One of the theories about why we dream is that our brain continues to work on problems we encounter before we fall asleep. Some research by Sara Mednick, PhD, at the University of California at San Diego, reported in the June 23, 2009 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lends some support to that theory.
Mednick "gave participants a creative problem-solving test in the morning and again in the afternoon and found that those who took a nap that included rapid-eye movement, or REM, between testing periods improved their creativity performance by nearly 40 percent. Those who didn't nap or who napped without REM showed no improvement on the test."
I can hear it now. "Dr. G, I know that I fell alseep during class but I was just using my REM sleep to process your lecture. After all, you said in your blog that it would help my problem-solving skills."
That will join the old, "I listen better to your lectures with my eyes closed" excuse.
On the other hand, I have some students who need to try everything they can think of to improve their performance on my tests. Remember, students, there's one this Monday.
September 12, 2009
September 11, 2009
Swearing Increases Pain Tolerance?
Okay, students, here is an example of what I mean when I say that to be a good psychologist you have to be...
1) Curious. Ask why & what if?
2) Objective. Study behavior scientifically.
3) Critical. Be analytical about what you see or read.
4) Skeptical. "Convince me by showing me the facts."
"Skeptical" jumped into the forefront of my thinking this week as I was reading the September 2009 Monitor on Psychology.
There was a short blurb, quoting the July 16 issue of Time: "Swearing increases your pain tolerance. Richard Stephens, PhD, a Keele University psychologist who found expletives can reduce physical pain - and we may curse by instinct."
That was it. It wasn't quoting a journal but a magazine. No details of any research.
I do find it interesting (Curiosity), so I plan to mosey over to the Library on Monday to read the issue of Time. I hope that it gives a journal source so that I can look it up and read the research for myself.
Did he do (1) experimental research - to find that swearing causes the increase in pain tolerance?
Or did he do (2) correlational research - to find simply that when one went up the other went up (with a possible third factor causing the increase in both)?
Or did he do (3) descriptive research - just observing and describing behavior?
I will Objectively (trying to leave my biases at the Library door) use my Critical skills to read and analyze the research.
Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted on what my skeptical, curious, objective, critical psychologist's mind finds. If it turns out that swearing does increase pain tolerance, I know some people who feel no pain.
1) Curious. Ask why & what if?
2) Objective. Study behavior scientifically.
3) Critical. Be analytical about what you see or read.
4) Skeptical. "Convince me by showing me the facts."
"Skeptical" jumped into the forefront of my thinking this week as I was reading the September 2009 Monitor on Psychology.
There was a short blurb, quoting the July 16 issue of Time: "Swearing increases your pain tolerance. Richard Stephens, PhD, a Keele University psychologist who found expletives can reduce physical pain - and we may curse by instinct."
That was it. It wasn't quoting a journal but a magazine. No details of any research.
I do find it interesting (Curiosity), so I plan to mosey over to the Library on Monday to read the issue of Time. I hope that it gives a journal source so that I can look it up and read the research for myself.
Did he do (1) experimental research - to find that swearing causes the increase in pain tolerance?
Or did he do (2) correlational research - to find simply that when one went up the other went up (with a possible third factor causing the increase in both)?
Or did he do (3) descriptive research - just observing and describing behavior?
I will Objectively (trying to leave my biases at the Library door) use my Critical skills to read and analyze the research.
Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted on what my skeptical, curious, objective, critical psychologist's mind finds. If it turns out that swearing does increase pain tolerance, I know some people who feel no pain.
September 10, 2009
Flowers, Snakes, Macaques, and Spiders
POP QUIZ: Which do humans find more quickly when they are hidden in a picture - a flower or a snake?
ANSWER: Snake.
You, being a good student of human behavior, are asking, "Why?"
According to some new research by Marahiro Shibasaki, PhD, and Nobuyuki Kawai, PhD, at Nagoya University in Japan, it may be an instinct that got ingrained in our species from an old survival behavior. This would be a good example of how a relatively young field in psychology, evolutionary psychology, is trying to find answers for human behavior, rooted in evolution's most basic tenet, "survival of the fittest."
According to Shibasaki and Kawai's study, published in the May, 2009 Journal of Comparative Psychology, humans are not alone in this snake-recognizing skill.
Macaque monkeys born and raised in a lab, who had never seen a snake, "were about 0.1 second faster at finding the hidden snake than the hidden flower... [That small difference is] just enough time to avoid the snake's split-second strike" if it had been encountered in real life.
Find the snake? That reminds me of Ron Weasley's question when Hagrid says to Ron and Harry in the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, "Follow the spiders." Ron asks, "Follow the spiders? Why couldn't it be 'Follow the butterflies'?"
ANSWER: Snake.
You, being a good student of human behavior, are asking, "Why?"
According to some new research by Marahiro Shibasaki, PhD, and Nobuyuki Kawai, PhD, at Nagoya University in Japan, it may be an instinct that got ingrained in our species from an old survival behavior. This would be a good example of how a relatively young field in psychology, evolutionary psychology, is trying to find answers for human behavior, rooted in evolution's most basic tenet, "survival of the fittest."
According to Shibasaki and Kawai's study, published in the May, 2009 Journal of Comparative Psychology, humans are not alone in this snake-recognizing skill.
Macaque monkeys born and raised in a lab, who had never seen a snake, "were about 0.1 second faster at finding the hidden snake than the hidden flower... [That small difference is] just enough time to avoid the snake's split-second strike" if it had been encountered in real life.
Find the snake? That reminds me of Ron Weasley's question when Hagrid says to Ron and Harry in the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, "Follow the spiders." Ron asks, "Follow the spiders? Why couldn't it be 'Follow the butterflies'?"
September 8, 2009
Split Brain Research
Roger Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1982 for his split brain research. Here are the basics.
The brain has two hemispheres, a right one and a left one. They are connected by a bundle of nerves called the corpus callosum. The two hemispheres communicate with each other through the corpus callosum. As long as it intact, what one hemisphere knows the other one knows.
Roger Sperry was curious about what would happen if the corpus callosum were severed. So, he severed a cat's. Then, he trained the cat to recognize a task, covering one eye. Things in the right field of vision are sent to the left hemisphere. Things in the left field of vision are sent to the right hemisphere. With one eye covered, only one hemisphere received the information. With the corpus callosum severed, that hemisphere couldn't share the information with the other hemisphere.
When Sperry covered the other eye, it was as if the cat had never seen the task before and had no clue what it was supposed to do. In reality, that is exactly what was happening. At least, the hemisphere getting the message from eye #2 had never seen it before. The second hemisphere had to be trained.
Each hemisphere has primary responsibilites. For example, the left hemisphere is responsible for language. But as long as the corpus callosum is functioning, the right hemisphere is kept involved.
So, saying someone is "right brained" (e.g., women or artists) or "left brained" (e.g., men or accountants) is over-simplifying a very complex organ and the mental processes it is responsible for.
At least we no longer believe that the "mind" is in the heart. Which, by the way, is the reason we say, "I love you with all my heart." Even after the physician Alcmaeon discovered the optical nerve going to the brain instead of the heart in 450 BC, some, including Aristotle, thought the mind was in the heart and the function of the brain was to cool the blood.
Some would say that Aristotle was too "right brained" to accept Alcmaeon's evidence. But they would be wrong, and now you know why.
The brain has two hemispheres, a right one and a left one. They are connected by a bundle of nerves called the corpus callosum. The two hemispheres communicate with each other through the corpus callosum. As long as it intact, what one hemisphere knows the other one knows.
Roger Sperry was curious about what would happen if the corpus callosum were severed. So, he severed a cat's. Then, he trained the cat to recognize a task, covering one eye. Things in the right field of vision are sent to the left hemisphere. Things in the left field of vision are sent to the right hemisphere. With one eye covered, only one hemisphere received the information. With the corpus callosum severed, that hemisphere couldn't share the information with the other hemisphere.
When Sperry covered the other eye, it was as if the cat had never seen the task before and had no clue what it was supposed to do. In reality, that is exactly what was happening. At least, the hemisphere getting the message from eye #2 had never seen it before. The second hemisphere had to be trained.
Each hemisphere has primary responsibilites. For example, the left hemisphere is responsible for language. But as long as the corpus callosum is functioning, the right hemisphere is kept involved.
So, saying someone is "right brained" (e.g., women or artists) or "left brained" (e.g., men or accountants) is over-simplifying a very complex organ and the mental processes it is responsible for.
At least we no longer believe that the "mind" is in the heart. Which, by the way, is the reason we say, "I love you with all my heart." Even after the physician Alcmaeon discovered the optical nerve going to the brain instead of the heart in 450 BC, some, including Aristotle, thought the mind was in the heart and the function of the brain was to cool the blood.
Some would say that Aristotle was too "right brained" to accept Alcmaeon's evidence. But they would be wrong, and now you know why.
September 7, 2009
"I have to tell the boys I only have 1/2 a brain."
ANSWER TO YESTERDAY'S POP QUIZ: Plasticity.
Plasticity is the brain's amazing capacity for change. One part of the brain can take over responsibility for another part if there is damage or disease.
POP QUIZ: What percentage of a person's brain can be surgically removed, with what is left taking over?
ANSWER: 50%.
An entire hemisphere can be removed! It's called a hemispherectomy. Check out this video of a little girl who had a hemispherectory because of unconrollable seizures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVTWDuwDkoc&NR=1.
The girl, who is now a teen, says that she always has to figure out how to tell boys she likes that she only has 1/2 a brain.
This reminds me of one of Steve Martin's movies, The Man With Two Brains. Movie Plot: his wife dies, so he transplants her brain into the body of another woman. Now THAT is fiction, and not movie-making's finest moment
One of the most important factors in the power of plasticity is age. The younger the person, the more plastic the brain. The reason for this is that the different areas of the brain haven't become firmly specialized yet. The brain of an adult isn't as plastic as a child's.
Tomorrow, I'll write a little about split-brain research. Are men really left-brained, and women right-brained?
Plasticity is the brain's amazing capacity for change. One part of the brain can take over responsibility for another part if there is damage or disease.
POP QUIZ: What percentage of a person's brain can be surgically removed, with what is left taking over?
ANSWER: 50%.
An entire hemisphere can be removed! It's called a hemispherectomy. Check out this video of a little girl who had a hemispherectory because of unconrollable seizures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVTWDuwDkoc&NR=1.
The girl, who is now a teen, says that she always has to figure out how to tell boys she likes that she only has 1/2 a brain.
This reminds me of one of Steve Martin's movies, The Man With Two Brains. Movie Plot: his wife dies, so he transplants her brain into the body of another woman. Now THAT is fiction, and not movie-making's finest moment
One of the most important factors in the power of plasticity is age. The younger the person, the more plastic the brain. The reason for this is that the different areas of the brain haven't become firmly specialized yet. The brain of an adult isn't as plastic as a child's.
Tomorrow, I'll write a little about split-brain research. Are men really left-brained, and women right-brained?
September 6, 2009
"Seeing" Sounds
Ever wonder what happens to the part of the brain responsible for processing optical sensations when a person becomes blind because of damage to the eyes?
Does that part of the brain, a portion of the visual cortex neuropsychologists call the MT+, just stop functioning since it is no longer receiving messages from the Retinas?
Not according to research by Melissa Saenz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In her Journal of Neuroscience article, she reports that, "When people go blind early in life the region of the brain that specializes in vision gets reassigned other functions, such as processing sensations of touch, sound and speech."
Evidently, the brain has no tolerance of any "lazy lobes" (my term). "Hey, you! Occipital lobe, get over there and help Temporal lobe with its work processing sounds, since you aren't getting any more visual signals! Get to it!" (Sorry, I'm letting my poetic license get the best of me here.)
This is where it really gets interesting. What if the sight of those individuals is restored?
When that happens, according to Sanenz's research, those parts of the brain that had been 'loaned' to other functions start 'multi-tasking' when sight is surgically restored. They start doing both jobs.
"The researches found that the volunteers used their MT+ to process both sound and vision, unlike normally sighted volunteers, who only used the region for vision."
This kind of fascinating stuff almost makes me wish I had become a neuropsychologist instead of a therapist. Almost, I said.
POP QUIZ: What's the term for the brain's capability that this illustrates?
Answer in tomorrow's post.
Does that part of the brain, a portion of the visual cortex neuropsychologists call the MT+, just stop functioning since it is no longer receiving messages from the Retinas?
Not according to research by Melissa Saenz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In her Journal of Neuroscience article, she reports that, "When people go blind early in life the region of the brain that specializes in vision gets reassigned other functions, such as processing sensations of touch, sound and speech."
Evidently, the brain has no tolerance of any "lazy lobes" (my term). "Hey, you! Occipital lobe, get over there and help Temporal lobe with its work processing sounds, since you aren't getting any more visual signals! Get to it!" (Sorry, I'm letting my poetic license get the best of me here.)
This is where it really gets interesting. What if the sight of those individuals is restored?
When that happens, according to Sanenz's research, those parts of the brain that had been 'loaned' to other functions start 'multi-tasking' when sight is surgically restored. They start doing both jobs.
"The researches found that the volunteers used their MT+ to process both sound and vision, unlike normally sighted volunteers, who only used the region for vision."
This kind of fascinating stuff almost makes me wish I had become a neuropsychologist instead of a therapist. Almost, I said.
POP QUIZ: What's the term for the brain's capability that this illustrates?
Answer in tomorrow's post.
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