Where children sleep.

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Your eyes can be tricked.

It's kind of a Public Service Announcement of sorts, I suppose, but I'm not sure about the wisdom of this recent optical illusion painted on the road of a British Columbia street. It is supposed to "drive" home the message about watching out for kids on the street. I appreciate the intent, but am not so sure it won't actually cause accidents rather than prevent them.



On the other hand I kind of love this PSA - for a number of reasons I suppose. First off is the soft spot I have in my heart for Jason Bateman, given his involvement in this.  Second, I love the demonstration of how things have changed. Make that about cellphone usage nowadays and it might fit - but the idea of lugging around a huge boombox, well, no more.

 

Public service announcements don't always work. I'm not sure if Jason Bateman's plea to politeness had a noticeable effect on boombox noise pollution in the late 80s, but certainly various campaigns have resulted in shifts in public awareness. For example, one of the most famous - the Back to Sleep campaign - resulted in a 50% reduction in the number of infants suffering from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. On the other hand, public service campaigns geared towards changing the public's conceptions of how often oil should be changed in a car haven't resulted in any changes, and some, like the funny but unfair (and rightly critiqued) breastfeeding PSAs might have actually led to a backlash.

Which public service announcement do you remember from your childhood?  Did they work? Why or why not?

Back to school. Back to studying.

So, despite the deceptive weather here in Virginia, the march of the seasons goes forward and school begins anew. And rather than spending summer evenings relaxing in the warmth of the season, it's time to buckle down and get back to work - and studying.

I don't think too many people like studying, although certainly the rewards can be great. Studying is something you have to do - it's generally necessary for the genuine acquisition of complex knowledge. Given that - how can you make your studying more effective?

Well, it's apparently not teaching styles.

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

And, it's shocking to see that it's apparently not teaching style either. This scandalous finding is sure to be overturned. 

Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere..."

So what do we know about learning?  Well, when you look at what individual behaviors can be used to promote learning, there are some easy to institute behaviors that can help you retain the most bang for your studying buck.

For instance, one helpful technique is to change study location. Generally, advice about performance suggests that one should pick a quiet, uncluttered location and dedicate it to studying. Research, however, seems to indicate that switching locations aids retention, perhaps by encouraging your mind to make multiple associations to material for each of the locations in which you studied, rather than just one.

Switch it up too. Rather than spending all your study block on one subjects, break subjects into short blocks. And while everyone knows that cramming may help for short term memory, it seems to fade rapidly once the test is over. However, people may not realize how strong this effect is. It really matters. Theorists suggest that it may be because when you revisit information, you have to reorient yourself to where you were - kind of like reading a few pages of the book you half forgot over so that you remember where the plot was going. And that process reinforces the material.

“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”

Last, practice tests and quizzes can be a powerful means of increasing retention. They show you where your information is lacking, and force you to review materials.

 Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.

So here's hoping for a productive term that makes maximal use of your study time.  

I'll be back momentarily...

I apologize for my long absence. I just completed a move cross-country to Virginia Wesleyan College, where I accepted a position as a faculty member.

No more drizzly Portland days and earnest baristas for me, no more Powell's and the cold and lovely coast, fewer bridges. No more snowy mountains on the horizon, and no roses blooming wild everywhere you look.

I'm sure I will discover great things here too though.

I'll be back to posting on a regular basis. Momentarily.


Moments from Everynone on Vimeo.

In honor of the 4th...

Have a great weekend!

Philosophy

The Nietzsche Family Circus


Idleness is the parent of psychology


The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.

Mapping the Brain in Decline

Alzheimer's is a nasty disease, resulting in progressive, permanent, neurological deterioration, leading eventually to dementia - and the loss of the unique you that existed before the disease - even if your heart remains strong and your body robust. The causes and progression of Alzheimer's are not well understood.

One of the reasons research in Alzheimer's has been hampered is because of a lack of a reliable method to diagnose it. Alzheimer's is diagnosed with a constellation of symptoms, including memory loss, mood swings, aggression, symptoms of mental decline, and, most notably, amyloid plaques on the brain. Amyloid plaques - bunches of protein fibers in the gray matter of the brain - are necessary for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's, but testing for their presence was not possible until after the person died and their brain could be examined in an autopsy.

A new study shows great promise in the detection of these plaques, however. In this research, radioactive dye is injected into the brain.  This "lights up" the plaques in brain scans, and therefore makes them viewable. This is important for a variety of reasons.

Brain scans that showed plaque could help with some fundamental questions — who has or is getting Alzheimer’s, whether the disease ever stops or slows down on its own and even whether plaque is the main culprit causing brain cell death.

Being able to accurately diagnose Alzheimer's would be pivotal in the development of means by which to combat its effects. For example, we might be able to identify people who were in the process of getting Alzheimer's - a breakthrough that could provide help to people before declines begin. It would also give us more information about whether or not new drugs developed to treat it were working.

But my favorite part of this emerging research? The creativity and tenacity of the scientists who conducted the study. The FDA insisted that proof be supplied that the amyloid plaques being detected in the brain scans are the same as the ones that are identified in the brains of dead Alheimer's patients. How can a researcher collect this information in a reasonable amount of time, given that patients with Alzheimer's often survive for decades after the initial diagnosis is made? Well, the researchers came up with a solution to this - conduct research on participants in a hospice, close to death and nearing their final stop in the march of life. While some criticized this initially as being unethical or demeaning to potential participants, the research was allowed to proceed (and from accounts, people were glad to participate). And the research worked. And now, because of this, a new technique to monitor a terrible disease is within our sights.

Science is not pure. It is shaped and molded by pragmatic and ethical constraints. The trick is not just knowing what to study, but how to go about doing so in a way that is both scientifically valid, ethically justifiable, and practically possible. Kudos to this research team for their ingenuity.

Dubious Inventions

The 10 most ridiculous college courses.

My dad, who is a college professor too, used to tease me sometimes about courses I took in college that did not meet his standards of academic rigor.  His favorite joke was to call them all "Underwater Basket Weaving."

In that same spirit, just a little comic relief  before the final.  By the way, Human Development is most certainly NOT ridiculous and NOT in this category at all.

Parrots and Scientists

There is some evidence that much as we are wired for language, and much as language is part and parcel of our humanity, music may also be coded in our neurobiology. Brain imaging suggests that the way we process musical "grammar" is akin to how we process language - the circuits overlap, the patterns mix together, language and music intertwine.

So our love of music may have something to do with our ear for the prosody - the beat and rhythm and tempo and pitch - of language. Oddly enough, we are not the only animals to enjoy a beat even though we are the only species with true generative language. Snowball the dancing cockatoo's rhythmic dancing to the Backstreet Boys' suggests that although other species may not have the best musical taste, they might share the joy of moving their bodies to a tune. Before Snowball's example emerged, it was considered to be a uniquely human behavior.

Although perhaps not one scientists are all that good at, as the following video illustrates nicely.

On getting older.

The brain. 
Not as bad as it was once thought to be, and even better than young brains at some things.

The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns, and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.

How do we keep it sharp?  Exercise, health, good relationship, and a bit of healthy disagreement apparently.

Happiness.
And there's more good news.

On the global measure [of happiness], people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than when they were 18.

So hang in there if things are rough. Your knees may go, your back may ache, and you may need to cock your ear towards conversations to hear what people say. But apparently happiness is built out of more.

Sex.
And remember how I mentioned in class today that people except for my parents of course still have sex when they enter later adulthood? Here's some advice on how to get your groove on (pretty sfw by the way, despite the youtube warning).

A world opens

Here, a baby, hearing his mother's voice for the first time after a cochlear implant is activated, smiles in response. It will make your heart explode is very cute.

Links! Extra Credit! And more!

Hi all,
Two quick links.

First, a link to a questionnaires about the use of the ECHO video podcast system I used to videotape this quarter's lectures. Please note that this is not my questionnaire, but one being conducted by the university to find out how students feel about the system.  If you liked the video podcasts and want to see more of them, or if you hated them and want to see less, here's your chance to have your voice heard.  This questionnaire is not for extra credit.

Second, a link to a study being conducted by one of the graduate students in the Psychology Department at Portland State on personality and work.  You can earn a point of extra credit for completing it - just make sure you enter your first and last name at the end, as well as the class you are completing it for (this info will not be linked to your survey responses).

And then just for the hell of it, a video link.  Give it 90 seconds.  Really.  It just gets crazy.

Learning from our Enemies

We hear a lot nowadays about bullying; how to stop it, what it does to children, how it's linked to bad things like depression and suicide, and how the fast clip of technology and open world of social networking has led to the extension of these bad behaviors online.  But is it always bad?  Can we learn something from our enemies?

Well, most of the work on children who are rejected in childhood - children who are not liked by other kids - suggests that they are low in social competence, aggressive and depressed, and that many of these effects may persist on a relatively long-term basis. Not good.

But a new article in the New York Times suggests that these effects may be overstated, at least for the majority of children.  As it turns out, the research on our childhood enemies may have been skewed by our focus on rejected children.  Chronically disliked, highly aggressive, often impulsive and hostile - these children are a special, smaller group and may not accurately represent the influence of our more moderate adversaries. Many many of us had enemies in our childhood years - the mean kid, the one who threw your lunch or called you names, the friend who turned against you and laughed in your face, the foe who spread nasty rumors about you.  But most of us turn out okay.  In fact, not just okay.  Those interactions with our enemies may have actually led to increases in our social competence.  They may have actually helped us.

“Friendships provide a context in which children develop, but of course so do negative peer relations,” said Maurissa Abecassis, a psychologist at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire. “We should expect that both types of relationships, as different as they are, present opportunities for growth.”

But how can this be?  What might enemies be teaching us? Well, we will always encounter people we dislike - the infinite variability of those around us ensures that to be true. And there will always be people who don't like us. Being able to identify this and respond appropriately is a skill, and it is a skill that can be honed in childhood as we navigate the land mines of the social world.  If someone hates you, it's actually adaptive to realize that and not waste energy on trying to be friends - a process that may ultimately be for naught.  And a shared enemy?  We've known for a long time that that helps us to strengthen our social bonds with our allies.

So we don't have to like our childhood enemies.  But we should perhaps thank them for teaching us some important, if unpleasant lessons.

Infant Perception

Here, a short video on prenatal and early influences on taste preferences in young children.

Extra Credit: Undergraduate Assessment

Give your opinions about instructors, course offerings and advising.  And EXTRA CREDIT.  2 points to be specific.

Undergraduate Assessment Survey

Back to work.

So you want to be a teacher?

Information on becoming a teacher in Oregon is here, for those interested in that path.

Theory Shmeary

So you know how sometimes people complain about theories being just a theory?  You know, as opposed to a law?  Ever wondered what that really meant?

Theories are organized sets of hypotheses, organized sets of whys laid out in an attempt to understand some group of facts that have been observed. In scientific terms at least, theories have stronger support and explanatory power than laws.  Good theories are testable, they can be shown to be wrong, or if we are lucky good and careful scientists, perhaps on the road to right. So theory schmeary and all that.

And, in scientific terms at least, "law" doesn't mean quite the same thing as in everyday speech.  In everyday speech, laws are rules we are supposed to obey - things we have to do but sometimes don't or things we get in trouble for doing.  By contrast, in scientific terminology laws are descriptions of things that happen.  They are primarily observatory in nature, meaning they tell us what happens under a certain set of circumstances.  Apple rolls off head, apple falls.  It tells us the what of what happened.  But - and here's a crucial part - it doesn't tell us the why, and that's because we generally don't understand why they happened, we just know that they do. So in terms of evidence and explanatory power, theories are the better bet.

However, in the spirit of internet memes, let me pass on for you a PSA recently forwarded to me about a law you should follow.

Because seatbelts?  Not just a good idea.  The LAW.

Research Internship at OHSU

Research Intern

Oregon Health Science University, Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory http://www.ohsu.edu/sleeplab
The Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory at OHSU conducts studies on human circadian rhythm disorders, including experiments testing the effectiveness of properly-timed doses of melatonin to treat such disorders in totally blind people.  Other research studies include work in circadian misalignment in non-seasonal major depression and the genetics of morning and evening types.

We are currently looking for one or more psychology, biology or pre-med students to assist in various levels of the research process, including data entry and analysis, literature searches, transcribing sleep diaries, filing journal articles, and preparing materials for research subjects. This position may also require interaction with research subjects, including recruitment and screening.  Good communication skills and attention to detail are required. Knowledge of computer application software (Word, Excel) is preferred.  This position is an unpaid internship.  To apply for this position, please submit cover letter and resume to Amber Laurie at sleeplab@ohsu.edusleeplab@ohsu.edu>.