Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 483

A metaphor for fMRI studies of thought?

A new study contains a poetical phrase that maybe, just maybe, is a metaphor for the severe difficulty and beauty of a great scientific quest: learning how the heck the brain manages to think.

Many brain scientists use a complex technology called  ”fMRI” (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to make rough pictures of activity (many sorts of activity — chemical, electromagnetic, etc.!) that are happening in the brain at a particular instant. Many of those fMRI-wielding scientists think that these pictures can hint at — and maybe even explicitly tell them — how thinking actually happens. The new study is:

“Everyday conversation requires cognitive inference: Neural bases of comprehending implicated meanings in conversations,” Gijeong Janga, Shin-ae Yoon, Sung-Eun Lee, Haeil Park, Joohan Kim, Jeong Hoon Ko, Hae-Jeong Park, NeuroImage, vol. 81, November 2013, pp. 61–72.

The authors, at Yonsei University, Seoul National University, and Myongji University, in Seoul, Korea, use a phrase that — we suggest — can be lifted from its original context, to become a metaphor. Here is this metaphor for fMRI-based studies about thought:

“suggests its competence for integrating distant concepts in implied utterances”

BONUS: With that metaphor in mind, contemplate additional detail from the new study:

(Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.)

“How Much Do You Like Your Name?”

Before 2008, there was considerable discussion in some psychological circles about finding simple and valid ways to measure a person’s ‘global self-esteem’. But nowadays psychologists have a new method at their disposal – the NLM. In a set of six experiments, Professor Jochen Eberhard Gebauer, and colleagues Michael Riketta, Philip Broemer and Gregory R. Maio asked participants a disarmingly simple, yet apparently revealing question : “How Much Do You Like Your Name?” They were queried about their ‘name-liking’ not only for their first name and surname, but also both taken together (their full name).

“In addition to showing high test-retest reliability (r=.85), the studies found that Name-Liking was (a) unrelated to impression management, (b) positively related to the Name-Letter-Task, the Self-Esteem IAT, explicit self-esteem measures, and self-reported subjective well-being, (c) more strongly related to explicit measures of global than domain-specific self-esteem, (d) more strongly related to self-esteem judgments made spontaneously as well as under cognitive load, and (e) predicted observer-reported anxiety during an anxiety-inducing interview whereas an explicit measure of self-esteem did not.”

Summing up regarding the Name-Liking-Measure (NLM) :

“To the researcher’s advantage, the measure is very brief, easy to administer and score, reliable and valid.”

You can undertake the test in full here, via professor Gebauer’s website.

see: “How Much Do You Like Your Name?” An Implicit Measure of Global Self-Esteem in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 44, Issue 5, September 2008, Pages 1346–1354. A full draft version is also available here.

BONUS VIDEO:

in which Rowan Sebastian Atkinson interviews Sir Elton Hercules John

MORE research on self-esteem from prof. Gebauer (in conjunction with professor Geoffrey Haddock of Cardiff University)

PREVIOUS Improbable feature on prof. Gebauer (regarding unfortunate first names)

 

Judging and whining about the judging of wine

David Derbyshire, in The Observer, surveys research about the reliability of wine-tasting:

The first experiment took place in 2005. The last was in Sacramento earlier this month. Hodgson’s findings have stunned the wine industry. Over the years he has shown again and again that even trained, professional palates are terrible at judging wine.

“The results are disturbing,” says Hodgson from the Fieldbrook Winery in Humboldt County, described by its owner as a rural paradise. “Only about 10% of judges are consistent and those judges who were consistent one year were ordinary the next year…

His studies have irritated many figures in the industry.….

How to deal with bad drivers (by W.C. Fields)

W.C. Fields developed a method to deal with bad drivers. He filmed this dramatization of it (presented here in two parts):

UPDATE: Those videos have been removed from YouTube. We do not know why. Here’s a description of what you would have seen. This is from , on the Turner Classic Movies web site:

“An episodic film with eight sequences united by a common plot device, If I Had a Million (1932) provided an elaborate showcase for some of Paramount’s top acting talent including … rising comic star W.C. Fields…. The unifying plot element, in which a dying multimillionaire randomly picks a series of strangers to receive $1 million each, would provide the basis for the popular radio and television series The Millionaire….

“The Fields episode, frequently cited as the favorite of the film’s fans, casts the comic as Rollo La Rue, a down-and-out vaudeville juggler ­ recalling Fields’ own past as a juggling headliner. When Rollo’s wife (Alison Skipworth) receives the $1 million check, the couple sets out on a mission to avenge the wrecking of their prized automobile by “roadhogs.” They spend the money for a convoy of new cars and a group of tough chauffeurs, and then take to the streets in search of rude drivers ­ whose vehicles they destroy by ramming into them! This was one of a series of Fields films in which his personal obsessions were incorporated into the script. In real life, he had a passion for automobiles and a loathing for other drivers ­ especially those who inconvenienced him.”

Someone has put a tiny portion of that episode onto YouTube. Here it is:

The problem of artificial precision in theories of vagueness

Vincenzo Marra points his finger more or less exactly at a simply difficult question:

“The problem of artificial precision in theories of vagueness: a note on the role of maximal consistency,” Vincenzo Marra, arXiv:1306.4369, June 18, 2013.  The author is at Universita degli Studi di Milano, Italy.

(Thanks to investigator K.P. Hart for bringing this to our attention.)

Science royalty, yes. And/but there are those retractions….

The Retraction Watch blog writes:

Authors of retracted sex paper won Ig Nobel for MRI study of coitus — and had another retraction

Yesterday we reported on the retraction for data misuse and plagiarism of a 21-year-old paper on sex and female cancer patients. Turns out we missed a couple of rather interesting details about the authors of the pulled article.

One tidbit, for example, is that one of them, Willibrord Weijmar Schultz,  is science royalty, having been a member of a team that won the 2000 Ig Nobel prize in medicine. Their heralded study, “Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal,” published in 1999 in the BMJ: An inside-the-MRI look at the human body having sex….[read the entire story at Retraction Watch]

The Vegetarian’s Pet Dilemma

A vegetarian who keeps a carnivorous pet might encounter a dilemma : such as described in a (forthcoming) paper for the journal Appetite. ‘A meaty matter. Pet diet and the vegetarian’s dilemma’  The author, Dr. Hank Rothgerber, from the Psychology faculty at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky, US,

“… specifically focused on the conflict that pits feeding one’s pet an animal-based diet that may be perceived as best promoting their well-being with concerns over animal welfare and environmental degradation threatened by such diets, here labeled the vegetarian’s dilemma.”

The survey of 515 non-meat-eaters showed that :

“Vegans and those resisting meat on ethical grounds were more likely to feed their pet a vegetarian diet and expressed the greatest concerns over feeding their pet an animal-based diet.”

But, aside from the dilemma posed to the pet owner, is a long-term vegetarian diet nutritionally suitable for a carnivorous creature? It may depend on the animal. For an example study, see: ‘Evaluation of cats fed vegetarian diets and attitudes of their caregivers’ (J.Am.Vet Med Assoc 20 06;229:70–73) But for so-called ‘obligate’ carnivores, say snakes, it might be problematic (though as yet there don’t appear to be any scholarly studies on vegetarian snakes.)

Dr. Rothgerber has also authored other vegetarian themed papers: e.g. ‘Real Men Don’t Eat (Vegetable) Quiche: Masculinity and the Justification of Meat Consumption’. (Psychology of Men & Masculinity, Nov 12 , 2012)

Further reading :

[1] “Why consider a vegetarian diet for your cat?” from the Vegetarian Society.

[2] Vegetable Philosophy  from the University of Guelph, Canada.

Comparing apples and pears, apples and oranges

People full endlessly about whether and how to compare apples and pears, or apples and oranges, or whatever similar comparison is popular in their culture. Here’s a comparatively new approach:

“Comparing Apples and Pears in Studies on Magnitude Estimations,” Mirjam Ebersbach [pictured here], Koen Luwel and Lieven Verschaffe, Frontiers in Cognitive Science, June 18, 2013. The authors, at the University of Kassel, Germany, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, and Katholieke University Leuven, Belgium, explain:

“The present article is concerned with studies on magnitude estimations that strived to uncover the underlying mental representation(s) of magnitudes…. Studies involving absolute magnitude estimations differ broadly with regard to the tasks, the stimuli, and the methods of analysis. Hence, even additional studies might provide no further clarity on children’sand adults’ estimation abilities and the nature of their underlying mental representations as long as apples and pears are collected into the same basket.”

(Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: Scott Sandford‘s scientific comparison of apples and oranges

The Batman theme, produced from sounds made by bats

Until now, no one had produced the Batman theme by using sounds made by actual bats. Here is that doubly batty theme, played with original instruments (plus a bit of technology):

The non-bat members of the team wrote this description:

Bats produce sounds that are not audible to human ears. First these ultrasounds were digitally reduced to frequencies that are audible. Then the different batsounds were assigned different keys on a keyboard. On this keyboard – the only real Bat-Organ – Ulrich Seidel played the Batman Theme (Neal Hefti, 1966). The video clip was compiled by Sándor Seuntjens using footage from Batman (film, 1966), Batman (animated television series, 1992-95), and National Geographic (natgeowild.com).

Music arrangement: Ulrich Seidel, Erfurt, Germany.

Video compilation: Sándor Seuntjens, Brussels, Belgium.

Idea: Wolter Seuntjens, Erfurt, Germany

Ulrich Seidel, who arranged this music, has been called “Der Glöckner vom Bartholomäusturm“, which translates into English as “The Hunchback of Bartholomew Tower”.

(Thanks to investigator Wolter Seuntjens for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: The search for Fledermausmensch

BONUS: Further stimulating research on fruit bat on fruit bat stimulation

How to be a pest in a museum

Emma-Louise Nicholls [pictured here] explains, on the University College London Museums and Exhibitions blog, how to be a pest. Her essay begins:

How to: Be a Good Museum Pest

There are two types of creepy crawlies that you get in museums; ones that don’t eat specimens (i.e. creepy crawlies that fair poorly at being museum pests) and ones that do eat specimens (these typically do well at being pests).  First, you need to decide which you are. If the thought of eating dried cartilage, wooden drawers, paper labels, certain glues, feathers, or fur turns you off… go away, you’re a rubbish pest. go away, you’re a rubbish pest. However if the opportunity to chow down on the internal remnants of an animal skull makes you salivate, then continue reading my friend, this how to guide is for you….

(Thanks to Sara Everts for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: Sally Shelton’s treatise “Integrated Pest Management of Manifestations as Infestations”