Tom Stafford's Blog, page 154

Psychosis podcast and the Mind Hacks recursion

[image error]About a year ago, we posted about a study at the University of Manchester who were evaluating the impact of podcast about psychosis on attitudes towards unusual mental states. Mind Hacks readers formed a large bulk of the participants and the paper has just been published in the journal Psychosis.

So, in possibly one of the most recursive posts you're likely to read for a while, I'm going to write about a study you were part of because you read about it on Mind Hacks.

The research was...

But I just think I'm free

[image error]From the track Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal, who turns out to be a remarkably insightful lyricist when he's not rapping about working it with the ladies:

I wake up, every day is a daydream

Everything in my life isn't what it seems

I wake up just to go back to sleep

I act real shallow but I'm in too deep

And all I care about is sex and violence

And a heavy bass line is my kind of silence

Everybody says that I got to get a grip

But I let sanity give me the slip

Link to video for Bonkers.

The superstar black hole

[image error]The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the 'superstar effect' where competition against someone who is perceived as far superior actually makes the other competitors perform worse due to a sort of 'implicit intimidation'.

The piece, by science writer Jonah Lehrer, riffs on a study [pdf] by economist Jennifer Brown who looked at the effect of Tiger Woods presence in a tournament on other golfers' performance:

Ms. Brown discovered the superstar effect by analyzing data from every...

Not exactly rocket surgery

[image error]There's a great comedy sketch from British due Mitchell and Webb about an egotistical brain surgeon on YouTube.

It's sarcastic, cutting and you can see the punchline coming a mile off, but still good for laugh as it satirises the effect of the ego on typical British small talk.

The only similar joke I've ever tried was to say to a neurosurgeon in the pub "that's lucky, I've got this thing in my temporal lobe that's been playing up, I wonder if you wouldn't mind having a quick look".

Lead...

2010-04-09 Spike activity

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

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New Scientist has an excellent piece on theories of how deep brain stimulation treats mental illness. Ignore the stupid title.

A study found by Barking Up the Wrong Tree finds higher intelligence is a "protective factor" against teenage sexual activity. Geek you say?

Slate has a fascinating article on cognitive distortions in how we think about geography and how it affects our judgements.

Noam Chomsky answer questions on cognitive science...

Wonky Kong

[image error]There's a bizarre case report in the latest edition of Psychological Medicine where some Australian psychiatrists who specialise in disorders of old age got called out to a zoo to assess an elderly gorilla who was behaving strangely.

Unfortunately, the case report is full of medical jargon although it becomes quite charming when you realise that the psychiatrists just went about assessing the gorilla, running their standard tests as best they could, as if it was just another patient.

The bit...

Rumour has it

[image error]As a follow-on from our recent post on the psychology of urban legends, I've just found a video interview with psychologist Nicholas DiFonzo, author of the book Rumor Psychology that we mentioned previously.

DiFonzo discusses some of the main conclusions of the research, including the major motivations for why people pass on hearsay, the most significant reasons for why people believe it, and the most effective ways of combating rumours.

A brief but interesting interview.

Link to interview on...

A hitchhiker's guide to the inherited mind

[image error]New Scientist has a fantastic article on making sense of cognitive genetics studies, the science that links certain versions of genes to behaviour, by taking the use and abuse of the MAOA gene as an example. If the name doesn't ring a bell you may remember it being dubbed 'warrior gene', which as well as being inaccurate, was one of its least embarrassing moments.

For many decades, genetics and psychology only really interacted with the twin study, which, by comparing the differences between i...

In the eye of the storm

[image error]Wired magazine's Haiti Rewired blog has an excellent piece on the 'psychological typhoon eye' phenomenon, discovered after studies of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China, where those closest to the centre of the devastation actually reported less concern about their safety and health.

The effect was initially reported shortly after the disaster and was found to still be present in a follow-up study one year later.

From the Wired piece:

Two suggestions have been provided to account for the...

Cultural differences in childhood amnesia

[image error]Childhood amnesia is the phenomenon where we are generally unable to remember the earliest years of childhood. This is often assumed to be purely because the brain is too underdeveloped to successfully store and organise memories but an interesting study from 2000 reported that the extent of childhood amnesia differs between cultures and sexes.

Cross-cultural and gender differences in childhood amnesia

Memory. 2000...