Psychology Research

Sorry, Nina, but I think I need to copy and paste the entire thing here: Spring is here and it’s time to talk to strangers. On Sunday April 5, I’ll be conducting a collaborative experiment with 15 intrepid University of Washington graduate students, and I’d like to invite you to join in from your own hometown. April 5 is the first day of a class I’m teaching called Social Technology, in which we are focusing on designing an exhibition that features social objects, that is, exhibits or artifacts that inspire interpersonal dialogue. To kick off the course, we’re doing a simple exercise at the Seattle zoo (but you can do it anywhere). The experiment requires you to go to a public space and do three things: 1. Talk to a stranger. 2. Get two strangers talking to each other. 3. Make and install an object or condition which motivates two strangers to talk to each other without your intervention/involvement. That is, you should be able to watch the strangers talk to each other about the designed social object you have created without being directly involved in the action. The point of this experiment is to play with design conditions that support both facilitated and unfacilitated engagement with strangers. This is something I am obsessively curious about. And while I’ve been exploring venues, situations, and apparel that serve as social objects, I’ve found few examples of explicitly designed social objects. Most social objects that mediate conversation among strangers are incidental. For example, my dog, while a highly evolved social matchmaking device, is not deliberately designed for that task. I believe that focusing specifically on the social capacity of an object, rather than its content or interpretation, yields new design techniques for museum exhibits and other participatory spaces. There are three reasons you might value this activity: 1. It will be fun and kind of unusual. 2. It will help you understand the challenges involved in supporting user self-expression. 3. It will help you develop ways to encourage inter-visitor dialogue and engagement around objects in your institution. And there are three reasons I’d really value your participation: 1. I want to suck your brain and revel in your inventiveness. 2. I want to aggregate all the data, synthesize it and share it. More data means more interesting, nuanced conclusions for everyone. 3. I want to connect these students to a larger group of people interested in exploring topics around social technology in museums. If you want to participate, please leave a comment here or send me an email at nina@museumtwo.com. You don’t have to be a museum person or have any qualifications beyond your interest in participating and documenting your experience. I recommend performing the experiment with friends or family to enhance both the fun and safety of the activities. Do not use plunk your cute baby down in the park, walk away, and call it a social object. You have to actually design something–a sign, an incident, an object, an environment. It’s ok if you fail as long as you try. We’ll learn as much from the social objects that don’t work as from the ones that are astounding successes. Participants will be asked to write up their experiences (photos/video enthusiastically supported!), which will all be featured on a dedicated website. We’ll also be live-twittering the experiment on April 5 using the hashtag #strangemuse. I’ll produce a report that will be shared here on the Museum 2.0 blog. And if you happen to be in the Seattle area, I invite you to join us for a post-experiment dinner on April 5, location TBD (suggestions welcome). So how about it? Ready for a stranger April? Read the comments on this post…

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: The Economist discusses whether the famous Dunbar number, the maximum limit of human relationships , holds on Facebook. A person who experienced the identity loss memory disorder dissociative fugue is interviewed in The New York Times . BBC News reports that Malaysia is attempting to curb its suicide rate by planning to arrest those who attempt suicide. Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel asks what is an illusion , exactly? Neuronarrative reports on a new study finding people tend to view leaders more favourably once they’ve died! Drug giant and makers of Seroquel (quetiapine) lied about their data showing that the antipsychotic drug isn’t as effective as its competitors, reports the Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry blog. The New York Times reports on research showing that interrupting an experience, whether dreary or pleasant, can make it significantly more intense. The US Army’s group of ‘weaponised anthropologists’, the Human Terrain System, get slammed by a Marine Corps major in a military publication. Wired has the story. The Onion , on news that a Lovecraftian school board member wants madness added to the curriculum. C’thulhu fhtagn! Science News reports on a new study that links the genetics of Autism and bellyaches. A long and confusing article on why minds are not like computers is published in The New Atlantis . Would greatly benefit from the insights from philosophy of mind. Nature has an excellent article on the sociology of science and why we need a third way after the extremes of hard scientific realism and social constructionism. By the always interesting Harry Collins. Gender effects in children’s play are seen in virtual worlds, reports Science News . Furious Seasons reports on a recent study looking at the (large) placebo effect in studies of antidepressant treatment for adolescent depression. Is patriotism a subconscious way for humans to avoid disease? asks the always engaging Carl Zimmer in Discover Magazine . The Guardian reports on research suggesting that some people who suffer stroke develop PTSD after their experience. Texting is associated with superior reading skills in children, reports the BPS Research Digest . The New York Times has an interesting article looking at the psychology of rewarding students for study or good performance in light of mixed evidence of how effective the practice is. ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor has programme on how errors of grammar, punctuation and inaccurate scientific terminology can complicate important social issues. Dr Shock covers some interesting research on the pros and cons on using PowerPoint presentations in teaching for learning by students. Also from Dr Shock an awesome video showing how some stunning 3D illusion street art was created. The New York Times reports that skin cells from people with Parkinson’s disease have been converted in a test tube to dopamine neurons.

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: The Economist discusses whether the famous Dunbar number, the maximum limit of human relationships , holds on Facebook. A person who experienced the identity loss memory disorder dissociative fugue is interviewed in The New York Times . BBC News reports that Malaysia is attempting to curb its suicide rate by planning to arrest those who attempt suicide. Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel asks what is an illusion , exactly? Neuronarrative reports on a new study finding people tend to view leaders more favourably once they’ve died! Drug giant and makers of Seroquel (quetiapine) lied about their data showing that the antipsychotic drug isn’t as effective as its competitors, reports the Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry blog. The New York Times reports on research showing that interrupting an experience, whether dreary or pleasant, can make it significantly more intense. The US Army’s group of ‘weaponised anthropologists’, the Human Terrain System, get slammed by a Marine Corps major in a military publication. Wired has the story. The Onion , on news that a Lovecraftian school board member wants madness added to the curriculum. C’thulhu fhtagn! Science News reports on a new study that links the genetics of Autism and bellyaches. A long and confusing article on why minds are not like computers is published in The New Atlantis . Would greatly benefit from the insights from philosophy of mind. Nature has an excellent article on the sociology of science and why we need a third way after the extremes of hard scientific realism and social constructionism. By the always interesting Harry Collins. Gender effects in children’s play are seen in virtual worlds, reports Science News . Furious Seasons reports on a recent study looking at the (large) placebo effect in studies of antidepressant treatment for adolescent depression. Is patriotism a subconscious way for humans to avoid disease? asks the always engaging Carl Zimmer in Discover Magazine . The Guardian reports on research suggesting that some people who suffer stroke develop PTSD after their experience. Texting is associated with superior reading skills in children, reports the BPS Research Digest . The New York Times has an interesting article looking at the psychology of rewarding students for study or good performance in light of mixed evidence of how effective the practice is. ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor has programme on how errors of grammar, punctuation and inaccurate scientific terminology can complicate important social issues. Dr Shock covers some interesting research on the pros and cons on using PowerPoint presentations in teaching for learning by students. Also from Dr Shock an awesome video showing how some stunning 3D illusion street art was created. The New York Times reports that skin cells from people with Parkinson’s disease have been converted in a test tube to dopamine neurons.

mindhacks.com is now on twitter . You can find us at /mindhacksblog . Our rss is piped to twitter via the magic of twitterfeed . Thanks to Brent for the suggestion.

Background Cerebral activation during planning of reaching movements occurs both in the superior parietal lobule (SPL) and premotor cortex (PM), and their activation seems to take place in parallel. Methodology The activation of the SPL and PM has been investigated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during planning of reaching movements under visual guidance. Principal Findings A facilitory effect was found when TMS was delivered on the parietal cortex at about half of the time from sight of the target to hand movement, independently of target location in space. Furthermore, at the same stimulation time, a similar facilitory effect was found in PM, which is probably related to movement preparation. Conclusions This data contributes to the understanding of cortical dynamics in the parieto-frontal network, and suggests that it is possible to interfere with the planning of reaching movements at different cortical points within a particular time window. Since similar effects may be produced at similar times on both the SPL and PM, parallel processing of visuomotor information is likely to take place in these regions.

In response to a conditioning stress, the expression of a set of molecular chaperones called heat shock proteins is increased. In neurons, stress-induced and constitutively expressed molecular chaperones protect against damage induced by ischemia and neurodegenerative diseases, however the molecular basis of this protection is not known. Here we have investigated the crosstalk between stress-induced chaperones and cysteine string protein (CSPα). CSPα is a constitutively expressed synaptic vesicle protein bearing a J domain and a cysteine rich “string” region that has been implicated in the long term functional integrity of synaptic transmission and the defense against neurodegeneration. We have shown previously that the CSPα chaperone complex increases isoproterenol-mediated signaling by stimulating GDP/GTP exchange of Gα s . In this report we demonstrate that in response to heat shock or treatment with the Hsp90 inhibitor geldanamycin, the J protein Hsp40 becomes a major component of the CSPα complex. Association of Hsp40 with CSPα decreases CSPα-CSPα dimerization and enhances the CSPα-induced increase in steady state GTP hydrolysis of Gα s . This newly identified CSPα-Hsp40 association reveals a previously undescribed coupling of J proteins. In view of the crucial importance of stress-induced chaperones in the protection against cell death, our data attribute a role for Hsp40 crosstalk with CSPα in neuroprotection.

On Thursday, for Darwin’s 200th birthday, I went down to Raleigh to the Museum of Natural Science to hear Carl Zimmer’s talk. The room was packed – I got the last empty seat and there were people standing in the back. A very mixed audience, as Museum talks usually are – there were evolutionary biologists there from Nescent and the W.M.Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at NCSU, there were Museum staff, and then there were interested lay-people, museum-goers, with no formal background in science but interested and curious. It is not easy giving a talk to such a mixed audience – how to keep the jaded Evolution-warriors interested, while not going over the heads of the non-experts, but Carl delivered masterfully. After introducing briefly Darwin the person and his work, in broad brush-strokes, Carl did an interesting thing – he chose several stories and told us what Darwin thought and wrote about them, and what we now know due to recent exciting research: from evolution of whales, through human evolution, to bacteria and viruses. The result was that he did not tell but demonstrated two points: first, that Darwin was generally correct, and second, that evolutionary biology made tremendous strides over the past 150 years. With each story one was left to think – how cool Darwin would think the new findings are if he were suddenly resurrected and shown the data! The questions afterwards were good – not high-tech questions one would hear at a scientific conference, but good, thoughtful questions by lay audience, the kind often heard at Science Cafes. And only one question refered to the Culture Wars – how do we deal with the existence and influence of Creationists in the USA? If there were any Creationists in the audience, they certainly remained quiet and inconspicuous. Afterwards, Carl and I went back to Durham and joined a bunch of local bloggers, scientists and science communicators, Craig McClain , Anton Zuiker and Russ Campbell among others, for some food and beer at Tyler’s. Good time was had by all. Finally, you should also check Carl’s latest article in TIME: Evolving Darwin Read the comments on this post…

Just wait — this one will be featured in some cheesy Sci-Fi channel creature feature in a few months. Paleontologists have dug up a fossil boa that lived 58-60 million years ago. They haven’t found a complete skeleton, but there’s enough to get an estimate of the size. Look at these vertebrae! a , Type specimen (UF/IGM 1) in anterior view compared to scale with a precloacal vertebra from approximately 65% along the precloacal column of a 3.4 m Boa constrictor. Type specimen (UF/IGM 1) shown in posterior view ( b ), left lateral view ( c ) and dorsal view ( d ). Seven articulated precloacal vertebrae (UF/IGM 3) in dorsal view ( e ). Articulated precloacal vertebra and rib (UF/IGM 4) in anterior view ( f ). Precloacal vertebra (paratype specimen UF/IGM 2) in anterior view ( g ) and ventral view ( h ). Precloacal vertebra (UF/IGM 5) in anterior view ( i ) and posterior view ( j ). All specimens are to scale. Just to put it in perspective, the small pale blob between a and b in the photo above is an equivalent vertebra from an extant boa, which was 3.4 meters long. The extinct beast is estimated to have been about 13 meters long, weighing over 1100 kg (for us Americans, that’s 42 feet and 2500 pounds). This is a very big snake , the largest ever found. The authors used the size of this snake to estimate the temperature of this region of South America 60 million years ago. Snakes are poikilotherms, depending on external sources of heat to maintain a given level of metabolic activity, and so available temperature means are limiting factors on how large they can grow. By comparing this animal’s size to that of modern tropical snakes, and extrapolating from a measured curve of size to mean annual temperature, they were able to calculate that the average ambient temperature was 30-34°C (American cluestick: about 90°F); less than that, and this snake would have died. From other data, they know that the atmospheric CO 2 concentration at this time was about 2000 parts per million, and that the forests it lived in were thick, wet, and rainy. They also estimate that slightly later, about 56 million years ago, mean tropical temperatures would have soared to 38-40°C (102°F), and would have killed off many species. So there you go…this is one place I think I’d avoid if I had a time machine. It was a thick-aired, muggy, sweltering oven, with giant snakes crawling about. They were likely to have eaten large crocodilians, so I suspect a time-traveling human would be nothing but a quick hors d’ouevre. They’re still interesting, though, especially as an example of evolution and climate science meeting in a mutually revealing fashion. Head JJ, Block JI, Hastings AK, Bourque JR, Cadena EA, Herrera FA, Polly D, Jaramillo CA (2009) Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures. Nature 457(7230):715-718. Read the comments on this post…

I want to bring your attention to a somewhat dense and possibly inconclusive (but important) paper accompanied by a very informative overview in PLoS Biology, concerning mutations in the human genome. Mutation rates and patterns of mutation are important for a number of reasons. For one thing, the genome itself is a data set that is both broad and deep. There is a lot of information in a given individual genome (a haploid set of genes from a person, for instance) but there is a wide range of variation in that information. So, inferences or assertions regarding the nature and distribution of genes or their variants cannot really refer to a single version of the genome, but must also take into account the variation in DNA sequences. A very obvious area where variation is important is in reconstructing phylogenies. “Family trees” of populations or species can be reconstructed by estimating the genetic difference between pairs of samples, and from this, estimating the amount of time that has passed between a Last Common Ancestor and each of two later populations. These dyads (or triads, depending on how you count them) can then be pieced together to get a phylogeny … a graph representing the historical divergence of populations or species … that tells us a particular version of history. Obviously, the rate of mutation must be known or assumed to make this work. Variation in mutation across the genome, or across a population, or across the structure of the family tree itself will cause incorrect inferences. The research paper is “Cryptic Variation in the Human Mutation Rate” by Hodgkinson et al. Here’s the key finding: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

A coral atoll, from Darwin’s The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs , 1842. For those teeming millions near Hanover, N.H., here’s notice that I’ll be giving a talk at Dartmouth at 4pm today — Thu, Feb 5 — about Darwin’s first, favorite, and (to me) most interesting theory, which was his theory about how coral reefs formed. This is the subject of my book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral , and I’ll be posting more about it next week, during the Blog for Darwin festival. But the short version — and the topic of my talk — is this: Darwin’s coral reef theory, published immediately after his return from the Beagle voyage, was a sort of test-run for his theory of natural selection. It anticipated the species theory in both method and concept:, for it was bold, imaginative, and it explained a variety and distribution of forms as the products of incremental change in response to dynamic forces. It was also deductive as hell, and so flew in the face of the inductive principles that supposed ruled science then. Yet it won him a place in British science on his return to England. Charles Lyell, the leading figure in geology at the time, was so delighted with the theory that when Darwin told him about it, Lyell danced around the room shouting and laughing. It’s a beautiful theory, and none, he said in late life, ever gave him more pleasure. Yet it spurred a controversy that inverted weirdly the controversy over his evolution theory. While he didn’t publish his evolution theory until he had collected massive evidence, he published his coral reef theory after seeing only a handful of reefs. This made it vulnerable, and while it won quick acceptance as the textbook explanation, it came under increasing fire during the century as new evidence seemed to undermine it. By the 1870s, when Alexander Agassiz — the son of Darwin’s old creationist foe Louis Agassiz, but a Darwinist himself — challenged the reef theory in earnest, it was quite vulnerable. Darwin found himself again facing an Agassiz — only this time it was an Agassiz who held the stronger evidentiary hand. The challenge would test, in ways both illuminating and torturous, both Darwin’s coral reef theory and for the brand of creative empiricism that Darwin had helped establish with his theory of natural selection. Why haven’t you heard of this before? Beats me. The book, though warmly received by the scientific and lay readers it found, was not strongly promoted when it was published in 2005. In this year of Darwin I’m hoping to reach more people with this overlooked but crucial episode, and will be giving this talk at several venues. If you’re interested in hosting a talk at your university, library, scientific society, or Darwin festival, drop me a line at dave[at]daviddobbs.net. Or come to snowy Hanover today! The talk is at the Rockfeller Center on the Dartmouth green at 4 pm. Free and open to the public. PS You can read the introduction to Reef Madness here . Read the comments on this post…