Tom Stafford's Blog, page 146

The Inca DSM

[image error]A 1999 article about 'Mental disorder among the Incas in ancient Peru' in the History of Psychiatry journal has a listing of mental illness recognised by the Inca empire.

The name on the left is in Ancient Quechua, the language of the Incas, and the translation is on the right.

Chayapu oncuy - Frenzy, madness
Chayapuy - Frenzy, madness
Chayapuyniyoc - Frenetic
Chayapuyok urek - Lunatic
Cupaypa yaucusccan - Possessed by the devil
Haucha utek - Furious fool
Llakiy - Addiction, sadness, anxiety
Manchay...

From subliminal ads to Joanna the Mad

[image error]The Providentia psychology blog has been a consistently good read for as long as I can remember and if you've never checked it out a host of great articles have been posted online recently.

Just in May along there have been pieces on how a barking woman was declared unfit for trial, how the panic about 'subliminal advertising' started in the '50s, why adolescents drink and whether the Spanish monarch Joanna the Mad was really mad.

It's written by Toronto-based psychologist Romeo Vitelli and is ...

Time compression and the causal connection

[image error]When we think two events are causally related we perceive the time between them to be shorter. Although this is news to me, it turns out the 'time compression' effect has been well researched.

Several of the studies have found that when we view two events but believe the first causes the second, time between them seems have gone quicker than when we perceive exactly the same scenario but think the two events are not connected.

This is a summary of the effect from a recent study that...

Crack baby blues

[image error]I've just noticed a smattering of articles that have tackled the idea of the 'crack baby' which became popular during the worrying emergence of crack cocaine during the late 80s. It turns out that babies exposed to crack in the womb weren't necessarily massively brain damaged tragedies as the stereotype had it, but the concept has remained with us.

This is despite the fact that we have solid research to show that while those exposed to cocaine in utero do show some differences from other...

Hallucinating the void

[image error]Rhode Island Medical News recently published an April fools article where the author joked about negative hallucinations, where someone didn't see things that were really there, seemingly unaware that such hallucinations are in fact possible.

The article, which you can read online as a pdf, has various humorous references to jumping traffics lights or ignoring family members. But when I'm talking about the genuine version I don't mean lapses of attention, blind spots, inattentional blindness

A belief in flexible intelligence

[image error]The Chronicle of Higher Education has an excellent piece about psychologist Carol Dweck's work which has highlighted how what you believe about intelligence has an effect on how you perform.

Dwecks's work has garnered a great deal of attention and her main findings have suggested that children praised for their 'hard work' do significantly better when challenged with difficult problem that those who are told that they are 'intelligent'.

The Chronicle article is a fantastic update to some of...

Disappearing trick

[image error]Koro is the unfounded fear that the genitals are retracting into the body or have disappeared. It is usually classified by Western psychiatry as a 'culture bound syndrome' as it typically appears Asian or African cultures in various forms but an article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine notes that it has shown up in most cultures at one time or another.

Koro--the psychological disappearance of the penis.

Mattelaer JJ, Jilek W.

J Sex Med. 2007 Sep;4(5):1509-15.

The aim of this article is to...

2010-05-21 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

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BBC Radio 4's excellent In Our Time had a discussion on William James' landmark book 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'

The Neurocritic examines a curious study on the cognitive science of gaydar.

The brilliant behavioural economist Dan Ariely writes for Wired UK on habits and behavioural inertia in consumer decision-making.

Neuroskeptic has an insightful post that gets beyond the dopamine = 'instant reward liquid' stereotype that...

From madhouse to medication

[image error]I just watched a thought-provoking BBC documentary called Mental: A History of the Madhouse which follows the history of British psychiatric treatment in the 20th century from the monolithic mental hospitals inherited from the 1800s to the development of 'care in the community' at the end of the century.

If you're based in the UK you can watch it on the BBC's streaming service but I also notice that it has appeared on various public torrent servers. *cough*

It's definitely a dissenters look at ...

Rough terrain for social scientists in Aghan war

[image error]An anonymous ex-member of the Human Terrain System, the team of social scientists deployed with the US Military, is now writing on the Wired Danger Room blog about role of the service in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first article notes how in several recent operations the HTS has been notable by its absence.

As we've discussed before, the HTS project has been a source of some considerable controversy with fellow social scientists denouncing the project as 'weaponised...