light blogging until next week. food for thought while i'm away:

as brain imaging spreads to nonmedical uses, will commerce overtake ethics?

Labels: neuroscience

robby's great, but will there come a time when machines will become a little too useful? science fiction has warned of this for years. a particular twilight zone episode, "the brain center at mr. whipple's," featuring a cameo by my roomba's namesake robby the robot, comes to mind...

mr. whipple automates his entire factory, right down to his secretary. predictably, he is replaced by a robot by the board of directors who, we can assume, would later replace themselves, making humans obsolete. mr. in whipple's final soliloquy he laments (i'm paraphrasing), "a man has value! a man has worth! it isn't fair - the way they diminish us."

then a final word from the narrator:

There are many bromides applicable here.... The point is that too often man becomes clever instead of becoming wise, he becomes inventive and not thoughtful - and sometimes, in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence.

in an recent ap article, a farmer seems to be doing just that, but doesn't seem to mind:

But Watkins doesn't see it that way. Advancements in agriculture have eliminated a lot of back-breaking work. The hours are still long, but much time is now spent managing and marketing the business.

"I don't want to go back to using horses and old tractors," he said. "I don't want to shovel manure by hand. To me, that's ludicrous."

the machines allow him to do more of the pleasant work, basically. the concern with this kind of automation is about control and utility. if they do the same job as we do, and better, can we replace ourselves completely? what will be our value if all of our tasks can be more cheaply done by a robby? this technophobia is common, aggravated by concerns about the new fly-eating robot.

we are always trying to find suitable replacements for ourselves. classical mechanic/architect heron of alexandria even constructed a fully automated play. modern attempts include my robby and cgi films like the incredibles and final fantasy.

perhaps i'm naive to disregard concerns about such endeavors. but really, the fascination with robots is not because we see little value in humans -it's quite the opposite. there's a good reason why robots have not yet replaced humans. partly, of course, technology has not yet advanced enough, but mainly i think humans will remain the ultimate commodity. we are so obsessed with ourselves, our humanness, that we are one technology that will never expire.

mr. whipple was right that we do have worth, but i don't think technology is a diminisher, but rather a homage.

plus, it's really cool.

for more crazy robot stuff, check out isaac asimov.

as a semi-related aside, isn't google awesome? having no clue what the episode title was, i typed in "'twilight zone' +whipple" and the first option had exactly what i needed. what an intelligent program. that reminds me of a new term i learned:

google-slap: verb. to reply to one's question with a link to the answer in the form of a google search results page.

update: i can't vacuum without a computer, and apparently i can't spell without one either.

Labels: social

and it's all thanks to my new pet.

i am now the proud owner of a roomba irobot, and i can't say enough good things about him. despite the fact that he tried to eat my chuck taylors yesterday and once got lost under my bed and refused to come out, he's quite useful. he's my new favorite thing.

excepting the above minor issues, he's fairly autonomous. when he's finished or tired, he scurries back to his base to recharge. by placing sensors in front of off-limits areas i help him stay out of trouble, and he can automatically detect and avoid stairs as well. on top of all that, he's quieter and more thorough than my manual (read: abandoned! obsolete!) vacuum.

i predict that someday roombas will be a convenience many are accustomed to, akin to the dishwasher. it reminds me of my great grandfather, who was a collector and always needed the latest gadget. because of this he was the first in the neighborhood to have a clothes washer. although it was wooden, loud, and smelly (it used gasoline for fuel), his wife agreed it was better than the alternative: doing it herself. the invention freed her to do other more rewarding things with her time.

i'm afraid i don't use the time gained by robby - yes i've named him - as productively as i could, although last night he cleaned while i took a shower and read half a book. yay for technology!

in case you were wondering, today is the worst day of the year.

of course, individuals vary. you can calculate your own worst day with alan cohen's handy formula:

1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

W: Weather
D: Debt
d: Money due in January pay
T: Time since Christmas
Q: Time since failed quit attempt
M: General motivational levels
NA: The need to take action

i'll stick with january 24 and get it over with at the beginning of the year, thankyouverymuch.

Labels: social

there's more than one way to be smart, and men and women do it differently.

new research suggests that women and men derive their intelligence from disparate areas and types of brain matter. men derive their intelligence from information-processing gray matter throughout the left hemisphere, whereas women's brainpower hails primarily from the connective white matter in the frontal lobe.

this could be a key to understanding sex differences in performance tasks that utilize less connectivity, such as physics, and more, such as language. i'd like to see results from women in non-traditional fields requiring this "male" type of processing and vice versa. were they born with aberrant brains? and are male and female brains distinct from infancy, or could society have a hand in shaping these differences?

equally interesting, however, the results suggest

that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance. (quoted from the abstract)

this comes out of further study of data gained this summer when the same folks reported that the more of gray matter present, the better, as far as intelligence went, and that intelligence is dispersed throughout the brain.

reference: haier, rj, jung, re, yeo, ra, head, k, and alkire, mt. the neuroanatomy of general intelligence: sex matters. neuroimage, in press.

Labels: neuroscience

researchers may have just discovered a way to add countless years to the lives of alzheimer's patients. much of the dementia caused by alzheimer's disease is thought to be caused by beta-amyloid plaques that "clog up" the brain and prevent normal functioning, even killing surrounding cells. researchers found that injecting antibodies into rat brains clears up a significant amount of this plaque and even allowed recovery of old brain structure.

although plaque is a symptom, not the cause, of the debilitating neurological disorder, it could fend off debilitating effects of the disease for years.

Labels: neuroscience

the out-of-body experience has now been linked to the temporoparietal junction (tpj), a small area behind the ear. this supernatural phenomenon was induced in the lab by tpj activation, and was prevented by temporarily arresting tpj activity. results suggest that this area helps define the self:

These results suggest that the TPJ is a crucial structure for the conscious experience of the normal self, mediating spatial unity of self and body, and also suggest that impaired processing at the TPJ may lead to pathological selves such as OBEs.

this study indicates that a brain center is required for unity of mind and body, and that the tpj is it.

sorry descartes, it wasn't the pineal gland after all!

Labels: neuroscience

memories may not be as permanent or centralized as once thought, say neuroscientists routtenberg and rekart. they propose that a memory appears permanent not because it is anchored in one area, but because its malleable, transient imprint is housed in multitudinous circuits across the brain.

this my help explain inconsistent memory loss in alzheimer's disease. as neural circuits are destroyed by plaque it may become more difficult, yet still possible, to retrieve memories. could this model also explain how difficult it is to change someone's mind? it seems logical that the more places a piece of data is stored, the harder it would be to uproot.

routtenberg and rekart challenge the commonly accepted theory of memory formation, arguing that instead of synthesizing new proteins to store memories the brain simply modifies existing ones. the theory following from this is elegant:

To maintain some residue of this modification, Routtenberg proposes that the "spontaneous activity" of the brain actually acts to "cryptically rehearse" past events. So, long-term memory storage relies on a positive-feedback rehearsal system that continually updates or fine-tunes post-translational modification of previously modified synaptic proteins. It is in this manner that this model allows for the continual modifications of memories.

basically, memories are continually modified. scary, no?

side note: routtenberg seems the model of the humble approach to science i opined about yesterday:

We would assert that there is enough substance both in the concerns raised and in [this model] to energize the search for yet more plausible models of long-term memory storage, and to redirect and reinvigorate the quest to understand the brain substrates of information storage.

Labels: neuroscience

nature.com reports:

...women who had the equivalent of one drink a day had a 23% lower risk of becoming mentally impaired during the two-year period, compared with non-drinkers.

sweet. now alcohol is not only good for the heart, but also the brain.

other vices have not faired so well in recently published research. don't, whatever you do, eat red meat (unless you're a pessimist ).

Labels: neuroscience

the evolution textbook sticker, recently banned, has gotten much unwarranted criticism (despite it's scientific inaccuracy). the sticker states that evolution is a "theory, not a fact," and should be examined critically. at common knowledge, scott beaulier worries that it encourages "students to discount evolutionary explanations." he asks,

What happens when they get to their first college biology class and make the "just a theory" argument in class?

what will happen to that student? she may be laughed at, but she will learn a lot, too, if she has a good professor. the point is not whether or not she believes in evolution in the end. the point is that her belief would be the result of a conversation, a dialogue, which is what science should be. science is not passive. we do not just absorb it - we do it.

it's silly to worry that a sticker directing students to think critically leads to discount of the theory. evolutionary theory is rigorous, makes common sense, and has stood the test of time. those truly in favor of science should welcome its examination. that's how science itself evolves, and it should be encouraged.

critical examination of scientific assumptions should be more broadly applied in schools, and not just to evolution.

exempli gratia, the bohr shell model of the atom. in junior high i was taught point-blank that this was how an atom looked, but bohr's model was disproved long ago and replaced with a more rigorous, accurate, theory about electron clouds. yet it was taught with such confidence, such arrogance. no one even mentioned it was up for debate. such is the state of education in general; don't question, just swallow.

i see others' points that diversity of education could help us solve this problem, but teaching some students one theory and others another doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. the best education would expose everyone to each scientific theory, and then let students poke the holes in it themselves, if they can.

why only every scientific theory? it doesn't make sense to teach religion in science class - most agree on that. divorced from religion, intelligent design would begin and end with the statement, "some people think that an intelligent creator may have done it instead." anything more is neither appropriate for science class nor to the advantage of any religion sect.

taking a more humble approach to knowledge seems a better solution, and shouldn't be applied only to the sciences.

researchers at oregon state university think they may have discovered scientific evidence of the bromide, "love is blind." frank bernieri et al. asked volunteers to identify couples in love, and results were compared to whether or not volunteers were actually in love themselves. the results are surprising:

'Overall, we simply could not find any common attributes among those were who very good at this - other than the fact that they were not in love at the time of the study. The ironic part was discovering that people who were most in love were most confident in their ability.

'But as it turned out,' Bernieri said, 'they were so blind in their love they turned out to be wrong more often than right.'

...

Bernieri said what likely happens is that couples in love tend to project some of their own theories and attitudes about love onto others. Or they may identify certain behaviors by other couples - snuggling, a hand on the knee, intense eye contact - and attribute them to true, long-lasting companionate love instead of, say, infatuation or lust.

as far as i know, "blind love" is not a validated psychological phenomenon, although it is a catchy research agenda. perhaps further study could reveal some truth to this folklore, but there could be a another explanation for this phenomenon.

most singles are at least open to the possibility of finding a partner and monitor their environs for signals from potential mates. this probably takes up a nontrivial amount of brainpower. in contrast, most individuals in love no longer require this monitoring mechanism. perhaps they have "turned off" this device and devoted that brainpower to other activities. if one is in a relationship, it is more efficient to devote that energy to other pursuits, such as maintaining the relationship, than constantly monitoring the environment for signals. it may not be an ability we can turn on and off consciously. so, singles would be better at identifying signals of true love, as they are more attuned to them...

Labels: social

this month’s american psychological society observer has a fantastic satirical article by paul rozin about the anti-obesity movement’s use of government action. it's short and worth a read. the article precedes the observer’s feature on the obesity "epidemic".

the latter article cites quantity of food consumed for much of america's heft, and surprisingly points to the government as part of the cause. subsidies, the article explains, prompted discovery of that diet evil high fructose corn syrup, whose use is blamed for much of america's weight gain. subsidies also prompt farmers to overproduce, and

"You sell the food by sweetening it, by offering it in larger portions, and by promoting it very heavily," [Kelly] Brownell explained

the government has been trying for years to make food affordable for lower-income sectors, but they may have inadvertently caused a health condition that is now considered the main cause of disability and death.

arguments for and against government intervention in weight control are featured, including portion size regulation and a junk food tax. rozin comes to the rescue in the end:

Better, he said, "to develop strategies in which the food industry's interest is the interest of public health," as happened when consumers demanded low-fat and "low-carb" foods: The industry rapidly obliged.

"They want to make money," Rozin said. "We need to make that serve the interests of public health. We're in a peculiar situation now, where food companies that try to reduce the American food size put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Here's our situation: We have all this really good, highly dense food, and it's all over the place, and it's cheap. And we have no cultural restraint."

While Rozin conceded it's "probably a bad idea" to promote sugar snacks, "I don't like the idea too much of government saying what you can advertise, unless it's clearly harmful. The question is what choices you make. We need to set up a world more like the French have - one in which it is easier to walk and harder to snack or to stuff yourself. I don't have a simple solution, but I don't think legislation is the way to go."

such words are rarely strung together in psychology.

reference: rozin, paul. "a history of eating." observer, 18:1 and hebert, richard. "the weight is over." observer, 18:1

alina is the king - some girls get all the luck. i am some forest-queen-fairy something-or-other, galadriel.

the quiz judges:

Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.

"selflessly." hm. does this mean i can no longer be a libertarian?

Labels: personal

tobacco companies have recently introduced new flavors such as "warm winter toffee." michigan's surgeon general and department of community health aren't having it, and asked rj reynolds to stop marketing this product. the ap article also cites massachusetts' persecution of yummy smokes, where the state claimed that it violates a law prohibiting marketing of their product to youth. matt myers of campaign for tobacco-free kids chimes in:

It's essential that states concerned about smoking among children take aggressive action to call attention to this outrageous conduct.

when is improving your product for adults not outrageous conduct? when is advertising to adults not also advertising to youth? rj reynolds is criticized for marketing cigarettes in magazines such as cosmopolitan and glamour because they target youth. i read those magazines on occasion, and if my kids were reading that crap, i would have more to worry about than cigarette ads.

studies reveal that the negative impact of tv violence can be negated with effective parental mediation. we may be able to apply the same lesson to marketing of "bad" substances. parents would do better to take an active role in their kid's behaviors, instead of hoping - and legislating - that they are not exposed to negative influences.

of course, those advocating such legislation aren’t only concerned about their children. advocates are well aware that some parents won’t talk to their kids about the harms of smoking, so legislation is the next best thing. in fact, some parents actually enjoy smoking. seeing a parent or other adult role model smoking is the best cigarette ad for a kid – if the state stops that, it will probably reduce teen smoking more than all other methods combined.

Labels: social

let's suppose, as prominent psychologists have done, that the market produces not only goods and services, but also a great deal of malcontent by promoting materialism. i'd counter that point, but let's just suppose it, worst-case-scenario, for now. psychologists promote this theory not in spite of, but party because of, the observation that markets create more wealth than competing economic systems. so to simplify: markets => surplus wealth => materialism => unhappiness.

natural disasters, such as the recent tsunami, are horrific and cause profound damage both physically and psychologically. add to these observations and theories the correlation that wealthier and more market-oriented nations have are not impacted as severely by disasters, natural and otherwise. the inconceivable dearth of well-being resulting from disaster might outweigh the benefits of a non-materialistic, non-market, society unable to cope with disaster as well.

the problem with many well-being studies (especially the recent day-by-day studies) is that they do not account for major life events and their ongoing impact on every day well-being. events such as the tsunami will impact the people of those regions for decades to come, mostly for the worse. a child's college graduation may generate such a high volume of happiness that in net sum cancels out unhappiness due to the banal daily rearing tasks, tipping the scales in favor of children on the net making parents happy. so yes, perhaps some daily transactions in the market make us unhappy - but let's not forget the overall picture.

the market has the best record of meeting the most essential levels of maslow's hierarchy of needs, even during times of crisis. for market pessimists, we can think of it as an insurance system. although we may pay in a certain percentage of happiness for materialism due to markets (a debatable premise), we gain when disaster strikes. and the gain may make it worth it.

Labels: well being

stephen pinker responds to the question, "what do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?":

At the level of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, critics have pointed to the apparent homogeneity of the cerebral cortex and of the seeming interchangeability of cortical tissue in experiments in which patches of cortex are rewired or transplanted in animals. I believe that the homogeneity is an illusion, owing to the fact that the brain is a system for information processing. Just as all books look the same to someone who does not understand the language in which they are written (since they are all composed of different arrangements of the same alphanumeric characters), and the DVD's of all movies look the same under a microscope, the cortex may look homogeneous to the eye but nonetheless contain different patterns of connectivity and synaptic biases that allow it to compute very different functions.

few truer works have been spoken about neuroscience in quite a while, in my humble opinion. it's food for thought- neuroscientists should be humbled by how little they really know. i think pinker gets it right here that it's not necessarily the parts, but the connectivity between parts, that is key to the emergent properties of the mind. his answer points to network theory.

but this seems a redundant question - asking scientists what they cannot prove. i'd argue that most of the people on this list fill books and papers full of things they believe but cannot prove. we all have faith in what we hope for, and certainty in what we do not see. such is the nature of the scientific method, is it not?

thanks to jacob and marginal revolution for the link to the world quesiton center.

Labels: neuroscience

although my title for this post is a bit sarcastic, dante chialvo and his colleagues at northwestern university have actually come up with a neat model for brain communication. this model is based on computer, social, and biochemical network theory. just as stanley milgram found with social networks, there are very few points connecting any two parts of the brain, which this could be guessed by the brain's rapid processing abilities. as with milgram's experiment, some of these connection points then act as hubs, disseminating information to the relevant parts of the brain. unlike the gossip network, information goes only where it's beneficial, unless, i assume, there's a malfunction.

scientists have a penchant for comparing the brain's function to the most advanced form of technology available. we're getting closer to understanding the brain, but i'd wager that we're still a long ways off.

Labels: neuroscience

planting memories in subject's heads about past food dislikes may make them less willing to eat those foods, famed memory researcher elizabeth loftus says. forbes.com reports:

Raising the prospect of weight loss through mind control, researchers report they may have successfully planted false memories about bad food experiences into the minds of ordinary people.

planting false memories seems dangerous, but if it works to prevent someone from killing themselves with oreos, its benefits would outweigh the risks. i wonder if planting false memories about drugs could curb addiction?

before and during meditation, tibetan monks displayed astoundingly increased brain wave activity, in particular in the left prefrontal cortex (lpc). this area is associated with many things, including positive affect. the longer they’d been meditating, the higher the levels.

the results of this study make a lot of sense. just like any other part of one’s body, if you train and use it regularly, it will perform in a different manner. until now, no one knew exactly what aspects of the brain monks were training.

chronically depressed individuals have lower activation in the lpc. in children, it’s silence has been implicated in attention deficit disorder – in fact, adderall stimulates the lpc, among other areas. its absence has even been implicated in turning a patient’s bipolar disorder into schizophrenia. this finding is a breakthrough - by practicing one may be able to increase its activity and possibly, therefore, reduce the above abnormalities naturally.

but perhaps i'm getting ahead of myself. a cautionary note comes from the researcher's own work. in a recent study (pdf), richard davison found no change in lpc activity when he trained students to meditate, which he attributes to the short duration and/or intensity of meditation. students did, however, show less anxiety and more blood antibodies.

thanks to john for the link!

Labels: neuroscience, well being

a woman in utah is being denied a permit to open a colonic (ew!) business in her home:

The Providence Planning Commission recently recommended denial of Yates' request for a permit to operate Alternatives in Health in her home. Planning commissioners said they wanted to avoid setting a precedent of allowing medically oriented businesses in residential neighborhoods.

although she stood up to their questioning regarding safety and sanitary procedures, the council is sticking to their guns:

"I haven't heard anything negative about it - and I've been asking - but I think it belongs in a chiropractic office," said Commissioner Kristina Lamborn, who voted to recommend denying the permit. "I feel very strongly about that."

granted, the businesswoman should have checked with the licensing board before investing $40,000 in the business. it's just a shame she has lost her investment because of a feeling, and a misguided planning policy separating businesses from residential areas. it's funny how some areas force mixed-use, and others prohibit it.

perhaps ij can help?