tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/cognitive-skills-24138/articlesCognitive skills – The Conversation2024-02-06T15:20:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227262024-02-06T15:20:45Z2024-02-06T15:20:45ZMoney and ageing: South African study shows cash grants help people live longer and have better memory function<p>Nearly <a href="https://theconversation.com/47-of-south-africans-rely-on-social-grants-study-reveals-how-they-use-them-to-generate-more-income-203691">half</a> of South Africa’s 60 million people receive social grants, ranging from child support to pensions. The grants are designed to provide financial assistance to people living in poverty.</p>
<p>The largest components of the South African social grant system were introduced, or expanded to include the full population, in the 1990s. Since then, the system has <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/168/V19I1a3.pdf">evolved</a> into one of the most comprehensive in the global south.</p>
<p>In addition to their direct financial benefits, the grants have been found to have a wide range of positive effects. These include improvements in <a href="https://opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/46/06_08.pdf?sequence=1">child nutrition</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03768350500322925">education</a>, and increased participation of women in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/47-of-south-africans-rely-on-social-grants-study-reveals-how-they-use-them-to-generate-more-income-203691">labour force</a>. </p>
<p>But the effects of social grants on the health of older adults have not been extensively explored. Until now. </p>
<p>Across a series of recent studies conducted as part of an extensive research project in a rural part of South Africa, we have established that social grants can help older South Africans protect their cognitive health and live longer. Cognitive health is the ability to clearly think, learn, and remember. </p>
<p>Using our collective expertise into cognitive and population health, we studied the health effects of three different cash transfer programmes in a sample of 5,059 adults 40 years and older in rural Mpumalanga province.</p>
<p>Our results consistently found strong and positive effects thanks to these programmes. </p>
<p>Older people will make up a much bigger portion of South Africa’s population over the next <a href="https://afrique.maisonphilo.com/doc/aging.pdf#page=20">20 years</a>. Our results provide good news about a social intervention programme the country already has in place to promote health and well-being among older adults. </p>
<h2>How we did the studies and what we learnt</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.agincourt.co.za/agincourt-maps-2">Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System</a> has been collecting data on more than 120,000 people living in 31 villages in north-east South Africa since 1992. </p>
<p>This rural campus of the University of the Witwatersrand was established to track and understand health and well-being in these rural environments. </p>
<p>The Agincourt project is also a platform for other studies to collect more detailed information on certain community members.</p>
<p>We used data from an experimental <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027795362300240X">cash transfer</a> trial within the larger Agincourt research platform that paid monthly cash transfers to households from 2011 through 2015 and compared them to control households with no payments. Just over 2,500 households originally enrolled in the trial. Monthly payments of R300 were split between a school-age female and her caregiver. </p>
<p>We also used data from Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies in South Africa. This is a smaller Agincourt cohort of 5,059 men and women aged 40 and older with detailed information on memory function and dementia probability collected every three years from 2014/2015 through to 2021/2022.</p>
<p>We tested whether being in the group that received the cash transfers led to better cognitive health later in life, up to seven years after the trial concluded. </p>
<p>We found that people who received the cash were better off than those who did not. They had slower ageing-related memory decline and lower dementia probability in 2021/2022, the most recent wave of <a href="https://haalsi.org/">data collection</a>. </p>
<p>For some groups, we also observed an impact on mortality. In those who were relatively better off at baseline with regard to education and wealth, the addition of the cash transfer led to significantly reduced risk of mortality.</p>
<p>In a second study we examined the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08959420.2023.2195785">impact</a> of the older person’s grant, a public pension, on men’s later-life cognitive health. </p>
<p>From 2008 to 2010, the older person’s grant expanded its <a href="https://www.social-protection.org/gimi/Media.action;jsessionid=bEt4_DojTu9wWIPBWbJTZ0k4vDXkszJ2EpvEJTFXyjUV31SZ3GJL!1393577045?id=15519">age eligibility</a> for men from 65 to 60 years. This meant that men aged 60 through 64 at the time of expansion were newly eligible for between one and five “extra” years of pension income prior to turning 65. </p>
<p>Women had always become eligible at <a href="https://www.social-protection.org/gimi/Media.action;jsessionid=bEt4_DojTu9wWIPBWbJTZ0k4vDXkszJ2EpvEJTFXyjUV31SZ3GJL!1393577045?id=15519">60 years</a> of age, so they were not included in this analysis. </p>
<p>We found that men who received the full five extra years of pension income eligibility had significantly better cognitive function than expected if the grant had not expanded its eligibility. </p>
<p>We also observed a “stair step” pattern, where cognitive function was progressively better for each extra year of pension eligibility.</p>
<p>In our final study, we examined the impact of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9949209/">child support grant</a> on women’s later-life cognitive health. </p>
<p>When the child support grant was introduced in 1998, it was available only for children under <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0037-80542017000300006#:%7E:text=The%20CSG%20was%20introduced%20in%201998%20to%20cover%20children%20below,Toit%20%26%20Lues%2C%202014">seven</a> years old. Since then, a series of policy changes expanded the ages that children were eligible for the grant, eventually rising to age <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0037-80542017000300006#:%7E:text=The%20CSG%20was%20introduced%20in%201998%20to%20cover%20children%20below,Toit%20%26%20Lues%2C%202014">18</a> in 2012. These expansions over time mean that two women with the same number of children could have had access to very different amounts of child support grant income, depending on when those children were born.</p>
<p>Consistent with what we found for the older person’s grant expansion, higher access to child support grant income was associated with higher later-life cognitive function for maternal beneficiaries of the grant. </p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>Our results so far clearly point to the benefits of South Africa’s social grant programmes for older adults as they are currently structured. </p>
<p>They suggest that as South Africa ages in the upcoming decades, sustained investments in these programmes will pay off in better health and well-being of the country’s most vulnerable older adults.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Molly Rosenberg receives funding from the United States National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (grant number R01AG069128)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Kobayashi is supported by the National Institute on Aging of the US National Institutes of Health (grant numbers R01 AG069128 and R01 AG070953).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chodziwadziwa Whiteson Kabudula and Kathleen Kahn do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nearly half of South Africa’s 60 million people receive social grants. Health experts say they improve cognitive health among the elderly.Molly Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Indiana UniversityChodziwadziwa Whiteson Kabudula, Senior Researcher Rural Health in Transition and Agincourt Research Unit, University of the WitwatersrandKathleen Kahn, Professor: Health and Population Division, School of Public Health, University of the WitwatersrandLindsay Kobayashi, Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117262023-12-21T10:27:16Z2023-12-21T10:27:16ZSocial media drains our brains and impacts our decision making – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543273/original/file-20230817-40322-o38kim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=798%2C167%2C7788%2C5214&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Social media can make us buy products we don't want, new research shows. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-asian-business-woman-connecting-to-social-royalty-free-image/1470073460?phrase=social+media&adppopup=true">Oscar Wong/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever found yourself scrolling through social media late at night and accidentally buying something you regretted? In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast, we talk to an advertising expert about recent research into how social media <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15252019.2022.2144780">can overload our brains</a> and make us buy products we don’t need or want.</p>
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<p></p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cXqXHpsAAAAJ&hl=en">Matthew Pittman</a> is a professor of advertising at the University of Tennessee in the US. In 2022, Pittman and his colleague <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GqkucpQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Eric Haley</a>, conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to examine how people under various mental loads respond to advertisements differently.</p>
<p>“Our brain has limited resources and it can also be taxed if we try to do too many things at once and once those resources are depleted, there are usually negative consequences,” says Pittman. </p>
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<p>If you’re on the fence about a purchase and you’re under cognitive load and you see a lot of likes or a lot of comments, or maybe it’s very attractive people in the ad that look happy … click, I’m gonna purchase it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pittman found that those who weren’t under <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-009-9110-0">cognitive load</a> made more balanced purchasing decisions. But the group that they told to scroll through their Instagram feed for 30 seconds and then look at an advert was more susceptible to cues such as the comments and likes associated with it. </p>
<p>When asked to describe their rationale for buying a product, Pittman was surprised that those under a high mental load had diminished sentence and language capabilities. He found that Instagram put subjects in a mentally exhausted state because they were consuming different types of text, photos and posts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People that were not under cognitive load gave grammatically normal sentences that flowed logically, such as this ice cream looked tasty, or I liked the colors, but when people were under cognitive load, even their sentences were more fractured. Which explains why I can’t explain to my wife why I consistently make stupid purchases.</p>
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<p>Listen to the full episode of <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> to hear the different ways social media impacts our processing abilities and decision-making. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3015/Social_Media_and_Cognitive_Load_Transcript.docx.pdf?1706201893">transcript of this episode</a> is now available.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Matthew Pittman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p>
<p><em>This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany with production assistance from Katie Flood and our intern Jusneel Mahal. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. The executive producer is Gemma Ware.</em> </p>
<p><em>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>Listen to “The Conversation Weekly” via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a> or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Pittman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows that scrolling through Instagram can effect our processing and language capabilities. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.Mend Mariwany, Producer, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2056942023-06-01T14:11:44Z2023-06-01T14:11:44ZAre rich people more intelligent? Here’s what the science says<p>From <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13406094/">White Lotus</a> to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7660850/">Succession</a>, there’s high demand for television dramas about the super rich. The characters on these shows are typically portrayed as entitled, hollow and sad. But they aren’t necessarily depicted as unintelligent. So are rich people rich because they are smart? </p>
<p>In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, this question goes beyond scientific curiosity and touches something deeper.</p>
<p>If people’s net worth were only the consequence of their intelligence, the gigantic <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/economy-99">wealth gap</a> we see in our society might be perceived as less intolerable – at least by some. Inequality would be the price to pay for having the smartest lead us all to a better future.</p>
<p>There is little doubt that intelligence contributes to one’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289613000263#bb0060">economic and professional success</a>. Take self-made billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Ray Dalio, just to name a few. It would be surprising if top innovators in advanced fields such as tech and finance turned out to be average. </p>
<p>In fact, intelligence is the best predictor of both <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606000171">educational achievement</a> and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2003-11198-011">work performance</a>. And academic and professional success is, in turn, a fairly good forecaster of income. But that’s not the whole story.</p>
<p>Not all highly intelligent people are primarily driven by a desire for wealth – they <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656612001572">often have a thirst for knowledge</a>. Some may instead opt for comparatively less well paying jobs that are more intellectually rewarding, such as architecture, engineering or research. A recent Swedish study showed that cognitive test scores of the top 1% of earners <a href="https://academic.oup.com/esr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/esr/jcac076/7008955?login=false">were not significantly different</a> to the scores obtained by those who earned slightly less. </p>
<p>But to what extent does intelligence boost wealth? Before diving into the evidence, we must clarify what researchers mean by “intelligence”. <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2019-01683-001.html">Intelligence</a> can be defined as the ability to perform a wide range of cognitive tests successfully. And these seem to be linked. If someone is good at resolving a particular cognitive test, they will probably perform well in other cognitive tests too.</p>
<p>Intelligence is not a monolithic trait, though. In fact, it consists of at least two broad constructs: <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/fluid-crystallized-intelligence.html">fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence</a>. Fluid intelligence taps into core cognitive mechanisms, such as the speed of processing stimuli, memory capacity and abstract reasoning. Conversely, crystallised intelligence refers to those skills developed in a social environment, such as literacy, numeracy and knowledge about specific topics.</p>
<p>This distinction matters because these two types of intelligence develop <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976231156793">in different ways</a>. Fluid intelligence can be <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1980.tb00809.x">inherited</a>, <a href="https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102168/1/Cognitive_Training_Does_Not_Enhance_General_Cognition_FINAL.pdf">cannot be boosted</a> and decreases fairly quickly with age. By contrast, crystallised intelligence <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100620920576">increases throughout most adulthood</a> and starts declining only after about 65 years.</p>
<p>But fluid intelligence helps build up crystallised intelligence. Fluid intelligence represents the brain’s capacity of acquiring and elaborating information. Crystallised intelligence is, to a large extent, acquired information.</p>
<p>This means that if your reasoning skills are sharp, then you will process new information quickly. You will integrate novel information with old information accurately. Ultimately, this will speed up learning of any discipline and contribute to your academic and financial success.</p>
<h2>Education is a factor</h2>
<p>That said, innate capabilities are not the only thing that matters. Another significant factor is education.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797618774253?casa_token=nOeXqIgTR84AAAAA:nTPBsRJuKNWtCO3F2vNoK0t2m-N1BQZ_5wm4EHp0pg0qN_dDqDXbn3dOgohDyKFwhRMMYMkZmsKUOko">quantitative review</a> has established that the more years of schooling, the higher students’ intelligence scores. Crucially, these improvements stem from training in <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2015-11424-001.html">specific skills</a> rather than enhancing general intellectual ability. So school teaches you useful stuff for both professional success and performing intelligence tests. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, education in turn is affected by family socioeconomic status. For example, expensive schools and private tutors provide the student highly efficient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem">personalised instruction</a>. Access to top quality education may therefore make a huge difference in future income.</p>
<p>Of course, the influence of family socioeconomic status on wealth does not operate solely through education. Inheritance and networks are among the most obvious mechanisms. This is particularly true for entrepreneurs, whose investing potential and connections are fundamental for business success.</p>
<h2>The role of luck</h2>
<p>So intelligence, education and socioeconomic status all affect one’s income. However, these factors alone are unlikely to fully account for the individual differences in wealth. In fact, a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068">recent study</a> suggests that luck exerts a significant impact.</p>
<p>This study highlights that the statistical distribution of wealth differs from the distribution of intelligence. Intelligence is “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/normal-distribution">normally distributed</a>”, with most individuals being around average. By contrast, wealth follows a “<a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ParetoDistribution.html">pareto distribution</a>”, a formula which shows that 80% of a country’s wealth is in the hands of only 20% of the population. </p>
<p><strong>Intelligence versus wealth distribution</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing the distribution of intelligence (left panel) and wealth (right panel; values in log scale)" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528684/original/file-20230527-69553-pgqw7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The distribution of intelligence (left panel) and wealth (right panel; values in log scale). The data are simulated and are shown only for exposition purposes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This means intellect alone cannot account for the disproportionate disparities between rich and poor in our society.</p>
<p>The study does not downplay the role of intelligence (or talent in general). A fine intellectual ability improves the chances of getting rich. Nonetheless, intelligence is no guarantee of getting rich. Furthermore, a series of fortunate events can clearly turn unremarkable individuals into high earners.</p>
<p>That is, when it comes to getting rich, intelligence is neither sufficient nor necessary. But it does help.</p>
<p>“I’d rather be lucky than good,” says the character Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Woody Allen’s film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416320/">Match Point</a>. In the light of the evidence we have just reviewed, he may be right. </p>
<p>Being born into a wealthy and highly educated family is a fortunate event. Likewise, random strokes of luck (like winning the lottery) do not come from years of hard work. We may even push the argument a bit further and conclude that being intelligent is a form of luck itself. </p>
<p>Many things that contribute to achieving financial success are beyond our control. Most, if not all, extremely wealthy people have been blessed by Lady Luck somehow. </p>
<p>Conversely, making the most of what luck brings us certainly matters. Granted, a good deal of individuals merely cash in the benefits of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-meritocracy-is-a-smokescreen-for-inherited-privilege-70948">inherited privilege</a>. </p>
<p>Regardless, many small and big fortunes stem from an intelligent use of the resources we are lucky to have been gifted with – whether they are intellectual, educational or socioeconomic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Education, contacts and luck can play a considerable role when it comes to building up wealth.Giovanni Sala, Lecturer in Psychology, University of LiverpoolFernand Gobet, Professorial Research Fellow of Psychology, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821002022-06-30T12:23:16Z2022-06-30T12:23:16ZPeople vary a lot in how well they recognize, match or categorize the things they see – researchers attribute this skill to an ability they call ‘o’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471229/original/file-20220627-14-d5x5pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C100%2C5854%2C4365&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some people are inherently better at tasks like reading X-rays.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pediatrician-shows-concerned-father-foot-x-rays-royalty-free-image/1061001356">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like snowflakes, no two people are exactly the same. You’re probably used to the idea that people differ substantially in personality and in cognitive abilities – skills like problem-solving or remembering information.</p>
<p>In contrast, there’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417737151">a widely held intuition</a> that people vary far less in their ability to recognize, match or categorize objects. Many everyday tasks, hobbies and even critical jobs – like interpreting satellite imagery, matching fingerprints or diagnosing medical conditions – rely on these perceptual skills. The common expectation is that smart and motivated people who receive the appropriate training should eventually be able to excel at occupations that require hundreds of perceptual decisions every day.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zMFcCjEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">We</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dxEzLKAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">are</a> psychologists who measure how people compare on challenging perceptual tasks. Our research has found that this intuition that everyone has the same capacity for perceptual skills is not supported by the evidence. </p>
<p>It’s not a problem if you choose to spend every weekend bird-watching without ever getting very good at it – you may still get some fresh air and have fun. But when perceptual decisions influence safety, health or legal outcomes, there’s a case for seeking people who can achieve the best possible performance. Our research suggests some people are just better than others at learning to discriminate things perceptually, whatever the objects may be.</p>
<h2>A general ability to recognize things</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/11491-006">Classic psychological studies</a> at the turn of the 20th century discovered that performance across a range of cognitive tasks designed to test memory, math and verbal skills is correlated. In real life, this means someone who is great at sudoku is also likely to be good at memorizing their shopping list. This finding led to the modern notion of general intelligence, describing a collection of faculties that together predict a wide range of outcomes, from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015497">income</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01301001.x">health and longevity</a>.</p>
<p>In a similar way, our studies reveal that those who are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001100">best at bird recognition may also excel at plane identification</a>,
and they may also be the best at learning to spot tumors in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3460">chest X-rays</a>. In other research, the same ability predicted better performance in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-021-02349-3">reading musical notation</a> or <a href="https://www.visionsciences.org/presentation/?id=4101">recognizing images of prepared food</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, people vary in their experience with birds or medical images. The more familiar you are with them, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0073-4">better you are at recognizing them</a>. Experience and training have an important role in how people make decisions based on visual information. But does everyone start on the same footing when they begin training?</p>
<h2>Does everyone start at square one?</h2>
<p>We were interested in whether everyone starts at about the same baseline of perceptual talent. To investigate this question, we measured people’s abilities with artificial objects they had never seen, to prevent any advantage due to different levels of experience.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000129">one large study</a>, we assessed 246 people for 13 hours each, testing them on several tasks with six categories of computer-generated artificial objects. We asked people to remember and recognize objects, to match them, or to make judgments about some of their parts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="images of abstract objects, a chest X-ray, four versions of a prepared food and four imaginary robots" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469066/original/file-20220615-9175-6vr9hj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of tasks that tap into o, from top left: 1) Are these two objects identical despite the change in viewpoint? 2) Which lung has a tumor? 3) Which of these dishes is the oddball? 4) Which option is the average of the four robots on the right?
Answers: 1) no 2) left 3) third 4) fourth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Isabel Gauthier</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our results across tasks like these repeatedly reveal that people vary as much in perceptual abilities as they do in cognitive skills. Using <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135239">statistical methods</a> historically applied to intelligence and personality tests, we found that over 89% of the differences between people in their performance with these different tasks and categories could be explained by a general ability. We called this ability “o” for object recognition and in honor of the “g” factor, which stands for similar statistical evidence for general intelligence. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001100">follow-up studies</a>, we’ve found that o applies in the same way to artificial and real objects, and that people with high o are better at computing summary statistics for groups of objects (such as estimating the “average” of several objects) and also better at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01560-z">recognizing objects by touch</a>. You can compare yourself to others in <a href="https://jasonkchow.github.io/ov_demo/">this short demo</a>.</p>
<h2>o is a distinct ability</h2>
<p>Since it is so general, is o just another name for general intelligence? We don’t think so.</p>
<p>In one study, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.019">neither IQ nor SAT scores predict recognition</a> of novel objects. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000129">In other work</a>, we found that o was distinct from g, but also from the personality trait of conscientiousness. This means that book smarts may not be enough to excel in domains that rely heavily on perceptual abilities.</p>
<p>We tested this idea by measuring how good people with or without expertise in radiology were at detecting lung nodules in chest X-rays. Those with the highest o were better at this task, even after controlling for intelligence and experience in radiology. This finding demonstrates the added value of measuring o. Even when medical students are selected to be smart and provided with training, it may not guarantee the highest levels of performance in specializations that rely on perceptual skills.</p>
<p>Many doors open when you demonstrate that you’re cognitively talented, which seems only fair. But it is fair only to the extent that general intelligence is the best way – or even a sufficient way – to predict success in a given domain. Many have raised warnings that intelligence testing can lead to inequities in hiring or career placement tied to race, gender or socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>Over the years, many thinkers have downplayed innate talents to emphasize environmental influences. They argued that success can be shaped through years of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2008.00227.x">deliberate practice</a>, programs to change one’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805">attitudes about learning</a>, or even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3135">hours of playing video games</a>. </p>
<p>But the evidence in favor of the influence of innate talents remains strong, and denying them or overpromising on the efficacy of environmental factors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418797300">may sometimes be harmful</a>. People can waste time and resources that could be better invested, and may run the risk of experiencing stigma if their efforts do not succeed because of factors they cannot control.</p>
<p>One answer to this problem is to learn more about talents beyond those related to intelligence and then to make better use of them. Classical notions of intelligence may be just one factor of many that determine overall ability. An increased focus on perceptual abilities, specifically those that are general, could help reduce inequities. For instance, while differences in experience can drive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2016.10.003">sex differences in the recognition of objects in some familiar categories</a>, we’ve found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001100">no such differences in the general ability o</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To achieve perceptual expertise, you may need more than smarts and hard work. Research suggests there’s a general ability that may help you succeed in jobs that depend on perceptual decisions.Isabel Gauthier, David K. Wilson Professor of Psychology, Vanderbilt UniversityJason Chow, Ph.D. Student in Psychological Sciences, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1752272022-01-25T15:46:31Z2022-01-25T15:46:31ZThe Wordle craze: Why do we love puzzles, and are they good for our brains?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442097/original/file-20220123-27-14cfsw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C5000%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wordle is the latest word game to captivate millions. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-wordle-craze--why-do-we-love-puzzles--and-are-they-good-for-our-brains" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In recent weeks, a web-based word puzzle called <a href="https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/">Wordle</a> has become a popular daily distraction. Suddenly, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html">millions of people are focused on their vocabulary of five-letter words</a>, and are newly aware of concepts like letter frequency and letter position as they strategize about the best opening words and faster solutions. </p>
<p>For these people, Wordle is captivating. Previous research can help us understand how our brains respond to word games, and why we love them.</p>
<p>Wordle is a single-player puzzle that combines elements of several games, including Scrabble and Battleship. My colleagues and I <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/145744/u-of-c-researchers-investigate-what-makes-accomplished-scrabble-players-so-s-m-a-r-t/">have studied Scrabble as a way of understanding how language is processed in the brain</a>, and how that processing changes with experience.</p>
<h2>This is your brain on Scrabble</h2>
<p>Competitive Scrabble players are people who spend a great deal of time playing Scrabble, competing in Scrabble tournaments, memorizing word lists and practising anagramming — shuffling sets of letters to create different words. </p>
<p>Much like chess players, competitive Scrabble players are <a href="https://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/rating.cgi">ranked in an international rating system</a> based on tournament results. We recruited competitive players from Scrabble tournaments and clubs and gave them a series of tasks to understand how all of this Scrabble practice and play alters their mental processes.</p>
<p>In our first study, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0137-5">competitive Scrabble players recognized words faster than those who didn’t routinely play Scrabble, particularly when words were presented vertically</a>. Vertical word presentation is unusual in written English but common in Scrabble, and competitive players are very good at recognizing vertical words. </p>
<p>We also found that Scrabble players quickly recognized words without fully processing word meaning. This is probably because in Scrabble, you need to know whether different strings of letters make up legal plays, but you don’t actually need to know what those words mean.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Scrabble player places tiles to spell a word on a green Scrabble board." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442098/original/file-20220123-23-ugabse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Scabble player places tiles to spell a word during a meeting of the Vancouver Scrabble Club.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also used brain imaging to study how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.03.015">all those years of intensive practice might have altered brain processes for language in competitive Scrabble players</a>. </p>
<p>We found that when recognizing words and making simple decisions about them, competitive Scrabble players used a different network of brain areas than those who didn’t play Scrabble competitively. Scrabble experts made use of brain regions not typically associated with word meaning retrieval, but rather those associated with visual memory and perception.</p>
<h2>A Scrabble habit makes you … good at Scrabble</h2>
<p>We wondered whether the effects of Scrabble practice that we observed in competitive players have benefits beyond Scrabble. Does playing lots of Scrabble make you good at anything else? The answer seems to be no. </p>
<p>We investigated that question by <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00564">giving competitive Scrabble players and a group of Scrabble non-experts a task that was similar to Scrabble but used symbols instead of letters</a>. In that task, Scrabble players were no better than anyone else in terms of their processing speed or accuracy.</p>
<p>We also investigated whether <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2018.05.015">Scrabble expertise protects players from the effects of brain aging</a>. Again, the answer seems to be no. Older Scrabble players still show the normal effects of aging, like slower processing speed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man with grey hair and a woman with grey hair look down at a Scrabble board on a table in front of them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442245/original/file-20220124-21-idxrqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An elderly couple plays Scrabble at their Toronto home in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In both Scrabble and Wordle, players need to search their word memory based on letters, shuffle letters across positions to find solutions or plays — the meaning of the words is irrelevant. Because of these similarities, many of the brain processes involved in Scrabble are probably also engaged when solving Wordles. </p>
<p>Our research with people who are not Scrabble experts shows that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030304">mental processes start to change quite quickly when people are asked to take on a new word recognition task</a>. That means it’s very likely your Wordle habit has already caused slight changes in the brain processes you use to solve the puzzles. </p>
<p>Those changes help you to play Wordle, but probably don’t help you with anything else.</p>
<h2>Why do some people love puzzles?</h2>
<p>Wordle has become a habit for millions, but for others it’s not appealing. </p>
<p>There are probably lots of reasons for this, but one explanation could be differences in what people find motivating. Some people enjoy puzzles and thinking challenges more than others. This type of motivation is referred to as <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.197">need for cognition</a>, and people who have a high need for cognition tend to seek out mental challenges like word games and puzzles.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1484239830464696324"}"></div></p>
<p>In Scrabble, there are usually multiple possible plays that could advance the game, but Worldles have a single right answer. With only one Wordle released per day, everyone is solving the same puzzle. The online game’s sharing options also allow us to share our results with others without giving the answer away.</p>
<p>That means Wordle is also creating an opportunity for shared experience at a time when many people are feeling disconnected from others. A Wordle habit is not likely to make you smarter or ward off brain aging, but it may give you a daily dose of complex cognition combined with social interaction — and that can be a very good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Pexman receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She is a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute.</span></em></p>Like a Scrabble habit, a passion for Wordle isn’t likely to make you smarter or ward off brain aging. But it may give you a daily dose of complex cognition combined with social interaction.Penny Pexman, Professor of Psychology, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1739542021-12-22T13:49:47Z2021-12-22T13:49:47ZSeagulls, songbirds and parrots: what new research tells us about their cognitive ability<p>As you can imagine, a human intelligence test doesn’t really cut it for birds. It isn’t that easy to assess how an animal perceives information from the environment, processes it and decides to act. But researchers have developed a range of clever experiments to find out more about their cognitive abilities. Do they recognise each other, for example, or understand causal relationships where one thing can lead to another?</p>
<p>A commonly used “intelligence test” for animals is the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25984937/">string-pulling task </a>. In this set-up, a piece of food is attached to a string. The food is then positioned out of reach for the animal – although still visible – and if they understand the causal relationship between the string and the food, they will start to pull the string which then moves the food closer to them until they reach it. If an animal can solve the string-pulling task we assume that it understands the relationship between the string and the reward and can deliberately execute a series of actions to get access to the reward. </p>
<p>In a recent study, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211343">ring-billed gulls were tested</a> using the string-pulling model. Ring-billed gulls inhabit Canada and northern USA, however individual birds regularly wander to western Europe and are nowadays regular visitors in Ireland and the UK. </p>
<p>Gulls from a colony in Canada were individually marked with a colour band. This allowed the researchers to identify individual birds, which is important when testing cognition – and is often an obstacle for research on wild animals. In the test, a transparent plastic box was presented to the gulls, and they needed to pull a string through an open slit to retrieve a piece of sausage placed in a petri dish from inside the box. Gulls are omnivores and their diet consists of insects, fish, grain, eggs, worms and rodents. So a piece of sausage was particularly appealing.</p>
<h2>Seabird skills</h2>
<p>This task was given to 138 individuals at least once and 104 individuals – 75% – of the gulls attempted to solve the task. Of these, 26 individuals – 25% of those who attempted the task at least once – successfully retrieved the food from the box by pulling the string. </p>
<p>That may not seem like a particularly large number of successful gulls, but in a comparable <a href="https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/112/4/994/5168328?login=true">experiment in common ravens</a>, 26% successfully solved a similar task, suggesting that ravens and gulls perform similarly well. So that one test, at least, seems to suggest that corvids might not necessarily always possess higher cognitive abilities compared to other groups of birds, as has been widely assumed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A rook carrying a takeaway box in its beak." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3620%2C2408&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438829/original/file-20211222-23072-1itpe1r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rooks are known for their skills in collaboration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gulls also perform well in other recent cognitive tasks – for example, urban herring gulls <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.191959">use human cues</a>, such as human handling of food or human behaviour, to make foraging decisions which exploit their city home and help them to locate hidden food for themselves.</p>
<p>Up until recently, groups of birds such as fowl, birds of prey or penguins were rarely subjected to cognitive tests, because they were widely considered “less clever” and therefore less interesting than the songbirds – corvids such as crows, ravens, magpies and jays – and <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/beh/156/5-8/article-p391_1.xml">parrots</a> which have attracted the most interest from animal cognition experts due to what is thought to be their <a href="http://blogs.nwic.edu/briansblog/files/2013/02/feathered_apes.pdf">extraordinary cognitive abilities</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/birds-that-play-with-others-have-the-biggest-brains-and-the-same-may-go-for-humans-151079">Birds that play with others have the biggest brains - and the same may go for humans</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But the recent studies on gulls – and a number of other waterfowl species – have shone a light on their previously undiscovered skills. Greylag geese can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Isabella-Scheiber/publication/230811059_Long-term_memory_of_hierarchical_relationships_in_free-living_greylag_geese/links/552ccc770cf2e089a3acee56/Long-term-memory-of-hierarchical-relationships-in-free-living-greylag-geese.pdf">memorise social relationships</a> for at least six months, probably longer. And domestic chickens can <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.210504">learn to differentiate</a> between a rewarded and unrewarded colour as quickly as carrion crows.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Greylag goose landing on the water" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438755/original/file-20211221-19-1u5daf2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greylag geese remember their social relationships.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudia Wascher</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Corvids and parrots still impress</h2>
<p>So it seems that corvids and parrots are not the only birds who show evidence of their brain power, and perhaps we should reconsider the use of the insult “bird brain”. But none of that detracts from the marvellous feats we witness in some of those more famous bird families. Earlier this year in Sydney, wild urban-dwelling sulphur-crested cockatoos not only learned to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7808">open wheelie bins</a> and get food from them, but individuals also learned to do this from each other – it became a cultural innovation.</p>
<p>Other recent studies have shown that New Caledonian and Hawaiian crow are among only a handful animal species who can <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19103">make and use tools</a>. And, in a food hoarding experiment, scrub-jays demonstrated <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154617300025?casa_token=QPSQSIaRQWwAAAAA:cuo8OCdrycb7MqvbqGl2D_gzTR44KypUp2xXHx4YCGRWyiezCi8TiRmuTP7b0Jw2Bzxcg9vF4A">what-where-when memory</a>: they seemed to remember what type of food they had hoarded at specific locations, and when they had done it. In the more barren winter months, this helps them to remember where they have hidden food which they have gathered and stored for later consumption.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347214000414?casa_token=5AMokS7bPuIAAAAA:hFXpGkQ6hEMg_friH66T0T8Y6ML8gT4BDxfXStoF-pOBi4YCsExKSFd3RB_SyPJYM6zeI4JSNA">Crows, ravens</a> and <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2012.1092">goffin cockatoos</a> dislike when they are treated unfairly and have been observed to wait for several minutes to receive a better food reward. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2602707/">Rooks</a>, meanwhile, and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/eth.12973">blue‐throated macaws</a> can cooperate with other individuals to together solve a string-pulling task. </p>
<p>It’s clear that cognitive abilities are important for animals to cope with all sorts of challenges in their environment. Therefore, understanding how they think can bring many valuable benefits. If we know how animals learn about predators, for example, it can help us to design more effective re-introduction programmes to conserve biodiversity. </p>
<p>And if we can assess whether an animal in a zoo, farm or kennel is feeling well or suffering, we can work to improve their living conditions and perhaps even control unwanted behaviour, such as those displayed by pets or in human-wildlife conflicts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Wascher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Corvids and parrots might be the superstars of the bird world - but other species like gulls, geese and even chicken have shown some impressive skills too.Claudia Wascher, Associate Professor in Behavioural Biology, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1661492021-09-13T16:08:55Z2021-09-13T16:08:55ZHow addressing our young kids’ COVID-19 learning loss is a matter of child’s play<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420280/original/file-20210909-25-15i5gtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C8%2C976%2C640&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Purposeful play' could look like children gaining opportunities to develop fine motor skills and cognitive abilities through talking about their inquiry and pursuits.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>COVID-19 disruptions have had a distinct, devastating and potentially enduring impact on our youngest school-aged learners, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fewer-kids-are-enrolled-in-public-kindergarten-that-will-have-a-lasting-impact-on-schools-and-equity-151817">especially those who were already behind in early language, literacy and numeracy understandings</a>. The pandemic has also taken a toll on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01207-z">children’s social and emotional health</a>.</p>
<p>Data from Alberta suggest many children have lost <a href="https://troymedia.com/education/online-learners-falling-behind-in-their-reading-skills/#.YReuFYhKjIW">a year or more in expected progress</a>. There is no question of the urgent need for educational attention that will mitigate COVID-19 learning loss.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-school-closures-could-widen-inequities-for-our-youngest-students-136669">Coronavirus school closures could widen inequities for our youngest students</a>
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<p>Suggestions put forth to help children have included <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2021/07/22/uk-parents-say-no-to-longer-school-day-for-covid-catch-up/?sh=de6556554f0d">lengthening the school day</a>, focusing on <a href="https://troymedia.com/education/online-learners-falling-behind-in-their-reading-skills/#.YRWzhIhKiUk">phonics instruction for early reading</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/08/10/how-tutoring-could-key-lifting-kids-out-covid-slide/3319070001/">intensive tutoring</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/education-repeat-year-1.6039920">having children repeat grades</a> to ensure better beginnings and readiness for literacy and numeracy development. </p>
<p>But imposing narrow academic expectations may not align <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858415616358">with children’s readiness to learn, and may produce only short-term learning outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>Guided play — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12015">play that is guided</a> by teachers at school — can be an important part of children’s learning, especially for children who are entering kindergarten up to about Grade 3. Parents or caregivers could consider ways to adapt such guided play in the home. </p>
<h2>Guided, purposeful play</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.edcan.ca/articles/guided-physical-play-kindergarten">Guided or purposeful play</a> is play that reflects a sense of learning intent. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An assortment of buttons." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420523/original/file-20210910-14-mco7op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buttons become tools for learning through sorting or categorizing by shape, color and size.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Guided play in the classroom could look like teachers being on hand to explicitly direct children’s gaze to a key idea and explain patterns or sequences when they are manipulating shapes or objects like blocks or a bucket of buttons. Buttons become tools for learning through sorting or categorizing by shape, color and size. Buttons are wonderful for making sequences and patterns — and learning how to quickly recognize: “How many?” Shape and pattern represent the underpinnings for letter recognition, spelling and numeracy understandings. </p>
<p>It could mean encouraging a child to hold their pencil or paint brush <a href="https://connectability.ca/2011/03/21/practical-strategies-for-developing-fine-motor-skills/">to develop a pincer grip</a>. Kids need to develop a good pincer grip and achieve fine motor control for printing, cutting, folding and pasting. </p>
<h2>Five areas of child development</h2>
<p>A growing body of research finds <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/twenty-six-studies-point-to-more-play-for-young-children">that both free imaginative play and guided, purposeful play are associated with stronger early language, literacy and numeracy outcomes</a>, and social and emotional health benefits. Children gain these benefits as they learn the give-and-take of play <strong>with others.</strong> </p>
<p>These five related key areas (or domains) of child development should be targeted through play: numeracy and spatial recognition; fine motor skills; language and word knowledge; cognitive skills and memory; social and emotional learning. Of these, perhaps the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723714535768">fine-motor-language nexus is the most critical</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chart showing different areas of child development including numeracy and spatial recognition; fine motor skills; language and word knowledge; cognitive skills and memory; social and emotional learning." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418466/original/file-20210830-26-1v3ozim.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The domains of early development can be targeted through forms of guided play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hetty Roessingh</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Learning through such play <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00506">develops embodied cognition</a> and the foundations for literacy and numeracy understandings. </p>
<h2>Practising with loose parts</h2>
<p>In classrooms, once underlying concepts and skills are taught, children can extend and practice these through centre or station play where child choice, imagination and creativity direct and drive activities like tinkering, taking apart structures and <a href="https://theeducationhub.org.nz/materials-for-play-why-open-ended-loose-parts-are-important/">playing with loose parts</a>. Blocks, puzzles and everyday objects like clothes pegs, tweezers, measuring devices, scissors, pencils and crayons are all <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2014.02.005">part of the teacher’s play toolbox</a> in the early years’ classroom. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-in-the-snow-how-children-develop-through-all-weather-outdoor-play-110736">Learning in the snow: How children develop through all-weather outdoor play</a>
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<p>With some flexibility, these strategies can be adjusted for children in kindergarten up to Grade 2. They can be transferred and extended to imaginative activities like post office (recognizing names and numbers) or grocery store (reading labels and lists) or dress-up and socio-dramatic play. </p>
<p>There will always be a range of children’s readiness for learning. Especially in COVID-19 recovery, teachers will need to adapt and accommodate, and be smart at planning games and play activities through an assessment lens, and planning the instructional cycle accordingly. </p>
<h2>Importance of dialogic talk</h2>
<p>Talking with children is also critical when they are involved in guided play as a way of helping them to develop their language and world knowledge.</p>
<p>Adults can strategically introduce more words relevant to academic learning (“academic words”) when children are involved in guided play: For example, words like “construct” or “structure” versus “build” when playing with blocks. The words can be accompanied by a definition, a synonym and paraphrasing by saying: “In other words …”</p>
<p>Other times, adult talk needs to be more explicit and direct when children are involved in guided play. Some examples could be explaining a learning or memory strategy while playing a card game or dealing with numeracy concepts when playing a linear board game. What researchers <a href="https://kappanonline.org/early-math-play-games-ramani-eason/">call “math talk,” and understanding of the rules of the game matters in transitioning to more independent play and practice</a> with their peers.</p>
<p>Embedding questions that involve making an inference or a prediction, inviting the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/talking-with-mdash-not-just-to-mdash-kids-powers-how-they-learn-language">back and forth of collaborative and elaborative “ping-pong” conversations</a> further support children’s language development, cognition, understanding of their world and their place in it. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0uwjBRbqlJ8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Guardian’ video of Sir David Attenborough speaking with Prince George and younger siblings.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Listen as British educational broadcaster and writer Sir David Attenborough explains the plight of endangered species to his young listeners. Attenborough pitches his talk to the “just right” level of each child, and introduces words that will be helpful in academic learning — like danger, protect, extinct (and extinction) and precious. </p>
<p>Gradually building enriched <a href="http://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/spring-2003/oral-comprehension-sets-ceiling-reading">oral vocabulary knowledge matters in transitioning to the level of academic literacy expected around Grade 4</a>. </p>
<h2>Flexible, playful plans</h2>
<p>A well-rounded, balanced approach to early childhood education through play involves both child-led and adult-led play and allows for both unstructured and structured activity. It targets all five domains of child development that teachers need to assess and monitor for progress, again through simple, playful tasks and games.</p>
<p>Teachers know they are facing a range of readiness for learning in their
classrooms. Let’s welcome our little ones back to school with a flexible, playful plan for learning and interacting with the school community they have been missing for too long. </p>
<p>As for how to spend tens of millions of tax payers’ dollars governments are keen to allocate to closing the COVID-19 learning gap? <a href="https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/school-age/does-class-size-matter">Reducing class size</a> or providing a well-trained teacher’s assistant may provide our best bang for the buck.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hetty Roessingh receives funding from SSHRC and from the Alberta Teachers' Association. </span></em></p>Encouraging a child to hold their paint brush to develop a pincer grip while the child is involved in painting is one example of guided play.Hetty Roessingh, Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306372020-07-16T12:12:05Z2020-07-16T12:12:05ZHow brains do what they do is more complex than what anatomy on its own suggests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347388/original/file-20200714-139854-1ma5ygr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=289%2C52%2C3470%2C2388&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists are still piecing together the puzzle of how the brain works.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/network-data-forming-ai-robot-face-and-brain-royalty-free-image/1189020672">Yuichiro Chino/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How the brain works remains a puzzle with only a few pieces in place. Of these, one big piece is actually a conjecture: that there’s a relationship between the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs8040039">physical structure of the brain and its functionality</a>. </p>
<p>The brain’s jobs include interpreting touch, visual and sound inputs, as well as speech, reasoning, emotions, learning, fine control of movement and many others. Neuroscientists presume that it’s the brain’s anatomy – with its hundreds of billions of nerve fibers – that make all of these functions possible. The brain’s “living wires” are connected in elaborate neurological networks that give rise to human beings’ amazing abilities.</p>
<p>It would seem that if scientists can map the nerve fibers and their connections and record the timing of the impulses that flow through them for a higher function such as vision, they should be able to solve the question of how one sees, for instance. Researchers are getting better at mapping the brain using <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/tractography">tractography</a> – a technique that visually represents nerve fiber routes using 3D modeling. And they’re getting better at recording how information moves through the brain by using enhanced functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure blood flow.</p>
<p>But in spite of these tools, no one seems much closer to figuring out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRmdLgknI28">how we really see</a>. Neuroscience has only a rudimentary understanding of how it all fits together.</p>
<p>To address this shortcoming, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7z-nA_kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my team’s bioengineering research</a> focuses on relationships between brain structure and function. The overall goal is to scientifically explain all the connections – both anatomical and wireless – that activate different brain regions during cognitive tasks. We’re working on complex models that better capture what scientists know of brain function.</p>
<p>Ultimately a clearer picture of structure and function may fine-tune the ways brain surgery attempts to correct structure and, conversely, medication tries to correct function.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347390/original/file-20200714-18-rnnul0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Electric near-field connections provide another level of communication within the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/brain-storm-royalty-free-image/686932281">PM Images/Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wireless hot spots in your head</h2>
<p>Cognitive functions such as reasoning and learning use a number of distinct brain regions in a time-sequenced manner. Anatomy alone – the neurons and nerve fibers – cannot explain the excitation of these regions, concurrently or in tandem. </p>
<p>Some connections are actually “wireless.” These are <a href="https://www.intechopen.com/books/electric-field/the-primary-role-of-the-electric-near-field-in-brain-function">electric near-field connections</a>, and not the physical connections captured in tractographs.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>My research team has worked for several years detailing the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/TCBB.2019.2941689">origins of these wireless connections</a> and measuring their field strengths. A very simple analogy of what is going on in the brain is how a wireless router works. The internet is delivered to a router via a wired connection. The router then sends the information to your laptop using wireless connections. The overall system of information transfer works because of both wired and wireless connections. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347391/original/file-20200714-139969-idshml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Electric fields stem from charged particles flowing in and out of neurons at their uninsulated nodes of Ranvier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/neuron-anatomy-structure-of-a-nerve-cell-royalty-free-illustration/1161436382">ttsz/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the case of the brain, nerve cells conduct electrical impulses down long threadlike arms called axons from the cell body to other neurons. Along the way, wireless signals are naturally emitted from uninsulated portions of nerve cells. These spots that lack the protective insulation that wraps the rest of the axon are called <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537273/">nodes of Ranvier</a>.</p>
<p>The nodes of Ranvier allow charged ions to diffuse in and out of the neuron, propagating the electrical signal down the axon. As the ions flow in and out, electric fields are generated. The intensity and structure of these fields depends on the activity of the nerve cell. </p>
<p>Here at the <a href="https://www.globalneuronetworks.com/">Global Center for Neurological Networks</a> we’re focusing on how these <a href="https://theconversation.com/listening-in-to-brain-communications-without-surgery-111038">wireless signals work in the brain</a> to communicate information. </p>
<h2>The brain’s nonlinear world</h2>
<p>Investigations into how excited brain regions match up with cognitive functions make another mistake when they rely on assumptions that lead to overly simple models.</p>
<p>Researchers tend to model the relationship as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/074856">linear with a single variable</a>, measuring the average size of a single brain region’s response. It’s the logic behind the <a href="https://www.explainthatstuff.com/hearingaids.html">design of the first hearing aid</a> – if a person’s voice grows twice as loud, the ear should respond twice as much.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347393/original/file-20200714-30-1vxz9c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hearing aid users know that just doubling the sensory input is a rudimentary fix.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-wearing-hearing-aid-in-ear-royalty-free-image/618545470">AndreyPopov/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But hearing aids have greatly improved over the years as researchers have come to better understand that the ear is not a linear system, and a form of nonlinear compression is needed to match the sounds generated to the listener’s capability. In fact, most <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-02665-5">living things do not have sensing systems that respond in a linear, one-to-one manner to stimuli</a>.</p>
<p>Linear models assume that if the input to a system is doubled, the output of that system will also be doubled. This is not true of nonlinear models, where many output values can exist for single value of the input. And most scientists agree that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12043-018-1559-4">neural computations are in fact nonlinear</a>.</p>
<p>A crucial question in understanding the link between brain and behavior is how the brain decides the best course of action among competing alternatives. For example, the frontal cortex of the brain makes optimal choices by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2009.21100">computing many quantities, or variables</a> – calculating the potential payoff, the probability of success and the cost in terms of time and effort. Since the system is nonlinear, doubling the potential payoff may make a final decision much more than twice as likely.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/394259925" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The flow of information through the brain is much more complex and dynamic than a 2D model can adequately represent.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Linear models miss out on the rich variety of possibilities that can occur in brain function, especially those beyond what anatomical structure would suggest. It’s like the difference between a 2D and 3D representation of the world around us.</p>
<p>Current linear models just describe the average level of excitation in a brain region, or the flow across a brain surface. That’s much less information than my colleagues and I use when building our nonlinear models from both enhanced functional magnetic resonance imaging and electric near-field bioimaging data. Our models provide a 3D image of information flow across the surfaces of the brain and to depths within it – and get us closer to representing how it all works.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347397/original/file-20200714-18-1u8ov21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A healthy-looking brain can have functional problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/angiogram-examination-royalty-free-image/1178748283">Science Photo Library via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Normal anatomy, physiological dysfunction</h2>
<p>My research team is intrigued by the fact that people with totally normal-looking brain structures can still have major functional problems.</p>
<p>As part of our research into neurological dysfunction, we visit individuals in hospice, bereavement support groups, rehabilitation care facilities, trauma centers and acute care hospitals. We are consistently startled to realize that people who have lost loved ones can <a href="https://humanparts.medium.com/brain-fog-after-a-death-f6b6882c8614">exhibit similar symptoms</a> to those of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. </p>
<p>Grief is a series of emotional, cognitive, functional and behavioral responses to death or other kinds of loss. It’s not a state, but rather a process which can either be temporary or ongoing.</p>
<p>The healthy-looking brains of those suffering <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-truisms-wellness/201702/the-ways-we-grieve">physiological grief</a> do not have the same anatomical problems – including shrunken brain regions and disrupted connections between networks of neurons – that are found in those of people with Alzheimer’s disease.</p>
<p>We believe this is just one example of how the brain’s hot spots – those connections that are not physical – plus the richness of the brain’s nonlinear operation can lead to outcomes that wouldn’t be predicted by a brain scan. There are likely many more examples.</p>
<p>These ideas may point the way to the mitigation of serious neurological conditions through noninvasive means. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-013-0406-z">Bereavement therapy and noninvasive, electric near-field neuromodulation devices</a> can reduce the symptoms associated with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps these protocols and procedures should be more widely offered to patients suffering from neurological dysfunction where imaging does reveal anatomical changes. It could save some of these individuals from invasive surgical procedures.</p>
<p>Diagramming all the brain’s nonphysical links using our recent advances in electric near-field mapping, and employing what we believe are biologically realistic many-variable nonlinear models, will get us one step closer to where we want to go. Better understanding of the brain will not only reduce the need for invasive operating procedures to correct function, but will also lead to better models for what the brain does best: computation, memory, networking and information distribution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salvatore Domenic Morgera has received funding for research in networks from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, The Fonds de recherche du Québec - Nature et technologies, National Research Council, Communications Research Center, National Science Foundation, United States Special Operations Command, IBM, Harris Corporation, CMC Electronics, Motorola, Bell Canada, the University of South Floridak and other public and private agencies. He has founded the Global Center for Neurological Networks (globalneuronetworks.com) to create a national and international focus or research groups demonstrating a passion to understand the human brain.
</span></em></p>A bioengineer explains how a clearer picture of brain structure and function may fine-tune the ways brain surgery attempts to correct structure and medication tries to correct function.Salvatore Domenic Morgera, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering, Tau Beta Pi Eminent Engineer, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1364352020-04-22T12:00:49Z2020-04-22T12:00:49ZTeens are wired to resent being stuck with parents and cut off from friends during coronavirus lockdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329592/original/file-20200421-82699-1732c4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=96%2C273%2C5428%2C3648&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The last thing adolescents want is to be trapped at home alone, by order of their parents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/feeling-sick-royalty-free-image/1062253138">Roos Koole/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Can’t I just go see one friend?”</p>
<p>“I need to hang out with my friends.”</p>
<p>“You are being overprotective and unreasonable!” </p>
<p>Social distancing is both necessary and hard. If my Facebook news feed and anecdotal experience in my own family are at all representative of larger trends, adolescents are especially feeling the pain. Separating from others goes against <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025409342634">basic human needs</a> for <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Self-Determination-Theory/Ryan-Deci/9781462538966">companionship and connection</a> that everyone feels, yet the challenge of social distancing may be especially difficult for teenagers.</p>
<p>Social distancing contradicts much of what being a teenager is all about. As a psychology professor who studies adolescents’ peer relationships, I find it helpful to think about this reality from a developmental perspective – assuming <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1950-00529-000">certain tasks arise at different periods</a> during development, and that mastering them contributes to well-being and happiness. The typical changes that come with adolescence and the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781506307633.n223">developmental tasks</a> that confront adolescents help explain why they’re having a particularly hard time with social distancing.</p>
<h2>Teens’ friends are their world</h2>
<p>Adolescence is a time when forming and maintaining close, intimate friendships is a critical developmental task – a main “job” of being an adolescent. Teens are socially and emotionally prepared for this task, and achieving it provides them abilities they need for meeting the challenges ahead. Teens spend much of their waking time with peers and friends. Psychology research suggests that those relationships have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12905">important implications for adjustment and well-being</a>. </p>
<p>In friendships, teens <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Friendships-in-Childhood-and-Adolescence/Bagwell-Schmidt/9781462509607">learn and practice social and emotional skills</a> that are important now <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Handbook-of-Peer-Interactions-Relationships-and-Groups/Bukowski-Laursen-Rubin/9781462541218/contents">and for their success in future relationships</a>. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/social-psychology/cambridge-handbook-personal-relationships-2nd-edition?format=PB">They learn how</a> to give and ask for help and support; they work on conflict resolution, compromise and forgiveness; they learn about closeness, intimacy and reliability; and they figure out how to make others laugh and have fun together. Each time they practice these skills with their friends, they’re working on perfecting competencies that will be crucial for successful relationships throughout the rest of their lives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329589/original/file-20200421-82658-upvc9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanging out can be the most important part of their day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/diverse-teenage-friends-eat-lunch-in-school-royalty-free-image/641510086">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>So much of this happens during face-to-face interactions when teens gather in the basement, legs and arms entwined as three or four pile on a couch talking and hanging out, or at the school lunch table when a dozen teens sit together at a table designed for half as many. Social distancing runs counter to what teens want and need to be doing with their peers and friends. </p>
<h2>Becoming their own people</h2>
<p>Another important task of adolescence is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy001012">developing emotional and behavioral autonomy</a> – feeling, thinking and acting as a self-governing person. Demands from parents and other authorities to stay home and practice social distancing make many teens bristle. They want to make those decisions for themselves. </p>
<p>As adolescents’ brains develop, their cognitive skills are advancing. Their decision-making abilities improve, and they start to think more abstractly and <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/cognitive-development/book244119">about multiple perspectives simultaneously</a>. Those advances certainly help them better understand the global challenges we’re all confronting with COVID-19 than younger children might.</p>
<p>Yet, those <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/adolescence-steinberg/M9781260058895.toc.html">advances also come with</a> greater tendencies to see things as relative instead of absolute, to question adults and to be better arguers than when they were younger. And teens famously <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1532-7795.00031">experience a</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.2000.0319">type of egocentrism</a> that can involve a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9144-4">feeling of uniqueness and invulnerability</a> that might make them downplay the importance of social distancing. </p>
<p>Although teens are developing more adult-like cognitive abilities, they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625">generally more likely to make risky decisions</a> than adults are. An adolescent and an adult may both think about the positive and negative consequences of social distancing, yet adults and teens may value them differently. A teen may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12227">emphasize the rewards of seeing friends</a>, while an adult may put more weight on the health risks of contracting or spreading the virus. </p>
<h2>Adolescents can adjust</h2>
<p>Together, the social and emotional tasks of adolescence – developing intimate friendships and achieving autonomy – make <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/hes-18-and-wants-to-hang-with-his-boys-his-mom-hasnt-been-able-to-stop-him/2020/03/29/95f192fc-7136-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html">teens uniquely resistant to calls for social distancing</a>.</p>
<p>The cognitive changes of adolescence are in part responsible for the laments I’ve heard from parents of my 16-year-old’s friends, describing the endless arguing about parents’ draconian mandates to engage in social distancing.</p>
<p>I recognize that many people are confronting life-and-death situations or serious economic consequences for their families and do not have the luxury of worrying about angsty and argumentative teens. Nevertheless, it is important to consider the potential unintended consequences that accompany social distancing.</p>
<p>So what’s a parent to do?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329593/original/file-20200421-82645-sdmy07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frustration can run high in both generations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rude-teenager-ignores-his-mom-royalty-free-image/1026754494">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>First, recognize that teens’ seeming all-consuming desire to be with friends is reasonable and exactly what they should want to do. </p>
<p>Second, encourage their social connections and help them figure out how to maintain those interactions, albeit from a distance. Perhaps relax prohibitions against screen time when it is used to connect with friends through FaceTime and Google Hangouts. For younger teens, actively help them host a Zoom dance party with their friends and think creatively about ways to maintain social interactions with technology. </p>
<p>Third, continue to talk with teens about the coronavirus and its consequences. Acknowledge the uncertainty everyone feels. Help them engage their developing critical thinking skills around news reports and graphs of data and other evidence about the beneficial effects of social distancing. </p>
<p>And finally, understand that teens’ push for autonomy, their arguing about the unreasonableness of what they’re not allowed to do and their lack of unbridled excitement about forced family time all fit with the social, emotional and cognitive tasks that define adolescence.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Bagwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Together the social and emotional ‘jobs’ of adolescence – developing intimate friendships and achieving autonomy – make teens uniquely resistant to calls for social distancing.Catherine Bagwell, Professor of Psychology, Oxford College, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138812019-06-07T13:00:41Z2019-06-07T13:00:41ZAre brain games mostly BS?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278190/original/file-20190605-40754-idwobz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1879%2C3948%2C3043&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You might just be getting better at the game you're practicing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Plii16U9bOU">Malcolm Lightbody/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve probably seen ads for apps promising to make you smarter in just a few minutes a day. Hundreds of so-called “brain training” programs can be purchased for download. These simple games are designed to challenge mental abilities, with the ultimate goal of improving the performance of important everyday tasks.</p>
<p>But can just clicking away at animations of swimming fish or flashed streets signs on your phone really help you improve the way your brain functions?</p>
<p>Two large groups of scientists and mental health practitioners published consensus statements, months apart in 2014, on the effectiveness of these kinds of brain games. Both included people with years of research experience and expertise in cognition, learning, skill acquisition, neuroscience and dementia. Both groups carefully considered the same body of evidence available at the time.</p>
<p>Yet, they issued exactly opposite statements.</p>
<p><a href="http://longevity.stanford.edu/a-consensus-on-the-brain-training-industry-from-the-scientific-community-2/">One concluded</a> that “there is little evidence that playing brain games improves underlying broad cognitive abilities, or that it enables one to better navigate a complex realm of everyday life.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cognitivetrainingdata.org/the-controversy-does-brain-training-work/response-letter/">The other</a> argued that “a substantial and growing body of evidence shows that certain cognitive training regimens can significantly improve cognitive function, including in ways that generalize to everyday life.” </p>
<p>These two competing contradictory statements highlight a deep disagreement among experts, and a fundamental dispute over what counts as convincing evidence for something to be true. </p>
<p>Then, in 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission entered into the fray with a series of rulings, including a US$50 million judgment (later reduced to $2 million) <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges">against one of the most heavily advertised brain training packages</a> on the market. The FTC concluded that Lumos Labs’ advertisements – touting the ability of its Lumosity brain training program to improve consumers’ cognition, boost their performance at school and work, protect them against Alzheimer’s disease and help treat symptoms of ADHD – were not grounded in evidence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278193/original/file-20190605-40710-15m7ppb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What does clicking away on a laptop really improve?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-asian-woman-learning-use-laptop-1219427392">Akkalak Aiempradit/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In light of conflicting claims and scientific statements, advertisements and government rulings, what are consumers supposed to believe? Is it worth your time and money to invest in brain training? What types of benefits, if any, can you expect? Or would your time be better spent doing something else?</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W9Ow0H8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I’m a cognitive scientist</a> and member of Florida State University’s <a href="https://isl.fsu.edu/">Institute for Successful Longevity</a>. I have studied cognition, human performance and the effects of different types of training for nearly two decades. I’ve conducted laboratory studies that have directly put to the test the ideas that are the foundation of the claims made by brain training companies.</p>
<p>Based on these experiences, my optimistic answer to the question of whether brain training is worth it would be “we just don’t know.” But the actual answer may very well be “no.”</p>
<h2>How well does research measure improvements?</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I have argued that most of the pertinent studies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616661983">fall far short of being able to provide definitive evidence</a> either way.</p>
<p>Some of these problems are statistical in nature.</p>
<p>Brain training studies often look at its effect on multiple cognitive tests – of attention, memory, reasoning ability and so on – over time. This strategy makes sense in order to uncover the breadth of potential gains.</p>
<p>But, for every test administered, there’s a chance that scores will improve just by chance alone. The more tests administered, the greater the chance that researchers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611417632">will see at least one false alarm</a>.</p>
<p>Brain training studies that include many tests and then report only one or two significant results cannot be trusted unless they control for the number of tests being administered. Unfortunately, many studies do not, calling their findings into question.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278194/original/file-20190605-40715-2bxfx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Picking the one task that she improved on out of many casts doubt on the study’s validity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-woman-typing-on-smartphone-338814812">De Visu/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another design problem has to do with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613491271">inadequate control groups</a>. To claim that a treatment had an effect, the group receiving the treatment needs to be compared to a group that does not. It’s possible, for example, that people receiving brain training improve on an assessment test just because they’ve already taken it – before and then again after training. Since the control group also takes the test twice, cognitive improvements based on practice effects can be ruled out. </p>
<p>Many studies that have been used to support the effectiveness of brain training have compared the effect of brain training to a control group that did nothing. The problem is any difference observed between the training group and the control group in these cases could easily be explained by a placebo effect.</p>
<p>Placebo effects are improvements that are not the direct result of a treatment, but due to participants <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1994.03510440069036">expecting to feel or perform better</a> as a result of having received a treatment. This is an important concern in any intervention study, whether aimed at understanding the effect of a new drug or a new brain training product.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-018-0115-y">Researchers now realize</a> that doing something generates a greater expectation of improvement than doing nothing. Recognition of the likelihood for a placebo effect is shifting standards for testing the effectiveness of brain games. Now studies are much more likely to use an active control group made up of participants who perform some alternative non-brain training activity, rather than doing nothing.</p>
<p>Still, these active controls don’t go far enough to control for expectations. For instance, it’s unlikely that a participant in a control condition that features computerized crossword puzzles or educational videos will expect improvement as much as a participant assigned to try fast-paced and adaptive commercial brain training products – products specifically touted as being able to improve cognition. Yet, studies with these inadequate designs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134467">continue to claim to provide evidence</a> that commercial brain training works. It remains rare for studies to measure expectations in order to help understand and counteract potential placebo effects.</p>
<p>Participants in our studies do develop expectations based on their training condition, and are especially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0050-3">optimistic regarding the effects of brain training</a>. Unmatched expectations between groups are a serious concern, because there is growing evidence suggesting cognitive tests are susceptible to placebo effects, including tests of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2011.592500">memory</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1601243113">intelligence</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-019-00130-x">attention</a>.</p>
<h2>Is there a likely mechanism for improvement?</h2>
<p>There’s another important question that needs to be addressed: Should brain training work? That is, given what scientists know about how people learn and acquire new skills, should we expect training on one task to improve the performance of another, untrained task? This is the fundamental claim being made by brain training companies – that engaging in games on a computer or mobile device will improve your performance on all sorts of tasks that are not the game you’re playing. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278184/original/file-20190605-40738-18t0qj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brain training programs ‘gamify’ the process to keep people practicing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/guspim/1789247323">Gustavo da Cunha Pimenta/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As one example, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/62.special_issue_1.19">speed of processing training</a>” has been incorporated into commercial brain training products. The goal here is to improve the detection of objects in the periphery, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/01.opx.0000175009.08626.65">which can be useful in avoiding an automobile crash</a>. A brain game may take the form of nature scenes with birds presented in the periphery; players must locate specific birds, even though the image is presented only briefly. But can finding birds on a screen help you detect and avoid, for example, a pedestrian stepping off the curb while you’re driving?</p>
<p>This is a crucial question. Few people care much about improving their score on an abstract computerized brain training exercise. What is important is improving their ability to perform everyday tasks that relate to their safety, well-being, independence and success in life. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616661983">over a century of research</a> suggests that learning and training gains tend to be extremely specific. Transferring gains from one task to another can be a challenge.</p>
<p>Consider the individual known as SF, who was able, with extended practice, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7375930">improve his memory for numbers</a> from seven to 79 digits. After training, he was able to hear a list of 79 randomly generated digits and immediately repeat this list of numbers back, perfectly, without delay. But he could still remember and repeat back only about six letters of the alphabet.</p>
<p>This is just one of many examples in which individuals can vastly improve their performance on a task, but demonstrate no training gains at all when presented with an even slightly different challenge. If the benefits of training on remembering digits do not transfer to remembering letters, why would training on virtual bird-spotting transfer to driving, academic performance or everyday memory?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278192/original/file-20190605-40747-1a4bl3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are other proven ingredients for healthy aging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/P0F_zH39qhs">Val Vesa/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Staying mentally spry</h2>
<p>Brain training programs are an appealing shortcut, a “get smart quick” scheme. But improving or maintaining cognition is likely not going to be quick and easy. Instead, it may require a lifetime – or at least an extended period – of cognitive challenge and learning.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about your cognition, what should you do?</p>
<p>First, if you do engage in brain games, and you enjoy them, please continue to play. But keep your expectations realistic. If you’re playing solely to obtain cognitive benefits, instead consider other activities that might be as cognitively stimulating, or at least more fulfilling – like learning a new language, for instance, or learning to play an instrument. </p>
<p>Some evidence suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617707316">physical exercise can potentially help maintain cognition</a>. Even if exercise had no effect on cognition at all, it has <a href="https://order.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2018-04/nia-exercise-guide.pdf">clear benefits to physical health</a> – so why not move your body a bit?</p>
<p>The most important lesson from the literature on training is this: If you want to improve your performance on a task that’s important to you, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2008.00227.x">practice that task</a>. Playing brain games may only make you better at playing brain games.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Walter Boot receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>There are reasons to be skeptical, of both the quality of the evidence presented so far and the questionable assumptions that underlie claims of improved cognitive function after brain training.Walter Boot, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Florida State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1093862019-01-16T23:48:17Z2019-01-16T23:48:17ZBoost kids’ skills and memories with weekly game night<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253651/original/file-20190114-43520-gu0ern.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Parenting win: Your children leave home and say, 'I loved family time when I was little. Every Friday night was dinner and games.' </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The winter months are an ideal time to turn your attention inward and think of how you can establish something new for your family to do together indoors. If you can find the right thing, perhaps it will become a family ritual. </p>
<p>Family rituals <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/isei/iyc/20.4_spagnola.pdf">contribute to the rhythm and predictability of family life and they support child development</a>.
Once you find an activity the whole family enjoys together, the key is to repeat and make it a family habit — a sort of “family branding.” These activities do not have to be expensive, time consuming or complicated. </p>
<p>Making memories together fosters a sense of inclusion, structure and belonging that is a hallmark of healthy family life. Memories can be revisited far into the future with fondness, evoking these moments of shared experiences that, over time, become part of a family’s unique DNA.</p>
<p>Amid the challenges of parenting and growing up, it’s crucial for parents to understand the high-impact benefits of <a href="https://experiencelife.com/article/the-power-of-habit/">positive, regular habits</a> of family time. Here’s what parenting success could sound like when your child leaves home: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I loved our family time. When we were kids, every Friday was pizza and games night.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Parents have an enormous role in orchestrating and leading the action around family time. It is important that during these family gatherings, parents are completely present to their children. This means agreeing that all electronic devices are powered off. </p>
<h2>Set the stage with a meal</h2>
<p>Should you really want to make an evening of it, think of beginning with making a simple meal together. For example, your routine could become a pizza night followed by games and puzzles. </p>
<p>Young children could knead the dough, and help with spreading the sauce and slicing, dicing, chopping, shredding and arranging the toppings. Buying prepared thin crusts can cut down on the time and the mess of dealing with dough. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253953/original/file-20190115-152995-1srknyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Given the opportunity, children take pride in creating their own pizza and contributing to dinner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Language and cognitive skill building can be incorporated into these easy daily activities, making them fun, natural and interactive. Dinner will be on the table in a flash and your child will be sure to eat their creations as well! </p>
<p>Research identifies meal time talk as central to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cd.155">reinforcing relationships and developing vocabulary among young children</a>.</p>
<h2>Choose your game</h2>
<p>Games and puzzles provide an excellent platform for creating these shared experiences. They have the potential to promote a range of social and physical skills, concepts, strategy use and language development that will serve your child very well in their <a href="https://www.edcan.ca/articles/guided-physical-play-kindergarten/">academic achievements in math and literacy</a>. </p>
<p>Size, shape, space, patterns and sequences, for example, underlie alphabet recognition, spelling and numeracy. The key <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1167047">is to give little fingers a chance to “learn the world,” developing their fine motor skills</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723714535768">making connections to language</a>. </p>
<p>Some game suggestions: </p>
<p><strong>1) Lego</strong>: Forever a favourite, Lego is great for developing concepts of whole-part relationships, how things fit and for promoting fine motor skills. It is creative as well, and there is a resurgence among adults known as Adult Fans of Lego (<a href="http://www.brickcan.com/afol-registration/">AFOL</a>) in using these blocks.</p>
<p><strong>2) Jenga</strong> is <a href="http://www.museumofplay.org/blog/play-stuff/2009/01/jenga-jenga-jenga/">a game of physical skill involving 54 blocks arranged in a tower at the beginning of the game</a>. One block is removed by each player in turn, and replaced at the top of the tower, until it comes crashing down. The game evolved <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/30/how-we-made-jenga">from the game creator’s own memories of playing and puzzling with her family</a>. </p>
<p><strong>3) Scrabble</strong> is another long-time family favorite. The game reinforces letter recognition and spelling patterns. With younger children, it’s recommended to play as adult-child teams to provide a great learning opportunity. Handling the tiles, arranging and moving them about and placing them on the board are good exercises for fine motor development.</p>
<p><strong>4) Card games</strong> of all kinds, including card tricks, afford endless possibilities for adult-child interaction and fun across age groups. Concepts of “more than” and “less than,” discussions of chance or probabilities as well as sequence and groupings, are given a good work out with a card game. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253665/original/file-20190114-43514-1oq8yhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Handling and arranging cards, blocks and small pieces helps little fingers develop fine motor skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>While you play</h2>
<p>Parent-child talk makes a difference to a child’s language and social development. Significantly, parents should try to become mindful of how much they talk <em>with</em> their children, not simply <em>to</em> them. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/talking-with-mdash-not-just-to-mdash-kids-powers-how-they-learn-language/">What matters is taking turns in conversation</a>, where the adult listener models responding and expanding on the previous comments. </p>
<p>For example, if the family is working on a puzzle and the child explains they are putting all the blue puzzle pieces here, the parent might say: “What a great idea, you can group all the puzzle pieces by colour, which helps us find them.” The parent returns attention in a way that gives words to the skill the child is experimenting with; the adult also models the art of taking conversation to the next level.</p>
<p>Completely focusing on the game and the players allows parents to fully hear their child and respond to the child’s comments to open the conversation further, which is central to building children’s vocabularies and understandings. </p>
<p>In addition to offering positive feedback and encouragement, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02568543.2016.1178671?src=recsys&journalCode=ujrc20">parents can offer “think alouds”</a> — talk whereby adults expose their thinking processes while using a strategy or solving a problem. In this way parents support children’s cognitive development while sharing an activity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hetty Roessingh receives funding from SSHRC. Michelle and I are also currently preparing two proposals: a SSHRC Connections grant that will bring a network of scholars, practitioners and policy makers who focus their work on early childhood development together on May 6 - 7, 2019. We are applying for a SSHRC Insight Development grant that will support a two year research project on a play-based intervention in Kindergarten and Grade 1, to track the impact this might have on Grade 2 literacy achievement. Michelle would like to pursue this question in her PhD work, starting September, 2019. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Bence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A regular family ritual like a dinner and games night contributes to the rhythm and predictability of life and becomes part of a family’s unique DNA.Hetty Roessingh, Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of CalgaryMichelle Bence, Master's Student in Educational Research, Language and Literacy Program, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064862018-12-18T12:46:46Z2018-12-18T12:46:46ZMorning lark or night owl? How our body clocks affect our mental and physical performance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250954/original/file-20181217-185255-d2rgmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our study found that the performance of "night owls" and "morning larks" varied considerably on both cognitive and physical tasks. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-holding-clock-261086612?src=Cwq4fMOFtdH9OCDcy5n0nw-1-9">file404/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether you’re a morning person or love burning the midnight oil, we’re all controlled by so-called “body clocks”. These body clocks (which regulate <a href="https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/circadian-rhythms-a-very-short-introduction-9780198717683?cc=gb&lang=en&">our circadian rhythms</a>) are inside almost every cell in the body and control when we feel awake and tired during a 24-hour period. But as it turns out, <a href="https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-018-0162-z">our latest study found</a> that our body clocks have a much bigger impact on us than we previously realised. In fact, our body clocks actually effect how well a person performs on both mental and physical tasks.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/what-circadian-rhythm">circadian rhythms are controlled</a> by the brain’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10548871">suprachiasmatic nucleus</a>, which detects light. When cells in your eyes register that it’s dark outside, they send these signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus. It then releases the hormone melatonin, which makes you feel tired. </p>
<p>Your <a href="https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-018-0162-z">chronotype is another factor</a> that determines how your biological clocks affect your daily behaviours. For example, early chronotypes (“morning larks”) rise early and are most active in the morning, but feel tired late in the afternoon or early evening. Late chronotypes (“night owls”) are tired during the morning, but feel awake in the evening.</p>
<p>These individuals differences may also be seen in multiple other <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3630920/">physiological, behavioural and genetic rhythms</a> that happen over a near 24-hour period. For example, chronotype determines the time melatonin is released. For morning larks, melatonin can rise around 6pm, making them feel tired by 9pm or 10pm. For night owls, melatonin can increase at 10pm/11pm or even later, meaning many aren’t tired until 2am or 3am. </p>
<p>Genetics can determine your body clock type, but it’s also largely influenced by schedule and lifestyle. It also changes over your lifetime. People tend to be larks during the first ten years of their life, then shift towards night owls during adolescence and their early twenties. By the time you’re 60, you’ll probably have similar sleeping patterns to when you were ten. However, even with these lifetime changes, the factors that determine your chronotype are unique to every individual. </p>
<h2>Peak performance and the body clock</h2>
<p><a href="https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-018-0162-z">Our study</a> recruited 56 healthy people and asked them to perform a series of cognitive tasks (to measure reaction time and their ability to plan and process information), and a physical task to measure their maximum grip strength. The tests were completed at three different times between 8am and 8pm to see how an person’s performance varied throughout the day. Our results showed peak performance differed significantly between larks and owls.</p>
<p>Larks performed best earlier in the day (8am in cognitive tasks and 2pm in physical tasks), and were 7% to 8% better than night owls at these times. Night owls performed best at 8pm in both cognitive and physical tasks. Grip strength was found to be significantly better during the evening for owls by 3.7% compared to larks. </p>
<p>Peak performance was also related to the number of hours it takes for you to perform your best after waking up. Larks performed their best in cognitive tasks immediately after waking up, and seven hours after waking up in the physical task. Night owls performed best in all tasks around 12 hours after waking up.</p>
<p>When it comes to elite performance, athletes are striving for minute gains where a winning margin can be narrow. For example, at the 2016 Olympics, if the last placed competitor in the men’s 100m sprint <a href="https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/athletics/100m-men">had run 0.25 seconds faster</a>, he would’ve beaten Usain Bolt.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250955/original/file-20181217-185249-64ldph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Understanding your body clock might help you determine your winning chances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rio-de-janeiro-brazil-15-august-526970299?src=N30ZOhSxLYBfD7Pku2T6tA-1-10">Shahjehan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221401639X">previous research found</a> that being a morning lark or a night owl is a key contributor in the timing of peak <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2015.00208/full">individual and team athletic performance</a>. </p>
<p>Our new study shows that compared to larks, night owls are significantly sleepier in the morning, making their reaction time slower by 8.4%. They’re also 7.4% weaker (using a maximum grip strength test) than their morning lark counterparts. </p>
<p>Night owls also seem to show a larger variation in peak performance throughout the day, suggesting they may be more sensitive to time-of-day changes than larks. For example, a night owl competing against a morning lark at 8am would be more impaired than a lark competing against a night owl at 8pm.</p>
<p>However, other things, like travelling, can also affect performance. Moving across time zones de-synchronises our body clocks, which need a chance to adjust. People that constantly change their sleeping patterns <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170605085326.htm">may experience “social jetlag”</a>, which impairs performance too.</p>
<p>Since athletic success depends on the smallest margins, understanding precisely what time peak performance is likely could mean the difference between winning a gold medal or finishing in last place. Our study found that overall, morning larks tended to perform better earlier in the day, and night owls performed better later in the evening.</p>
<p>Knowing just how much our body clock affects us could be useful even in our everyday life. It can help us understand more about how we can gain <a href="https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/the-value-of-the-sleep-economy.html">maximum productivity in business</a> or the <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00588/full">best academic performance</a> in school.</p>
<p>The typical structure of our society greatly favours larks over owls. Since our typical working day doesn’t let night owls follow their preferred sleep and wake patterns, maybe it’s time we start thinking about being more flexible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Elise Facer-Childs consults with/for Occupational Psychology Firm Team Focus Limited. She has previously consulted with Henley Business School, British Athletics, the Australian National Rugby League and the Australian Football League.
Elise Facer-Childs has received funding for her research from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund and Birmingham University Imaging Centre (BUIC).</span></em></p>The old saying ‘the early bird catches the worm’ might be especially fitting when it comes to peak mental and physical performance.Elise Facer-Childs, Research fellow in sleep, circadian rhythms and neuroimaging, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1009082018-08-14T13:22:50Z2018-08-14T13:22:50ZA-levels: how to stop stressing over exam results<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231907/original/file-20180814-2891-hnayb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C87%2C6507%2C4237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exams are an almost unavoidable part of young people’s lives – and, inevitably, some people perform better than others. But what is more important than taking exams is how students manage the results of their exams – especially if they aren’t what was expected.</p>
<p>When the results are negative, it can be easy to come up with automatic thoughts such as “I will never succeed in my life”, “I’ve disappointed my parents”, or “everyone is better than me”. And although it might feel like these thoughts are valid and very real at the time, most of these statements are contaminated with thinking errors. </p>
<p>One example of a thinking error is what’s known as “dichotomous thinking”. This happens when people perceive things in black or white terms – it’s either a success or a failure. There’s also “fortune telling”, this is expressed when people believe they know what is going to happen: “I will fail again.” Another type of thinking error is “catastrophising”, which is where you think the worst possible outcome will occur – so it might be something like: “If I fail the exams, I will be unemployed for the rest of my life.” </p>
<p>In these situations, it’s also easy to start “overgeneralising”, where you extend any conclusions you reach about one thing to cover everything. People do this by using absolute terms – “always” or “never” – such as: “Since I failed this exam, I will always fail in everything.” It’s common, too, for people to “discount the positives” and underestimate their strengths – thinking along the lines of: “The last time I did a good job was only because I was lucky.”</p>
<h2>Fixing your thoughts</h2>
<p>To fix these types of thoughts, you can engage in a process, which is known as “<a href="https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/Cognitive_Restructuring_leaflet.pdf">cognitive restructuring</a>”. This technique has been used by psychologists who adopt the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264932879_Cognitive_Behavioural_Therapy">cognitive behavioural approach</a> in their practice to help people who experience anxiety or depression. </p>
<p>According to this approach, people experience such problems because they keep dwelling on negative thoughts to the extent that they become addicted to such a thinking pattern. Negative thoughts, then, lead to specific bodily symptoms – such as butterflies in the stomach, as well as negative emotions, such as excessive worrying. </p>
<p>They can also lead to avoidance behaviours – for example when students do not want to resit exams – all of which traps people, eventually, into a vicious circle.</p>
<h2>The technique</h2>
<p>Cognitive restructuring can be used to fix any harmful thoughts and protect students against experiencing negative feelings. This technique involves a series of steps. To start, you can use a <a href="https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/docs/ThoughtRecordSheet7.pdf">Thought Record Sheet</a> to record your feelings. </p>
<p>This might include ranking your feelings and thoughts over a particular day – such as sadness, 80% and irrational thoughts such as: “I will always fail.” This can then help <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105956">to identify</a> any <a href="https://content-calpoly-edu.s3.amazonaws.com/hcs/1/documents/counseling/Common%20Cognitive%20Errors.pdf">thinking errors</a> you make – such as overgeneralising or catastrophising.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231296/original/file-20180809-30455-1cvda24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can learn to change the way you think.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can also use some <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/counselling/files/counselling/20_questions_to_challenge_negative_thoughts_0.pdf">challenging questions</a> to test the validity of your thoughts – such as: “Do I have a crystal ball in front of my hands that allows me to see the future?” You can then use all of this to hopefully come up with more adaptive responses, such as: “Passing A-level exams is not the only route to success.”</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Using this technique can feel like a battle between the irrational and the rational aspects of one’s self – where each side tries to convince the other about its rightness. That’s why by focusing on the evidence you can test the validity of these automatic thoughts based on facts. </p>
<p>The battle between the irrational and the rational selves is ongoing for most people, but knowing how to challenge the validity of one’s thoughts can help you to remain realistic most of the time. These techniques can hopefully help you calm your nerves ahead of results day, but should also help you with any decision making you have to do once the results are in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Constantine Mantis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beat exam stress with these top tips.Constantine Mantis, Lecturer in Health/Exercise Psychology, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945682018-07-19T21:26:07Z2018-07-19T21:26:07ZPlay games with your kids this summer to boost their brains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226385/original/file-20180705-122271-p4aw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many board games strengthen the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of the brains of players. This results in improved cognitive functions such as IQ, memory, information retention and problem-solving.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Research shows that playing games can enhance our personal, social and emotional well-being, as well as our mental acuity. </p>
<p>A study conducted at Harvard Medical School in 2017 points out that <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-pursuit-of-happiness">loneliness can be more detrimental to health than smoking</a>. Happiness, on the other hand, is strongly correlated with close relationships with family members and friends.</p>
<p>Playing both board games and video games with family members provide opportunities to get together and develop these relationships. They stimulate players physically, mentally and emotionally. </p>
<p>Games have also been found to change the brain structurally and functionally, according to many scientific studies. They can promote neurogenesis — the growth of new neurons in the brains. They can also promote neuroplasticity — changes in neural pathways and synapses that lead to structural changes in the brain. </p>
<p>These changes result in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-athletes-way/201310/video-gaming-can-increase-brain-size-and-connectivity">new brain cells and better connectivity among the different brain regions</a>, thus enhancing mental skills such as memory, attention span, spatial intelligence, language learning ability and coordination. </p>
<h2>Enthusiasm, stress reduction, calmness</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3788340">A 2017 study</a> published in <em>Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</em> showed that experienced players of the board game <em>Baduk</em>, or <em>Go</em>, had increased gray matter in the <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/6/11/know-your-brain-nucleus-accumbens">nucleus accumbens</a> and decreased gray matter in <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2-minute-neuroscience-amygdala?rq=amygdala">the amygdala</a>, as compared to novices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226381/original/file-20180705-122259-h8j0gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Games can improve memory and decision making skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The nucleus accumbens is an area of the brain responsible for <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/6/11/know-your-brain-nucleus-accumbens">processing environmental stimuli related to rewarding or unpleasant experiences</a>. Its functioning is based on the neurotransmitters dopamine, which promotes desire, and serotonin, which promotes satiety and inhibition. </p>
<p>Increase in gray matter in the nucleus accumbens leads to more positive experiences and enthusiasm.</p>
<p>The amygdala is an almond-shaped set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe. It is <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/amygdala.htm">part of the limbic system and responsible for processing emotions</a>. A decrease in gray matter in the amygdala <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2840837/">leads to stress reduction and increased calmness</a>. </p>
<h2>Better decision-making</h2>
<p>Research also shows that action video game experts have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep09763#affil-auth">more grey matter and enhanced functional connectivity in the insula subregions of their brains</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2013/05/what-is-insula">The insula</a> is a small portion of the cerebral cortex, responsible for self-awareness and present moment awareness. Increase in gray matter in the insula of the brain facilitates better decision-making. </p>
<p>Many board games also strengthen <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/5/23/know-your-brain-hippocampus?rq=hippocampus">the hippocampus</a> and <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/5/16/know-your-brain-prefrontal-cortex">prefrontal cortex</a> of the brains of players. <a href="http://www.psy.cmu.edu/%7Esiegler/2014-Laski-Siegler.pdf">This results in improved cognitive functions</a> such as IQ, memory, information retention and problem-solving.</p>
<p>Human brains have two hippocampi, located in each of the temporal lobes below the cerebral cortex. These are mainly responsible for memory consolidation along with spatial navigation and orientation. An increase in gray matter in the hippocampus is desired <a href="https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/5/23/know-your-brain-hippocampus?rq=hippocampus">for better memory and for prevention of dementia</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226387/original/file-20180705-122253-1hrn02n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research shows playing video games with family or friends can reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s among adults.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prefrontal cortex is located at the very front of the brain and is responsible for performing “executive functions” such as reason, logic, problem-solving, planning, memory, directing attention, developing and pursuing goals and inhibiting counterproductive impulses. </p>
<h2>Improving memory</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00592">A study published in <em>Frontier Human Neuroscience</em></a> in 2015 documented the results of using a “Virtual Week (VW)” training game with older adults. This was a computerized game that simulated the schedule of a day on the circuits of the board, engaging participants in events such as choosing what to eat for meals or how to interact with others. The game also asked them to remember to do things on time — for example to take medication at breakfast, or deliver a message to colleagues. </p>
<p>Participants were trained to play the game for 12 sessions of one hour, over a period of a month. This resulted in cognitive and neural plasticity, improving the “prospective memory” of the participants — the ability to remember and successfully execute intentions and planned activities.</p>
<p>Playing collaborative strategic board games in an informal and interactional context has also been found <a href="http://www.dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijgbl.2011040105">to improve computational thinking</a> — including skills such as conditional logic, distributed processing, debugging, simulation and algorithm building. </p>
<h2>Reducing mental problems</h2>
<p>Research has also found that <a href="https://www.mpg.de/research/video-games-brain">playing video games with family or friends can reduce the risk of mental health problems</a> such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s among adults. </p>
<p>One study, published in 2014 in the <em>American Psychological Association</em> also reported that <a href="http://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/dyslexia.aspx">playing video games could help children with dyslexia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226382/original/file-20180705-122277-bhwjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It is important to strike a balance between video games and board games for kids.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then benefits of playing games can be increased by metacognition (thinking about thinking) and meditation sessions. Although there is ample research evidence to show that playing board and video games substantially affect the brain positively, adults need to stimulate metacognition in children — encouraging them to explain why they made certain decisions during the game. </p>
<p>This type of <a href="https://www.parentingscience.com/board-games-for-kids.html">probing can make video and board games more powerful tools</a> for developing mental acuity among kids. </p>
<p>Combining game sessions with short meditation sessions may also <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-many-benefits-of-meditation-in-the-classroom-94566">enhance the quality of time spent together with family and friends</a> in a purposeful, joyous manner. </p>
<h2>Balance board games and video games</h2>
<p>Games do come with many cognitive benefits but striking a balance is the key. Too much of anything can be detrimental. </p>
<p>Research shows that kids need to be encouraged to participate in social games as well as instructional and video games, but the negative consequences of getting addicted to these should also be explained to them. </p>
<p>As adults also we need to keep a watch on how much time we spend playing games, and on the type of games played.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Kaufman receives funding from the AGE-WELL National Centre of Excellence Network in Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neha Shivhare does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From dyslexia, to dementia to schizophrenia, there is evidence that playing games can help, while boosting family connections and emotional wellbeing.Neha Shivhare, Assistant Professor, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India; Visiting Fellow, Simon Fraser UniversityDavid Kaufman, Professor of Education, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968842018-06-20T10:26:13Z2018-06-20T10:26:13ZExtreme stress during childhood can hurt social learning for years to come<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223661/original/file-20180618-85858-ymwf8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1350%2C522%2C4656%2C3368&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Which cognitive processes explain long-term effects of childhood adversity?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/SHe_xNDFOLU">Ricky Kharawala on Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year, more than 6 million children in the United States are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.10.006">referred to Child Protective Services for abuse or neglect</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.1792">Previous research</a> on the consequences of early life stress and child maltreatment shows that these children will be more likely to develop a multitude of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2FS0954579415000826">social and mental health problems</a>. Teens and adults who experienced early adversity such as abuse, neglect or extreme deprivation are more likely to be socially isolated, spend time in jail, and develop psychological disorders including anxiety and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050212-185606">depression</a>.</p>
<p>Researchers have long puzzled over why early life stress is linked to such a wide variety of problems years later. Why do many of these problems <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00631.x">emerge only in adolescence or even adulthood</a>? These “sleeper effects” suggest early life stress might disrupt aspects of brain development that support key emotional and cognitive processes which normally promote positive social relationships and mental health.</p>
<p>Psychologists know that early life stress affects people’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-010-2009-2">ability to control or regulate their emotions</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02597.x">brain regions that support these skills</a>. For example, children who have experienced a lot of stress seem to have more difficulty containing negative emotions like anger or anxiety.</p>
<p>But emotion regulation might not be the whole story. Because early life stress is associated with such a wide array of later problems, it seems likely that these adverse experiences also affect some other very basic cognitive processes. My colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FfGM-GMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">and I</a> carried out <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12596">a study to investigate</a>. Our findings suggest that, beyond emotion, two general learning mechanisms are also affected by early life stress – and these have the potential to explain long-term effects of childhood adversity.</p>
<h2>Two types of social learning</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I decided to focus on two cognitive skills that are fundamental to how people function socially in the world.</p>
<p>The first is the ability to learn and update associations between one’s own actions and the outcomes that result from them — what psychologists call “instrumental learning.” A very simple example would be learning that when I ring the doorbell, someone comes to the door.</p>
<p>But ringing a doorbell doesn’t always result in someone coming to the door – maybe no one is home. So links between actions and outcomes depend on the context. In this study, we were also interested in how stress affects the ability to update one’s knowledge when circumstances change — what psychologists call “cognitive flexibility.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223915/original/file-20180619-126540-11grn3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of having a successful social interaction is updating what you’re doing based on the feedback you’re receiving.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bored-girl-listening-her-friend-having-561922549">Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Say I’m telling my friend about the last ultramarathon I ran, giving her a mile-by-mile recap. My friend might be really engaged at first, so I’d form a positive association between my chosen conversation topic and her enthusiasm. But eventually she might start to get bored – I can be pretty long-winded when I talk about running.</p>
<p>Hopefully I’ll notice this shift – my association between me talking and her reaction will change – and I’ll wrap up my recap. But if I repeatedly fail to pick up on signals that my conversation partner is losing interest in what I’m talking about, she might start taking more rain checks on our coffee dates.</p>
<p>The circumstances around you, including other people’s reactions to your behavior, are continually changing, and it’s good for you to be able to recognize these changes and adjust your behavior accordingly. If not, you’ll have trouble developing healthy social relationships. It’s these skills our study focused on.</p>
<h2>Looking for effects of stress in the lab</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I brought teenage participants – half of whom had been physically abused by their caregivers in early childhood – into our lab to investigate how they did on particular cognitive tasks.</p>
<p>We first tested whether adolescents who had been abused in early childhood were as good as their peers at linking their actions in context to rewards and punishments.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223658/original/file-20180618-85849-uxskza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants first learned whether responding to a neutral picture was rewarded or punished.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12596">Harms et al. Developmental Science. 2017;e12596.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The teens viewed pictures of everyday objects, like a shoe or a broom. These are neutral objects that aren’t inherently good or bad, so in this task participants had to learn through experience whether each picture was linked to a reward or a punishment. Each time they saw a picture, they had the option to either press a button or do nothing. If they pressed the button, they would either win points or lose points. Some pictures led to a reward and others to a loss. If they didn’t press the button, nothing happened.</p>
<p>Halfway through the task, we switched things up. Because other studies found that children who experienced early life stress <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.06.013">can have an especially hard time changing their responses</a>, we were interested in our participants’ cognitive flexibility. Some of the pictures that had initially led to a reward now led to a loss and vice versa. This situation was akin to my friend getting bored with all my running stories. Participants needed to change their responses if they wanted to continue earning points.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223679/original/file-20180618-85822-1a1zgf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children exposed to early life stress had difficulty learning what to do when images switched their associations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harms et al. Developmental Science. 2017;e12596.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It turns out that teens who had been physically abused had more trouble with both parts of the task than their peers who had not been abused. Their difficulties were especially obvious when they had to change their responses. Once they had learned the links between context, action and outcome, they had a hard time updating and adjusting their behavior when the situation changed – like when an event that had been linked to reward became linked to punishment, or vice versa.</p>
<p>While teens worked on this task, my colleagues and I used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure which areas of their brains were active. When abused teens saw pictures that led to reward, the putamen and anterior cingulate cortex – two regions of the brain that help people learn associations between their actions and outcomes – were less active. Interestingly, researchers have found similar patterns of reduced brain activity when reward is at stake in people who have psychological disorders <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02477.x">such as depression</a>.</p>
<h2>Lingering effects – and how to counteract them</h2>
<p>Put together, these research findings suggest that early adversity could affect how people learn to obtain rewards in their lives. It’s possible that stress disrupts the development of key brain regions that help people associate specific events or actions with positive or negative outcomes. Children exposed to early stress might therefore have trouble learning how to achieve positive outcomes in their lives, like doing well in school or making friends — and these problems likely cause additional stress.</p>
<p>As a result, these individuals might encounter fewer positive and more negative experiences even after the initial adversity has ended, and end up with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02477.x">higher risks for mental health problems like depression</a>. Because these learning difficulties don’t go away once the stress ends, this pathway also helps explain the sleeper effects of early life stress that only show up a bit later in life. </p>
<p>If early life stress disrupts something as fundamental as basic learning, is there any hope for these kids? Yes. In fact, these studies suggest new ways researchers could think about creating interventions to help kids who’ve experienced early adversity. For example, carefully designed computer games could teach children to pay attention to rewards in their environment and to gather information about how to obtain these rewards.</p>
<p>Other interventions could target children’s abilities to deal with changing circumstances. In fact, programs like Big Brothers and Big Sisters, <a href="http://ppv.issuelab.org/resource/making-a-difference-an-impact-study-of-big-brothers-big-sisters-re-issue-of-1995-study.html">which seem to improve outcomes in at-risk kids</a> might already work this way by exposing children to new environments and new people. Boosting children’s learning abilities in these ways might be an effective way to improve social and mental health outcomes.</p>
<p>Although society should strive to prevent children from being exposed to high levels of stress in the first place, new research on how exposure to stress affects learning can lead to more ways to help kids who have already experienced early adversity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Harms has received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (award number by T32-MH018931).</span></em></p>Childhood adversity is linked to social and mental health problems later in life. New research suggests brains that aren’t as good at recognizing rewards and responding to change may be to blame.Madeline Harms, Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychology, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923282018-03-05T11:42:37Z2018-03-05T11:42:37ZWhen can you buy a gun, vote or be sentenced to death? Science suggests US should revise legal age limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207698/original/file-20180223-108110-1ocl6op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vietnam War protests led to a lower voting age. The Parkland shooting could push similar reevaluations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-School-Shooting-Florida/7bc83c9e428e469b97d4efd6acea6ac1/1/0">AP Photo/Gerald Herbert</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Societies have long grappled with where to draw the chronological age boundary between adolescence and adulthood. The United States stands apart from most of the world in that it uses different ages for different rights and responsibilities. We permit people to <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/hf/pl11028/chapter4.cfm">drive when they are 16</a> (even younger in a few states), but prohibit them from <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/minimum-legal-drinking-age.htm">purchasing alcohol until they are 21</a>. The ages at which adolescents can <a href="https://filmratings.com/Tips">see a risqué movie</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/child-marriage-is-still-legal-in-the-us-88846">choose to marry</a>, enter into contracts, or buy cigarettes generally fall between these two extremes.</p>
<p>Nearly all <a href="http://chartsbin.com/view/545">other countries use one age</a> — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority">almost always, 18</a> — to distinguish between minors and adults for most legal purposes. This one-age-fits-all regime has the advantages of consistency, clarity and fairness. Once you’re an adult, you’re an adult.</p>
<p>Taking an issue-specific approach permits society to align legal responsibilities and privileges with people’s abilities and needs. It also allows citizens to change our collective mind about particular boundaries when events dictate rethinking them, as was the case when demonstrations over the Vietnam War draft prompted Congress to <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxvi">lower the voting age from 21 to 18</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/stoneman-douglas-shooting.html">Parkland school shooting</a>, in which 17 high school students and staff were killed by a 19-year-old with a semiautomatic assault rifle, may be another one of these transformative events. The massacre has understandably prompted a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/congress-obstacles-gun-law-control/index.html">national discussion about gun control</a>, but this is not the only policy debate that this tragedy should stimulate.</p>
<p>Three age-related revisions to the law, in particular, deserve careful consideration in the wake of the shooting: increasing the minimum age for purchasing firearms, lowering the voting age and raising the age of eligibility for capital punishment.</p>
<p>As I outline in my book “<a href="http://www.laurencesteinberg.com/books/age-of-opportunity">Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence</a>,” research on <a href="https://www.nature.com/collections/vbmfnrsssw">adolescent psychological and brain development</a> provides a compelling basis for changing our laws.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207696/original/file-20180223-108139-s1xmi7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers know adolescent brains are still developing, as can be seen during cognitive tasks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihgov/40268599281">Dr. Richard Watts and ABCD/Univ. of VT P.I. Dr. Hugh Garavan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Predictable developmental timetables</h2>
<p>In order to understand how the new science of adolescence can inform this discussion, we need to differentiate between “cold” and “hot” cognition. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_967-1">Cold cognition</a> is invoked in quiet situations, when you’re alone and unhurried. Here the most important skills are those measured by standardized tests of basic intellectual abilities, including attention, memory and logical reasoning.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awu177">Hot cognition</a> is what kicks in when you are excited, agitated, in groups, or rushed. Under these circumstances, the most important skill is <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201110/self-regulation">self-control</a>, which enables us to regulate our emotions, resist coercion and think before we act. </p>
<p>For the past 20 years, my colleagues and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fpFXX8EAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I have been studying</a> the developmental timetables of cold and hot cognition. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014763">Our initial research</a> was conducted in the United States, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12532">our most recent study</a> included more than 5,000 people between ages 10 and 30 in 11 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America. The age trajectories we discovered were the same in our international sample as they were in the United States study.</p>
<p>Our studies show that the abilities necessary to make reasoned decisions are mature by age 16. By this age, adolescents can gather and process information, think logically and draw evidence-based inferences.</p>
<p>Self-regulation does not mature until around age 22, however. Not until this age are people capable of restraining themselves when their emotions are intense, when they are pressured by their peers, or when they feel hurried.</p>
<p>These findings on the development of cold and hot cognition parallel patterns of adolescent brain development. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3509">Neuroimaging studies show</a> that brain systems necessary for cold cognition are mature by mid-adolescence, whereas those that govern self-control are not fully developed until the early 20s.</p>
<h2>Growing into privileges</h2>
<p>Most people would agree that individuals who have trouble controlling their emotions or thinking through the consequences of their acts should not possess deadly weapons. This, after all, is the rationale behind prohibiting those with serious mental illness from purchasing assault rifles and other firearms. (Even the staunchest defenders of Second Amendment rights, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-bipartisan-members-congress-meeting-school-community-safety/">including President Trump</a>, favor placing restrictions on the sale of guns to the mentally ill.)</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"966662241977360384"}"></div></p>
<p>Adolescence is not a mental illness, but it is a time during which many mentally healthy people have difficulty controlling their impulses and regulating their behavior. Based on the science, I <a href="https://www.flgov.com/2018/02/23/gov-scott-announces-major-action-plan-to-keep-florida-students-safe-following-tragic-parkland-shooting/">agree with Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott</a> that people should not be permitted to purchase firearms until they are at least 21, if not older.</p>
<p>Voting, in contrast, is an act for which cold cognitive abilities are sufficient for competence. An election unfolds over months, which diminishes time pressure and permits people to gather facts and weigh them. Although you might discuss your preferences with others, the act of voting is done alone, and you have as much time as you want to deliberate inside a voting booth.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZxD3o-9H1lY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez calls out President Trump and the NRA at an anti-gun rally.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is quite clear from post-Parkland events, during which we have witnessed many examples of <a href="https://qz.com/1212712/florida-shooting-stoneman-douglas-student-quotes-after-the-high-school-attack/">wise, articulate and informed young people</a> discussing gun control, that high school students are able to understand and speak knowledgeably about political issues that affect them. There is no reason why people who have the intellectual skills necessary to vote should be prohibited from doing so.</p>
<p>Teenagers may make bad choices, but they won’t make them any more often than adults do. As I noted in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/sunday/voting-age-school-shootings.html">recent op-ed in The New York Times</a>, I believe the U.S. ought to lower the voting age to 16, as several countries <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8963-2_4">in Europe</a> and <a href="http://chartsbin.com/view/re6">South America</a> have done.</p>
<h2>A question of juvenile responsibility</h2>
<p>Deciding how to sentence the 19-year-old Parkland attacker, Nikolas Cruz, is certain to be controversial. In its 2005 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-633.ZS.html">Roper v. Simmons</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty on the grounds that adolescents are inherently less mature than adults and therefore not deserving of punishments reserved for those who are fully responsible for their crimes.</p>
<p>In 2010 and 2012, in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-7412">several cases</a> on the constitutionality of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/10-9646">life without parole for juveniles</a> that followed Roper, amicus briefs submitted by scientific organizations <a href="http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/graham-v-florida-sullivan.pdf">including the American Psychological Association</a> helped persuade the court that its decision in Roper was consistent with research on adolescent brain development.</p>
<p>In the last five years, <a href="http://www.lawneuro.org/files/adol_dev_brief.pdf">neuroscientific evidence has accumulated</a> showing that many of the deficiencies characteristic of the juvenile brain continue to be evident after age 18. It makes sense for courts to consider people to be less than fully responsible for their criminal acts up to the age of 21.</p>
<p>In 2017, I presented this science in <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/pdf/KentuckyAge21DecisionEfrainDiaz.pdf">Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Diaz</a>, a case involving a 20-year-old accused of murder. That court agreed that the logic of Roper should apply to people up to age 21, and that the death penalty could not be considered as a possible sentence for Mr. Diaz. The case is now under appeal.</p>
<p>Nikolas Cruz’s public defenders have <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/parkland-school-shooting/prosecutors-push-back-on-talk-of-plea-deal-for-parkland-gunman">offered prosecutors a guilty plea</a> and their willingness to <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-school-shooting-nikolas-cruz-grand-jury-20180228-story.html">accept a life sentence</a> in return for the state’s agreement to not pursue the death penalty. To date, the prosecutors have not announced their intentions. Although given the enormity of Cruz’s crime, there will surely be a public outcry pushing for the death penalty, the science is on the defense’s side.</p>
<p>Research on adolescent brain and psychological development can inform debates about where to draw legal lines between minors and adults. Science is not the only consideration when society contemplates changes in the law. But to the extent that people care to align social policies with current understanding of human development, the science of adolescence can help guide the discussion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Steinberg receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Klaus J. Jacobs Foundation.</span></em></p>Teens’ brains develop different skills along a predictable timeline. These milestones should influence the legal age boundaries for voting, buying guns and being put to death.Laurence Steinberg, Professor of Psychology, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830762017-12-09T21:44:10Z2017-12-09T21:44:10ZFor baby’s brain to benefit, read the right books at the right time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198399/original/file-20171209-27683-qnf9a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=935%2C40%2C5774%2C4215&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can you maximize reading's rewards for baby?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/baby-book-read-aloud-579664624">aijiro/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parents often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-1384">receive books at pediatric checkups</a> via <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2009-1207">programs like Reach Out and Read</a> and hear from a variety of health professionals and educators that reading to their kids is critical for supporting development. </p>
<p>The pro-reading message is getting through to parents, who recognize that it’s an important habit. A summary report by Child Trends, for instance, suggests <a href="https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/05_Reading_to_Young_Children.pdf">55 percent of three- to five-year-old children</a> were read to every day in 2007. According to the U.S. Department of Education, <a href="https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/edu1.asp">83 percent of three- to five-year-old children</a> were read to three or more times per week by a family member in 2012.</p>
<p>What this ever-present advice to read with infants doesn’t necessarily make clear, though, is that what’s on the pages may be just as important as the book-reading experience itself. Are all books created equal when it comes to early shared-book reading? Does it matter what you pick to read? And are the best books for babies different than the best books for toddlers? </p>
<p>In order to guide parents on how to create a high-quality book-reading experience for their infants, <a href="http://www.psych.ufl.edu/bcdlab/">my psychology research lab</a> has conducted a series of baby learning studies. One of our goals is to better understand the extent to which shared book reading is important for brain and behavioral development.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198357/original/file-20171208-27674-v4iqff.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even the littlest listeners can enjoy having a book read to them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maggie Villiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s on baby’s bookshelf</h2>
<p>Researchers see clear <a href="http://www.reachoutandread.org/FileRepository/ReadingAloudtoChildren_ADC_July2008.pdf">benefits of shared book reading</a> for child development. Shared book reading with young children is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00911.x">good for language and cognitive development</a>, increasing vocabulary and pre-reading skills and honing conceptual development. </p>
<p>Shared book reading also likely enhances the <a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42878/1/924159134X.pdf">quality of the parent-infant relationship</a> by encouraging reciprocal interactions – the back-and-forth dance between parents and infants. Certainly not least of all, it gives infants and parents a consistent daily time to cuddle.</p>
<p>Recent research has found that <a href="http://www.aappublications.org/news/2017/05/04/PASLiteracy050417">both the quality and quantity</a> of shared book reading in infancy predicted later childhood vocabulary, reading skills and name writing ability. In other words, the more books parents read, and the more time they’d spent reading, the greater the developmental benefits in their 4-year-old children.</p>
<p>This important finding is one of the first to measure the benefit of shared book reading starting early in infancy. But there’s still more to figure out about whether some books might naturally lead to higher-quality interactions and increased learning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198355/original/file-20171208-27674-1yr2mjn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">EEG caps let researchers record infant volunteers’ brain activity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Lester</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Babies and books in the lab</h2>
<p>In our investigations, my colleagues and I followed infants across the second six months of life. We’ve found that when parents showed babies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02348.x">books with faces</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00019">objects</a> that were individually named, they learn more, generalize what they learn to new situations and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.02.008">show more specialized brain responses</a>. This is in contrast to books with no labels or books with the same generic label under each image in the book. Early learning in infancy was also associated with benefits <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12259/full">four years later in childhood</a>.</p>
<p>Our most recent addition to this series of studies was <a href="https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1560810&HistoricalAwards=false">funded by the National Science Foundation</a> and just <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13004">published in the journal Child Development</a>. Here’s what we did.</p>
<p>First, we brought six-month-old infants into our lab, where we could see how much attention they paid to story characters they’d never seen before. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure their brain responses. Infants wear a cap-like net of 128 sensors that let us record the electricity naturally emitted from the scalp as the brain works. We measured these neural responses while infants looked at and paid attention to pictures on a computer screen. These brain measurements can tell us about what infants know and whether they can tell the difference between the characters we show them.</p>
<p>We also tracked the infants’ gaze using eye-tracking technology to see what parts of the characters they focused on and how long they paid attention.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198356/original/file-20171208-27689-1khpwyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eye-tracking setups let researchers monitor what infants are paying attention to.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Lester</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The data we collected at this first visit to our lab served as a baseline. We wanted to compare their initial measurements with future measurements we’d take, after we sent them home with storybooks featuring these same characters.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198381/original/file-20171209-27674-1rb2s10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Example of pages from a named character book researchers showed to baby volunteers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lisa Scott</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We divided up our volunteers into three groups. One group of parents read their infants storybooks that contained six individually named characters that they’d never seen before. Another group were given the same storybooks but instead of individually naming the characters, a generic and made-up label was used to refer to all the characters (such as “Hitchel”). Finally, we had a third comparison group of infants whose parents didn’t read them anything special for the study.</p>
<p>After three months passed, the families returned to our lab so we could again measure the infants’ attention to our storybook characters. It turned out that only those who received books with individually labeled characters showed enhanced attention compared to their earlier visit. And the brain activity of babies who learned individual labels also showed that they could distinguish between different individual characters. We didn’t see these effects for infants in the comparison group or for infants who received books with generic labels. </p>
<p>These findings suggest that very young infants are able to use labels to learn about the world around them and that shared book reading is an effective tool for supporting development in the first year of life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198359/original/file-20171208-27680-1re78pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Best book choices vary as kids grow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/33070370920">Penn State</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tailoring book picks for maximum effect</h2>
<p>So what do our results from the lab mean for parents who want to maximize the benefits of storytime?</p>
<p>Not all books are created equal. The books that parents should read to six- and nine-month-olds will likely be different than those they read to two-year-olds, which will likely be different than those appropriate for four-year-olds who are getting ready to read on their own. In other words, to reap the benefits of shared book reading during infancy, we need to be reading our little ones the right books at the right time.</p>
<p>For infants, finding books that name different characters may lead to higher-quality shared book reading experiences and result in the learning and brain development benefits we find in our studies. All infants are unique, so parents should try to find books that interest their baby.</p>
<p>My own daughter loved the “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241481/pat-the-bunny-first-books-for-baby-pat-the-bunny-by-dorothy-kunhardt-and-edith-kunhardt/">Pat the Bunny</a>” books, as well as stories about animals, like “<a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/rod-campbell/dear-zoo">Dear Zoo</a>.” If names weren’t in the book, we simply made them up.</p>
<p>It’s possible that books that include named characters simply increase the amount of parent talking. We know that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/babies-learn-what-words-mean-before-they-can-use-them/">talking to babies</a> is important for their development. So parents of infants: Add shared book reading to your daily routines and name the characters in the books you read. Talk to your babies early and often to guide them through their amazing new world – and let storytime help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Scott has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the US Army Research Institute. </span></em></p>Psychology researchers bring infants into the lab to learn more about how shared book reading influences brain and behavioral development.Lisa S. Scott, Associate Professor in Psychology, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802992017-08-03T21:10:27Z2017-08-03T21:10:27ZWatching children learn how to lie<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180884/original/file-20170803-5621-aciu3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's actually a big developmental milestone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/april-fools-dayclose-female-kid-hand-500339272">BlurryMe/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the liar, telling a lie has obvious costs. Keeping track of the lies one tells and trying to maintain the plausibility of a fictional narrative as real-world events intrude is mentally taxing. The fear of getting caught is a constant source of anxiety, and when it happens, the damage to one’s reputation can be lasting. For the people who are lied to the costs of lying are also clear: Lies undermine relationships, organizations and institutions.</p>
<p>However, the ability to lie and engage in other forms of deception is also a source of great social power, as it allows people to shape interactions in ways that serve their interests: They can evade responsibility for their misdeeds, take credit for accomplishments that are not really theirs, and rally friends and allies to the cause. As such, it’s an important step in a child’s development and there are cognitive building blocks that must be in place in order to successfully lie. </p>
<p>One way research psychologists have sought to understand the
reasoning behind the choice to lie versus tell the truth is to go back to when we first learn this skill in childhood. In some studies, researchers ask children to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.04.013">play a game</a> in which they can obtain a material reward by lying. In other studies children are faced with social situations in which the more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025406073530">polite course of action involves lying</a> instead of telling the truth. For example, an experimenter will offer an undesirable gift such as a bar of soap and ask the child whether he or she likes it. Yet another method is to ask parents to keep a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12139">written record of the lies</a> that their children tell.</p>
<p>In a 2017 study, my colleagues and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12566">sought to understand</a> children’s thinking processes when they were first figuring out how to deceive other people, which for most children is around <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12023">age three and a half</a>. We were interested in the possibility that certain types of social experiences might speed up this developmental timeline.</p>
<h2>Watching children discover how to deceive</h2>
<p>We invited young children to play a simple game they could win only by deceiving their opponent: Children who told the truth won treats for the experimenter and those who lied won treats for themselves.</p>
<p>In this game, the child hides a treat in one of two cups while an experimenter covers her eyes. The experimenter then opens her eyes and asks the child where the treat is hidden, and the child responds by indicating one of the two cups. If the child indicates the correct cup, the experimenter wins the treat, and if the child indicates the incorrect one, the child wins the treat.</p>
<p>Children played 10 rounds of this game each day for 10 consecutive days. This method of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.8.769">closely observing children over a short period of time</a> allows for fine-grained tracking of behavioral changes, so researchers can observe the process of development as it unfolds. </p>
<p>We tested children around the time of their third birthday, which is before children typically know how to deceive. We found that, as
expected, when children first started playing the game most of them made no effort to deceive, and lost to the experimenter every time. However, within the next few sessions most children discovered how to deceive in order to win the game – and after their initial discovery they used deception consistently.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180771/original/file-20170802-24116-1wpsxyp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who me? No, I didn’t eat the head off this chocolate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/3190909851">David Goehring</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Just one developmental milestone</h2>
<p>Not all children figured out how to deceive at the same rate. At one extreme, some figured it out on the first day; at the other
extreme, some were consistently losing the game even at the end
of the 10 days.</p>
<p>We discovered that the rate at which individual children learned to deceive was related to certain cognitive skills. One of these skills – what psychologists call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1232">theory of mind</a> – is the ability to understand that others don’t necessarily know what you know. This skill is needed because when children lie they intentionally communicate information that differs from what they themselves believe. Another one of these skills, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031409">cognitive control</a>, allows people to stop themselves from blurting out the truth when they try to lie. The children who figured out how to deceive the most quickly had the highest levels of both of these skills.</p>
<p>Our findings suggest that competitive games can help children gain the insight that deception can be used as a strategy for personal gain – once they have the underlying cognitive skills to figure this out.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind that the initial discovery of deception is not an endpoint. Rather, it’s the first step in a long developmental trajectory. After this discovery, children typically learn when to deceive, but in doing so they must sort through a confusing array of messages about the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.746463">morality of deception</a>. They usually also learn more about how to deceive. Young children often inadvertently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250143000373">give away the truth</a> when they try to dupe others, and they must learn to control their words, facial expressions and body language to be convincing.</p>
<p>As they develop, children often learn how to employ more nuanced forms of manipulation, such as using flattery as a means to curry favor, steering conversations away from uncomfortable topics and presenting information selectively to create a desired impression. By mastering these skills, they gain the power to help shape social narratives in ways that can have far-reaching consequences for themselves and for others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gail Heyman has received funding from the Chinese Foreign Expert Program. </span></em></p>Psychologists observed young children in real time figuring out how not to tell the truth.Gail Heyman, Professor of Psychology, University of California, San DiegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/784392017-07-28T14:38:23Z2017-07-28T14:38:23ZBeing a working mother is not bad for your children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180196/original/file-20170728-11509-7x6dsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albina Glisic via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The question of whether mothers should work or stay at home in their children’s early years has always been a hot potato in the media, provoking strong emotions and headlines including: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lydia-lovric/working-mothers-childcare_b_7835022.html">Sorry working moms, daycare is bad for your kid</a> or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11130051/The-case-for-working-mothers-your-kids-will-be-just-fine.html">The case for working mothers: your kids will be just fine</a>.</p>
<p>The possible benefits and risks of mothers’ working on children’s well-being is highly politicised and is the perennial subject of heated scientific and public debate. As <a href="https://wol.iza.org/key-topics/childcare-policy-and-maternal-employment">policies</a> designed to bring mothers into the workforce are on the increase – and pressure on women from all sides continues to mount – it is important to know how the children of working mothers are actually faring.</p>
<p>Whether mothers decide to stay at home or go back to work after they’ve given birth, how old their child is when they decide to return to work and how many hours they are working are all important factors in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23723386?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">developmental environment</a>. </p>
<p>By bringing in money and raising the overall <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8624.t01-1-00511/abstract">family income</a>, working mothers may be able to provide a more stimulating and safer environment for their children. This isn’t just a matter of more expensive toys or learning material but also better living conditions, better nutrition and reduced <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00768.x/abstract">family stress</a>. </p>
<p>However, long working hours and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775712000763">work-related stress</a> could have an impact on the quality and quantity of interactions mothers can have with their children – interactions that are crucial for developing <a href="https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/12/18/what-are-cognitive-abilities/">cognitive skills</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797613488145">language growth</a>.</p>
<h2>A dynamic perspective</h2>
<p>In our recent <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/brscf">study</a> – published in the journal <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12796/abstract">Child Development</a> – we looked at 2,200 children of the <a href="http://growingupinscotland.org.uk/">Growing Up in Scotland study</a>, who were born in 2005/2006 and were followed from roughly 10 months old until around their fifth birthday. The mothers’ employment history and other family characteristics were collected through yearly surveys throughout the first five years of the child’s life. </p>
<p>As a measure of their vocabulary at the age of five, children were asked to name objects from a picture booklet. Reasoning ability at age five was established by asking children to find similarities between a given image and objects displayed in a picture book. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180197/original/file-20170728-31781-mjnes0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New research shows that whether or not a woman works in the first five years of her child’s life has no bearing on the development of vocabulary and reasoning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/child-529603528">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike most previous <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8624.00457/abstract">research</a> which measured women’s employment at a particular time, for example when their child was a year old, our study captured maternal employment throughout their child’s first five years and the effect this had on the child’s development.</p>
<p>We found that a mother’s employment history doesn’t have a positive or negative <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/brscf">impact</a> (see page 22) on a child’s reasoning ability or vocabulary at five years old. The reason for this is that children’s cognitive and language skills are <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/9824/from-neurons-to-neighborhoods-the-science-of-early-childhood-development">shaped</a> by individual traits and environmental conditions that can change many times throughout childhood. Therefore, development and well-being at a certain age are the result of children’s cumulative experiences over their first few years, not simply a result of a single snapshot moment.</p>
<p>Given that circumstances can change many times over – with mothers going in and out of employment or changes in pay, working hours and conditions – the constantly evolving nature of child development is important to consider when it comes to measuring any effect.</p>
<p>Any impact of a mother’s employment on children’s cognitive skills and language growth, via family income or parent-child interactions, is likely to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0114/abstract">unfold</a> only if mothers continue to be employed for a longer period of time. Long-term stability in any status may also help families to develop strategies that work for their specific child, whereas frequent changes may be harmful in establishing a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00835.x/abstract">routine</a> that works.</p>
<p>Our study advances the existing research by measuring both the complexity of mothers’ work history and their typical employment patterns – distinguishing between full-time employed, part-time employed, or not working, in each year.</p>
<h2>Women making it work</h2>
<p>We did find <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/brscf">small differences</a> (see page 22) in cognitive ability and vocabulary growth between children whose mothers followed different employment patterns. But for the most part, these differences seem to be driven by other characteristics, such as mothers’ education or the number of siblings, which influence a mother’s decision to work in the first five years after birth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180201/original/file-20170728-30401-1vjpd8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women go to great lengths to ensure they combine their careers with their children’s developmental needs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/670592491?size=huge_jpg&src=lb-59856941&sort=newestFirst&offset=1">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, children with similar family characteristics develop comparable cognitive and vocabulary abilities even if their mothers’ work histories differ vastly in the first five years after birth.</p>
<p>Both the exaggerated claims of benefits and the harmful effects of working mothers on their children are not supported by our research, at least when it comes to early language acquisition and reasoning ability. We found that mothers manage to combine their careers with careful consideration of their children’s development – and that being in employment itself is not a major driver of differences in children’s outcomes.</p>
<p>From a policy perspective, these results support the role of initiatives that aim to raise the rates of mothers in work, such as the plan to increase provision of free early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours by 2020 in <a href="https://news.gov.scot/speeches-and-briefings/ministerial-statement-expansion-of-free-early-learning-and-childcare">Scotland</a>. </p>
<p>All policies that enable women to choose whether they go back into work or not should be encouraged. However, it’s the ability to make choices that work for the individual that matter – pressure on women one way or the other is not going to improve the development of their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to children’s well-being and development, it’s not whether a woman works or not that matters but how she makes her choices work for her family.Markus Klein, Lecturer in Human Development and Education Policy, University of Strathclyde Michael Kühhirt, Lecturer in Sociology, University of CologneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805052017-07-11T10:23:14Z2017-07-11T10:23:14ZArtists and architects think differently to everyone else – you only have to hear them talk<p>How often have you thought that somebody talks just like an accountant, or a lawyer, or a teacher? In the case of artists, this goes a long way back. Artists have long been seen as unusual – people with a different way of perceiving reality. Famously, the French architect <a href="http://www.editions-linteau.com/livres/lespace-indicible/">Le Corbusier</a> argued in 1946 that painters, sculptors and architects are equipped with a “feeling of space” in a very fundamental sense. </p>
<p>Artists have to think about reality in different ways to other people every day in their jobs. Painters have to create an imaginary 3D image on a 2D plane, performing a certain magic. Sculptors turn a block of marble into something almost living. Architects can design buildings that would seem impossible. </p>
<p>Think of <a href="http://www.metanamorph.com">Edgar Mueller’s famous street art</a>. Or <a href="http://www.italianrenaissance.org/michelangelos-pieta/">Michaelangelo’s Pietà</a>. Or Frank Lloyd Wright’s <a href="http://franklloydwright.org/site/fallingwater/">Fallingwater</a>, which seems to defy physics. All of these people are (or were) experts in rearranging the spatial relationships in their environment, each in their own way. This is a necessary skill for anyone who takes up these crafts as a profession. How could this not affect the ways in which they think – and talk – about space?</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12510/full">Our recent study</a>, a <a href="https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/research/artists-and-architects-think-differently-compared-to-other-people-32616">collaboration of UCL and Bangor University</a>, set out to test this. Do architects, painters, and sculptors conceive of spaces in different ways from other people and from each other? The answer is: yes, they do – in a range of quite subtle ways. </p>
<p>Painters, sculptors, architects (all “spatial” professionals with at least eight years of experience) and a group of people in unrelated (“non-spatial”) professions took part in the study. There were 16 people in each professional group, with similar age range and equal gender distribution. They were shown a Google Street view image, a painting of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and a computer-generated surreal scene. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177557/original/file-20170710-5952-xdfizl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michelangelo’s Pietà in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stanislav Traykov via WIkimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For each picture, they were given a few tasks that made them think about the spatial scene in certain ways: they were asked to describe the environment, explain how they would explore the space shown and suggest changes to it in the image. This picture-based task was chosen because of its simplicity – it doesn’t take an expert to describe a picture or to imagine exploring or changing it.</p>
<p>From the answers, we categorised elements of the responses for both qualitative and quantitative analyses using a new technique called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2014.19">Cognitive Discourse Analysis</a> with the aim of highlighting aspects of thought that underlie linguistic choices beyond what speakers are consciously aware of. We made a short film about the research which you can watch below.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w7dsVjWRitI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Telltale language</h2>
<p>Our analysis led to the identification of consistent patterns in the language used for talking about the pictures that were revealing. Painters, sculptors and architects all gave more elaborate, detailed descriptions than the others.</p>
<p>Painters were more likely to describe the depicted space as a 2D image and said things like: “It’s obvious the image wants you to follow the boat off onto the horizon.” They tended to shift between describing the scene as a 3D space or as a 2D image. By contrast, architects were more likely to describe barriers and boundaries of the space – as in: “There are voids within walls which become spaces in their own right.” Sculptors’ responses were between the two – they were somewhat like architects except for one measure: with respect to the bounded descriptions of space, they appeared more like painters. </p>
<p>Painters and architects also differed in how they described the furthest point of the space, as painters called it the “back” and architects called it the “end”. The “non-spatial” group rarely used either one of these terms – instead they referred to the same location by using other common spatial terms such as “centre” or “bottom” or “there”. All of this had nothing to do with expert language or register – obviously people can talk in detail about their profession. But our study reflected the way they think about spatial relationships in a task that did not require their expertise. </p>
<p>The “non-spatial” group did not experience any problems with the task – but their language seemed less systematic and less rich than that of the three spatial professional groups.</p>
<h2>Thinking and talking like a professional</h2>
<p>Our career may well change the way we think, in somewhat unexpected ways. In the late 1930s, American linguist <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-349-25582-5_35">Benjamin Lee Whorf</a> suggested that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-language-shapes-thought/">the language we speak affects the way we think</a> – and this triggered extensive <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521812627">research</a> into how culture changes cognition. Our study goes a step further – it shows that even within the same culture, people of different professions differ in how they appreciate the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177558/original/file-20170710-5970-7ouap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iam architect via Wikipedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The findings also raise the possibility that people who are already inclined to see the world as a 2D image, or who focus on the borders of a space, may be more inclined to pursue painting or architecture. This also makes sense – perhaps we develop our thinking in a particular way, for whatever reasons, and this paves our way towards a particular profession. Perhaps architects, painters and sculptors already talked in their own fashion about spatial relationships, before they starting their careers. </p>
<p>This remains to be looked at in detail. But it’s clear from our study that artists and architects have a heightened awareness of their surroundings which is reflected in the way they talk about spatial environments. So next time you are at dinner with an architect, painter, or sculptor, show them a photograph of a landscape and get them to describe it – and see if you can spot the telltale signs of their profession slipping out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thora Tenbrink's research was carried out with Claudia Cialone and Hugo Spiers.</span></em></p>People in visually creative professions have their own way of seeing the world.Thora Tenbrink, Reader in Cognitive Linguistics, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/770582017-05-03T11:14:47Z2017-05-03T11:14:47ZIs talking to yourself a sign of mental illness? An expert delivers her verdict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167676/original/file-20170503-21627-1gxehal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We have inner conversations all the time, so what difference does it make if we have them out loud?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">G Allen Penton/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Being caught talking to yourself, especially if using your own name in the conversation, is beyond embarrassing. And it’s no wonder – it makes you look like you are hallucinating. Clearly, this is because the entire purpose of talking aloud is to communicate with others. But given that so many of us do talk to ourselves, could it be normal after all – or perhaps even healthy?</p>
<p>We actually talk to ourselves silently all the time. I don’t just mean the odd “where are my keys?” comment – we actually often engage in deep, transcendental conversations at 3am with nobody else but our own thoughts to answer back. This inner talk is very healthy indeed, having a special role in keeping our minds fit. It helps us organise our thoughts, plan actions, consolidate memory and modulate emotions. In other words, it <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/thought-and-language">helps us control ourselves</a>. </p>
<p>Talking out loud can be an extension of this silent inner talk, caused when a certain motor command is triggered involuntarily. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget observed that toddlers begin to control their actions <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html">as soon as they start developing language</a>. When approaching a hot surface, the toddler will typically say “hot, hot” out loud and move away. This kind of behaviour can continue into adulthood.</p>
<p>Non-human primates obviously don’t talk to themselves but have been found to control their actions by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/CABN.4.4.444">activating goals in a type of memory that is specific to the task</a>. If the task is visual, such as matching bananas, a monkey activates a different area of the prefrontal cortex than when matching voices in an auditory task. But when humans are tested in a similar manner, they seem to activate the same areas regardless of the type of task.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167690/original/file-20170503-21614-1aqxjeb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Macaque matching bananas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">José Reynaldo da Fonseca/wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394000016657">fascinating study</a>, researchers found that our brains can operate much like those of monkeys if we just stop talking to ourselves – whether it is silently or out loud. In the experiment, the researchers asked participants to repeat meaningless sounds out loud (“blah-blah-blah”) while performing visual and sound tasks. Because we cannot say two things at the same time, muttering these sounds made participants unable to tell themselves what to do in each task. Under these circumstances, humans behaved like monkeys do, activating separate visual and sound areas of the brain for each task. </p>
<p>This study elegantly showed that talking to ourselves is probably not the only way to control our behaviour, but it is the one that we prefer and use by default. But this doesn’t mean that we can always control what we say. Indeed, there are many situations in which our inner talk can become problematic. When talking to ourselves at 3am, we typically really try to stop thinking so we can go back to sleep. But telling yourself not to think only sends your mind wandering, activating all kinds of thoughts – including inner talk – in an almost random way. </p>
<p>This kind of mental activation is very difficult to control, but seems to be suppressed when we focus on something with a purpose. Reading a book, for example, should be able to suppress inner talk in a quite efficient way, making it a favourite activity to relax our minds before falling asleep. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167677/original/file-20170503-21620-1qnfmnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mind-wandering rant could be seen as mad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But researchers have found that patients suffering from anxiety or depression <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032715311101">activate these “random” thoughts</a> even when they are trying to perform some unrelated task. Our mental health seems to depend on both our ability to activate thoughts relevant to the current task and to suppress the irrelevant ones – mental noise. Not surprisingly, several clinical techniques, such as mindfulness, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mindfulness-is-not-a-waste-of-time-it-can-help-treat-depression-59100">aim to declutter the mind and reduce stress</a>. When mind wandering becomes completely out of control, we enter a dreamlike state displaying incoherent and context-inappropriate talk that could be described as mental illness. </p>
<h2>Loud vs silent chat</h2>
<p>So your inner talk helps to organise your thoughts and flexibly adapt them to changing demands, but is there anything special about talking out loud? Why not just keep it to yourself, if there is nobody else to hear your words? </p>
<p>In a recent experiment in our laboratory at Bangor University, Alexander Kirkham and I demonstrated that <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691811001867">talking out loud actually improves control</a> over a task, above and beyond what is achieved by inner speech. We gave 28 participants a set of written instructions, and asked to read them either silently or out loud. We measured participants’ concentration and performance on the tasks, and both were improved when task instructions had been read aloud. </p>
<p>Much of this benefit appears to come from simply hearing oneself, as auditory commands seem to be better controllers of behaviour than written ones. Our results demonstrated that, even if we talk to ourselves to gain control during challenging tasks, performance substantially improves when we do it out loud. </p>
<p>This can probably help explain why so many sports professionals, such as tennis players, <a href="https://wearetennis.bnpparibas/en_UK/#/2013/10/10/but-why-do-tennis-players-talk-to-themselves/3381">frequently talk to themselves during competitions</a>, often at crucial points in a game, saying things like “Come on!” to help them stay focused. Our ability to generate explicit self instructions is actually one of the best tools we have for cognitive control, and it simply works better when said aloud.</p>
<p>So there you have it. Talking out loud, when the mind is not wandering, could actually be a sign of high cognitive functioning. Rather than being mentally ill, it can make you intellectually more competent. The stereotype of the mad scientist talking to themselves, lost in their own inner world, might reflect the reality of a genius who uses all the means at their disposal to increase their brain power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paloma Mari-Beffa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What you say may matter more than how you say it.Paloma Mari-Beffa, Senior Lecturer in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Psychology, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728982017-02-20T15:03:47Z2017-02-20T15:03:47ZWhat chess players can teach us about intelligence and expertise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157499/original/image-20170220-15900-qay5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British Chess Championship.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pat Baker from Gloucester, England/wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are experts more intelligent than non-experts or do they just work harder? And why do some people reach high levels of expertise, while others just remain amateurs? These are some of the questions that cognitive scientists have tried to answer for more than a century. Now <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fernand_Gobet/publication/307874653_The_relationship_between_cognitive_ability_and_chess_skill_A_comprehensive_meta-analysis/links/57d15ea908ae601b39a1c60b.pdf">our new research</a> on chess players has started untangling the problem.</p>
<p><a href="http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.PDF">Some researchers</a> believe that becoming an expert in disciplines such as music and scientific research is just a matter of “an awful lot of … effort” – to quote American Olympic gold medallist Jesse Owens. The romantic idea that all of us can achieve great results by deliberate practice, commitment and abnegation is deeply rooted in our culture. In his popular science book “<a href="http://gladwell.com/outliers/">Outliers</a>” Malcolm Gladwell suggests that 10,000 hours of practice will achieve expertise in virtually any skill. Rocky, in the famous series of boxing film montages, spent hours and hours of training to overcome fearsome adversaries and eventually succeed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226396370_Deliberate_Practice_Necessary_But_Not_Sufficient">Other researchers</a>, however, are convinced that the amount of practice alone cannot account for individual differences in expert performance. They believe superior cognitive ability such as general intelligence or memory is fundamental to achieve mastery in one’s field of expertise.</p>
<p>To evaluate the role of cognitive ability in expert performance, we recently carried out two reviews of the scientific literature about the role of cognitive ability in the acquisition of chess skill. We chose chess because it is one of the few fields that has a quantitative and reliable measure of skill (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system">the Elo rating</a>). It is, therefore, an ideal environment for studying expert performance and skill acquisition.</p>
<p>In fact, the study of chess players’ memory and perception has contributed to our understanding of expertise in many other fields, such as music and computer programming. <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1968-0_18">According to Nobel Prize Winner Herbert Simon</a>, the impact of chess on cognitive science is comparable to that of <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-praise-of-the-humble-fruit-fly-leading-the-way-on-cancer-research-36628">Drosophila (fruit fly) for the field of genetics</a>.</p>
<h2>Clear results</h2>
<p>We tried to answer two simple questions about chess. First, is intensive training all you need to become a chess master? Or do you need to be smarter than the average person to get there? Second, are chess players more intelligent than people not playing the game? The answers are important beyond chess and address fundamental questions in psychology and education.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fernand_Gobet/publication/307874653_The_relationship_between_cognitive_ability_and_chess_skill_A_comprehensive_meta-analysis/links/57d15ea908ae601b39a1c60b.pdf">The first review</a>, published in Intelligence, spans 19 studies and more than 1,700 participants. For this paper we searched for all the results concerned with chess players’ performance on cognitive tasks. </p>
<p>We calculated the overall correlations between chess skill and four cognitive abilities: fluid intelligence (the ability of solving new problems and adapting to novel situations); processing speed (for example reaction time); short-term memory; and comprehension knowledge (knowledge and skills assimilated through experience, such as vocabulary and reading comprehension).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157495/original/image-20170220-15908-1papvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rucha Pujari playing simultaneous chess in Kolhapur, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AkshayP013/wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The results showed that chess skill correlated significantly with all the measures of cognitive ability. Put simply; the “smarter” the player, the higher the level of chess skill. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616301635">In the second review</a> (including nearly 500 participants), also published in Intelligence, we included all the studies comparing chess players’ and non-chess players’ ability to solve cognitive tasks. Then, we calculated the overall difference between chess players and non-chess players. Chess players’ performance was significantly superior in cognitive abilities such as processing speed, planning, fluid intelligence and memory than in study participants who didn’t play chess. </p>
<h2>Nature versus nurture?</h2>
<p>Our findings support the hypothesis that cognitive ability is a crucial element for the acquisition of chess skill. Of course, we have to be careful when establishing the direction of causality. It could be that intelligent people are more attracted to intellectual activities such as chess compared to the general population, or that they learn quicker. </p>
<p>But it could also be the case that practising cognitively demanding tasks makes people smarter. However, the latter possibility seems more unlikely, as recent research has found no causal relationship between <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X16300112">chess instruction</a> and cognitive ability. Interestingly, the same lack of relationship has been found for <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X16300641">music training</a>. </p>
<p>While practice remains a necessary component of success in chess and other fields, it is just not sufficient to get to the top. If individuals with superior cognitive ability have better chances to achieve mastery in chess, it is likely that the same applies to other domains such as <a href="http://erin.utoronto.ca/%7Ew3psygs/JEdPsych2006.pdf">music</a>, <a href="http://home.ubalt.edu/NTYGMITC/645/articles/schmidt%20%26%20Hunter%20val%20of%20sel%20meth%2085%20years.pdf">the professions</a>, and <a href="https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Lubinski_2010_spatial.pdf">science</a>.</p>
<p>Practice helps us to improve, but our improvements are strictly bounded to our cognitive ability. Sadly, good will is not enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giovanni Sala receives funding from the University of Liverpool.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fernand Gobet receives funding from the University of Liverpool. He gets royalties from a number of books on expertise and talent.</span></em></p>Practice may not make perfect, suggests new study.Giovanni Sala, PhD Candidate - Cognitive Psychology, University of LiverpoolFernand Gobet, Professor of Decision Making and Expertise, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/707662017-01-09T13:33:31Z2017-01-09T13:33:31ZNo proof music lessons make children any smarter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151851/original/image-20170105-18665-1vz84cw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Music is one of the most beautiful and powerful creations of humankind, and its powers are well known – making us happy and sad or relaxed and excited. And more generally, music can induce powerful feelings – as <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/151562-music-can-change-the-world-because-it-can-change-people">Bono the lead singer</a> of the band U2 put it, “music can change the world because it can change people”. But how much is this really true?</p>
<p>We often assume that encouraging a child to play a musical instrument or to listen to certain types of music will have a wider impact on more than just their musical taste. Parents, teachers and educators alike often believe that musical aptitude can help a child in other areas of life, and can facilitate the development of cognitive skills.</p>
<p><a href="https://msu.edu/course/psy/401/snapshot.afs/Readings/WK5.PresentB.Schellenberg%20(2004).pdf">Several studies</a> have made the claim that music training enhances children’s cognitive and academic skills. And previous <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0059984">experiments</a> have, for example, tested if singing or playing the keyboard can impact a child’s intelligence or learning. </p>
<p>But these experiments have seen rather mixed results, and have been unable to conclusively say whether playing an instrument or engaging with music really can make a difference to a child’s education.</p>
<p>So with this in mind, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X16300641">we recently carried out a review</a> of the scientific literature on the use of music with children. And the results were clear, if disappointing – music is unlikely to provide any benefits for cognition and academic achievement.</p>
<h2>Time to face the music</h2>
<p><a href="http://erin.utoronto.ca/%7Ew3psygs/JEdPsych2006.pdf">Previous research</a> has often claimed that learning how to play music can impact other areas of a child’s life and provide an educational advantage. Music training is thought to be able to “boost” general cognitive abilities such as intelligence and memory, which then helps to develop other non-music cognitive or academic abilities.</p>
<p>This <a href="http://jaymctighe.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Transfer-of-Learning-Perkins-and-Salomon.pdf">phenomenon</a> is known as the “transfer of learning”, and it happens when skills learned in one particular area help to boost other general cognitive abilities. The learning is then said to be “transferred” from one area of a child’s life to another. So previously for example, it has been argued that learning to play an instrument can help boost a <a href="http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/serendipupdate/correlation-between-music-and-math-neurobiology-perspective">child’s achievement in mathematics</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151853/original/image-20170105-18641-kkf78q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can playing the violin really make a child smarter?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But our review shows it is unlikely that music training can reliably enhance a child’s cognitive or academic skills. This is because the link between music skill and superior cognitive ability may only be a correlation. </p>
<p>Put simply, people do not necessarily become smarter because they have learned how to play the piano or sing in a choir. Rather, smarter people are more likely to engage and excel in intellectual activities such as music. So while musicians may well be smarter than the general population, this does not prove that music-skill transfers to other abilities.</p>
<h2>Song and dance</h2>
<p>Overall, our review shows small effects of music training on children’s cognitive skills and academic achievement. But when compared to an alternative activity – such as visual arts – there aren’t shown to be any significant benefits of music training. </p>
<p>So if music training does not provide advantages in comparison to, say, drama lessons, then the observed benefits are probably due to the engagement in the new activity itself, rather than music in particular. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151861/original/image-20170105-18650-1evhiro.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is it time to face the music?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is because doing something unusual (and fun) induces a state of excitement in pupils <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691613491271">regardless of the specific activity implemented</a>. And such excitement may temporally lead to a better performance on cognitive tests and in school. And for this reason it is fair to say that music instruction does not appear to provide any genuine benefit to children’s skill. </p>
<p>But of course, even if music does not improve cognitive abilities and educational outcomes, it is still one of the main ways human beings express their feelings and creativity. It is a universal language everybody can understand and enjoy – so there are still plenty of good reasons to teach, perform, and listen to a variety of music.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giovanni Sala receives funding from the University of Liverpool. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fernand Gobet receives funding from the University of Liverpool. </span></em></p>Turns out children don’t necessarily become smarter just because they have learned how to play the piano or sing in a choir.Giovanni Sala, PhD Candidate - Cognitive Psychology, University of LiverpoolFernand Gobet, Professor of Decision Making and Expertise, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/662452016-10-03T06:03:49Z2016-10-03T06:03:49ZBrain training – why it’s no walk in the park<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139990/original/image-20161002-15278-35vlc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We don't need fancy gadgets to improve our brain power. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-372558295/stock-photo-brain-training-concept-with-businessman-holding-brain.html?src=iVKB6kWf406kDU3ljNFppw-1-6">ScandinavianStock/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve probably heard of “brain training exercises” – puzzles, tasks and drills which claim to keep you mentally agile. Maybe, especially if you’re an older person, you’ve even bought the book, or the app, in the hope of staving off mental decline. The idea of brain training has widespread currency, but is that due to science, or empty marketing?</p>
<p>Now a major new review, <a href="http://m.psi.sagepub.com/content/17/3/103">published in Psychology in the Public Interest</a>, sets out to systematically examine the evidence for brain training. The results should give you pause before spending any of your time and money on brain training, but they also highlight what happens when research and commerce become entangled.</p>
<p>The review team, led by <a href="http://www.dansimons.com/">Dan Simons</a> of the University of Illinois, set out to inspect all the literature which brain training companies cited in their promotional material – in effect, taking them at their word, with the rationale that the best evidence in support of brain training exercises would be that cited by the companies promoting them.</p>
<h2>But the CEO says it works …</h2>
<p>A major finding of the review is the poverty of the supporting evidence for these supposedly scientific exercises. Simons’ team found that half of the brain training companies that promoted their products as being scientifically validated didn’t cite any peer-reviewed journal articles, relying instead on things like testimonials from scientists (including the company founders). Of the companies which did cite evidence for brain training, many cited general research on neuroplasticity, but nothing directly relevant to the effectiveness of what they promote.</p>
<p>The key issue for claims around brain training is that practising these exercises will help you in general, or on unrelated tasks. Nobody doubts that practising a crossword will help you get better at crosswords, but will it improve your memory, your IQ or your ability to skim-read email? Such effects are called transfer effects, and so-called “far transfer” (transfer to a very different task than that trained) is the ultimate goal of brain training studies. What we know about transfer effect is reviewed in Simons’ paper.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139991/original/image-20161002-9475-12lwyyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doing puzzles make you, well, good at doing puzzles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-335283932/stock-photo-an-elderly-woman-is-doing-crossword-puzzle-with-a-pencil-this-is-a-good-exercise-for-older-people-to-train-their-brains.html?src=8V_dvhU5-m4uqcKHsh3GMA-1-45">Jne Valokuvaus/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as trawling the company websites, the reviewers inspected a list provided by an industry group <a href="http://www.cognitivetrainingdata.org/">Cognitive Training Data</a> of some 132 scientific papers claiming to support the efficacy of brain training. Of these, 106 reported new data (rather than being reviews themselves). Of those 106, 71 used a proper control group, so that the effects of the brain training could be isolated. Of those 71, only 49 had a so-called “active control” group, in which the control participants actually did something rather than being ignored by the the researchers. (An active control is important if you want to distinguish the benefit of your treatment from the benefits of expectation or responding to researchers’ attentions.) Of these 49, about half of the results came from just six studies.</p>
<p>Overall, the reviewers conclude, no study which is cited in support of brain training products meets the gold standard for best research practises, and few even approached the standard of a good randomised control trial (although note their cut off for considering papers missed <a href="https://theconversation.com/at-last-a-gold-standard-study-on-brain-training-50210">this paper</a> from late last year which showed the benefits of online brain training exercises, including improvements in everyday tasks, such as shopping, cooking and managing home finances.</p>
<h2>Promotion is premature</h2>
<p>The implications, they argue, are that claims for general benefits of brain training are premature. There’s excellent evidence for benefits of training specific to the task trained on, they conclude, but less evidence for enhancement on closely related tasks and little evidence that brain training enhances performance on distantly related tasks or everyday cognitive performance.</p>
<p>The flaws in the studies supporting the benefits of brain training aren’t unique to the study of brain training. Good research is hard and all studies have flaws. Assembling convincing evidence for a treatment takes years, with evidence required from multiple studies and from different types of studies. Indeed, it may yet be that some kind of cognitive training can be shown to have the general benefits that are hoped for from existing brain training exercises. What this review shows is not that brain training can’t work, merely that the promotion of brain training exercises is – at the very least – premature based on the current scientific evidence. </p>
<p>Yet in a <a href="http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/health/2015/2014-Brain-Health-Research-Study-AARP-res-gen.pdf">2014 survey of US adults</a>, more than 50% had heard of brain training exercises and showed some credence to their performance-enhancing powers. Even the name “brain training”, the authors of the review admit, is a concession to marketing. In reality, these games are usually developed without anyone measuring brain activity or brain changes directly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140079/original/image-20161003-20200-j5ofl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A brisk walk in the park gives your brain a boost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-218997220/stock-photo-young-fitness-woman-legs-walking-on-forest-trail.html?src=A2oPvILsegs-4tIRZOLqcw-1-38">lzf/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The widespread currency of brain training isn’t because of overwhelming evidence of benefits from neuroscience and psychological science, as the review shows, but it does rely on the appearance of being scientifically supported. The billion-dollar market in brain training is parasitic on the credibility of neuroscience and psychology. It also taps into our lazy desire to address complex problems with simple, purchasable, solutions (something written about at length by Ben Goldacre in his book <a href="http://www.badscience.net/">Bad Science</a>).</p>
<p>The Simons review ends with recommendations for researchers into brain training, and for journalists reporting on the topic. My favourite was their emphasis that any treatment needs to be considered for its costs, as well as its benefits. By this standard there is no commercial brain training product which has been shown to have greater benefits than something you can do for free. </p>
<p>Also important is the opportunity cost: what could you be doing in the time you invest in brain training? The reviewers deliberately decided to focus on brain training, so they didn’t cover the proven and widespread benefits of exercise for mental function. I’m happy to tell you now that a brisk walk round the park with a friend is not only free, and not only more fun, but has <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n1/abs/nrn2298.html">better scientific support</a> for its cognitive-enhancing powers than all the brain training products which are commercially available.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
When research and commerce become entangled, consumers are the losers.Tom Stafford, Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/631732016-08-23T01:16:15Z2016-08-23T01:16:15ZHarried doctors can make diagnostic errors: They need time to think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134843/original/image-20160819-30383-dhnhr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thinking too fast?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-168769280.html">ER image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a person goes to the doctor, there’s usually one thing they want: a diagnosis. Once a diagnosis is made, a path toward wellness can begin.</p>
<p>In some cases, diagnoses are fairly obvious. But in others, they aren’t.</p>
<p>Consider the following: A 50-year-old man with a history of high blood pressure goes to the emergency room with sudden chest pain and difficulty breathing. </p>
<p>Concerned that these are symptoms of a heart attack, the ER physician orders an electrocardiogram and blood tests. The tests are negative, but sometimes heart attacks don’t show up on these tests. Since every minute counts, he prescribes a blood thinner to save the patient’s life. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the diagnosis and decision was wrong. The patient was not having a heart attack. He had a tear in his aorta (known as an aortic dissection) – a less obvious but equally dangerous condition.</p>
<p>It’s not a far-fetched scenario. </p>
<p>“Three’s Company” star <a href="http://johnritterfoundation.org/ritter-rules/">John Ritter</a> died from an aortic tear that doctors initially <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/local/me-ritter15">diagnosed</a> and <a href="http://www.today.com/id/23723123/ns/today-today_news/t/john-ritters-widow-jury-has-spoken/#.V7tucmXhrUk">treated as a heart attack</a>. </p>
<p>With over three decades of combined experience caring for patients in hospital settings, we have faced our share of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200001063420107">diagnostic dilemmas</a>. Determined to improve our practice and those of other physicians, we are studying ways to prevent diagnostic errors as part of a project funded by the federal government’s <a href="http://www.ahrq.gov">Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality</a>. Below, we describe some of the challenges – and possible solutions – to improving diagnosis.</p>
<h2>The flawed thought processes that result in errors</h2>
<p>When physicians learn to make diagnoses in medical school, they are trained to initiate a mental calculus, analyzing symptoms and considering the possible conditions and illnesses that may cause them. For instance, chest pain could indicate a problem with the cardiovascular or respiratory system. Keeping in mind these systems, students then ask what conditions may cause these problems, focusing first on the most life-threatening ones such as heart attack, pulmonary embolism, collapsed lung or aortic tears.</p>
<p>Once tests rule these out, less dangerous diagnoses such as heartburn or muscle injury are considered. This process of sifting through possibilities to explain a patient’s symptoms is called generating a “differential diagnosis.” </p>
<p>Although the ER physician in our example could have stopped to generate a differential diagnosis, this is easier said than done. With time and experience, mental shortcuts overshadow this time-consuming process and mistakes may result. </p>
<p>One such shortcut is “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMcps052993">anchoring bias</a>.” This is the tendency to rely upon the first piece of information obtained – or the initial diagnosis considered – regardless of subsequent information that might suggest other possibilities. </p>
<p>Anchoring is compounded by availability bias, another mental shortcut in which we overestimate the likelihood of events based on memory or experiences. </p>
<p>Thus, an ER doctor who frequently sees patients with heart attacks <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d4487">might anchor on this diagnosis</a> when evaluating a middle-aged man with cardiac risk factors presenting with chest pain. We doctors also tend to stop exploring something once we’ve reached a tentative conclusion, a bias called premature closure. So, even if a diagnosis doesn’t fit perfectly, we tend not to change our minds to explore other possibilities.</p>
<h2>How can we minimize diagnostic errors?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-bio.html">Daniel Kahneman</a>, who won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work on human judgment and decision-making, argues that people have two systems that drive everyday thinking: fast and slow. </p>
<p>The fast thinking, known as System 1, is automatic, effortless and fueled by emotion. The slow system of thinking, or System 2, is deliberative, effortful and logical. Medical students are trained to use both systems: by toggling back and forth, physicians can thus harness their training, experience and intuition to craft a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12915363">logic-driven diagnosis</a>. </p>
<p>So why don’t physicians just do this routinely?</p>
<p>In some cases, System 1 thinking is all that is necessary. For example, a physician who sees a young child with fever and the typical rash of chicken pox can easily make this diagnosis without slowing down or thinking about alternatives.</p>
<p>However, some physicians don’t use System 2 thinking when they need to because their work load makes it hard. Really hard. </p>
<p>In an <a href="http://cbssm.med.umich.edu/what-we-do/research-projects/enhancing-patient-safety-through-cognition-communication-m-safety-lab">ongoing study</a>, we have recorded first-hand how time pressures make it hard for doctors to stop and think. In addition to the incessant pace of work and physical distractions, there is substantial variation in how information is collected, presented and synthesized to inform diagnosis. </p>
<p>It is thus abundantly clear that physicians often do not have the time to do this type of toggling back and forth <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2011-000149">during patient care</a>. Rather, they are often multitasking when making diagnoses, work that almost always leads to System 1 thinking. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134841/original/image-20160819-30363-icaf73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Technology is a help, but not a fix.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-171498107/stock-photo-doctor-working-on-his-computer-and-with-mobile-phone-in-the-office-he-is-wearing-blue-uniform-surgeon-uniform.html?src=Tpx3gGXCWNFgE56-h7nrDg-1-36">Doctor image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Can technology help?</h2>
<p>Technology seems like a promising solution to diagnostic errors. After all, computers do not suffer from cognitive traps like humans do.</p>
<p>Software tools that provide a list of potential diagnoses for symptoms and group collaboration platforms that allow physicians to engage with others to discuss cases <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2013-001884">appear promising</a> in preventing diagnostic errors.</p>
<p>IBM’s Watson is also helping doctors make <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibms-watson-may-soon-be-the-best-doctor-in-the-world-2014-4">the right diagnosis</a>. There is even an XPrize to create technology that can diagnose 13 health conditions while <a href="http://tricorder.xprize.org">fitting in the palm of a hand</a>. It may not be too long before a computer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/health/quest-to-eliminate-diagnostic-lapses.html?_r=0">will make better diagnoses than physicians.</a></p>
<p>But technology won’t solve the organizational and workflow problems physicians face today. Based on 200 hours of observing clinical teams and asking them what could be done to improve diagnosis as part of an ongoing research project, two remedies appear necessary: time and space. </p>
<p>Crafted timeouts from “busy work” with dedicated “thinking time” is a key need. Within this period, a diagnostic checklist may be <a href="http://www.improvediagnosis.org/page/Checklist">useful</a>. Although they vary in scope and content, these checklists encourage physicians to engage System 2 thinking and improve data synthesis and decision-making. One such tool is the <a href="http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.improvediagnosis.org/resource/resmgr/Take_2_-_BThink_Do_clinician.pdf">Take 2, Think Do</a> framework, which asks physicians to take two minutes to reflect on the diagnosis, decide if they need to reexamine facts or assumptions and then act accordingly.</p>
<p>Second, physicians need a quiet place to think, somewhere free from distraction. Working with colleagues in architecture, we are examining how best to create such environments. This is no small challenge. Hospitals have limited physical footprints, and medical culture makes it hard for doctors to duck into quiet spaces to think. But redesigning workflow and space could have an important impact on diagnosis. How do we know? The physicians we followed said so. In the words of one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“if we had a place where the pager could be silent for a few minutes, where I could review my [patient] list and think through labs, recommendations and plans, I know I could be a better diagnostician.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This approach may prove particularly valuable in high-stress, more chaotic environments such as the ER or intensive care unit.</p>
<p>A future with <a href="http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/%7E/media/Files/Report%20Files/2015/Improving-Diagnosis/DiagnosticError_ReportBrief.pdf">fewer diagnostic errors</a> – and the negative consequences of them – appears possible. Stopping to think about our thoughts and employing the power of modern technology is a combination that may lead us to the correct diagnosis more frequently. These changes will help physicians deliver better care and save lives – a future we can all look forward to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vineet Chopra receives funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study diagnostic errors. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanjay Saint receives funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study diagnostic errors. </span></em></p>Cognitive traps can steer doctors away from the right diagnosis.Vineet Chopra, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Research Scientist, University of MichiganSanjay Saint, George Dock Professor of Medicine, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.