The blogger you requested was not found.
284 posts · 356,897 views
I am a freelance writer, former editor, and co-founder of ResearchBlogging.org. I'm the author of three different books for college writing students: 80 Readings (HarperCollins, 1992), The Pocket Reader (Longman, 2000), and Researching Online (Longman, 1999-2001). I hold a B.A. (1989) from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Science Education (1994) from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Master's in English (2004) from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Word Munger
0 posts
Cognitive Daily
245 posts
ResearchBlogging.org News
13 posts
The Daily Monthly
17 posts
Science-Based Running
9 posts
Sort by Latest Post, Most Popular
View by Condensed, Full
- September 17, 2009
- 04:00 PM
- 2,076 views
Could physical exercise help in preventing and treating drug abuse?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Teens who routinely exercise (especially in organized activities like team sports) are less likely to smoke or abuse drugs or alcohol. This fact alone might make it seem like a no-brainer to include physical activities in substance-abuse prevention and treatment programs, but in fact little research has been done to figure out whether exercising actually causes people to be less interested in drugs and alcohol. It's also possible that potential substance-abusers are just uninterested in exercise, or that drug abuse causes a lack of interest in exercise. But because so little research has been done, it's an open question: Should exercise be a part of drug abuse treatment programs?
One way to begin to address this question is in a controlled study with rats. Like humans, rats can become addicted to drugs, preferring them even to food and sex. When rats are trained to self-administer by pushing a lever, they'll push it over and over again--even hundreds of times--to get a single dose of cocaine. So do rats who exercise use less drugs?
A team led by Mark Smith divided 17 female rats into two groups: Nine were placed in cages with exercise wheels, and 8 were in cages allowing only for sedentary activities (there's no mention in the research report of whether they had sofas and TVs). A computer tracked the exercise levels of rats with exercise wheels: after few weeks, they averaged nearly 10,000 revolutions per day. Six weeks in, all the rats underwent surgery to implant a drug-injection catheter in their jugular veins. A week later, they were ready to start self-administering drugs.
To train a rat, the experimenter placed it in an operant conditioning chamber: a small plastic box with a lever at one end. A light lit above the lever indicating drugs were available to be administered. When the rat pressed the lever, it was injected with a dose of cocaine and the light shut off for 20 seconds. When the light reappeared, the rat could press the lever and get another dose. This was repeated daily until the rats could reliably self-administer 10 doses (for the rest of the day, all the rats were returned to their regular cages). Then the cycle was adjusted and rats were required to press the lever twice to get a single dose. Once they could do this, they were ready for testing. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Smith, M., Schmidt, K., Iordanou, J., & Mustroph, M. (2008) Aerobic exercise decreases the positive-reinforcing effects of cocaine. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 98(1-2), 129-135. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2008.05.006
- November 28, 2007
- 04:04 PM
- 1,830 views
"Just smile, you'll feel better!" Will you? Really?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Do people ever tell you to "just smile, you'll feel better"? If you're like our daughter Nora, you hear it a lot, and you get annoyed every time you hear it. Telling a teenager to smile is probably one of the best ways to ensure she won't smile for the next several hours. But the notion that "smiling will make you feel better" has actually been confirmed by research. There are several studies demonstrating that people are happier when they smile, at least in certain circumstances.
It's not as easy as you might think to study the effect. For one thing, it's possible that it's not the... Read more »
Robert Soussignan. (2002) Duchenne Smile, emotional experience, and automatic reactivity: A test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Emotion, 2(1), 52-74. DOI: 10.1037//11528-3542.2.1.52
- September 17, 2008
- 04:07 PM
- 1,786 views
A simple toy, and what it says about how we learn to mentally rotate objects
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
One of Jimmy's favorite toys as a toddler was a simple little bucket of blocks. There were three shapes: a rectangular prism, a triangular prism, and a cylinder. The bucket's lid had three holes: a square, a triangle, and a circle (The picture at right was the only one I could find online -- this sort of toy has gotten much fancier in recent years).
For an adult, it's a simple matter to properly sort the shapes by placing them into the corresponding holes, but for a toddler, it's a real challenge. It took months before Jim was able to put any of the blocks through the holes, despite countless demonstrations by his parents. Maybe parents have a special sort of magic that kids just can't do.
But eventually -- perhaps by accident -- Jimmy managed to get a cylinder through the round hole. Eureka! The puzzle was solved. He put another cylinder through the hole, and another. Aha! All you need to do is put the objects through the round hole. The others are decoys. Next he attempted to put a rectangular prism through the round hole. To his amazement, this didn't work, even when he applied so much force that his little body shook from the effort. How about the triangular prism? This didn't work either. He confirmed that indeed, the remainder of the cylinders fit through the hole. Apparently triangular and rectangular pieces required a different strategy. A smile of realization crossed his face.
Confidently, Jimmy tried his new solution. He removed the lid to the bucket and placed all the triangular and rectangular blocks into the bucket, one by one. Then he replaced the lid and looked to his parents for approval. He had finally solved the puzzle, hadn't he?
It would be several weeks before Jimmy was able to properly sort all the blocks. Even after he had solved the puzzle once and for all, he still played with it for some time afterwards, as if to confirm that the rules of geometry he had carefully sorted out, hadn't changed.
Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn't until 2007 that a systematic study of this simple problem was undertaken. Helena Örnkloo and Claes von Hofsten presented 69 infants aged 14 to 26 months with a similar problem while carefully monitoring their attempts to solve it. Instead of just three shapes, they used seven, each progressively more difficult:
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Helena Örnkloo, & Claes von Hofsten. (2007) Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills. Developmental Psychology, 43(2), 404-416. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.404
- November 23, 2007
- 11:38 AM
- 1,782 views
Does the color red really impair performance on tests?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
One of the things I was taught in English graduate school was never to grade papers using red ink. Students don't respond well to the color red, I was told -- it's intimidating. I always thought this was a little far-fetched, and my instructors couldn't offer a peer-reviewed journal article that definitively answered the question of whether red ink was harmful.
There is some research on the question of whether red is harmful in an academic setting -- but it's inconclusive, with some studies showing harm and others appearing to show a benefit to the color red. For decades, there has ... Read more »
Andrew Elliot, Markus A Maier, Arlen C Moller, Ron Friedman, & Jörg Meinhardt. (2007) Color and psychological functioning: The effect of red on performance attainment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(1), 154-168. DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.136.1.154
- January 19, 2008
- 04:00 PM
- 1,750 views
Blurry vision and aging: How older eyes cope
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Take a look at this slideshow (QuickTime required). You'll first see a photo in perfect focus. Then 12 more pictures will flash by, each of them blurred using Photoshop. Finally, the original photo will appear again. Is it the same as before, or slightly blurrier or sharper?
I'll give the answer after a few readers have had a chance to make a guess in the comments. Most people with normal vision will gradually adapt to blurry photos (though it might take a little longer than I've allowed in this movie). Then when they see a photo that's in focus, it seems too sharp -- as if... Read more »
Sarah Elliott. (2007) Aging and blur adaptation. Journal of Vision, 7(6), 1-9. DOI: 10.1167/7.6.8
- December 11, 2007
- 03:05 PM
- 1,710 views
We hear different music depending on how we dance to it
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Listen to this short recording:
It's a sequence that repeats every sixth beat. But when we're listening to music, we usually prefer to divide rhythm into two- or three-beat patterns (duple or triple rhythm). In this case, the sequence doesn't make it obvious which pattern is correct. A traditional duple rhythm, like a march, would accent every other beat -- the musicians play every other note a little louder. Similarly, a traditional triple rhythm, like a waltz, accents every third beat.
When we're dancing (or marching), we move in time to these accented beats. Ind... Read more »
J PHILLIPSSILVER, & L TRAINOR. (2007) Hearing what the body feels: Auditory encoding of rhythmic movement☆. Cognition, 105(3), 533-546. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2006.11.006
- November 23, 2007
- 11:38 AM
- 1,704 views
Wine and taste: Wine labels also affect our opinions of the food we eat
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Both Greta and I are big wine fans. Despite Jonah's recent extremely popular post, I, at least, believe that I can tell the difference between good and bad wines. I'm still convinced that a good wine is more than just an attractive label (though I'm a sucker for labels with Zinfandel puns like "Zen of Zin" or "Amazin"). That said, the research suggesting that labeling has a lot to do with wine preference is also quite convincing.
Several studies suggest that we expect to prefer wines from certain vineyards or regions, and in many cases wine drinkers will actually rate the identical... Read more »
Brian Wansink, Collin Payne, & Jill North. (2007) Fine as North Dakota wine: Sensory expectations and the intake of companion foods. Physiology , 712-716. DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.12.010
- January 2, 2008
- 12:25 PM
- 1,701 views
Looking down skews distance perception
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
You might think humans are equally good at estimating distances no matter which direction they're looking. After all, we use the same visual tools to make those estimates -- binocular disparity (the different views we see from each eye), occlusion (whether one object is in front of or behind another), and so on. But consider the situation depicted to the right. Nora is inching her way down a steep rock column, with near-vertical drops on either side of her. If she underestimates the distance to flat ground below, she might decide she doesn't need to worry about falling. Overestimating the v... Read more »
Russell Jackson, & Lawrence K Cormack. (2007) Evolved navigation theory and the descent illusion. Perception , 69(3), 353-362. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/psocpubs/prp/2007/00000069/00000003/art00005
- August 27, 2008
- 03:30 PM
- 1,699 views
Escher-themed nurseries? Even four-month-olds can recognize impossible objects
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
"Impossible objects" like the etchings of M.C. Escher have fascinated adults for centuries. You can't help but stare and wonder at a drawing like this, which seems to defy the laws of nature:
The drawing seems strange to us because our visual system tells us that when an object or part of an object occludes another, it's in front. Since the parts of the cube are all connected, it's clear that the vertical bar in the "back" of the cube shouldn't be in front of any other bars.
Some research has suggested that young babies don't have the same ability as adults to determine how close objects are to them. Babies younger than 6 months, for example, aren't able to reach the right distance for objects after seeing a three-dimensional display. But babies do recognize real objects after seeing pictures, and they recognize possible and impossible events involving solid objects. Can they recognize impossible objects?
A team led by Sarah Shuwairi showed an image like the one above to 10 four-month-olds, but with one crucial difference: the portion of the image determining whether the object was possible or impossible was obscured with a red oval: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Sarah M. Shuwairi, Marc K. Albert, & Scott P. Johnson. (2007) Discrimination of Possible and Impossible Objects in Infancy. Psychological Science, 18(4), 303-307. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01893.x
- December 29, 2007
- 11:23 PM
- 1,695 views
If short-term happiness isn't always best, what about long-term?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Earlier this week we discussed the relationship between life satisfaction and other measures of well-being, finding that for measures such as relative income, the happiest people weren't always the best-off. For relationships, however, the happiest individuals also seem to do better.
But these measures were only taken at an instant in time. What about over longer periods? The College and Beyond study questioned incoming college freshmen in 1976, and included a self-rating of "cheerfulness," among many other measures. Then those same individuals were surveyed in 1995. How did cheerfu... Read more »
Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener, & Richard Lucas. (2007) The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 346-360. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00048.x
- December 29, 2007
- 11:23 PM
- 1,689 views
Is it possible to be too happy?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Happiness is associated with a lot of good things in life. People who are happier tend to get better job ratings, make more money, be more likely to get married, and be more satisfied with their marriages than people who are less happy, even years after the original happiness assessment.
People around the world rate happiness as more important than intelligence, success, and material wealth. But is it possible to be too happy? An extremely happy person might be less motivated to seek a better job, more education, or better health care. Short-term happiness could conceivably be a ro... Read more »
Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener, & Richard Lucas. (2007) The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 346-360. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00048.x
- November 19, 2008
- 03:00 PM
- 1,683 views
Seeing shapes in two different ways: how and when it happens
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
A Necker cube is bi-stable figure, meaning that it can be perceived as two different three-dimensional objects, depending on how you look at it:
Cube A is ambiguous -- the true Necker cube. Cube B and cube C show the two ways you can perceive the Necker cube: either the bottom of the cube is in front, or the top is in front. What's interesting about figures such as the Necker cube is that once you're aware of its bi-stable nature, it's impossible to see it only one way. Don't believe me? Then take this challenge. Play the movie below (it lasts for two minutes). The figure will flash every couple of seconds, but otherwise there are no tricks involved -- the identical, ambiguous figure is portrayed the whole time.
You can choose whether you'd like to see it as bottom-in-front (like cube B) or top-in-front (like cube A). But you won't be able to maintain that perception for the entire time you watch. Just make sure you're perceiving it as a cube, and not just a two-dimensional group of lines.
Stop the movie once you see the reverse, and let us know how long you lasted in this poll:
How long did you watch before it reversed? ( surveys)
Researchers have found even when they're trying to avoid a reversal, people switch at least once every fifteen seconds. The flashing makes it more difficult to avoid reversing, but even non-flashing objects are always reversed. People who say they never reversed are lying (with one possible exception, which I'll get to later.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
J KORNMEIER, C HEIN, & M BACH. (2008) Multistable perception: When bottom-up and top-down coincide. Brain and Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.06.005
- October 22, 2008
- 05:58 PM
- 1,681 views
Does the use of hand gestures slow language learning?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Nora was an excellent talker, starting at a very young age, but that didn't mean that she couldn't express herself in other ways. Here, for example, she points to a the item she wants. It's entirely possible that she didn't yet know the word "stick," but she was still quite able to express her desire.
But what happens if a child is particularly successful at expressing her needs using gestures? Does development of spoken language suffer? One approach to this problem is to look language development in cultures that tend to use more gestures. Many studies have confirmed the "stereotype" that Italians are more physically expressive than other groups. It stands to reason that even Italian infants probably learn more gestures at an earlier than babies in other cultures.
An international group led by Jana Iverson carefully observed three Italian infants and three American infants during the critical early period of language learning, from 10 months to 24 months old. The babies were videotaped for 30 minutes each month doing three activities: playing with their own toys, playing with a standard set of toys provided by the experimenter, and at mealtime. Speech and gestures were carefully categorized.
Gestures can be broken down into two distinct categories: deictic and representational. Deictic gestures are those that refer to something around the child -- pointing, showing an object, or reaching for something. Representational gestures have meaning independent of the objects around the child: nodding yes, holding a fist to the ear to mean "telephone," and so on. This graph compares deictic gestures in the five months leading up to the point where children could speak in two-word phrases:
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
J. M. Iverson, O. Capirci, V. Volterra, & S. Goldin-Meadow. (2008) Learning to talk in a gesture-rich world: Early communication in Italian vs. American children. First Language, 28(2), 164-181. DOI: 10.1177/0142723707087736
- September 3, 2008
- 04:08 PM
- 1,680 views
Is there a separate memory region for location of sound?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
You may have heard of the idea that people can only remember seven things at a time -- a seven-digit phone number, a license-plate, etc. While the size of working memory actually varies from person to person (it usually ranges from 6 to 8 items), and while people can use strategies like "chunking" to remember more, this observation is basically true.
Except when it's not true. In the 1970s, researchers found that there are actually at least two different and distinct areas of working memory, each with its own separate capacity. One is called the "phonological loop" and is used for recall of sounds, and the other is the "visual spatial sketchpad" and is used for vision. If a person's working memory capacity for sounds is maxed out at 7, she can still retain more in her working memory -- as long as it's something visual, like a shape or the location of an object.
But sounds also have locations in space, and we can easily locate a sound based on where the noise comes from. So what do we do with these memories? When we remember the location of sounds, do we use the same area of working memory previously thought to be only for visual images? Do we use the phonological loop? Or is there an entirely different resource we use to recall the location of sounds?
Günther Lehnert and Hubert Zimmer showed volunteers pictures of 30 different objects in groups of four, six, or eight. The pictures were displayed one at a time, for two seconds each, in a random corner of a large screen. Then the viewers were tested on the location of the objects they had just seen. The objects were chosen to be things that made distinctive sounds -- animals, tools, or musical instruments. The same viewers also listened to the sounds each object made, played through speakers located in each corner of this screen, and again tested on where the sounds came from. They were also tested on a mixture of visual and audio versions of the objects and tested on those. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Lehnert, Günther, & Zimmer, Hubert D. (2006) Auditory and visual spatial working memory. Memory , 34(5), 1080-1090.
- November 26, 2007
- 06:04 PM
- 1,676 views
What's the best way to help kids become good adults? Some possible answers
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
What do most parents want for their kids as they grow into adults? Successful careers? Happy family lives? Or do they simply want their children to be good people? They probably want all of these things -- and a little wealth and fame wouldn't hurt either. The bigger question parents have is about the right way to inspire, motivate, cajole, or prod their kids in the direction they believe is most likely to yield the desired results.
There's been a lot of research about good parenting, but much of that research has focused on parenting style: parents' overall philosophy of childreari... Read more »
Gustavo Carlo, Meredith McGinley, Rachel Hayes, Candice Batenhorst, & Jamie Wilkinson. (2007) Parenting styles or practices? Parenting, sympathy, and prosocial behaviors among adolescents. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 168(2), 147-176.
- December 18, 2008
- 01:01 PM
- 1,665 views
Make sure you get some sleep -- or at least some caffeine -- before that test
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
[This is our synchroblogging post in honor of PLoS ONE's second birthday. Why not write your own?]
Ever wonder whether it's better to study all night before a big exam, or to get a good night's sleep, but maybe not have a chance to go over all the material? We know that memory consolidation can occur in sleep, but we also know that those extra hours studying can do some good. And then there's the issue of false memories: who hasn't had the experience of being completely convinced their test answer is correct, only to learn that it's 100 percent wrong?
Inducing false memories is surprisingly easy. All you have to do is present people with a list of words to be memorized, like this:
Trail
Mountain
Tent
Backpack
Fire
Rainfly
Lake
Boots
Walking stick
Fishing pole
Campsite
Smores
Then, 12 hours later, you test them: Was "backpack" on the list? How about "television"? "Mountain"? "Trapeze"? "Hike"?
It's easy to remember the items that were on the list, especially considering they all relate to a common theme. It's also easy to eliminate items like "television" and "trapeze." But what about "hike"? That was the theme of the list, but it wasn't on the list. Most people will falsely remember that it was, especially if they had to memorize several similar lists all at once. And they'll be just as convinced that it really was on the list as any of the other items.
So how are these false memories formed? We know that memories are often consolidated in sleep, so the question arises: how does sleep affect false memories? Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Susanne Diekelmann, Hans-Peter Landolt, Olaf Lahl, Jan Born, & Ullrich Wagner. (2008) Sleep Loss Produces False Memories. PLoS ONE, 3(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003512
- September 15, 2008
- 03:30 PM
- 1,652 views
Even music played before or after a film character is shown affects our perception of their emotion
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
It's now taken as a given that the musical score of a movie can have huge influence on our perception of the movie. From the pulsating terror achieved in films like Psycho and Jaws, to the triumphant victories in Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean, it's hard to think about a great film without also being influenced by that film's score. Music is such an important aspect of film that when a group of students was asked to rate the emotions evoked by music in six film excerpts, only a third of them noticed that all the film clips had no music. This was on a multiple choice test, where the first choice was "No music was played."
We know, for example, that the right kind of music can make us suspicious of an otherwise innocent-seeming character, or evoke feelings of delight watching a benign scene, or even cause false memories for images that weren't even present in the movie. But little research has considered how viewers respond to music played in other parts of a film. Surely what we see in one scene affects how we perceive the next scene. How about music?
A team led by Siu-Lan Tan added music to four different clips from movies by Woody Allen, François Ozon, Jean-Jacques Beineix, and Krzysztof Kieslowski. The clips all featured female actors with ambiguous emotional expressions, but the music was carefully chosen from an earlier study establishing that the pieces evoked fear, anger, happiness, or sadness. The beginning and end of each movie scene showed only static shots of buildings, and it was during these sequences that the music was systematically added, so that there were eight different versions of each film scene, with music representing each emotion at the beginning or end of the scene.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Siu-Lan Tan, Matthew P. Spackman, & Matthew A. Bezdek. (2007) Viewers' Interpretations of Film Characters' Emotions: Effects of Presenting Film Music Before or After a Character is Shown. Music Perception, 25(2), 135-152. DOI: 10.1525/mp.2007.25.2.135
- March 4, 2009
- 02:30 PM
- 1,648 views
How do you react to an emotional face? Depends on how quickly you see it
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
What's your first reaction on seeing this picture of Nora? Are you excited because she appears to be excited? Or do you react to her intent? Perhaps you think she's cute, or maybe even sarcastic. Ultimately you might have all of those reactions.
There's no doubt we're exceptionally fast at responding to faces, and to the emotions they convey. But reacting appropriately, especially when a face signals danger, could be the difference between life and death.
These two ways of reacting to a facial expression correspond to two possible intentions of an expression: to elicit an emotion in someone else, or to express your own emotional state. The result, for the other person, isn't always the same. For example, if you simply mimick the emotion of an angry face, then you too would be angry. But if the angry person was stronger or better-armed than you, you might recognize their anger and become afraid, not angry. So which response comes first?
Kirsten Ruys and Diderick Stapel believe they have devised a way to find out. They asked students to watch movies that quickly flashed emotional faces at them -- so fast that the facial expressions couldn't be consciouly judged. The faces were flashed at two different speeds, illustrated in this video:
Click to watch video (QuickTime required)
The students were instructed to focus on the cross in the center of the screen and react as quickly as possible, indicating when a picture flashed to the left or right of the cross. As you can see in the slowed-down version (which the students never saw), the face flashed very briefly before being masked by a black-and-white rectangle. (Yes, that's me, doing my best to look "angry.") In the "quick" version, the face stayed on-screen for 120 milliseconds. In the "super quick" version, it appeared for just 40 milliseconds. The students were divided into 8 groups, who saw one of four emotions (Anger, Fear, Disgust, or Neutral) at either quick or super quick speeds. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Kirsten I. Ruys, & Diederik A. Stapel. (2008) Emotion Elicitor or Emotion Messenger? Subliminal Priming Reveals Two Faces of Facial Expressions. Psychological Science, 19(6), 593-600. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02128.x
- September 23, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 1,647 views
Where will science blogging go from here?
by Dave Munger in ResearchBlogging.org News
ResearchBlogging.orgIn 2007, Bora Zivkovic estimated the number of science blogs at 1,000 - 1,200. Now, over a year later, I suspect that figure is outdated. We have over 450 blogs registered for ResearchBlogging.org, but only half of the blogs at scienceblogs.com are registered. Nature Network, with its hundred or so blogs, is not represented at all because their blogging software isn't compatible with our system. Scientific Blogging, larger than the Nature Network, barely has a presence here. There are whole disciplines, like economics, history, and mathematics, with large numbers of bloggers, but which don't typically fit into our "peer-review" requirement. And then there are science blogs written in non-English languages. If I had to venture a guess today, I'd put the number between 3,000 and 10,000 science blogs worldwide.
In their article published today in PLoS Biology, Shelley Batts, Nicholas Anthis, and Tara Smith discuss the current impact of science blogging. They point to examples of science bloggers leading to corrections in the peer-reviewed literature, to researchers from institutions like Stanford and Oxford keeping in touch with their colleagues via blogs, and bloggers providing science information in language that laypeople can understand.
But how will bloggers and readers be able to distinguish scientific fact from fiction? Batts and her colleagues place a lot of the burden for that on ResearchBlogging.org:
To be included on the site, a blog must demonstrate to the site's organizers via a submitted form that it regularly produces posts that would meet the criteria for use of the icon. Once included, it's then up to the blogger to decide which posts meet a set of detailed guidelines for use of the icon. Dave Munger, the initiative's cofounder and president, describes the project as largely self-regulating. Readers are encouraged to report abuses of the icon, which may lead to the permanent removal of a blog. This happened in the case of an anti-evolution blog that had coopted the system, attempting to use the icon while posting non-peer-reviewed “studies” about creationism. A reader reported the abuse, and after a review by the moderators, the blog was denied future use of ResearchBlogging.org. This system illustrates that with a bit of technical savvy, a few guidelines, and an involved readership, the self-regulating style of the blogosphere can be harnessed in new ways that could prove useful for institutional science outreach.
As Batts et al. point out, the goal of scientific accuracy can only be met with the participation of readers. While the administrators of ResearchBlogging.org are on the lookout for abuses, we aren't experts in every field, and we rely on reader input to locate posts that violate our guidelines. If you spot a post that you believe doesn't accurately and thoughtfully report on peer-reviewed research, please use the "flag post" button to report it. Administrators can easily see all the posts that have been flagged, then make a decision on how to proceed.... Read more »
Shelley A. Batts, Nicholas J. Anthis, & Tara C. Smith. (2008) Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy. PLoS Biology, 6(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240
- October 27, 2008
- 06:30 PM
- 1,647 views
Should you let your toddler watch TV?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
When Jimmy was around 18 months old, Greta and I were both in graduate school. I attended classes at night and Greta taught and worked in the lab during the day. In the late afternoon I'd drive into the city with Jimmy in the car seat, and we'd swap -- she'd drive back home and I'd go to class, taking the train back home when I was done.
At this point, Greta was extremely pregnant with Nora. She was exhausted at the end of her workday, but Jimmy had usually taken a nap in the car, so he was usually rearing to go. All Greta wanted to do was lie down and take a rest, and fortunately, there was one way to get Jimmy to sit still long enough for her do that: Barney the Dinosaur. She turned on the TV and reclined on the couch while Jim sat entranced by Barney's soothing antics with his friend Baby Bop. After the thirty minute break, Greta was refreshed enough to make dinner, and after dinner and a bath, Jimmy was ready for bed. So you could say that Barney helped both Greta and me make it through graduate school by "taking care" of Jimmy for a half-hour a day.
But was Barney being helpful to Jimmy? By using Barney as a surrogate parent, were we teaching Jim that he should expect to be perfectly entertained at all times, instead of exploring the world on his own or spending time with his parents? And what about other TV shows and movies, like those featuring violence or non-educational content? Could it be possible that early exposure to TV ruins kids by shortening their attention spans and making it harder to focus on tasks like reading and schoolwork?
In 1997, a long-term NSF-sponsored study of 4,800 families added new questions about children's daily activities, including TV watching. The same families were re-surveyed in 2002, offering an excellent opportunity to take a look at the long-term effects of TV watching. The 1997 survey asked parents to keep a diary of activities for one weekday and one weekend day. Since the respondents reported on the TV programs their kids watched, researchers could assess not only the impact of TV-watching, but also the impact of specific TV programs. Is Barney better than Power Rangers? Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
F. J. Zimmerman, & D. A. Christakis. (2007) Associations Between Content Types of Early Media Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems. PEDIATRICS, 120(5), 986-992. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2006-3322
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
