not even reach statistical significance." Well as it turns out, I should have. DeLacoste-Utamsing and Holloway (1982) analyzed only 14 brains (9 male and 5 female), and found that "The average area of the posterior fifth of the corpus callosum was larger in females than in males (p=0.08)" DeLacoste-Utamsing and Holloway (1982) p. 1431A result hardly worth speculating upon. Leonard et al., 2008 also found some corpus callosum differences between the genders, but when they graphed the size of the corpus callosum against the size of the whole brain...Figure 3B (female brains white circles, male brains filled squares)They found a continuum. The difference in size between the female and male corpus callosum is entirely due to the difference in size of the female and male brain as a whole. As with Von Economo neurons, maybe brains of different sizes work similarly, but have to be shaped differently to do so. So rather than wildly speculating that women are better at this or that because they have stronger connections between their hemispheres, we should put our efforts into discovering evolutionary reasons why small men would be better multi-taskers that large men. © TheCellularScaleDeLacoste-Utamsing C, & Holloway RL (1982). Sexual dimorphism in the human corpus callosum. Science (New York, N.Y.), 216 (4553), 1431-2 PMID: 7089533Leonard CM, Towler S, Welcome S, Halderman LK, Otto R, Eckert MA, & Chiarello C (2008). Size matters: cerebral volume influences sex differences in neuroanatomy. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 18 (12), 2920-31 PMID: 18440950... Read more »
DeLacoste-Utamsing C, & Holloway RL. (1982) Sexual dimorphism in the human corpus callosum. Science (New York, N.Y.), 216(4553), 1431-2. PMID: 7089533
Leonard CM, Towler S, Welcome S, Halderman LK, Otto R, Eckert MA, & Chiarello C. (2008) Size matters: cerebral volume influences sex differences in neuroanatomy. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 18(12), 2920-31. PMID: 18440950
- July 21, 2012
- 02:22 AM
- 420 views
50 Shades Of Grey (When It Comes To Defining Rape)
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
For those of you who haven’t have been following such things lately, Daniel Tosh recently catalyzed an internet firestorm of offense.The story goes something like this: at one of his shows, he was making some jokes or comments about rape. … Continue reading →... Read more »
Hamby, S.L., & Koss, M.P. (2003) Shades of gray: A qualitative study of terms used in the measurement of sexual victimization. . Psychology of Women Quarterly . DOI: 10.1111/1471-6402.00104
Koss. M.P. (1993) Detecting the scope of rape: A review of prevalence research methods. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. DOI: 10.1177/088626093008002004
- July 14, 2012
- 11:23 AM
- 567 views
What makes us musical animals?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In a forthcoming issue of Topics in Cognitive Science researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) argue that at least two, seemingly trivial musical skills can be considered fundamental to the evolution of music: relative pitch -- the skill to recognise a melody independent of its pitch level -- and beat induction -- the skill to pick up regularity (the beat) from a varying rhythm. Both are considered cognitive mechanisms that are essential to perceive, make and appreciate music, and, as such, could be argued to be conditional to the origin of music.... Read more »
Honing, H., & Ploeger, A. (2012) Cognition and the Evolution of Music: Pitfalls and Prospects. Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01210.x
- July 6, 2012
- 10:08 AM
- 331 views
Evolution vs.Specification (Specification V)
by Andrew Wilson in Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists
One of Gibson's key contributions was to reveal that it was possible for the optic array to specify a meaningful property of the world. Gibson insisted that specification existed between the world and optics (each property produced one unambiguous pattern, and thus the mapping is 1:1). Specification, said Gibson, meant direct perception was possible, because picking up that one variable meant perceiving the one property that caused it. Turvey, Shaw, Reed & Mace (1981) formalised this idea by describing how ecological laws governed which properties of the world could be specified and identifying that these laws allowed affordances into this set. Turvey et al (hence TSM, because Reed changed his mind later on) then insisted that, in order for perception to be direct, specification also had to exist between the optics and the perceiver; an organism should only use one variable per property, and thus the mapping from world to perceiver is 1:1:1. This is a very high bar, and was put in place to defend ecological psychology from the Establishment attack (Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1981).Withagen & Chemero (2009) think that the 1:1:1 account is incompatible with evolutionary thinking, and they aren't hot on the 1:1 account either. Specifically, they think that any given species will show individual variation in it's members ability to use information, and that in many cases species will end up using sub-optimal solutions (two important elements of evolutionary thinking). The1:1:1 bar, they say, is implausibly high and a naturalised theory of perception (one that is compatible with evolution) will instead predict the common use of non-specifying information. They also claim that this does not stop perception from being direct, so long as you allow 'directness' to live along a continuum.I think there are some important issues here, but I think this paper's presentation is problematic. It contains no analysis of any particular information or task, and instead is full of sentences such as 'it seems more plausible to us that' and 'it is possible that'. This comes off as the kind of woolly evolutionary thinking psychology is rightly scolded for. Gibson and TSM spent a lot of time trying to make us pay less attention to what might be and more to what is.My concerns are mostly along these lines, and once I get them off my chest I want to turn in future posts to some ideas for a research programme to pursue this all in more detail.Problem for TSM #1: Individual variation in information useEvolution implies variability within populations. For perception, W&C claim that this implies that different members of a population will probably use different information variables to solve the same task. W&C note that the TSM account insists that all members use the same information: the specifying information. These ideas are incompatible, evolution is bigger, therefore TSM lose; ...given the myriad functions of perception and their different degrees of importance to the survival and reproduction of the animal, it is quite improbable that there is minimal variation in what information is exploited...Withagen & Chemero, 2009, p. 373.They then go on to cite the various studies that demonstrate individual variation. This, for me, is where I discover this paper has thrown the baby out with the bath water. W&C want to ground ecological psychology in biology, not physics (as TSM do in the 'laws' paper). But they've missed what TSM gained for the field; a method for actually answering this question for specific tasks. One of their key points was that not just any old property ended up structuring light, only properties that can be directly involved in the process of ecological optics (so 'shoeness' no, 'walk-on-ability' yes). Not all information is equal, either: some is available for extended periods of time, some only briefly. The amount of individual variation will therefore actually depend mostly on what information is available. The first place to go looking for the causes of variation, therefore, is in the ecological optics analysis of the invariants created by a given event, and this is where TSM shine. In addition, while individual variation is interesting, you can only interpret it in the context of an ecological optics analysis.This means that the TSM research programme of identifying the local physical environment/event and the properties of that environment/event that are being projected into light is still worth pursuing. It also means considering the spatial and temporal stability of the resulting invariants as well as their relationship to the property in question in order to predict and understand individual variation and actual information use.Take collisions: not everyone finds the variable that specifies the mass ratio, relative velocity change. First, mass ratio is an odd property to want to know about and is not clearly related to the control of action. Second, relative velocity change is really only available around the time of the collision. Exit speed and scatter angle,however, are available for extended periods after the collision (and sometimes correlate to the odd property mass ratio, making the whole thing quite complicated from the first person perspective of the organism). The fact that organisms can fail to find the short lived specifying invariant in the collision task is interesting, but a key part of the explanation is still likely to be in the dynamics of the information itself (and, perhaps, variation in thresholds on the part of the organism). So there is a lot of work left to do here before these experiments live up to their hype from W&C.(One side note here, though: I do think individual variation will show up in interesting places. Conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, developmental coordination disorder, and others are very commonly associated with perceptual deficits or difficulties. Perhaps this is the place to go looking for variation and for seeing what the consequences of genuinely poor perceptual performance is? Perhaps the effects are unlikely to be subtle?)Problem for TSM #2: Sub-optimal solutionsW&C talk about the fact the biological systems do not always evolve the optimal solution to a task. Evolution is full of hacks and weird features that reflect the fact that it is a process that can only build on what it has available at the time. A given species cannot simply acquire a required feature unless the potential for that feature is within the range of the variability in the population. Given that this is such a ubiquitous feature of biology, W&C suggest we should also expect to see it in perception.This may be partly true, but I think there is a key difference here. Humans will not suddenly acquire wings because of the limited variation in our body plans doesn't allow it. Our anatomy is too stable. Of course, this stability is not true throughout the body; our central nervous systems, for example, are extraordinarily flexible and only hold their 'shape' while the information flowing through them remains the same. Change the information, change the shape (the way tools are swiftly integrated into the brain's information about the body). One thing our brains therefore provide us with is the ability to very swiftly alter the capabilities of the 'back end' of all perceptual systems; this, in fact, is what most researchers think of when they talking about perceptual learning. So, in perception, we might actually have access to the kind of flexibility we need to dodge the evolutionary trap of the ... Read more »
Turvey, M. T., Shaw, R. E., Reed, E. S., . (1981) Ecological laws of perceiving and acting: In reply to Fodor and Pylyshyn (1981). Cognition, 9(3), 237-304. DOI: 10.1016/0010-0277(81)90002-0
Withagen, R., & Chemero, A. (2009) Naturalizing Perception: Developing the Gibsonian Approach to Perception along Evolutionary Lines. Theory , 19(3), 363-389. DOI: 10.1177/0959354309104159
Withagen, R., & van der Kamp, J. (2010) Towards a new ecological conception of perceptual information: Lessons from a developmental systems perspective. Human Movement Science, 29(1), 149-163. DOI: 10.1016/j.humov.2009.09.003
- July 4, 2012
- 09:32 AM
- 498 views
Can we know the evolution of human cognition?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
According to Dick Lewontin (evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator) there is no way to know the evolution of cognition. He argued that we should ‘give up the childish notion that everything that is interesting about nature can be understood. [..] It might be interesting to know how cognition (whatever that is) arose and spread and changed, but we cannot know. Tough luck.’ (Lewontin, 1998:130)... Read more »
Heyes, C. (2012) New thinking: the evolution of human cognition. . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1599), 2091-2096. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0111
Honing, H., & Ploeger, A. (2012) Cognition and the Evolution of Music: Pitfalls and Prospects. Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01210.x
- June 26, 2012
- 06:59 AM
- 531 views
Care Homes Often Deny Elderly People the Right to Have Sex: Research
by United Academics in United Academics
It’s not easy for care takers to deal with the sexual needs of the elderly, especially when the patients are suffering dementia. But this is no excuse to deny them the right to consensual sex, according to researchers from the Australian Centre for Evidence-Based Aged Care (ACEBAC), which is what’s happening now at many care homes.... Read more »
Laura Tarzia, Deirdre Fetherstonhaugh, & Michael Bauer. (2012) Dementia, sexuality and consent in residential aged care facilities. Journal of Medical Ethics. DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100453
- June 24, 2012
- 06:01 PM
- 561 views
In defense of pink microscopes
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
I know I am late to the party here, as the "Science is a girl thing" video (embedded below) came out Friday and has already been ripped to shreds by many a blog. But I just couldn't stop thinking about it, so here's my opinion on that video and pinkifying science in general.Hello Kitty Microscope I am reminded of a quote from Pres. Obama's initial campaign. He said (something like) "We need to shatter the blasphemy that says a black child with a book is acting white." It is equally true that "we need to shatter the blasphemy that says a woman in science is acting masculine." Sometimes women in science dress down and wear less make up on purpose because they are worried that they won't be taken seriously if they look 'girlie' or even 'attractive'. Or specifically, "If I look like I took a long time doing my hair, nails, and make up, people might think I am not spending time doing science." It is just as sexist to think that a woman wearing heels in the lab is less capable or less dedicated to science as it is to think that women shouldn't be in a lab in the first place. What a woman wears to the lab (within lab safety guidelines anyway) has NOTHING to do with how good she is at science or with how seriously she takes her work. NOTHING. The woman who wears heels and makeup, the woman who wears the same sweatpants 3 days in a row, and the woman who wears a t-shirt with jeans should all be taken equally seriously as scientists and judged on their work and not their appearance. Being 'masculine' does not help you be a better scientist and for crissake women, do not brag about having a 'masculine brain'. You are not helping inspire young girls to success when you attribute your intelligence and ability to being like a man. I fully support feminine scientists and pink science equipment. There is no reason that a microscope shouldn't be pink and there is no reason that a girl shouldn't be able to have her own Computer Engineer Barbie if she wants one. Computational Neuroscientist BarbieThe message that you can both care about shoes and be a successful working scientist is important. It helps shatter the stereotype that scientific women are or should be masculine. Recently a study by Betz and Sekaquaptewa (2012) investigated the influence of overtly feminine cues (such as pink clothes, makeup, etc) on middle-school girls' interest in math as a future career. They had the students read an magazine-style interview with a feminine woman (pictured as wearing make up and pink and described as liking fashion magazines), and a neutral woman (pictured with dark clothes and glasses and described as liking reading). The finding that has been the focus of this paper's blog coverage is that for the girls that did not label math or science as their favorite subject, the feminine cues significantly reduced their self-reported interest in math as a career. They attribute this to the girls thinking that the feminine women are 'too good' and thus being discouraged because they don't see themselves as ever reaching those heights. While this is an interesting hypothesis, a closer look at the study is merited. First of all, there is not un-gendered control study. Might a similar effect might show up for middle school boys when shown either a muscular, athletic man who likes football or a neutral man who isn't particularly muscular, wears glasses and likes reading? This could be a general 'attractivity' thing where kids are intimidated by role models who 'have it all' or 'are too good'. Maybe it's not really a gender issue. Secondly, what hasn't been discussed much is that 54% of the girls initially listed math or science as their favorite subject! And for those girls, the femininity of the woman in the article had no statistically significant effects on their interest in science and math. 54% ! more than half of the girls in this study reported science, math, or both as their FAVORITE subject! and while there were no significant effects, there was a trend (p=0.19) toward the femininity of the role model increasing these girls' report of how 'attainable' both her femininity and scientific success might be. Betz and Sekaquaptewa, 2012 Figure 3This graph shows the "self-reported likelihood of attaining role model femininity and STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) success" If anything the feminine role model slightly increased the attainability of these characteristics for girls who already like science (not significant, p=0.19). Regardless, I think the conclusion that feminine-looking science is bad for girls is not on sound footing. And again, I defend pink microscopes. If you have already seen the It's a girl thing video, you might be now expecting me to support it. But don't worry, I think it is as idiotic and every other scientist on the planet does. Far from showing feminine scientists, it is showing a scientist (the man) and separate from that a bunch of giggly girls dropping things. NOT HELPFUL. The only part I liked was the girl looking like she was concentrating and writing equations on the clear board. She looked feminine and pretty and she was 'doing' science. If these girls had been actually doing science through the entire video (sitting at microscopes like the guy did, for example), I might actually have liked it.The thing that is wrong with this video is not that these girls are wearing heels (though short skirts do violate lab safety codes), or that they look feminine or pretty. That's all fine. The problem is that they are not doing science, they are giggling and blowing kisses. If your goal is to combine femininity and prettiness with science, you have to COMBINE them, not present them as two completely separate things.In conclusion, I'll leave you with one of the best comments so far: Cartomancer on Pharyngula suggests some equally stereotypical and offensive videos to promote diversity in science: "67. cartomancer says: 22 June 2012 at 10:41 amI want to see what they’d come up with to get more LGBT people and ethnic minorities into science. “Science: it’s a gay thing!” featuring Abercrombie and Fitch models, bare-chested apart from an open lab coat, playing with unfeasibly suggestive phallic test tubes. Cut to discotheque-esque laser equipment and the word “science” with the C as a big rainbow.Or how about “Science: it’s a black thing!” – grinding hip-hop beats acco... Read more »
Diana E. Betz, & Denise Sekaquaptewa. (2012) My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: 10.1177/1948550612440735
- June 19, 2012
- 11:29 AM
- 420 views
The Evolution of Music
by Iddo Friedberg in Byte Size Biology
A collaboration between a group in Imperial College and Media Interaction group in Japan yielded a really cool website: darwintunes.org. The idea is to apply Darwinian-like selection to music. Starting form a garble, after several generations producing something that is actually melodic and listen-able. Or a Katy Perry tune. Whatever. The selective force being the appeal of the tune to the listener. ... Read more »
Robert M. MacCallum, Matthias Mauchb, Austin Burta, & Armand M. Leroia. (2012) (2012-06-18) Evolution of music by public choice. . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1203182109
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