- December 23, 2008
- 11:34 AM
- 1,331 views
Look Me in the Eyes - From Eye Contact to “Fear Blindness”
by Shaheen Lakhan in Brain Blogger
Eye contact is commonly considered a sign of self-confidence and a means for emotional connection. In contrast, a person who averts their gaze is often considered shy, fearful, embarrassed or lying. Many a self-help manual has touted the power of eye contact, with direct eye contact suggested to help one quickly gain an individual’s attention, [...]... Read more »
MARK R. DADDS, YASMEEN EL MASRY, SUBODHA WIMALAWEERA, & ADAM J. GUASTELLA. (2008) Reduced Eye Gaze Explains "Fear Blindness" in Childhood Psychopathic Traits. Journal of the American Academy of Child , 47(4), 455-463. DOI: 10.1097/CHI.0b013e31816407f1
Kim M Dalton, Brendon M Nacewicz, Tom Johnstone, Hillary S Schaefer, Morton Ann Gernsbacher, H H Goldsmith, Andrew L Alexander, & Richard J Davidson. (2005) Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1038/nn1421
N GEORGE, & L CONTY. (2008) Facing the gaze of others. Neurophysiologie Clinique/Clinical Neurophysiology, 38(3), 197-207. DOI: 10.1016/j.neucli.2008.03.001
- December 23, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 1,137 views
Signs of petty crime, such as litter and graffiti, really do encourage more serious law-breaking
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
The Broken Windows theory of crime reduction, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book The Tipping Point, has received new robust empirical support from a series of studies by Dutch researchers.According to the theory, more serious crimes can be averted by reducing low level crime such as littering and graffiti. Gladwell attributed the dramatic fall in crime in New York in the 90s to the zero tolerance approach of the police at that time, which effectively put into practice the advice ........ Read more »
K. Keizer, S. Lindenberg, & L. Steg. (2008) The Spreading of Disorder. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1161405
- December 22, 2008
- 07:07 PM
- 2,173 views
Spider mimics in lepidoptera
One of the coolest adaptions insects use to survive is when they try to look like something else in order to fool predators into not eating them. Normally, they look like something which tastes bad or a group of harmful species mimic each other to spread that blanket of protection. Occasionally, though, some take a [...]... Read more »
Jadranka Rota, & David L. Wagner. (2006) Predator Mimicry: Metalmark Moths Mimic Their Jumping Spider Predators. PLoS ONE, 1(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000045
- December 22, 2008
- 04:56 PM
- 857 views
From Birmingham? You're better off quiet.
by Robert Kodama in My Psychological Ramblings...
Are you from Birmingham? Or, more importantly, have you got a Brummie accent? If so, research suggests that you should stay quiet, as the accent is perceived as not intelligent. A recent study by Smith & Workman (2008), which was presented in this year's Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society (BPS) confirmed this finding. Participants looked at different photos of women whilst listening to female voices speaking in different accents. They were then asked to rate each photo in........ Read more »
Smith, H-J. . (2008) The effect of accent on perceived intelligence and attractiveness. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society.
- December 22, 2008
- 04:37 PM
- 281 views
From Birmingham? You’re better off quiet.
by Robert Kodama in My Psychological Ramblings...
Are you from Birmingham? Or, more importantly, have you got a Brummie accent? If so, research suggests that you should stay quiet, as the accent is perceived as not intelligent. A recent study by Smith & Workman (2008), which was presented in this year’s Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society (BPS) confirmed this finding. ... Read more »
Smith, H-J. . (2008) The effect of accent on perceived intelligence and attractiveness. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society.
- December 22, 2008
- 04:31 PM
- 694 views
Phylogeny, evolution, biodiversity and ecology
by Todd Oakley in Evolutionary Novelties
We are in the midst of massive upheaval in the world’s ecosystems, driven by species invasions and the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history. How will these changes in biodiversity affect the functions of ecological communities? Will the functions of ecological systems that humans rely on for survival, such as production of oxygen, be impacted by all this upheaval?Answering these questions requires that biologists have a good metric for biodiversity. New research by Marc Cadotte, Brad ........ Read more »
M. W. Cadotte, B. J. Cardinale, & T. H. Oakley. (2008) Evolutionary history and the effect of biodiversity on plant productivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(44), 17012-17017. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0805962105
- December 22, 2008
- 03:17 PM
- 1,129 views
Spirituality linked to brain damage
Brain activity changes when people undergo spiritual or religious experiences. This isn't surprising, of course, since it's the brain that generates these mental states. Studying just how brain activity changes as people think religious thoughts or experience spiritual or transcendental experiences gives a window into how they are generated in the brain and how they link to other kinds of experiences.The religious tend to take a dualist approach to these kinds of results, arguing that these chan........ Read more »
Brick Johnstone, & Bret A Glass. (2008) Support for a neuropsychological model of spirituality in persons with traumatic brain injury. Zygon, 43(4), 861-874. DOI: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121528292/abstract
- December 22, 2008
- 03:02 PM
- 519 views
Protonation’s what you need
by Invader Xan in Supernova Condensate
Ah, the humble proton. Simple, stable, and able to drastically affect the chemistry of other molecules — and nowhere more so than in the Interstellar Medium (ISM). H2 molecules, for instance are readily protonated in dense interstellar clouds, forming H3 , and playing a key role in the formation of hydrides like ammonia and methane. CO forms HCO , N2 forms HN2 and so on. So what about those polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules I keep talking about…?... Read more »
A. Pathak, & P. J. Sarre. (2008) Protonated PAHs as carriers of diffuse interstellar bands. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2008.00544.x
- December 22, 2008
- 08:35 AM
- 856 views
Drinkers don’t take their medications often enough
by Helen Jaques in In Sickness and In Health
A recent study by Bryson et al. has found that moderate to severe alcohol misuse increases the likelihood that patients won’t take their medication properly.
Many patients do not take their medications as often as they should - i.e. on at least 80% of the days they are supposed to. In fact, a recent study found [...]... Read more »
Bryson CL et al. (2008) Alcohol Screening Scores and Medication Nonadherence. Ann Intern Med, 149(11), 795-803. DOI: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/149/11/795
- December 22, 2008
- 07:57 AM
- 1,725 views
Rats know their limits with border cells
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
Spatial navigation is the process on which we rely to orient ourselves within the environment and to negotiate our way through it. Our ability to do so depends upon cognitive maps, mental representations of the surrounding spaces, which are constructed by the brain and are used by it to calculate one's present location, based on landmarks in the environment and on our movements within it, and to plan future movements.
The term "cognitive map" was first used in a landmark 1948 paper, in wh........ Read more »
T. Solstad, C. N. Boccara, E. Kropff, M.-B. Moser, & E. I. Moser. (2008) Representation of Geometric Borders in the Entorhinal Cortex. Science, 322(5909), 1865-1868. DOI: 10.1126/science.1166466
- December 22, 2008
- 06:31 AM
- 2,020 views
Phylogenomics suggest ratites lost flight multiple times
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
Rebekah Wukits discusses recent findings about ratite evolution for Bio 135.Ratite evolution has been debated for centuries. Some of the earliest evolutionary biologists questioned whether or not ratites had a linear evolution or if the major groups had had independent origins. Richard Owen proposed that living ratites had much more in common with other flight capable groups while being united by the “arrested development of wings unfitting them for flight”. In 1951, two ornithologists, Mayr........ Read more »
J. Harshman, E. L. Braun, M. J. Braun, C. J. Huddleston, R. C. K. Bowie, J. L. Chojnowski, S. J. Hackett, K.-L. Han, R. T. Kimball, B. D. Marks.... (2008) Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(36), 13462-13467. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803242105
- December 22, 2008
- 06:00 AM
- 1,241 views
Predicting Which Patients Will Not Respond to Physical Therapy
by Mike Reinold in MikeReinold.com
We are lucky to feature a guest post from Christie Downing, PT, DPT, cert MDT, ICLM. Christie works at Alexian Brothers Rehabilitation Hospital in Elk Grove Village, IL. She specialize in musculoskeletal care as well as lymphedema management. She is a MDT credentialed provider and student in the Diploma level of MDT, focusing primarily in MDT in both spine and extremity problems. Predicting Which Patients Will Not Respond to Physical Therapy Now, I love my........ Read more »
Werneke M, & Hart DL. (2001) Centralization Phenomenon as a Prognostic Factor for Chronic Low Back Pain and Disability. Spine, 26(7), 758-764. DOI: http://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year
- December 22, 2008
- 04:17 AM
- 1,142 views
Zooming in on an early galaxy
by Charles Daney in Science and Reason
One of the key questions about galaxies concerns the process in which they form. Galaxies are made up of stars, but in general stars do not form in isolation – except for the very first stars in the universe, which we discussed here.More normally, stars form simultaneously in close proximity to each other as part of the larger process of galaxy formation. But galaxy formation can happen in one of at least two different ways. In the first case, the baryonic matter that will eventually form ........ Read more »
Daniel P. Stark, A. Mark Swinbank, Richard S. Ellis, Simon Dye, Ian R. Smail, & Johan Richard. (2008) The formation and assembly of a typical star-forming galaxy at redshift z ≈ 3. Nature, 455(7214), 775-777. DOI: 10.1038/nature07294
- December 22, 2008
- 04:10 AM
- 1,115 views
A spontaneous experience of a sensed presence caught on EEG
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Serendipitous timing has allowed researchers in Canada to capture the brain activity of a woman experiencing a spontaneous sense of someone else being in the room with her, when really she was alone.This feeling of sensed presence is rather common. For example, more than half of patients who suffer a head injury without loss of consciousness go on to experience a sensed presence during the subsequent year. It's also common among people with temporal lobe epilepsy. Curiously, the presence is per........ Read more »
Michael Persinger, & Sandra Tiller. (2008) Case report: A prototypical spontaneous 'sensed presence' of a sentient being and concomitant electroencephalographic activity in the clinical laboratory. Neurocase, 14(5), 425-430. DOI: 10.1080/13554790802406172
- December 21, 2008
- 07:35 PM
- 1,039 views
Miniature temperature sensors take the heat
by Stuart Watson in Optical Futures
Fibre optic sensors really do shine. No, I don't just mean when you pass light down one end and see it come out of the other, I mean they can be made to perform some pretty clever tasks, often triumphing over their electronic rivals. A fibre sensor fabricated by splicing together three different types of optical fibre and capable of measuring temperatures up to 1000°C, has recently been demonstrated by scientists in South Korea†.
read more... Read more »
Hae Young Choi, Kwan Seob Park, Seong Jun Park, Un-Chul Paek, Byeong Ha Lee, & Eun Seo Choi. (2008) Miniature fiber-optic high temperature sensor based on a hybrid structured Fabry–Perot interferometer. Optics Letters, 33(21), 2455. DOI: 10.1364/OL.33.002455
- December 21, 2008
- 06:04 PM
- 494 views
Getting Depressed about Depression: Ruminative vs. Experiential Self Focus
by Jody Ribton in Liminality
One of the major cognitive factors in prolonging depression is ruminative (or “analytical”) self focus. It’s a trap that’s difficult to avoid - most people who recognize that they suffer from depression will start asking themselves questions like “Why can’t I just snap out of it?”, “Why do I feel this way?”, or, “What’s wrong [...]... Read more »
Albert Ellis. (2003) EARLY THEORIES AND PRACTICES OF RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY AND HOW THEY HAVE BEEN AUGMENTED AND REVISED DURING THE LAST THREE DECADES. Journal of Rational-Emotive .
Alishia Williams, & Michelle Moulds. (2007) The Impact of Ruminative Processing on the Development of Intrusive Memories. Behaviour Change.
- December 21, 2008
- 04:01 PM
- 850 views
Zap! Pow! Kraaakkkk! Ideophones for involvement at FeedBurner
by Mark D. in The Ideophone
FeedBurner, a service for managing RSS feeds, provided us with a nice example of ideophonic language on its corporate blog last year:
Starting right now, you just log into your Blogger account, select Settings | Site Feed, enter your FeedBurner feed address and click "Save Settings." Zap! Pow! Kraaakkkk! Now you've got the complete picture of [...]... Read more »
Janis B. Nuckolls. (1992) Sound Symbolic Involvement. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2(1).
- December 21, 2008
- 03:30 PM
- 761 views
Shrikes take their cues from the competition
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Over evolutionary time, the easiest way to deal with a competitor is to do something different - if your competitor eats big seeds, say, it may be easier to start eating small seeds than to fight for the big ones. This idea goes all back to the Origin, wherein Darwin proposed that competition drives evolutionary diversification, with living things dividing up available resources into ever-finer... Read more »
M. Hromada, M. Antczak, T.J. Valone, & P. Tryjanowski. (2008) Settling decisions and heterospecific social information use in shrikes. PLoS ONE, 3(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003930
- December 21, 2008
- 01:42 AM
- 746 views
A 2006 recording of Glenn Gould?*
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
A well-known recording company recently released a new recording of Glenn Gould performing the Goldberg Variations. The recording date was summer 2006. Curious, not? Another pianist with the same name as the legendary Canadian musician?Actually, the recording was made using measurements of the original, old recordings that were used to remake the performance on a computer-controlled grand piano, a modern pianola. In the recording studio a grand piano was moving its keys without someone behind th........ Read more »
Werner Goebl, & Caroline Palmer. (2008) Tactile feedback and timing accuracy in piano performance. Experimental Brain Research, 186(3), 471-479. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-007-1252-1
- December 21, 2008
- 01:09 AM
- 878 views
MySpace as a counseling tool
by Andy DeSoto in Technimentis
The amount of information that is generally shared on a social network profile provides a wealth of resources at a mental health professional's disposal for adequately meeting the needs of developing individuals.... Read more »
Elysia V. Clemens, Adria E. Shipp, & Christopher T. Pisarik. (2008) MySpace as a tool for mental health professionals. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13(2), 97-98. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-3588.2008.00489_5.x
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