tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cognitive-neuroscience-51190/articles
Cognitive neuroscience – The Conversation
2023-08-28T12:01:17Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209200
2023-08-28T12:01:17Z
2023-08-28T12:01:17Z
Medication can help you make the most of therapy − a psychologist and neuroscientist explains how
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544648/original/file-20230824-2975-7ib62y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1917%2C1564&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medications can open a biological window of opportunity for psychotherapy to take advantage of.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/metaphor-bipolar-disorder-mind-mental-double-royalty-free-illustration/1294477039">melitas/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is mounting recognition in the scientific community that combining different treatment approaches for mental health conditions can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.09.004">create a benefit</a> greater than the sum of its parts.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.canlab.pitt.edu/home/people/">clinical psychologist</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7wB91zsAAAAJ&hl=en">neuroscience researcher</a>, I have been working to integrate insights from both fields to expand treatment options for those suffering from depression, anxiety and related conditions. Designing a treatment plan that pays careful attention to the sequence and dose of both biological and behavioral therapies might benefit people in new ways that neither approach can achieve on its own.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyu038">Anxiety and depression</a> are the most prevalent mental health conditions around the world. Globally, <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression">about 280 million people</a> experience depression, and <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder">as many as 1 in 3</a> will meet the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. There are <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/depression-in-adults/treatment/">numerous effective</a> <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/anxiety/types-of-anxiety/">treatment options</a> for both conditions, including medications, psychotherapy, lifestyle changes and neurostimulation. </p>
<p>Doctors and therapists recommend many patients seeking mental health care try <a href="https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/combined-drug-and-psychological-therapies-may-be-most-effective-for-depression/">more than one approach simultaneously</a>, such as medication and therapy. This is based on the idea that if they were to respond well to any of the prescribed treatments, they would experience a net benefit more quickly or more strongly than if they were to try each sequentially. However, researchers have historically studied each approach in isolation. Most research has focused on comparing individual treatments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20701">one at a time</a> to a control, such as a pill placebo or a psychotherapy waitlist.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z-IR48Mb3W0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Depression is a leading cause of disability around the world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Neuroplasticity and treatment</h2>
<p>Recent advances in scientific understanding of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.05.008">depression</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S413176">anxiety</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2005.05.007">other stress-related conditions</a> suggest that changes and impairments in neuroplasticity are critical contributors.</p>
<p>Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s capacity to flexibly adjust in response to an ever-changing environment – it’s a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cognitive-flexibility-is-essential-to-navigating-a-changing-world-new-research-in-mice-shows-how-your-brain-learns-new-rules-204259">critical component of learning</a>. In animal studies, deficits in neuroplasticity are seen as changes to molecular and neural pathways, such as a decreased number of synapses, or points of contact between neurons, following chronic stress. These changes might be related to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0615-x">mental patterns and symptoms</a> of depression and anxiety in people, such as when patients report a reduced capacity to think, feel and act flexibly. They may also be linked to thinking about, remembering and interpreting information in a way that tends to be biased toward the negative.</p>
<p>Research has shown that many effective biological treatments, including medications and neurostimulation, can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2013.30">enhance or</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.05.008">alter neuroplasticity</a>. Certain lifestyle changes such as regular exercise can have similar effects. Scientists consider this key to how they reduce symptoms. Unfortunately, symptoms often return when these treatments are discontinued. Relapse is particularly apparent for medications. For both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01824-z">older</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.1189">newer</a> antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications, relapse rates begin climbing shortly after patients stop treatment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close-up of hand holding pill beside a glass of water on a table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544652/original/file-20230824-27-homnj8.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">Patients can experience a relapse of symptoms after they stop taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/unrecognizable-man-holding-a-pill-in-front-of-a-royalty-free-image/1297835134">Vasil Dimitrov/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, behavioral treatments such as psychotherapy introduce new skills and and habits that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190044">may be more long-lasting</a>. Benefits continue even after the most intense phase of treatment ends. Regular meetings <a href="https://theconversation.com/cbt-dbt-psychodynamic-what-type-of-therapy-is-right-for-me-171101">with a therapist</a> over the course of several months can help many patients learn to cope with negative symptoms and life circumstances in new ways. But such learning depends on neuroplasticity to forge and retain these new, helpful pathways in the brain.</p>
<p>Researchers hypothesize that enhancing or modulating plasticity with a biological intervention like medication may not only reduce symptoms but may also provide a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.09.004">window of opportunity</a> for behavioral interventions like psychotherapy to be more effective. Learning-based interventions like cognitive-behavioral or exposure therapy, if properly timed, could harness the enhanced neuroplasticity that biological interventions induce and improve long-term outcomes.</p>
<p>Think of pathways in the brain as roads. Biological treatments transform a sparsely connected set of roads – consisting only of a few well-trodden pathways that represent unhelpful thoughts, fears and habits – into a denser network of interconnected, freshly paved roadways. Behavioral treatments can be likened to repeatedly driving over a specific subset of new roads that lead to more balanced perspectives on yourself and the world around you, learning them until you can drive down them effortlessly, no GPS required. This ensures that those now familiar roadways will be readily available to you in the future and protect you against the return of anxiety and depression.</p>
<h2>Synergies in combined treatment</h2>
<p>Designing combined treatments to explicitly promote synergy is relatively new, and there is increasing evidence supporting it. A few specific examples are noteworthy.</p>
<p>First, some studies have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097%2FHRP.0000000000000183">D-cycloserine</a>, an antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis, may make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.3955">exposure therapy for anxiety conditions</a> more effective by helping patients learn to quell their fears. D-cycloserine may also enhance the antidepressant effects of a type of neurostimulation called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.3255">transcranial magnetic stimulation</a>, which stimulates nerve cells using magnetic fields.</p>
<p>Several studies suggest that pairing neurostimulation with cognitive-behavioral approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy or cognitive control training may yield <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.09.004">longer-term reductions in depression and anxiety</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, low doses of ketamine, a drug used in general anesthesia, with rapid antidepressant effects, can be used to “<a href="https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220216">prime the pump</a>” <a href="https://theconversation.com/ketamine-paired-with-looking-at-smiling-faces-to-build-positive-associations-holds-promise-for-helping-people-with-treatment-resistant-depression-190950">for new, helpful learning</a>. A study my team and I conducted found that daily computer-based exercises of 30 to 40 minutes over four days following a single ketamine dose led to a ninefold increase in the duration of antidepressant effects – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.12434">90 days of reduced symptoms</a> – compared with ketamine alone, which led to 10 days of reduced symptoms.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dYN64GJzGfc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers are exploring the potential of psychedelics to treat many mental health conditions.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, there is increasing interest in using other medications with psychedelic properties to assist in psychotherapy. The therapeutic benefits of taking these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-022-01363-y">psychedelic-assisted therapies</a> under medical supervision are attributed to the rapid <a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1121-22.2022">neuroplasticity-enhancing</a> and consciousness-altering effects of drugs like psilocybin and MDMA. Researchers think these short-term effects foster new insights and perspectives that psychotherapists can help patients integrate into their permanent worldview.</p>
<p>There is great potential in neuroscience-guided ways to combine treatments. However, it’s important to note that different treatment approaches can occasionally work against each other, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7358(97)00084-6">lessening the long-term benefits of psychotherapy alone</a>. For example, one study on panic disorder found that patients who learned psychotherapy techniques while taking anti-anxiety medication had a <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192707">greater chance of relapse</a> after discontinuing their use compared with those given psychotherapy alone.</p>
<p>Carefully designed clinical trials and long-term follow-ups are needed to fully understand how to combine the biological and the behavioral to develop treatments that are efficient, accessible, safe and enduring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Price receives funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Laurel E. Zaks Memorial Research Fund and is named as the inventor on a University of Pittsburgh-owned patent filing relevant to synergistic bio-behavioral treatments for anxiety and depression.</span></em></p>
Combining psychotherapy with medication can lead to more immediate and enduring results by boosting the brain’s neuroplasticity.
Rebecca Price, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205901
2023-06-07T12:26:29Z
2023-06-07T12:26:29Z
Brain tumors are cognitive parasites – how brain cancer hijacks neural circuits and causes cognitive decline
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529651/original/file-20230601-23-o9ysdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gliomas can form connections with distant areas of the brain, exploiting them for their own spread and growth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/neuron-system-royalty-free-image/1421511892">Andriy Onufriyenko/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Researchers have long known that brain tumors, specifically a type of tumor <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441874/">called a glioma</a>, can affect a person’s cognitive and physical function. Patients with <a href="https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/2491/glioblastoma">glioblastoma, the most fatal type of brain tumor</a> in adults, experience an especially drastic decline in quality of life. Glioblastomas are thought to impair normal brain functions <a href="https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-braintumor.htm">by compressing</a> and causing healthy tissue to swell, or competing with them for blood supply. </p>
<p>What exactly causes cognitive decline in brain tumor patients is still unknown. In our recently published research, we found that tumors can not only remodel neural circuits, but that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06036-1">brain activity itself can fuel tumor growth</a>.</p>
<p>We are a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ouLmr_AAAAAJ&hl=en">neuroscientist</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LVHlXIUAAAAJ&hl=en">neurosurgeon</a> team at the <a href="https://herveyjumperlab.ucsf.edu">University of California, San Francisco</a>. Our work focuses on understanding how brain tumors remodel neuronal circuits and how these changes affect language, motor and cognitive function. We discovered a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06036-1">previously unknown mechanism</a> brain tumors use to hijack and modify brain circuitry that causes cognitive decline in patients with glioma.</p>
<h2>Brain tumors in dialogue with surrounding cells</h2>
<p>When we started this study, scientists had recently found that a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/neuonc/noaa158">self-perpetuating positive feedback loop</a> powers brain tumors. The cycle begins when cancer cells produce substances that can act as neurotransmitters, proteins that help neurons communicate with each other. This surplus of neurotransmitters triggers neurons to become hyperactive and secrete chemicals that stimulate and accelerate the proliferation and growth of the cancer cells. </p>
<p>We wondered how this feedback loop affects the behavior and cognition of people with brain cancer. To study how glioblastomas engage with neuronal circuits in the human brain, we recorded the real-time brain activity of patients with gliomas as they were shown pictures of common objects or animals and asked to name what they depicted <a href="https://braintumorcenter.ucsf.edu/treatments/surgery/awake-brain-mapping-faq">while they were undergoing brain surgery</a> to remove the tumor. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tAFbM6Zhz7k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Awake brain surgery involves mapping out the function of the areas of the brain around a tumor.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the patients engaged in these tasks, the language networks in their brains were activated as expected. However, we found that the brain regions the tumors had infiltrated quite remote from known language zones of the brain were also activated during these tasks. This unexpected finding shows that tumors can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06036-1">hijack and restructure connections</a> in the brain tissue surrounding them and increase their activity. </p>
<p>This may account for the cognitive decline frequently associated with the progression of gliomas. However, by directly recording the electrical activity of the brain using <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190228484.003.0030">electrocorticography</a>, we showed that despite being hyperactive, these remote brain regions had significantly reduced computational power. This was especially the case for processing more complex, less commonly used words, such as “rooster,” in comparison with simple, more commonly used words, such as “car.” This meant that brain cells entangled in the tumor are so compromised that they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06036-1">need to recruit additional cells</a> to carry out tasks previously controlled by a smaller defined area.</p>
<p>We make an analogy to an orchestra. The musicians need to play in synchrony for the music to work. When you lose the cellos and the woodwinds, the remaining musicians can’t deliver the piece as effectively as when all players are present. Similarly, when brain tumors hijack the areas surrounding it, the brain is less able to effectively function.</p>
<h2>Gabapentin as a promising drug for glioblastoma</h2>
<p>Now we understood that tumors can impair cognition by affecting neural connections. Next, we further examined their connections with each other and with healthy neurons using mouse models and <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-organoids-help-neuroscientists-understand-brain-development-but-arent-perfect-matches-for-real-brains-130178">brain organoids</a>, which are clusters of brain cells grown in a Petri dish.</p>
<p>These experiments, led by one of us, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ouLmr_AAAAAJ&hl=en">Saritha Krishna</a>, found that tumor cells secrete a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06036-1">protein called thrombospondin-1</a> that plays a key role in promoting the hyperactivity of brain cells. We wondered whether blocking this protein, which normally helps neurons form synapses, would halt tumor growth and extend the survival of mice with glioblastoma.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1447&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Microscopy image of glioma cells" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1447&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529647/original/file-20230601-22-crdeom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glioma cells could potentially be treated by repurposing the anti-seizure drug gabapentin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/RrbmvV">Castro Lab, Michigan Medicine/NIH via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To test this hypothesis, we treated mice with a common <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493228/">anti-seizure drug called gabapentin</a> that blocks thrombospondin-1. We found that gabapentin was able to keep the brain tumors from expanding for several months. These findings highlight the potential of repurposing this existing drug to control brain tumor growth.</p>
<p>Our study suggests that targeting the communication between healthy brain cells and cancer cells could offer another way to treat brain cancer. Combining gabapentin with other conventional therapies could complement existing treatments, helping mitigate cognitive decline and potentially improving survival. We are now exploring new ways to take advantage of this drug’s potential to halt tumor growth. Our goal is to ultimately translate the findings of our study to clinical trials in people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shawn Hervey-Jumper receives funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute Neurological and Stroke Disorders (NINDS), Robert wood Johnson Foundation, OligoNation, LoGlio.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saritha Krishna 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>
Glioblastoma is the most aggressive type of brain cancer, causing significant decline in cognitive function. New research suggests a common anti-seizure drug could help control tumor growth.
Saritha Krishna, Postdoctoral Fellow in Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
Shawn Hervey-Jumper, Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196473
2023-03-22T12:39:31Z
2023-03-22T12:39:31Z
Building better brain collaboration online – despite scientific squabbles, the decade-long Human Brain Project brought measurable success to neuroscience collaboration
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515898/original/file-20230316-1755-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2101%2C1427&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bringing scientific research online can help improve collaboration to a degree. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/image-of-people-walking-in-a-high-speed-data-space-royalty-free-image/1349695388">Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent years have seen both impressive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3578">advances in computational technologies and neuroscience</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00395-3">increasing prevalence of mental disorders</a>. These forces sparked the launch of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4371">brain science initiatives</a> worldwide. In the past decade, a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brain-race-can-giant-computers-map-the-mind-12342">brain race</a>” between Europe, <a href="https://theconversation.com/illuminating-the-brain-one-neuron-and-synapse-at-a-time-5-essential-reads-about-how-researchers-are-using-new-tools-to-map-its-structure-and-function-187607">the U.S.</a>, Israel, Japan and China has taken off with the goal of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-science-of-big-science">understanding human brain function</a>.</p>
<p>One of the earliest brain initiatives was the 10-year, 1 billion-euro (US$1.33 billion in 2013) <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/about/overview/">Human Brain Project</a>, which launched in 2013 as a flagship science initiative of the European Commission’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181222034306/https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/fet-flagships">Future and Emerging Technologies program</a>. The project <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqMpGrM5ECo">initially sought</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2011.12.015">simulate the entire human brain</a> in a supercomputer within a decade, continuing the work its founder, neuroscientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W3lyJF8AAAAJ&hl=en">Henry Markram</a>, started with his 2005 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1848">Blue Brain Project</a>. Not only did it seek to digitize the brain, but research and laboratory work were also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2011.12.015">designed to be completely digital</a>, with researchers distributed across Europe.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LS3wMC2BpxU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The initial goal of the Human Brain Project was to simulate the entire human brain in a supercomputer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the project was rife with controversy among neuroscientists worldwide. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/482456a">faced skepticism</a> before it even started and gathered <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/513027a">heated criticism</a> and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-human-brain-project-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/">debate</a> once funded. After over 800 neuroscientists worldwide <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160621075754/http://neurofuture.eu/">signed an open letter</a> calling for a revamp of the program, it was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/511133a">completely reorganized</a> in 2015. From then on, its aim was to develop a European digital research infrastructure to advance brain science and create “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.046">brain-inspired information technology</a>.”</p>
<p>Now, 10 years later, the project is coming to a close. It remains an open question whether it achieved its goals.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lucyxiaoluwang.com/">We are</a> <a href="https://www.ip.mpg.de/en/persons/kreyer-ann-christin.html">economists</a> who study how <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=M0QlVjcAAAAJ&hl=en">digital infrastructure</a> can help scientists collaborate in challenging times. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278402">recently published research</a> found that while the Human Brain Project experienced major changes in its structure and goals, it was able to promote collaboration through its online forum. </p>
<h2>Evolving research focuses</h2>
<p>The project was composed of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.046">scientists from various disciplines</a>, including neuroscience, computer science, physics, informatics and mathematics. More than 500 scientists and engineers at over 120 research institutions across Europe and beyond have <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/about-hbp/human-brain-project-ebrains/">engaged in HBP research activities</a>.</p>
<p>Although many neuroscientists view <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.03.027">brain network simulation</a> as an important step to advance brain science, many others criticized the project’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2015.18704">initial focus on computer simulations</a>. Scientists argued that simulations will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/07/human-brain-project-researchers-threaten-boycott">never be enough</a> to explain the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/511125a">function of the entire brain</a> without complementary experiments on animals or tissues. Some viewed the program as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/513027a">an IT project</a> rather than one on neuroscience. Others worried that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/513027a">other important research areas</a> would be neglected. Combined with perceived <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-human-brain-project-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/">lack of transparency</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/513027a">mismatch between</a> the size of its task, time frame and setup, the reorganization the open letter called for was inevitable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Timeline of Human Brain Project milestones" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501528/original/file-20221216-23-v4jcww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=240&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 Human Brain Project aimed to achieve ambitious milestones despite major restructuring and controversy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278402">Lucy Xiaolu Wang and Ann-Christin Kreyer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After revamping, the project dropped its original goal of complete brain simulation to focus on advancing brain sciences with computational science. </p>
<p>The project also started hosting supercomputer-powered online research platforms <a href="https://wiki.ebrains.eu/bin/view/Collabs/the-collaboratory/">on the Collaboratory</a> for researchers to virtually collaborate in 2016. This infrastructure enabled the development of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.046">advanced software and complex brain simulations</a> by providing cloud-based platforms for collaboration and data storage, as well as data analytics, supercomputers and modeling tools. </p>
<p>In 2018, the platform host transitioned from the project to <a href="https://ebrains.eu/">EBRAINS</a> as an upgraded and permanent version powered by new E.U. neuroscience supercomputing centers. EBRAINS is intended to serve as the backbone for a pan-European online neuroscience research platform after the project ends. Through EBRAINS, the project’s research data, models, tools and results <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.118973">will be made accessible</a> for further research.</p>
<h2>The HBP online forum</h2>
<p>To complement the research platforms, the <a href="https://forum.humanbrainproject.eu/">Human Brain Project Forum</a> was launched in July 2015 to facilitate informal collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Users discussed both project-related activities and broad neuroscience programming challenges on this public forum. All topics and discussions could be viewed freely online, and anyone could make an account to post a question or comment on an existing thread. Opening the forum to the public was intended to facilitate the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.046">exchange of results and expertise</a> with outside researchers to help achieve the project’s ambitious goals.</p>
<p>We wanted to know if the forum succeeded in its goal of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278402">connecting researchers</a> both within and beyond the project community. To answer this question, we examined patterns of user interaction and problem-solving on the forum from when it opened in July 2015 through March 2021. We measured user interaction by collecting data on all posted questions and replies, linked with available user information on the site or via public search. To analyze what factors facilitated collaborative problem-solving, we examined the solution status of the questions and users within each thread. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Diagram of Human Brain Project research focus areas and structure" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501529/original/file-20221216-12-gy294k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=221&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 structure of the Human Brain Project platforms and the online forum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278402">Lucy Xiaolu Wang and Ann-Christin Kreyer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found that the average interaction within each posted thread is comparable to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/">Stack Overflow</a>, a popular Q&A website for programmers. On average, each Human Brain Project forum thread <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278402">received 3.7 replies</a> compared with <a href="https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/50588/minimum-maximum-and-average-number-of-answers-per-post">1.47 replies per question</a> on Stack Overflow. Despite a drop in usage during early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, forum use rose substantially in late 2020 and early 2021.</p>
<p>Questions about programming related to the project’s core research areas gathered more attention, active discussion and faster resolution. While questions that attracted users from many countries are discussed more actively, they took longer to resolve. Problems with administrator support were solved faster overall. Patterns of online interaction did not significantly differ by project affiliation status, gender or seniority level. </p>
<p>Overall, the forum appeared to be an inclusive online community that fostered collaboration.</p>
<h2>Digitizing the life sciences</h2>
<p>There is a need to partially digitize the traditionally more laboratory-based life sciences. The U.S. Department of Energy highlighted this need when it created the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/national-virtual-biotechnology-laboratory-unites-doe-labs-against-covid-19">National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory</a> in 2020, a consortium of national laboratories that uses supercomputer facilities to help scientists coordinate a united response against the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>But digitization doesn’t guarantee successful collaboration. While Europe’s Human Brain Project began with one specific goal that soon fell apart with controversy and disagreement, the ongoing U.S. <a href="https://braininitiative.nih.gov/">Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative</a> had no single vision. Following a more traditional research approach, multiple teams <a href="https://theconversation.com/illuminating-the-brain-one-neuron-and-synapse-at-a-time-5-essential-reads-about-how-researchers-are-using-new-tools-to-map-its-structure-and-function-187607">work independently on various topics</a>. The BRAIN Initiative had received <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BRAIN_Initiative_Technical_Summary_Flyer_508C.pdf">over $3 billion in funding by 2022</a> – three times the amount for the Human Brain Project.</p>
<p>While the long-term impact of the project may not be fully understood, the <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/summit-2023/">Human Brain Project Summit 2023</a> from March 28 to 31 is set to provide a venue for open discussion with the broader community on what the HBP has achieved. Institutional support for neuroscience research can yield tremendous returns, but it remains unclear how to best design scientific organizations and use digitization in the process. We believe studying the science of science research could help achieve the collaboration and shared goals these initiatives seek.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196473/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>
The European Union’s 10-year Human Brain Project is coming to a close. Whether this controversial 1 billion-euro project achieved its aims is unclear, but its online forum did foster collaboration.
Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor, Resource Economics Dept., UMass Amherst
Ann-Christin Kreyer, Ph.D. Candidate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169814
2022-02-17T17:31:30Z
2022-02-17T17:31:30Z
Vaccine hesitancy: Why ‘doing your own research’ doesn’t work, but reason alone won’t change minds
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446385/original/file-20220214-138710-1tbheys.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=175%2C53%2C2770%2C1926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reason is not the only factor that guides vaccine decisions. Understanding human decision-making is the first step in changing behaviour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito</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/vaccine-hesitancy--why--doing-your-own-research--doesn-t-work--but-reason-alone-won-t-change-minds" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When the Green Bay Packers lost a playoff game to the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 22, <a href="https://twitter.com/gregolear/status/1485104599740698625">Twitter users were quick to roast Packers’ quarterback</a> Aaron Rodgers’ anti-vaccination beliefs. </p>
<p>Rodgers misled his teammates about his vaccination status before testing positive for COVID-19 last November, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fault-in-our-stars-aaron-rodgers-reminds-us-why-celebrity-shouldnt-trump-science-171648">revealing he was unvaccinated</a> and stating that he was a critical thinker who had done his own research. Responses to Rodgers’ admission <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/twitter-drags-aaron-rodgers-over-vaccine-comments-he-nicki-minajs-cousins-friend-1646652">included Twitter mockery</a>, but also <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/scicheck-aaron-rodgers-inaccurate-covid-19-claims/">fact-checking articles that addressed misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>Earlier last fall, another celebrity’s COVID-19 vaccine comments drew even more attention, similarly divided. In September, when Nicki Minaj tweeted about her cousin in Trinidad, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2021/09/14/nicki-minajs-insane-vaccine-anecdote-goes-viral-on-twitter-and-beyond/">some ridiculed it</a>, while others — <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1037832909/nicki-minaj-covid-vaccine-side-effects-white-house">including the White House</a> — offered to put her in touch with medical experts who could correct her misconceptions. </p>
<p>Both types of response are equally futile.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1437532566945341441"}"></div></p>
<p>Notice that both responses assume reason (and only reason) is responsible for human behaviour. Both responses assume a failure of reason; the only difference is the source of the failure. </p>
<p>The mockery assumes that some people lack the cognitive capacity or education to draw the correct inference from the data. The correction of misinformation assumes a lack of accurate information is preventing a rational conclusion. </p>
<h2>Reason alone does not drive behaviour</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/vaccine-confidence-in-canada-107061">Click here for more articles in our series about vaccine confidence.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a cognitive neuroscientist who studies reasoning, I want to suggest that both of these responses make the same two mistakes.</p>
<p>The first mistake is a misunderstanding of the type of reasoning involved in making vaccine decisions. The second is more fundamental. It is based on an incomplete model of human behaviour.</p>
<p>The first mistake is obvious and can be quickly set aside. Most of us are not capable of “doing our own research” on COVID-19 vaccines. We do not have the training plus years of postdoctoral experience specializing in viruses and vaccines to seriously evaluate the primary literature, much less generate our own research. Even my family doctor, neurologist and cardiologist depend on the research produced by immunologists and vaccinologists.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1485105777291390981"}"></div></p>
<p>The only thing most of us can do is follow the <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Are+We+All+Scientific+Experts+Now%3F-p-9780745682044">advice of specialists</a>. “Doing our own research” simply amounts to making a decision on whom to believe. Do we believe the celebrities offering shocking and entertaining — but uncorroborated — opinions, the next-door neighbour, or the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html">specialists at the Centers for Disease Control</a> who have spent their lives studying viruses and vaccines? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fault-in-our-stars-aaron-rodgers-reminds-us-why-celebrity-shouldnt-trump-science-171648">The fault in our stars: Aaron Rodgers reminds us why celebrity shouldn't trump science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is an appropriate question to approach with reason. But our overly abstract notion of reason as detached from biology is a myth. </p>
<h2>The tethered mind</h2>
<p>A more realistic conception of the human mind is one where we are reasoning creatures, but the reasoning system is interconnected — or tethered — to other biological systems that evolved earlier and function without our conscious input or awareness. Some examples are autonomic, instinctive and associative systems. This is a common-sense idea with deep implications developed in my book <a href="https://mitp-web.mit.edu/books/reason-and-less"><em>Reason and Less: Pursuing Food, Sex and Politics</em></a>. What it means is that human behaviour is affected by all of these systems — not just reason, as is often assumed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Diagram of different aspects of behaviour." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426314/original/file-20211013-23-1acgmd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reason is not the only factor in determining behaviour. Instinctive, automatic and associative systems also play a role.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(V. Goel)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How these systems interact is guided by feelings: pleasure and displeasure. In some situations, the same action may be triggered by multiple systems. In other situations, different systems trigger different — even contradictory — actions. The overall response is guided by the principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing displeasure, determined by combining the individual system responses</p>
<h2>In-groups and out-groups</h2>
<p>Deciding who to believe activates <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24927662">in-group/out-group</a> systems. The in-group is always good and righteous. The out-group is of questionable virtue and held in lower regard. This bias is often regarded as <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/bias-divides-us">based in belief or reason</a>. If this were the case, we should be able to change it by changing beliefs, but we cannot.</p>
<p>I argue in my book that in-group bias is actually an instinct. Instinctive systems involve <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24944850">very different conceptual and neural mechanisms</a> than reasoning systems. Instinctive behaviours, belonging to older brain systems, are automatically triggered and not easily changeable, certainly not by changing beliefs and desires. </p>
<p>So, if the real issue is who to believe — and we are subject to in-group/out-group instincts — and if we believe scientists belong to the in-group, this instinct will push us in the same direction as reason and enhance the pleasure/satisfaction associated with a decision based solely on reason. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person in shadow holding a sign depicting a skull and crossed vaccine syringes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446386/original/file-20220214-137087-ithwy1.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">Instinctive behaviours involve very different conceptual and neural mechanisms than reasoning systems, and are not easy to change. This can add to the challenge of addressing anti-vaccine views.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If, however, scientists belong to the out-group, then the instinct pushes us in the opposite direction: they are evil and trying to deceive and harm us. In this case, if the pleasure we derive from exercising the in-group instinct is greater than that derived from other contributing forces, then we will be among the vaccine hesitant.</p>
<p>The issue is further complicated when the reason is used to intentionally sow doubt on the motives of experts to accentuate out-group differences. For example, “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-how-many-americans-have-died-after-taking-the-covid-vaccine">they don’t tell you how many people have died from the vaccine</a>” or “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-government-forced-sterilization-vaccines">if they can force you to have a vaccine under the guise of a so-called pandemic, what other medical procedures can they force upon you?</a>”</p>
<p>This makes it even more difficult to overcome the instinctual bias. Any information to the contrary, no matter how clear or factual, will be less effective because it is pushing in the opposite direction to the instinct. </p>
<p>Notice that the same mechanisms and procedures are at play in both the vaccinated and the vaccine hesitant. The only difference is group membership. This is not a flaw in the system. This is how the tethered mind works.</p>
<h2>Changing behaviour</h2>
<p>Within this tethered mind model, how does one address vaccine hesitancy? Assuming that the vaccine hesitant lack reason or just need more information about vaccines and viruses is not correct or helpful. We need to factor in the non-reasoning systems that also drive behaviour and decisions. </p>
<p>According to tethered rationality, the following three strategies may be more successful: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Get the vaccine hesitant to expand their in-group to incorporate vaccine scientists. However, this is difficult because human in-group formation can be arbitrary and disjointed. For example, if the scientists are lumped with government, Big Pharma or other out-groups, assimilation into the in-group will be difficult for many. </p></li>
<li><p>Enable the vaccine hesitant to <em>feel</em> the severity of COVID-19 on a more visceral level, similar to the way anti-smoking campaigns from the ‘70s and ‘80s used <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.161638">graphic pictures of diseased lungs and emotional videos of dying cancer patients</a>. These campaigns were more effective at changing behaviour than the earlier approach of printing the surgeon general’s health warning on cigarettes packs (appealing to reason alone). </p></li>
<li><p>Offer sufficient reward or penalty to tip the balance away from the pleasure associated with in-group membership. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Notice that none of these strategies targets reason. Reason is not the stumbling block. The stumbling block is the reality that reason is tethered to evolutionarily older systems that also have a say in behaviour. The first step in successfully changing a behaviour is having an accurate model of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vinod Goel receives funding from NSERC. </span></em></p>
Vaccine hesitancy is often met with one of two responses: Ridicule, or factual information. Both assume a failure of reason, but human behaviour is more complex than reason, so both responses fail.
Vinod Goel, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175034
2022-01-19T18:59:13Z
2022-01-19T18:59:13Z
First impressions count, and have an impact on the decisions we make later on
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441411/original/file-20220118-13-1mx0fgo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=103%2C112%2C5647%2C3716&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>Picture yourself standing at the edge of a road, trying to decide if it’s safe to cross. It’s night time and rain is falling, making it difficult to see what’s up ahead. After looking both ways, you step onto the road. </p>
<p>But what if this was a poor choice? Perhaps you’ve misjudged the speed of an approaching car. How does your brain realise its error and correct things before it’s too late?</p>
<p>Experiments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have taught us we make decisions by integrating information over time – that is, our brains collect and “add up” information across a very brief window of time, often only tens to hundreds of milliseconds, to form a clearer picture before committing to an action. </p>
<p>But when we need to judge how appropriate a decision actually was, for example when we already have one foot on the road, we suddenly become selective. Our <a href="https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009738">new research</a> shows that when changing our minds, not all information is considered equally, and our first impressions count.</p>
<h2>Our brains make and ‘appeal’ decisions</h2>
<p>A useful analogy for how our brains make decisions is that of a courtroom judge. Rather than passing a judgement after hearing from a single witness, they wait to hear from multiple witnesses to avoid acting on false or misleading testimony.</p>
<p>Similarly, our brains sample sensory information for a while before deciding what to do. From the brain’s perspective – peering through the “veil of our senses” – the world is much hazier than you might think. As a result, we don’t always choose the most appropriate courses of action, despite our best efforts.</p>
<p>When mistakes are made, we need to be able to rapidly change our minds. Just as appeal processes are a critical part of the judicial system, the ability to reverse decisions is a critical function of our brains. </p>
<p>Imagine being unable to overrule the decision to step onto the road after grossly underestimating the speed of an approaching car. Even small delays in the time it takes you to reconsider can have serious consequences. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/changing-your-mind-about-something-as-important-as-vaccination-isnt-a-sign-of-weakness-being-open-to-new-information-is-the-smart-way-to-make-choices-167856">Changing your mind about something as important as vaccination isn't a sign of weakness – being open to new information is the smart way to make choices</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Probing how the brain samples information over time</h2>
<p>In our work at the <a href="https://dlab.unimelb.edu.au/">Decision Neuroscience Lab</a> at the University of Melbourne, we investigated how people sample information <em>across time</em> to change their minds. </p>
<p>Specifically, it has been unclear whether information used to inform an initial decision is also used in the process of reconsideration (and whether the weight given to information is constant or differs over time).</p>
<p>Think of a judge presiding over an appeal. The dominant perspective has been that only testimony heard <em>after</em> an initial decision has been made determines whether that decision is reversed. Another possibility, however, is that testimony from both <em>before and after</em> influence whether the decision is overturned.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hand moves chess piece during a game" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441421/original/file-20220118-13-1wm8kl4.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prior to this research, it had been unclear whether information used to make an initial decision was also used when reconsidering.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To investigate this, we ran an experiment in which participants watched two rapidly flickering squares (that varied in brightness) for a short time, and made decisions about which was brighter on average. </p>
<p>We carefully manipulated the exact brightness of each square at all times, noting how people’s perceptions changed throughout. Usually, people stuck with their decisions, but every so often they changed their mind. </p>
<p>Contrary to current theories, we found information used to inform an initial decision (the brightness difference between the squares early on) also influenced whether that decision was later reversed. </p>
<p>Most strikingly, the very first snapshot of brightness information participants saw had a large and lasting influence over whether, and how quickly, they later changed their mind. </p>
<p>If this first snapshot of information strongly supported participants’ initial decisions, they tended to exhibit greater “decision inertia”. That is, they were slower and more resistant to changing their mind, even in the face of evidence they had made a mistake. </p>
<p>If it was the other way around, however, participants were more likely and quicker to change their mind. It appears greater weight was given to the first snapshot of evidence, and the strength of this evidence influenced subsequent assessments, biasing decisions made thereafter.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-what-extent-are-we-ruled-by-unconscious-forces-161216">To what extent are we ruled by unconscious forces?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>First impressions count</h2>
<p>On first consideration, deciding if it’s safe to cross a road seems simple. Yet our research reveals complex and unexpected dynamics underlie even these rapid decisions. </p>
<p>In some sense, the variations in “decision inertia” participants displayed are reminiscent of confirmation bias, wherein a person will downplay evidence that does not support their initial conclusion. </p>
<p>Our findings are an important reminder that similar biases affect the processes in our brains which determine how we perceive, and act upon, the world around us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Turner was supported by a Research Training Program Scholarship while conducting this research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Bode receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC DP160103353). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Feuerriegel 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 the choices we make, and our perceptions of the world, are biased by our initial impressions.
William Turner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Daniel Feuerriegel, ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Stefan Bode, Associate Professor and Head of Decision Neuroscience Laboratory, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170712
2021-10-29T04:09:21Z
2021-10-29T04:09:21Z
Not spooked by Halloween ghost stories? You may have aphantasia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429219/original/file-20211028-21-52qqq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C995%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-sisters-telling-scary-stories-under-276299504">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Halloween movies often feature kids sitting around a campfire sharing gory, spooky stories, trying to get someone to scream in fear.</p>
<p>This weekend you might be doing the same – sharing a horror story with friends. You may find one friend doesn’t get scared, no matter how frightening a scene you try to paint in their mind.</p>
<p>So why are some people more easily spooked by stories than others? We ran an experiment to find out.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/halloween-films-the-good-the-bad-and-the-truly-scary-67837">Halloween films: the good, the bad and the truly scary</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Can you see it in your mind?</h2>
<p>One reason some people are more easily spooked could relate to how well they can visualise the scary scene in their mind. </p>
<p>When some people listen to a story they automatically conjure up the scene in their mind’s eye, while others have to focus really hard to create any sort of mental image. </p>
<p>A small proportion cannot visualise images at all. No matter how hard they try, they do not see anything in their mind. This inability to visualise is known as aphantasia.</p>
<p>Although we have known people vary in their ability to visualise <a href="https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm">for many years</a>, the term aphantasia was not coined until <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945215001781?via%3Dihub">2015</a>. </p>
<p>We don’t yet know exactly how many people have aphantasia. But <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945220301404?via%3Dihub">estimates vary</a> at 1–4% of the population.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KuWSh4n5AiI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Do you have aphantasia?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How scared are you?</h2>
<p>If the ability to visualise images and scenes in the mind plays a role in how we react to spooky stories, what does that mean for people with aphantasia? How do they react when reading scary stories?</p>
<p>We <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2021.0267">ran a study</a> to find out. We had people sit in the dark and read a number of short stories – not ghost stories, but ones with frightening, hypothetical scenarios.</p>
<p>One example involved someone being chased by a shark, another being covered in spiders.</p>
<p>As people read these stories, we recorded their fear levels by measuring how much the stories made them sweat.</p>
<p>We placed small electrodes on their fingers and ran a tiny electric current from one electrode to the other. </p>
<p>When you sweat this allows the electric current to flow from one electrode to the other easier, due to less resistance, and this results in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1094428116681073">increased skin conductance</a>. </p>
<p>This measure can pick up even very small increases in sweat you wouldn’t otherwise notice.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scared man rowing away from sharks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429220/original/file-20211028-13882-16y7l51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Imagine being chased by sharks. Some people can’t conjure up the image in their mind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/escape-crisis-613248632">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For most people who could conjure up images in their mind, their skin conductance increased when they read these stories. But people with aphantasia didn’t show a significant increase in their skin conductance levels when reading the same scenarios. </p>
<p>There was no difference between the two groups when viewing scary pictures. This suggests aphantasic people’s lack of a reaction to these stories wasn’t due to a general dampening of emotional responses.</p>
<p>Instead, we concluded the lack of a change in skin conductance in these people with aphantasia is specific to being unable to <em>visualise</em> these fear-inducing stories.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pseudo-hallucinations-why-some-people-see-more-vivid-mental-images-than-others-test-yourself-here-163025">Pseudo-hallucinations: why some people see more vivid mental images than others – test yourself here</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s going on in the brain?</h2>
<p>Very little work has been done to measure neural activity in people with aphantasia to give us a firm idea of why they cannot visualise images.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cercorcomms/article/2/2/tgab035/6265046">study</a> shows both the frontal and visual regions of the brain are linked to visualising images. And in people with aphantasia, the connection between these two areas is weaker.</p>
<p>Another study found the pattern of activity in visual regions of the brain <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/5/1367.abstract">is correlated</a> with the vividness of the mental images.</p>
<p>So any reduction in connectivity between the frontal and visual regions may result in less control over the visual regions. This might lead to the inability to visualise.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blind-in-the-mind-why-some-people-cant-see-pictures-in-their-imagination-86849">Blind in the mind: why some people can't see pictures in their imagination</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>So what if you have aphantasia?</h2>
<p>If you have aphantasia, it might just mean reading a <a href="https://stephenking.com">Stephen King novel</a> is unlikely to ruffle your feathers. </p>
<p>Theoretically, remembering fearful experiences might also be less scary. We did not test personal memories in our study, but we hope to look at these in the future.</p>
<p>People with aphantasia report their personal memories (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13421-014-0402-5">autobiographical memories</a>) are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7">less vivid</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945220301404?via%3Dihub">detailed</a> than people with visual imagery. </p>
<p>People with aphantasia may also be less likely to develop disorders associated with fear memories, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). </p>
<p>Another possibility is they still may develop PTSD but it presents <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7">in a different way</a> to people with visual imagery – without flashbacks. But more research is needed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-11135">Explainer: what is post-traumatic stress disorder?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Keogh 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>
If a friend seems to be immune to your spooky, ghost story this Halloween, ask them if they can see the story unfold in their mind’s eye.
Rebecca Keogh, Research Fellow, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164219
2021-08-31T12:28:18Z
2021-08-31T12:28:18Z
Bilingual people with language loss due to stroke can pose a treatment challenge – computational modeling may help clinicians treat them
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415558/original/file-20210810-21-9b77fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C4122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers can program neural networks composed of artificial neurons to simulate language processing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/artificial-intelligence-brain-royalty-free-image/1256860085?adppopup=true">Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89443-6">New research shows that computational modeling</a> can predict how bilingual stroke patients will respond to language treatment – and that could help clinicians identify which language to focus treatment on and increase chances for improvement in both. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000265600.69385.6f">Aphasia</a> is a speech and language disorder often caused by stroke. Bilingual people with aphasia typically experience difficulty retrieving words in both of their languages. While language therapy can help them improve their ability to communicate, it’s not often clear to clinicians <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs10090144">which language to target in treatment</a>.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mexG-2kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">cognitive neuroscientist</a>, and my current work focuses on language treatment outcomes in bilinguals with aphasia. As part of the <a href="https://www.bu.edu/aphasiaresearch/">Aphasia Research Laboratory at Boston University</a>, my colleagues and I worked with <a href="http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/">computer scientists at the University of Texas at Austin</a> to develop <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2019.104643">BiLex</a> – a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2015.07.001">computational model</a> that simulates the ability to retrieve words from memory in bilinguals.</p>
<p>The BiLex model is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-neural-network-a-computer-scientist-explains-151897">neural network</a> composed of artificial neurons that are programmed to simulate language processing. Our team trained individual BiLex models to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89443-6">simulate word retrieval abilities in Spanish-English bilinguals with aphasia</a> after language treatment. </p>
<p>We simulated their word retrieval abilities before their stroke and then recreated the effects of stroke lesions in each person’s brain by deleting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2011.08.002">neurons encoding</a> different word sounds and meanings. Our team used varying degrees of damage intensity to simulate the levels of word retrieval loss of each patient. We then retrained these BiLex models to simulate the effects of language therapy provided in either English or Spanish on both the treated and the untreated language.</p>
<p>Our findings show that BiLex can simulate treatment response, accurately predicting up to 82% of patient recovery in the treated language and 60% in the untreated language. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two stick figures speak through a tin can in Spanish and English" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414430/original/file-20210803-27-fbk3ii.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">According to the U.S. Census Bureau report on language use, 83.6% of the foreign-born population aged 5 and older speaks a language other than English at home, which suggests a large bilingual representation in the general population.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/tin-can-phone-spanish-and-english-conversation-royalty-free-image/157561203?adppopup=true">JulNichols/via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Despite the growing <a href="https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0029-1225951">bilingual aging population at risk for post-stroke aphasia</a> worldwide, evidence on what language treatment works and for whom it works best is still limited. </p>
<p>Typically, predicting treatment outcomes for bilinguals with aphasia requires large-scale studies over a long period of time. This is because each person has unique characteristics that affect their recovery. Computational models like BiLex can offer a faster approach by reliably simulating multiple different profiles of bilingualism and language impairment. </p>
<p>Accurate computational simulations of response to language therapy could ultimately help clinicians decide which language to treat in bilinguals with aphasia in order to maximize <a href="https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/1058-0360%282013/12-0085%29">treatment response in their two languages</a>.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>While our findings may help develop better and more personalized treatment plans in the future, questions about language recovery in bilinguals with aphasia remain unanswered. </p>
<p>Further research is needed on how people who know two languages differ from people who know just one language in their recovery from brain injuries affecting communication. Similarly, little is known about what determines aphasia recovery for different language combinations outside of Spanish and English, or what factors lead to optimal response to language therapy.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Currently, our team is conducting a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040495">clinical trial to test if BiLex can correctly identify which language treatment option will lead to the maximum recovery in both languages on real bilingual patients</a>. If study results confirm that BiLex can help identify the optimal treatment language for bilinguals with aphasia, our computational model could help clinicians tailor treatment plans to promote better recovery in this population in the future.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The PROCoM project receives funding from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health (grant U01DC014922) awarded to Swathi Kiran.
Claudia Peñaloza is currently affiliated with the University of Barcelona and receives funding from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (IJC2018-037818). </span></em></p>
Computational modeling can predict language therapy response in bilingual people with aphasia. In the future, this could help clinicians identify the best language for treatment.
Claudia Peñaloza, Researcher, Aphasia Research Laboratory, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161892
2021-06-09T20:00:08Z
2021-06-09T20:00:08Z
Moved by words: how poetry helps us express our feelings
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405001/original/file-20210608-19-kd6vhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C67%2C3141%2C2077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Semansky/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Poetry has made something of a comeback in popular culture, thanks to America’s Amanda Gorman, who read her performance poems at a presidential inauguration and this year’s Super Bowl. Gorman has been described as <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/02/08/amanda-gorman-is-bringing-poetry-to-the-masses-but-shes-not-alone/">bringing poetry to the masses</a>.</p>
<p>However, when it comes to the mainstream, poetry has long been hiding in plain sight. Gorman’s spoken-word performances, which have been <a href="https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/americas-first-hop-hop-inaugural-poem-ties-history-to-the-present-optimism-to-urgency/">compared to hip hop</a>, drew attention to poetry in music lyrics. But poetry is also visible in movies and on TV. </p>
<p>These media representations are interesting because they show how poetry is popularly understood in connection with feelings. And that popular wisdom chimes with findings in cognitive neuroscience about how language and, by extension, poetry work.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ode-to-the-poem-why-memorising-poetry-still-matters-for-human-connection-121622">Ode to the poem: why memorising poetry still matters for human connection</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Aside from films or TV series about poets, such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8518136/">Dickinson</a> or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5247022/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Paterson</a>, poetry makes a cameo in some of our most iconic films, where it is said to represent or intensify a range of emotions. These include love (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TB3ZFB4kdE">Before Sunrise</a>), mad ambition (Citizen Kane), nostalgic patriotism (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptqoSZgh7q8">Skyfall</a>), pride (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oIKqeZWjis">Invictus</a>), nihilism (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTinz7xtJQ">Apocalypse Now</a>) and trauma (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYwbj2o6Pgc">The Piano</a>).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_TB3ZFB4kdE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Poetry, representative of emotion, is also frequently used to symbolise humanity. This is particularly apparent in films about clones. </p>
<p>In the Tom Cruise blockbuster Oblivion, when the clone Jack Harper recites a poem from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lays_of_Ancient_Rome">Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome</a> this reinforces his legitimacy. In Blade Runner, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsAJEo2m1Fs">Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty misquotes William Blake</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What emerges from poetry’s onscreen appearances, then, is a popular understanding of it as an expression of human feeling and evidence of genuine humanity.</p>
<h2>Cognitive neuroscience</h2>
<p>This intuitive understanding of poetry resonates with findings in cognitive neuroscience. Leaving behind theories of the brain that suggest <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/">it operates like a computer</a> and theories of language that focus on “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/mental-grammar-term-1691380">mental grammar</a>”, many scientists now acknowledge the body and emotion as the foundations of both cognition and speech.</p>
<p>Of particular interest is the role of <a href="https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physiol.00004.2008">mirror neurons</a>. These brain cells fire when an action is observed or performed, and they tell us a lot about how we understand the actions of others. They suggest understanding comes from a mirroring or imitation that takes place in the brain but is acted out or felt in the body. </p>
<p>An example is the contagious effect of a smile. When we observe someone smiling, we mirror that action to understand it. </p>
<p>Something similar happens when understanding language. Words contagiously move us. As neuroscientist Christian Keysers explains in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlsS7r8Ix-s">The Empathic Brain</a>, if you hear or read the word “lick”, the part of your brain that moves your mouth is activated to aid understanding. The same happens if you hear or read the word “kick”. As a result, we feel the meaning of these words in our bodies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlsS7r8Ix-s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>What about producing words? Speech is fundamentally a motor activity, which evolved from gesture. We are moved to speak, and we literally move — our lips, our tongue, our lungs, our stomach muscles, and often even our hands — to express ourselves. </p>
<p>As infants, we begin learning language in interaction with a caregiver, imitating the shapes of their mouth, and waving our arms and legs in excitement and frustration at the repetitive noises they make, until eventually we are able to imitate their sounds. Those sounds are accompanied by feelings, related most strongly to a desire to communicate beyond the boundaries of ourselves.</p>
<p>Of course, language develops into a more abstract system for communication. It can often remain a struggle, however, to give expression to feelings that are powerfully felt in the body, such as loneliness or grief or trauma. As John Hannah’s character says in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXWclpGhcg">Four Weddings and a Funeral</a>, when trying to articulate his feelings about his dead partner, “Unfortunately there I run out of words”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-poetry-and-pain-80273">On poetry and pain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDXWclpGhcg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Rhymes and rhythms</h2>
<p>This is where poetry comes in, making use of the rhymes and rhythms that have helped us find speech from infancy, calling attention to the auditory qualities of language to convey meaning through feeling. </p>
<p>If we can’t do it ourselves, we quote someone else’s words, instinctively and ritualistically associating poetry with the expression of emotion.</p>
<p>This link to emotion, as well as child-like speech, undoubtedly goes some way to explaining another popular idea about poetry: that it signals “madness”. Biopics of poets feed this stereotype by overwhelmingly choosing poets with mental illnesses as their subjects — for instance, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325055/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Sylvia</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210217/">Pandaemonium</a>, portraits of Sylvia Plath and Samuel Taylor Coleridge respectively.</p>
<p>However, cognitive neuroscience — and popular wisdom — suggest poetry actually exemplifies an important truth about language and human nature. </p>
<p>While poetry is regularly denounced for “not making sense”, our cognition and our language do not arise according to purely rational principles.</p>
<p>We are bodies wrought by feeling. Robin Williams’ character simplifies this truth in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wey8nauEyA4">Dead Poets Society</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Takolander 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>
In popular films and TV shows, poetry is typically used to express human feelings. This popular wisdom chimes with findings in cognitive neuroscience about how language works.
Maria Takolander, Associate Professor in Creative Writing and Literary Studies, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160688
2021-06-03T14:21:13Z
2021-06-03T14:21:13Z
Is it time to give up on consciousness as ‘the ghost in the machine’?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402582/original/file-20210525-17-17x6zfw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=403%2C156%2C4676%2C2749&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/human-brain-anatomical-model-slide-on-1927132385">ImagesRouges/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As individuals, we feel that we know what consciousness is because we experience it daily. It’s that intimate sense of personal awareness we carry around with us, and the accompanying feeling of ownership and control over our thoughts, emotions and memories.</p>
<p>But science has not yet reached a consensus on the nature of consciousness – which has important implications for our <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-believing-in-free-will-97193">belief in free will</a> and our approach to the <a href="https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/421530-studying-consciousness-had-been-seen-as-mystical-or-unscientific">study of the human mind</a>. </p>
<p>Beliefs about consciousness can be roughly divided into <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/13/Driving_the_Ghost_from_the_Machine">two camps</a>. There are those who believe consciousness is like a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_ghost_in_the_machine.html?id=UAtbAAAAMAAJ">ghost in the machinery of our brains</a>, meriting special attention and study in its own right. And there are those, like us, who challenge this, pointing out that what we call consciousness is just another output generated backstage by our efficient neural machinery.</p>
<p>Over the past 30 years, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25244112/">neuroscientific research</a> has been gradually moving away from the first camp. Using research from cognitive neuropsychology and hypnosis, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33995166/">our recent paper</a> argues in favour of the latter position, even though this seems to undermine the compelling sense of authorship we have over our consciousness.</p>
<p>And we argue this isn’t simply a topic of mere academic interest. Giving up on the ghost of consciousness to focus scientific endeavour on the machinery of our brains could be an essential step we need to take to better understand the human mind.</p>
<h2>Is consciousness special?</h2>
<p>Our experience of consciousness places us firmly in the driver’s seat, with a sense that we’re in control of our psychological world. But seen from an objective perspective, it’s not at all clear that this is how consciousness functions, and there’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05097-x">still much debate</a> about the fundamental nature of consciousness itself. </p>
<p>One reason for this is that many of us, including scientists, have adopted a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/">dualist position</a> on the nature of consciousness. Dualism is a philosophical view that draws a distinction between the mind and the body. Even though consciousness is generated by the brain – a part of the body – dualism claims that the mind is distinct from our physical features, and that consciousness cannot be understood through the study of the physical brain alone.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AMTMtWHclKo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">MIT’s Alex Byrne explains the philosophical underpinnings of the dualist position.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s easy to see why we believe this to be the case. While every other process in the human body ticks and pulses away without our oversight, there is something uniquely transcendental about our experience of consciousness. It’s no surprise that we’ve treated consciousness as something special, distinct from the automatic systems that keep us breathing and digesting. </p>
<p>But a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00697/full">growing body of evidence</a> from the field of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02207-1">cognitive neuroscience</a> – which studies the biological processes underpinning cognition – challenges this view. Such studies draw attention to the fact that many psychological functions are generated and carried out entirely <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-consciousness-is-just-a-product-of-our-non-conscious-brain-107973">outside of our subjective awareness</a>, by a range of fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-consciousness-is-just-a-product-of-our-non-conscious-brain-107973">What if consciousness is just a product of our non-conscious brain?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Consider, for example, how effortlessly we regain consciousness each morning after losing it the night before, or how, with no deliberate effort, we instantly recognise and understand shapes, colours, patterns and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-can-still-recognise-people-in-face-masks-159667">faces</a> we encounter.</p>
<p>Consider that we don’t actually experience how our perceptions are created, how our thoughts and sentences are produced, how we recall our memories or how we control our muscles to walk and our tongues to talk. Simply put, we don’t generate or control our thoughts, feelings or actions – we just seem to become aware of them.</p>
<h2>Becoming aware</h2>
<p>The way we simply become aware of thoughts, feelings and the world around us suggests that our consciousness is <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full">generated and controlled backstage</a>, by brain systems that we remain unaware of. </p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33995166/">Our recent paper</a> argues that consciousness involves no separate independent psychological process distinct from the brain itself, just as there’s no additional function to digestion that exists separately from the physical workings of the gut.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An artist's impression of neurons in the brain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402624/original/file-20210525-17-51el4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The neural machinery of the brain may be all we need to study in order to understand the human mind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/neuronal-network-electrical-activity-neuron-cells-1691666992">MattLphotography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While it’s clear that both the experience and content of consciousness are real, we argue that, from a science explanation, they are epiphenomenal: secondary phenomena based on the machinations of the physical brain itself. In other words, our subjective experience of consciousness is real, but the functions of control and ownership we attribute to that experience are not.</p>
<h2>Future study of the brain</h2>
<p>Our position is neither obvious nor intuitive. But we contend that continuing to place consciousness in the driver’s seat, above and beyond the physical workings of the brain, and attributing cognitive functions to it, risks confusion and delaying a better understanding of human psychology and behaviour. </p>
<p>To better align psychology with the rest of the natural sciences, and to be consistent with how we understand and study processes like digestion and respiration, we favour a perspective change. We should redirect our efforts to studying the non-conscious brain, and not the functions previously attributed to consciousness. </p>
<p>This doesn’t of course exclude psychological investigation into the nature, origins and distribution of the belief in consciousness. But it does mean refocusing academic efforts on what happens beneath our awareness – where we argue the real neuro-psychological processes take place.</p>
<p>Our proposal feels personally and emotionally unsatisfying, but we believe it provides a future framework for the investigation of the human mind – one that looks at the brain’s physical machinery rather than the ghost that we’ve traditionally called consciousness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160688/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>
Consciousness is sometimes referred to as ‘the ghost’ in the machinery of our brain. Is it time we gave up the ghost to focus on the machine?
Peter W Halligan, Hon Professor of Neuropsychology, Cardiff University
David A Oakley, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155528
2021-03-17T12:14:27Z
2021-03-17T12:14:27Z
Selfish or selfless? Human nature means you’re both
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389862/original/file-20210316-22-nwmjbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=91%2C118%2C3362%2C2166&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even young children are very aware of whether they're getting their fair share.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/24028496-royalty-free-image/87803233">Jupiterimages/PHOTOS.com via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking out for number one has been important for survival for as long as there have been human beings.</p>
<p>But self-interest isn’t the only trait that helped people win at evolution. Groups of individuals who were predisposed to cooperate, care for each other and uphold social norms of fairness tended to survive and expand relative to other groups, thereby allowing these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2020.12.009">prosocial motivations to proliferate</a>.</p>
<p>So today, concern for oneself and concern for others both contribute to our sense of fairness. Together they facilitate cooperation among unrelated individuals, something ubiquitous among people but uncommon in nature.</p>
<p>A critical question is how people balance these two motivations when making decisions. </p>
<p>We investigate this question in our work at the <a href="https://voices.uchicago.edu/scnl/">Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory</a> at the University of Chicago, combining behavioral economics tasks with neuroimaging methods that let us watch what’s happening in the brains of adults and children. We’ve found evidence that people care about both themselves and others – but it’s the self that takes precedence.</p>
<h2>Learning to be equitable</h2>
<p>Children are sensitive to fairness from a very early age.</p>
<p>For instance, if you give two siblings different numbers of cookies, the one who receives fewer will likely throw a fit. Very young children, between 3 and 6 years of age, are highly sensitive to concerns about equality. Splitting resources is “fair” if everyone gets the same amount. By 6 years old, <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0025907">children will even throw resources away</a> rather than allocate them unequally.</p>
<p>As they grow, children develop abilities to <a href="https://theconversation.com/children-understand-far-more-about-other-minds-than-long-believed-72711">think about the minds of others</a> and care about social norms. Soon, they begin to understand the principle of “equity” – a “fair” distribution can be unequal if it takes into account people’s need, effort or merit. For instance, a sibling who does more chores may be entitled to more cookies. This shift toward equity appears to be universal in humans and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12729">follows similar patterns across cultures</a>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, it <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/do-kids-have-a-fundamental-sense-of-fairness/">takes several years of development</a> before children’s own behavior catches up with their understanding of fairness – for instance, by opting to share resources more equally rather than prioritizing their own payoffs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Child wearing a EEG cap" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389861/original/file-20210316-19-jyqb6d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&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 fitted children with EEG caps to monitor their brains’ electrical activity as they watched an adult distribute treats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean Decety/University of Chicago</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To investigate how children’s developing brains guide their understanding of fairness, we invited kids ranging from age 4 to 8 into our lab. We gave them four candies to divide between two other people. After they decided how many (if any) to share, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000813">we measured their brain activity</a> using <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/brain-imaging-techniques/">noninvasive electroencephalography</a> while they watched an adult split 10 rewards – like candies, coins or stickers – between two other people. The distributions could be fair (5:5), slightly unfair (7:3) or very unfair (10:0).</p>
<p>At first, kids’ brain activity looked the same whether they were observing a slightly unfair or very unfair distribution of the treats. After 400 milliseconds, the brain electrical activity for kids who saw the slightly unfair 7:3 split changed to look like the brain response of kids who saw the completely fair 5:5 division.</p>
<p>Our interpretation is that the young brains used that short lag time to consider why an adult might have handed out the treats in a slightly unfair way and then resolved that it may actually have been fair.</p>
<p>Further, children whose brain activity patterns were the most different when viewing fair versus unfair distributions were the most likely to have used merit and need when they originally divided up their candies, before they watched the adults.</p>
<p>So the EEG recordings indicate that even 4-year-old children expect distributions to be perfectly equal, which makes sense given their natural preference for equality. When children, especially after age 5, watch an adult make a completely unfair distribution, they work to try to understand why this might be the case.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman with fruit spilling out of ripped grocery bags" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389864/original/file-20210316-21-1yybp28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How do you prioritize assisting someone else if it would come at a cost to yourself, like missing your bus to help pick up spilled items?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-dropping-groceries-on-sidewalk-royalty-free-image/90201027">Chris Ryan/OJO Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Me first, then you</h2>
<p>In your everyday adult life, you face decisions that affect not just yourself, but other people around you. Do you help a stranger pick up their spilled bag and miss your bus? Do you take the big piece of cake and leave the small one for the coworker who is coming later?</p>
<p>Put more generally, how do people balance self-interest against fairness for others when those motivations conflict?</p>
<p>To answer this question, we invited participants to play an economic game. In each round, an anonymous proposer would split US$12 among themselves, the participant and another player. The participant could decide to accept the distribution, allowing all three players to keep the money, or reject the distribution, meaning no one got anything. While participants made their decision, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107576">we measured their neural activity</a> using EEG and fMRI. <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/health/health-sciences/how-fmri-works">Functional magnetic resonance imaging</a> reveals active areas of the brain by mapping blood flow.</p>
<p>The proposer was actually a computer that let us manipulate the fairness of the offers. We found that both fairness for self and fairness for the other were important for participants’ decisions, but people were more willing to tolerate offers which were unfair to others if they themselves received an unfair offer. </p>
<p>Our design also allowed us to ask whether the same regions of the brain are sensitive to self-interest and concern for other. A popular concept in cognitive science is that we are able to understand other people because we use the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.004">same parts of our brain to understand our self</a>. The idea is that the brain activates and manages these shared representations depending on the task at hand.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="brain with different areas highlighted for 'self' and 'others'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389628/original/file-20210315-17-5xu54c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Regions of the brain that were sensitive to fairness for self (red) or other (blue) didn’t overlap in the study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean Decety/University of Chicago</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in our studies, we found that rather than shared brain areas, distinct brain networks were involved in thinking about fairness for self and other.</p>
<p>We also used machine learning to test whether by looking at the brain signals we could predict what kind of offer a participant had received. We could reliably decode a signal in multiple brain networks that corresponded to fairness for self – that is, “did I get at least a third of the $12?” And this focus on self-interest dominated the early stages of decision-making.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="EEG depicts brain waves when thinking about self and other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389630/original/file-20210315-19-epmnpd.png?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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accuracy of the machine-learning algorithm trained to use EEG data to classify distributions as fair or unfair for the self or other. Darker lines are times when the algorithm was better than chance (50%). It was better at identifying a reliable pattern of brain activity for self fairness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean Decety/University of Chicago</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overall, these results suggest that people prioritize their own payoffs first and only later integrate how their options affect other people. So while people do care about others, self-interested behavior is alive and well, even in behavioral economics games. Once people get their fair share, then they are willing to be fair to others. You’re more likely to help the stranger with her bag if you know there will be another bus in 10 minutes, rather than an hour.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Investigating more complicated scenarios</h2>
<p>In daily life, people are rarely just responders, like in the game in our lab. We are interested in what happens when a person must make decisions that involve other people, such as delegating responsibilities among team members, or when an individual has limited power to personally affect the way resources are divided, as in government spending.</p>
<p>One implication from our work is that when people want to reach a compromise, it may be important to ensure that no one feels taken advantage of. Human nature seems to be to make sure you’ve taken care of yourself before you consider the needs of others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155528/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>
Cognitive neuroscientists use brain imaging and behavioral economic games to investigate people’s sense of fairness. They find it’s common to take care of yourself before looking out for others.
Keith Yoder, Postdoctoral Scholar in Social Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Chicago
Jean Decety, Professor of Psychology, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/137659
2020-05-20T12:15:32Z
2020-05-20T12:15:32Z
Napping helps preschoolers unlock their full potential for learning
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334377/original/file-20200512-82375-r3k6mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C4947%2C4004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Napping reboots the preschool brain and clears the deck for learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/children-napping-on-floor-of-preschool-classroom-royalty-free-image/122399167">Ingram Publishing via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many parents of young children, the highlight of their day is nap time – not for them, but for their little ones. Especially now, with most preschools closed, getting a child to nap is the golden ticket. Not only can it mean uninterrupted work or self-care time for parents, but their unrecognizable tyrants often wake as happy campers after a nap.</p>
<p>Researchers have validated this experience. One study presented <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2011.00962.x">3-year-olds with an unsolvable puzzle</a>, one with a missing piece, either after they napped or after they missed their nap. They found the nap-deprived children showed more negative emotions – sadness, worry and anger – when faced with the puzzle than rested children did.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bvGVrocAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As a cognitive neuroscientist</a>, <a href="https://www.somneurolab.com/">I study sleep</a>. My research shows that naps help young children regulate their emotions and solidify memories that accumulate so quickly at this age. </p>
<h2>Emotional sensitivity</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I recently demonstrated that nap-deprived preschoolers not only showed more negative emotions, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12411">paid closer attention to the emotions around them</a> than rested children did. </p>
<p>We presented young children with pairs of faces on a computer screen, a neutral face and an emotional face – either happy or angry. Those faces were then removed to reveal a star hiding under one of them. The children were asked to identify which side of the screen the star was on by pressing a button.</p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1041/XL9y2g-1.gif?1589548576" width="100%">
<figcaption><span class="caption">Where is the star?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This task measures whether a child is paying special attention to emotion stimuli or not. If a child is biased toward the emotional face, she will be quicker to press the button when the star is behind the emotional face than when it is behind the neutral face. </p>
<p>We found nap-deprived children were biased toward the emotional faces, responding 22 milliseconds faster than if they were rested. After a nap, however, children showed no bias. They responded equally whether the star was behind an emotional or neutral face. So a child who doesn’t nap is quicker to respond to emotional stimuli in his environment.</p>
<h2>A growing preschool agenda</h2>
<p>Although these results come as no surprise to parents, it is important to provide scientific backing of the nap benefit.</p>
<p>Most preschools offer a nap opportunity. However, the length of this period <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/03/15/time-may-be-up-for-naps-in-pre-k-class/b6149643-6e7c-4997-88ff-588c0f740829/">has been shortened in recent years</a> because studies have found a preschool education not only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12411">improves school readiness</a> but is also associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/S1532480XADS0601_05">long-term academic performance</a> and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.188">health outcomes</a> such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.12.037">reduced obesity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248429">improved cardiovascular health</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.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">Rested preschoolers have a remarkable capacity for learning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pre-school-children-royalty-free-image/157720194">FatCamera via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To capitalize on the advantages of preschool during this fertile learning period, regulatory agencies have added expectations such as <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tools-assess-sel-in-schools-susanne-a-denham">socio-emotional curriculum</a> and <a href="https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/oral-health/article/oral-health-policies-procedures-standards">even dental hygiene</a> to the preschool day. Sleep is often viewed as optional and is an easy target to cut when making room for more educational opportunities.</p>
<p>However, naps make it possible to reach these early education goals. Beyond the emotional regulation payoff, naps also provide a direct benefit to learning. Research shows when preschool children were read storybooks introducing new words, the children who napped after hearing the stories <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00184">learned more of the new words</a> than the children who did not nap. Following learning opportunities with a nap enhances memory.</p>
<h2>Storing memories</h2>
<p>The reason napping enhances learning has to do with the way brains process new information. </p>
<p>Research in rodents suggests that while we sleep, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0896-6273(02)01096-6">memories are replayed</a>. Just as if you wanted to learn all the words to your favorite movie scene, you might replay that scene repeatedly, sleep is a time to replay memories without interference from ongoing learning. Furthermore, the research suggests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107581">memories are replayed in fast-forward</a> during sleep, allowing them to be replayed repeatedly during the night.</p>
<p>This replay <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2010.01.006">happens in the hippocampus</a>, an area of the brain where memories are processed in the short term. As memories are replayed in the hippocampus, they are moved (or copied) to unique areas of the cortex, making them more stable and easier to retrieve later. In the cortex, the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00426-011-0335-6">memories can be sorted and stored with other similar memories</a>. </p>
<p>Imagine the hippocampus as your desk at the end of the day, with stacks of papers and mail from different sources. Sleep moves these “papers” to the cortex, which is much more like a filing cabinet. Not only is there more space, but now when you want to find something, you can do so more quickly because of its organization.</p>
<p>In children, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.03.009">the hippocampus is less mature</a> – think of it as a smaller desk – so fewer memories can be held before there is catastrophic interference. This explains why naps are critical at this young age, and memories must be more frequently moved to the filing drawers. </p>
<h2>Naps in the time of coronavirus</h2>
<p>To parents still learning to implement a nap time, a few pointers:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Maintain a consistent pre-nap routine. After lunch, give your child time to unwind, then join them in a quiet activity such as reading.</p></li>
<li><p>Maintain a consistent overnight sleep schedule. Keeping bedtime and wake time within a stable 30-minute window day to day will allow for an appropriate and predictable amount of sleep pressure to build up.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are out of the nap routine, you may need to retrain your child to nap consistently. Stay with them as they fall asleep (soothing with back rubbing) initially, and leave the room earlier and earlier over the following days.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Not only is napping key to early education objectives, it is central to the emotional and cognitive development of young children. And it goes without saying, whether in school or at home, turning unrecognizable tyrants into happy campers is good for everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Spencer receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (R01 AG040133; R01 HL111695; R21 HD094758) and the National Science Foundation (BCS 1749280).</span></em></p>
Research shows napping helps young children learn, as well as enhancing their emotional well-being.
Rebecca Spencer, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UMass Amherst
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132197
2020-02-25T03:43:55Z
2020-02-25T03:43:55Z
Sounds like hype: there’s scant evidence the ‘binaural beats’ illusion relaxes your brain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316997/original/file-20200225-24651-1wxens8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C34%2C5734%2C3768&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You may have heard of binaural beats, an auditory illusion that has been touted as having stress-busing properties, and is the subject of countless <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVkXKowg3b0">hours of videos</a> on YouTube and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Proponents claim that listening to binaural beats can boost <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Tt3LoygCQ">focus and concentration</a>, promote <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEM0pXE1twA">relaxation</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnRcvJKZeVM">reduce stress and anxiety</a>.</p>
<p>But in a <a href="https://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2020/02/07/ENEURO.0232-19.2020">study published this month</a>, researchers concluded that “whether binaural beats have an impact on cognitive performance or other mood measurements remains to be seen”.</p>
<p>It prompted media reports that the claimed mood-altering effects are <a href="https://www.zmescience.com/science/binaural-beats-placebo-0523/">probably no stronger than for other types of relaxing sounds</a>, and that the touted effects may be <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200217143447.htm">just a placebo</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SAyA7rfyF38?wmode=transparent&start=28" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Here’s three hours’ worth – are you relaxed yet?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are binaural beats?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/auditory-beats-in-the-brain/">Binaural beats</a> is a perceptual illusion that occurs when two slightly different frequencies (notes) are played into each ear separately, typically using headphones. The resonance between the two frequencies is interpreted as a third sound (termed a “binaural beat”, because it involves two sound inputs, and is heard as a frequency in between the two played frequencies).</p>
<p>It has been claimed that this third frequency prompts brain cells to begin firing at the same frequency – a process called “entrainment”.</p>
<p>The purported relaxing effect is allegedly due to the fact that these frequencies are similar to the frequency of brain waves that occur during deep sleep, as opposed to the higher-frequency brain waves associated with conscious activities. </p>
<p>In other words, listening to binaural beats allegedly promotes brain waves associated with our most relaxed states.</p>
<h2>What are these different types of brain waves?</h2>
<p>The brain is made of billions of nerve cells (neurons), which transmit information to one another across huge networks of interconnections. It is thought that large groups of neurons can fire together to share information within the brain. The frequency of this synchronous firing can be measured with <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/eeg/about/pac-20393875">EEG</a> (electroencephalograpy) electrodes on the head. </p>
<p>Specific frequencies are thought to be involved in specific <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(03)00289-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1364661303002894%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">cognitive tasks</a>. For example, during deep sleep the predominant brain activity happens with frequencies of between 1 and 4 Hertz, so-called delta waves. Delta waves are also associated with learning and motivation. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763406001163">Theta waves</a> (4-7Hz), meanwhile, are linked to memory and emotional regulation. </p>
<p>We might almost think of these various types of brain waves as different languages that the brain uses for different functions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-happens-in-our-bodies-when-we-sleep-94301">Curious Kids: What happens in our bodies when we sleep?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We also know that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876015000331?via%3Dihub">brain entrainment</a> is a genuine effect that can occur in response to particular rhythmic frequencies perceived by our senses. A deep-pitched musical tone or a lightbulb flickering a few times a second can indeed cause your brain cells to start firing at the same frequency.</p>
<p>But does this entrainment necessarily have any effect on our mood? As the authors of the new study point out, there is still little convincing evidence for this. </p>
<h2>What did the new research actually find?</h2>
<p>The authors played binaural or monaural (normal) beats to 16 participants, and recorded their brain activity with EEG.</p>
<p>They found that both binaural and monaural beats can entrain the brain to their particular frequency. But when they asked participants to describe any changes to their mood, they found that neither types of sound had any significant effect.</p>
<p>However, the researchers did find that binaural beats can elicit “cross-frequency connectivity”, in which the brain coordinates its activity across different types of brain waves. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661310002068">cognitive tasks</a>, such as learning and memory formation, require networks within the brain to communicate with one another despite using different types of brain waves. To return to the analogy of different brain wave frequencies being like different languages, your brain sometimes needs to translate messages from one language into another, and vice versa.</p>
<p>If binaural beats can boost this process, it’s possible that it might have a beneficial effect on some types of cognition, perhaps including memory recall. The authors of the new study did not look at that particular question, although a recent <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00426-018-1066-8">analysis of 35 studies</a> demonstrated a modest effect on attention, memory, anxiety and pain perception. None of these were tested in the current study. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-memories-come-flooding-back-when-you-visit-places-from-your-past-124983">Here's why memories come flooding back when you visit places from your past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are other ways to influence our brain function, such as by applying electric currents to the brain via electrodes stuck to the head, a technique known as transcranial current stimulation (tCS). There is evidence this can significantly improve cognitive skills in people affected by <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2016.00574/full">neurological disease</a> and in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154615000819">healthy individuals</a>.</p>
<p>In the meantime, if you enjoy listening to binaural beats, then by all means keep doing it – it won’t do you any harm. But it may not be doing you quite as much good as you perhaps imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Onno van der Groen 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>
The internet is awash with videos that claim to use ‘binaural beats’ to improve your focus or relieve stress. But while they can influence your brain, the touted mood-enhancing effects may not be.
Onno van der Groen, Research Fellow in the school of medical and health sciences, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127306
2019-11-27T17:22:10Z
2019-11-27T17:22:10Z
Watching pornography rewires the brain to a more juvenile state
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303591/original/file-20191125-74593-y9lpg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1249%2C3275%2C2129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With the ubiquity and availability of devices connected to the internet, access to pornography is easier than it has ever been.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Charles/Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pornography has existed throughout recorded history, transforming with the introduction of each new medium. Hundreds of sexually explicit frescoes and sculptures were found in the Mount Vesuvius ruins of Pompeii. </p>
<p>Since the advent of the internet, porn use has skyrocketed to dizzying heights. Pornhub, the world’s largest free porn site, received <a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-review">over 33.5 billion site visits during 2018 alone</a>. </p>
<p>Science is only just beginning to reveal the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93">neurological repercussions of porn consumption</a>. But it is already clear that the mental health and sex lives of its widespread audience are suffering catastrophic effects. From depression to erectile dysfunction, porn appears to be hijacking our neural wiring with <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs6030017">dire consequences</a>. </p>
<p>In my own lab, we study the neural wiring that underlies learning and memory processes. The properties of video porn make it a particularly powerful trigger for plasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Combined with the accessibility and anonymity of online porn consumption, we are more vulnerable than ever to its hyper-stimulating effects.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bjnXXN67plg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A BBC 3 programme looking at the effects of pornography addiction.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impacts of porn consumption</h2>
<p>In the long term, <a href="https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rebooting-porn-use-faqs/research-confirms-sharp-rise-in-youthful-sexual-dysfunctions/">pornography seems to create sexual dysfunctions</a>, especially the inability to achieve erection or orgasm with a real life partner. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0770-y">Marital quality</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2012.31.4.410">commitment to one’s romantic partner</a> also appear to be compromised. </p>
<p>To try to explain these effects, some scientists have drawn parallels between <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fbs5030388">porn consumption and substance abuse</a>. Through evolutionary design, the brain is wired to respond to sexual stimulation with surges of dopamine. This neurotransmitter, most often associated with reward anticipation, also acts to program memories and information into the brain. This adaption means that when the body requires something, like food or sex, the brain remembers where to return to experience the same pleasure.</p>
<p>Instead of turning to a romantic partner for sexual gratification or fulfillment, habituated porn users instinctively reach for their phones and laptops when desire comes calling. Furthermore, unnaturally strong explosions of reward and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation in the brain. Psychiatrist Norman Doidge explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291041/the-brain-that-changes-itself-by-norman-doidge-md/">Pornography satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change. When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don’t say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content.</a>”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Porn scenes, like addictive substances, are hyper-stimulating triggers that lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2009.110">unnaturally high levels of dopamine secretion</a>. This can damage the dopamine reward system and leave it unresponsive to natural sources of pleasure. This is why users begin to experience difficulty in achieving arousal with a physical partner. </p>
<h2>Beyond dysfunction</h2>
<p>The desensitization of our reward circuitry sets the stage for sexual dysfunctions to develop, but the repercussions don’t end there. Studies show that <a href="https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/15573884">changes in the transmission of dopamine</a> can facilitate depression and anxiety. In agreement with this observation, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.02030.x">porn consumers report greater depressive symptoms, lower quality of life and poorer mental health</a> compared to those who don’t watch porn. </p>
<p>The other compelling finding in this study is that compulsive porn consumers find themselves wanting and needing more porn, even though they don’t necessarily like it. This disconnect between wanting and liking is a hallmark feature of reward circuitry dysregulation.</p>
<p>Following a similar line of inquiry, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, Germany, found that higher <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93">porn use correlated with less brain activation</a> in response to conventional pornographic imagery. This explains why users tend to graduate to more extreme and unconventional forms of porn. </p>
<p>Pornhub analytics reveal that conventional sex is <a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2016-year-in-review">decreasingly interesting to users</a> and is being replaced by themes like incest and violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C5714%2C3951&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C5714%2C3951&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303576/original/file-20191125-74576-145uk2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pornography viewers are increasingly choosing more violent forms of pornography; this may be attributed to the desensitizing effect of regular consumption.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The perpetuation of sexual violence online is particularly troubling, as rates of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12201">real-life incidences may escalate as a result</a>. Some scientists attribute this relationship to the action of mirror neurons. These brain cells are aptly named because they fire when the individual performs an action but also while observing the same action performed by someone else. </p>
<p>The regions of the brain that are active when someone is viewing porn are the same regions of the brain that are active while the person is actually having sex. Marco Iacoboni, a professor of psychiatry at University of California Los Angeles, speculates that these systems have the potential to spread violent behavior: “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207238/">the mirror mechanism in the brain also suggests that we are automatically influenced by what we perceive, thus proposing a plausible neurobiological mechanism for contagion of violent behavior.</a>”</p>
<p>Though speculative, this suggested association between porn, mirror neurons and increased rates of sexual violence serves as an ominous warning. While high porn consumption may not drive viewers to harrowing extremes, it is likely to change behaviour in other ways. </p>
<h2>Moral development</h2>
<p>Porn use has been correlated with <a href="http://surgicalneurologyint.com/surgicalint-articles/pornography-addiction-a-neuroscience-perspective/">erosion of the prefrontal cortex</a> — the region of the brain that houses executive functions like morality, willpower and impulse control. </p>
<p>To better understand the role of this structure in behaviour, it’s important to know that it remains underdeveloped during childhood. This is why children struggle to regulate their emotions and impulses. Damage to the prefrontal cortex in adulthood is termed hypofrontality, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fjcm8010091">which predisposes an individual to behave compulsively and make poor decisions</a>. </p>
<p>It’s somewhat paradoxical that adult entertainment may revert our brain wiring to a more juvenile state. The much greater irony is that while porn promises to satisfy and provide sexual gratification, it delivers the opposite. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R m N 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>
Cognitive neuroscience finds that regular consumption of pornography affects the centres of the brain responsible for will power, impulse control and morality.
R m N, PhD Student, Neuroscience, Université Laval
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126263
2019-11-18T03:00:29Z
2019-11-18T03:00:29Z
Turn down for what? Why you turn down the radio when you’re trying to park your car
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300428/original/file-20191106-88399-1hxq9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5682%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When you're looking for a destination, you might need to cut down the volume</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’re driving down an unfamiliar street on a clear spring evening. You’ve been invited to a friend of a friend’s party, at a house you’ve never been to before. </p>
<p>Tracking the street numbers, you see you’re getting close, so you (almost automatically) turn the radio down. Finally, with all that music out of the way, you might actually be able to <em>see</em> the house.</p>
<p>Why is it that Cardi B must be silenced so you can better see the address of your party? For that matter, why do we have a convention to read silently when in a library?</p>
<p>One response might be: “When we need to concentrate a little more, like when we’re looking for a house in the dark, we often try to get rid of distractions so we can focus.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-is-it-ok-to-listen-to-music-while-studying-125222">Curious Kids: is it OK to listen to music while studying?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This answer is intuitively appealing. It’s also exactly the kind of answer cognitive psychologists try to avoid.</p>
<p>The words <em>concentrate</em>, <em>distractions</em>, and <em>focus</em> all point towards something (attention) that is left undefined. Rather than detailing its properties and how it works, we just assume people intuitively know what it means. </p>
<p>This is a little circular, like a dictionary using a word in its own definition. </p>
<h2>Hashtag nofilter</h2>
<p>When you have a problem that seems inseparable from intuition, one way to get a handle on it is to a use a metaphor. </p>
<p>One of the most important metaphors for attention was provided by psychologist Donald Broadbent in 1958: <a href="http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/d_e._broadbent_-_perception_and_communication_1958.pdf">attention acts like a filter</a>. In his metaphor, all sensory information – everything we see, hear, feel on our skin, and so on – is retained in the mind for a very short period simply as physical sensation (a colour in a location, a tone in the left ear). </p>
<p>But when it comes to bringing meaning to that sensory information, Broadbent argued, we have limited capacity. So attention is the filter that determines which parts of the torrent of incoming sensation are processed. </p>
<p>It might seem like this broad description of a filter doesn’t buy us much in terms of explanation. Yet, sadly for Broadbent, he gave just enough detail to be proven incorrect. </p>
<p>A year after the publication of Broadbent’s book, the psychologist <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/17470215908416289">Neville Moray found</a> that when people are listening to two simultaneous streams of speech and asked to concentrate on just one of them, many can still detect their own name if it pops up in the other stream.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-our-attention-span-mean-52897">What does our attention span mean?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This suggests that even when you’re not paying attention, some sensory information is still processed and given meaning (that a mass of sounds is our name). What does that tell us about how this central bottleneck of attention might act?</p>
<h2>Radar love</h2>
<p>One answer comes from <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225765926_Divided_attention_between_simultaneous_auditory_and_visual_signals">a remarkable 1998 study</a> by Anne-Marie Bonnel and Ervin Hafter. It builds upon one of the most successful theories in all psychology, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/signal-detection-theory">signal detection theory</a>, which describes how people make decisions based on ambiguous sensory information, rather like how a radar might detect a plane. </p>
<p>One of the basic problems of radar detection is to work out whether it is more likely that what is being detected is a signal (an enemy plane) or just random noise. This problem is the same for human perception.</p>
<p>Although apparently a metaphor like Broadbent’s filter, signal detection theory can be evaluated mathematically. The mathematics of human identification, it turns out, largely match those of radar operation. </p>
<h2>A perfect circle</h2>
<p>Bonnel and Hafter recognised that if people have a finite amount of attention to divide between vision and hearing, you could expect to see a particular pattern in certain experiments. </p>
<p>Imagine attention as an arrow of a fixed length that can swing back and forth between sight and hearing. When it’s pointing entirely towards sight, there’s no room for any focus on hearing (and vice versa). But if a little attention is taken up by hearing, that means there is less directed towards sight. If you graph this relationship, the tip of the arrow will draw a neat circle as it swings from one to the other.</p>
<p>Sure enough, the data from their experiments did indeed form a circle, but only in a certain case. When people were asked simply to <em>detect</em> whether a stimulus was present, there was no trade-off (paying more attention to vision did not change hearing performance and vice versa). It was only when people were asked to <em>identify</em> the specific stimulus that this circle appeared.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-can-people-actually-multitask-56677">Health Check: can people actually multitask?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This suggests that while do we indeed have a limited capacity to process information, this is only the case when we’re processing the information for meaning, rather than being aware of its presence.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25222469">own research</a> suggests this pattern indicates some deeper constraint at the heart of the way we perceive the world. </p>
<p>The circle represents a fundamental limit on processing. We can never leave that circle, all we can do is move forwards or backwards along it by choosing to focus our attention. </p>
<p>When our visual task becomes difficult – like finding a house number in the dark rather than simply scanning the road – we move along that circle to optimise the signal from our visual system. In many cases, we can only do that by turning down the input to our auditory system, by literally turning down the radio. Sorry, Cardi B.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Lilburn 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>
Do you ever find you suddenly need to turn off the radio so you can concentrate on what you’re doing? It’s because you only have a finite amount of attention, for particular types of tasks at least.
Simon Lilburn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Philip Smith, Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124983
2019-10-25T03:37:17Z
2019-10-25T03:37:17Z
Here’s why memories come flooding back when you visit places from your past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298242/original/file-20191023-149608-zd9koi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5168%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A lifetime of memories... but not always readily accessible.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Modus Vivendi/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all know our memories get worse as time goes on – your recollection of what you did yesterday is probably a lot better than for the same day three years ago.</p>
<p>And yet we often have moments where old and seemingly forgotten memories pop back into mind. Perhaps you have visited your childhood home, walked into your old bedroom, and been hit with a wave of nostalgia. What triggers this rush of memories, and how can you suddenly remember things you may not have thought about for decades?</p>
<p>Researchers are realising that the context in which memories are created is crucially important in remembering them later. This idea is known as “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-019-0150-4">contextual-binding theory</a>”, and it boils down to three components: context learning, context change, and memory search.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/studying-for-exams-heres-how-to-make-your-memory-work-for-you-124586">Studying for exams? Here's how to make your memory work for you</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Let’s start with learning. It is well established that learning in the brain happens by a process of association. If A and B occur together, they become associated. Contextual-binding theory goes a step further: A and B are associated not just with one other, but also with the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-00258-003">context in which they occurred</a>.</p>
<p>What is context? It’s not just your physical location – it’s a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-02165-011">mental state</a> that also comprises the thoughts, emotions, and other mental activity you’re experiencing at a given moment. Even as you read this page, changes in your thoughts and mental activity are causing your mental context to change.</p>
<p>As a consequence, each memory is associated with different states of context. However, some context states will be similar to each other – perhaps because they share the same location, or mood, or have some other factor in common.</p>
<p>This similarity between contexts is important when it comes to retrieving memories. Your brain’s memory search process is rather like a Google search, in that you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for if your search terms closely match the source content. During memory search, your <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-00258-003">current mental context <em>is</em> your set of search terms</a>. In any given situation, your brain is rapidly rifling through your memories for ones that most closely resemble your current state of context.</p>
<h2>Simple but deep</h2>
<p>These mechanisms are simple, but the implications are profound. According to the theory, you’re most likely to remember memories from contexts that are similar to the context you’re in now. Because your mental context is always changing, your mental context will be most similar to recently experienced memories. This explains why it’s harder to remember older events.</p>
<p>But, of course, older memories aren’t permanently forgotten. If you can change your context to resemble those from seemingly long-forgotten memories, you should be able to remember them. This is why those old memories come flooding back when you step into your childhood bedroom or walk past your old school. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298666/original/file-20191025-124786-pitwyh.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">The happiest days of your life, right?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giedre Vaitekuna/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Context-dependent memory was confirmed by an <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1975.tb01468.x">ingenious 1975 experiment</a> in which divers memorised lists of words and were then tested both on land and underwater. On land, their recall was best for the words they had learned on land, whereas underwater they were better at remembering the word lists they learned underwater.</p>
<p>This phenomenon isn’t limited to physical locations. You may have noticed that when you’re sad about something, you tend to remember other sad events from your life. This is because your mood and emotions also comprise your mental context. Experiments have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661303002183">confirmed</a> that memory is enhanced when your current mood matches the mood in which you learned the information.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079742110530032">More than a century’s worth of studies</a> have confirmed we are also better at remembering things if we experience them at different times, rather than repeatedly in quick session. This is one of the main reasons why, when preparing for exams, a regular study routine is more effective than cramming.</p>
<p>According to the theory, rapidly repeated material is associated with a single state of context, whereas material repeated across different times and events is associated with several different states of context. This pays off later, when you’re sitting in the exam hall desperately trying to recall the chemical formula for potassium permanganate, because your current state of context will be more likely to match one of the many states of context in which you so diligently did your chemistry revision.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-memories-are-formed-and-retrieved-by-the-brain-revealed-in-a-new-study-125361">How memories are formed and retrieved by the brain revealed in a new study</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Context in the brain</h2>
<p>Contextual-binding theory can <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-019-0150-4">potentially explain a host of other phenomena</a>, such as the effects of brain damage on memory. People with damage to a region in the centre of the brain called the hippocampus are often <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc497229/">unable to form new memories</a>. We suspect this is where context-binding actually occurs, especially given that the hippocampus <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1098-1063(2000)10:4%3C420::AID-HIPO8%3E3.0.CO;2-5">receives inputs from virtually all other brain regions</a>, enabling associations between different sights, smells, physical sensations, and emotions.</p>
<p>A competing theory, known as <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.142050">systems consolidation theory</a>, instead proposes that memories are initially stored in the hippocampus but are gradually transferred and strengthened in other brain regions over time.</p>
<p>This theory is supported by the fact that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612441220">memory for new material is better when you rest after learning</a>. Time spent resting may give the brain a chance to consolidate new memories.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298665/original/file-20191025-124780-e5geg0.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">All part of the process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fizkes/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, contextual-binding theory can also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cogs.12214">potentially explain this benefit</a>. Resting immediately after learning, as opposed to carrying on shovelling facts into your brain, means fewer memories share the same context, making them easier to distinguish when you revisit that context later.</p>
<p>This also explains why rest is also beneficial <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-014-0737-8">before learning</a>, as well as after. And it underpins the tried and tested advice for hardworking students everywhere: don’t forget to get lots of sleep!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Osth receives funding from a Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) awarded by the Australian Research Council (DE170100106).</span></em></p>
The ‘contexual-binding theory’ suggests memories are easier to retrieve when your brain is in a similar context to when the memory was first formed. Food for thought if you’re cramming for an exam.
Adam Osth, Senior Lecturer, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124891
2019-10-22T18:58:07Z
2019-10-22T18:58:07Z
Your brain approaches tricky tasks in a surprisingly simple way
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298045/original/file-20191022-28100-1p7sz04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C110%2C6699%2C4134&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It gets easier with practice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Duntrune Studios/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you ever sat down to complete your morning crossword or Sudoku and wondered about what’s happening in your brain? Somewhere in the activity of the billions of neurons in your brain lies the code that lets you remember a key word, or apply the logic required to complete the puzzle. </p>
<p>Given the brain’s intricacy, you might assume that these patterns are incredibly complex and unique to each task. But <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0312-0">recent research</a> suggests things are actually more straightforward than that.</p>
<p>It turns out that many structures in your brain work together in precise ways to coordinate their activity, shaping their actions to the requirements of whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve. </p>
<p>We call these coordinated patterns the “low-dimensional manifold”, which you can think of as analogous to the major roadways that you use to commute to and from work. The majority of the traffic flows along these major highways, which represent an efficient and effective way to get from A to B. </p>
<p>We have found evidence that most brain activity follows these types of patterns. In very simple terms, this saves your brain from needing to work everything out from scratch when performing a task. If someone throws you a ball, for instance, the low-dimensional manifold allows your brain to swiftly coordinate the muscle movements needed to catch the ball, rather than your brain needing to learn how to catch a ball afresh each time.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-brain-prepares-for-movement-and-actions-111674">How the brain prepares for movement and actions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a study <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(19)30775-5">published today in the journal Neuron</a>, my colleagues and I investigated these patterns further. Specifically, we wanted to find out whether they play a role in shaping brain activity during really challenging cognitive tasks that require lots of concentration. </p>
<p>We scanned people’s brains with high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they performed a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_square">Latin squares task</a>, which is similar to a Sudoku puzzle but uses shapes instead of numbers. Anyone who has played Sudoku before their morning coffee knows how much focus and concentration is required to solve it. </p>
<p>The idea behind the Latin squares task is to identify the missing shape in a particular location in a grid, given that each shape can only show up once in each row and column. We created three different levels of difficulty, defined by how many different rows and columns needed to be inspected to arrive at the correct answer. </p>
<h2>Directing traffic</h2>
<p>Our prediction was that performing the more difficult versions of the task would lead to a reconfiguration of the low-dimensional manifold. To return to the highway analogy, a tricky task might pull some brain activity off the highway and onto the back streets to help get around the congestion.</p>
<p>Our results confirmed our predictions. More difficult trials showed different patterns of brain activation to easy ones, as if the brain’s traffic was being rerouted along different roads. The trickier the task, the more the patterns changed. </p>
<p>What’s more, we also found a link between these changed brain activation patterns and the increased likelihood of making a mistake on the harder version of the Latin Squares test. </p>
<p>In a way, attempting a difficult task is like trying out a new rat run on your morning commute – you might succeed, but in your haste and stress you might also be more likely to take a wrong turn.</p>
<p>Overall, these results suggests that our brain activity perhaps isn’t as complicated as we once thought. Most of the time, our brain is directing traffic along pretty well-established routes, and even when it needs to get creative it is still trying to send the traffic to the same ultimate destination.</p>
<p>This leaves us with an important question: how does the brain achieve this level of coordination? </p>
<p>One possibility is that this function is fulfilled by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/thalamus">thalamus</a>, a structure that lies deep in the brain but is connected to almost the entire rest of the brain. </p>
<p>Importantly, the circuitry of the thalamus is such that it can act as a filter for ongoing activity in the cerebral cortex, the brain’s main information processing centre, and therefore could exert the kind of influence we were looking for.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298044/original/file-20191022-28112-nv7utl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Positions of the thalamus and the cerebral cortex within the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pikovit/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Patterns of activity in the thalamus are hard to decipher in traditional neuroimaging experiments. But fortunately, the <a href="https://cai.centre.uq.edu.au/facilities/human-imaging/7t-magnetom">high-resolution MRI scanner used in our study</a> collected by my colleagues Luca Cocchi and Luke Hearne allowed us to observe them in detail.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neuroscience-in-pictures-the-best-images-of-the-year-89077">Neuroscience in pictures: the best images of the year</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Sure enough, we saw a clear link between activity in the thalamus and the flow of activity in the low-dimensional manifold. This suggests that when performing particular tasks, the thalamus helps to shape and constrain the activity in the cortex, a bit like a police officer directing busy traffic. </p>
<p>So next time you sit down to play Sudoku, spare a thought for your thalamus, and the low-dimensional manifold that it helps to create. Together, they’re shaping the brain activity that will ultimately help you solve the puzzle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Shine receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. He is affiliated with The University of Sydney and the Organisation for Human Brain Mapping Australia.</span></em></p>
Despite its huge complexity, your brain directs its neural traffic in relatively straightforward ways when approaching cognitively demanding tasks such as puzzles.
James Shine, Robinson Fellow, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120644
2019-10-16T11:26:58Z
2019-10-16T11:26:58Z
Why a computer will never be truly conscious
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293299/original/file-20190919-22446-1f0h3jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C8%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What makes a brain tick is very different from how computers operate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/human-brain-digital-illustration-electrical-activity-719796733">Yurchanka Siarhei/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many advanced artificial intelligence projects say they are <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/f/609226/could-we-build-a-machine-with-consciousness/">working toward</a> <a href="https://singularityhub.com/2019/03/26/what-would-it-mean-for-ai-to-become-conscious/">building</a> a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-build-a-self-conscious-ai-machine/">conscious machine</a>, based on the idea that brain functions merely <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3292">encode and process multisensory information</a>. The assumption goes, then, that once brain functions are properly understood, it should be possible to program them into a computer. Microsoft recently announced that it would <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613994/microsoft-is-investing-1-billion-in-openai-to-create-brain-like-machines/">spend US$1 billion on a project</a> to do just that.</p>
<p>So far, though, attempts to build supercomputer brains have not even come close. A <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/ten-years-human-brain-project-simulation-markram-ted-talk/594493/">multi-billion-dollar European project</a> that began in 2013 is now <a href="http://nautil.us/blog/the-big-problem-with-big-science-ventureslike-the-human-brain-project">largely understood to have failed</a>. That effort has shifted to look more like a <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/BRAIN">similar but less ambitious project</a> in the U.S., developing <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/the-human-brain-project-reboots-a-search-engine-for-the-brain-is-in-sight">new software tools for researchers</a> to study brain data, rather than simulating a brain.</p>
<p>Some researchers continue to insist that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2019.00032">simulating neuroscience with computers</a> is the way to go. <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0126">Others</a>, like me, view these efforts as doomed to failure because we <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14704/nq.2019.17.5.2359">do not believe consciousness is computable</a>. Our basic argument is that brains integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can’t be handled in the way today’s computers sense, process and store data.</p>
<h2>Brains don’t operate like computers</h2>
<p>Living organisms store experiences in their brains by <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer">adapting neural connections</a> in an <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/gibson-james.pdf">active process between the subject and the environment</a>. By contrast, a computer records data in short-term and long-term memory blocks. That difference means the brain’s information handling must also be different from how computers work.</p>
<p>The mind actively explores the environment to find elements that guide the performance of one action or another. Perception is not directly related to the sensory data: A person can <a href="https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/ecological-psychology-overcoming-the-metaphor-of-the-brain-computer/">identify a table from many different angles</a>, without having to consciously interpret the data and then ask its memory if that pattern could be created by alternate views of an item identified some time earlier. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293301/original/file-20190919-22416-14ijxu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could you identify all of these as a table right away? A computer would likely have real trouble.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mellis/8981595">L to R: pashminu/Pixabay; FDR Presidential Library/Flickr; David Mellis/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another perspective on this is that the most mundane memory tasks are associated with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/14/11/1214/331407">multiple areas of the brain – some of which are quite large</a>. Skill learning and expertise involve <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3912552/">reorganization and physical changes</a>, such as changing the strengths of connections between neurons. Those transformations cannot be replicated fully in a computer with a fixed architecture.</p>
<h2>Computation and awareness</h2>
<p>In my own recent work, I’ve highlighted some <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14704/nq.2019.17.5.2359">additional reasons that consciousness is not computable</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293387/original/file-20190920-135092-mbhdqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Werner Heisenberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild183-R57262,_Werner_Heisenberg.jpg">Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R57262/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293388/original/file-20190920-135074-1rrtrix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Erwin Schrödinger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger_(1933).jpg">Nobel Foundation/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293389/original/file-20190920-135084-wd5xj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alan Turing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Turing_Aged_16.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A conscious person is aware of what they’re thinking, and has the ability to stop thinking about one thing and start thinking about another – no matter where they were in the initial train of thought. But that’s impossible for a computer to do. More than 80 years ago, pioneering British computer scientist Alan Turing showed that there was no way ever to prove that any particular <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-turings-halting-pr">computer program could stop on its own</a> – and yet that ability is central to consciousness.</p>
<p>His argument is based on a trick of logic in which he creates an inherent contradiction: <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-describing-alan-turings-halting-problem-to_b_58d1ae08e4b062043ad4add7">Imagine there were a general process</a> that could determine whether any program it analyzed would stop. The output of that process would be either “yes, it will stop” or “no, it won’t stop.” That’s pretty straightforward. But then Turing <a href="https://www.tutorialspoint.com/automata_theory/turing_machine_halting_problem.htm">imagined that a crafty engineer</a> wrote a program that included the stop-checking process, with one crucial element: an instruction to keep the program running if the stop-checker’s answer was “yes, it will stop.” </p>
<p>Running the stop-checking process on this new program would <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-is-%E2%80%9Cthe-halting-problem%E2%80%9D-a-problem-Why-does-it-exist">necessarily make the stop-checker wrong</a>: If it determined that the program would stop, the program’s instructions would tell it not to stop. On the other hand, if the stop-checker determined that the program would not stop, the program’s instructions would halt everything immediately. That makes no sense – and the nonsense gave Turing his conclusion, that there can be no way to analyze a program and be entirely absolutely certain that it can stop. So it’s impossible to be certain that any computer can emulate a system that can definitely stop its train of thought and change to another line of thinking – yet certainty about that capability is an inherent part of being conscious.</p>
<p>Even before Turing’s work, German quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg showed that there was a distinct difference in the nature of the <a href="https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/physics/heisenberg_cut.html">physical event and an observer’s conscious knowledge</a> of it. This was interpreted by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger to mean that consciousness cannot come from a physical process, like a computer’s, that <a href="https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/116/12/1951.pdf">reduces all operations to basic logic arguments</a>. </p>
<p>These ideas are confirmed by medical research findings that there are no unique structures in the brain that exclusively handle consciousness. Rather, functional MRI imaging shows that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00081-0">different cognitive tasks happen in different areas</a> of the brain. This has led neuroscientist Semir Zeki to conclude that “<a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00081-0">consciousness is not a unity</a>, and that there are instead many consciousnesses that are distributed in time and space.” That type of limitless brain capacity isn’t the sort of challenge a finite computer can ever handle.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Subhash Kak 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>
Brain functions integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can’t be handled in the way computers sense, process and store data.
Subhash Kak, Regents Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123282
2019-09-11T11:37:22Z
2019-09-11T11:37:22Z
These artists paint with their feet – scans show how unique their brains are
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291964/original/file-20190911-190002-12bik1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Peter Longstaff, one of the participants in the study.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Peter Longstaff</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Your brain contains a highly organised map of your body. Not a normal kind of map – this one <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636901/">will vary ever so slightly</a> because of the particular way you use your body. What you do for a living might affect this, for example – your <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24014446">brain’s hand map</a> might show subtle clues that you are a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8917171_Superior_tactile_performance_and_learning_in_professional_pianists_Evidence_for_meta-plasticity_in_musicians">pianist</a> or a surgeon. Or reflect that you rock climb or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15677703">write a lot</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve known subtle details of the brain’s body map can change as a result of our daily life experiences for a while. But <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(19)31061-7">new research</a> by myself and colleagues has now demonstrated how powerfully experience can affect the brain. </p>
<p>We used ultra high-res brain scanning to reveal clear maps of individual toes in two <a href="https://www.mfpa.uk/">foot painters</a>, born without either arm. While these organised toe maps are not found in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811917304901">typically developed humans</a>, they are found <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-014-0913-7">in monkeys</a> – who, like the foot painters, use their toes in skilled ways.</p>
<p>This suggests that all humans could have the potential for toe maps, but modern life in shoes prevents them by limiting individual movement of our toes.</p>
<h2>The body in the brain</h2>
<p>These maps were found in the somatosensory cortex of the brain, which contains a map of our whole body. All body parts are represented by an individual section of brain, and these sections are laid out in the brain as they are on the body. In <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/45/15815/tab-figures-data">the brain’s hand map</a>, for instance, there are small sections representing each of the five fingers – with the thumb next to the index finger, which is next to the middle finger, and so on.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291807/original/file-20190910-190012-179d9d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mapping toes in the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is because of this beautiful and clear organisation that this area is of big interest to scientists studying how the brain changes in response to experience – known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-brain-remembers-amputated-limbs-and-continues-to-control-them-111216">brain plasticity</a>. If we know how the body map normally looks, we can easily document any changes caused by how we use our body.</p>
<p>As an example, it has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7569982">been shown</a> that learning a musical instrument leads to increases in the size of finger maps for those fingers highly used to play. In a more extreme case, when two fingers are fused together with surgery, the brain maps of the two fused fingers also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1753275">combine into one</a>.</p>
<h2>The foot map</h2>
<p>Until very recently, it was generally assumed that the typical foot map should have clear sections to represent individual toes, like the hand map has fingers. Only recently did we find out that this, surprisingly, is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811917304901">not the case</a>. In fact, most people don’t have a sections for each of the five toes. And, those they do have are scattered all over the foot area, in <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(19)31061-7">no clear order</a>.</p>
<p>This lead my colleagues and I to wonder whether this is how the human foot map is naturally. Or, could it result from the fact that modern humans don’t really use their toes separately?</p>
<p>To help solve this mystery, we approached two incredible individuals for help. These two people were <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737249/">born without either arm</a>, and subsequently had to learn to use their toes to perform all tasks of daily life. This includes <a href="https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.08.027/attachment/3d08d5bd-1eff-417c-a5f8-69fa70b1c46d/mmc1.pdf">almost any typical-hand task</a> most of us can do: including typing on a keyboard, answering the phone, putting on clothes (in one case, including doing buttons) and feeding themselves with a fork or spoon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291935/original/file-20190911-190061-10y225g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abstract diagonal lines by Tom Yendell, one of the painters in the study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mfpa.uk/artwork-collection/?p=0&pgSize=219">Reproduced with kind permission by the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also includes some tasks that most two-handers would struggle with, like administering injections to animals with a syringe (one was a farmer), and – my favourite – one would apply nail varnish to his wife’s nails for her.</p>
<p>This skill with a brush made total sense because both individuals were actually sufficiently skilled with their toes so as to support their profession as <a href="https://www.mfpa.uk/the-artists/peter-longstaff/">foot artists</a>: they <a href="https://www.mfpa.uk/the-artists/tom-yendell/">make art with their feet</a> better than most people do with their hands.</p>
<h2>Looking in the brain</h2>
<p>We put these two artists in an ultra high-field fMRI scanner and stimulated each of their toes, one at a time. When we looked in the foot area of the artists’ brains, we found that they had individual, organised toe maps – just like the hand maps of you and I. We compared this to a group of two-handed people, who showed no such organised toe maps – replicating previous findings.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291919/original/file-20190911-190012-1dcnwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The foot artists showed clear maps of individual toes in the foot area of the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reproduced with authors' permission</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/neuro.06.004.2008/full?utm_source=FWEB&utm_medium=NBLOG&utm_campaign=ECO_10YA_top-research">new analysis methods</a>, we showed the pattern of brain activity in the foot area resulting from touching the artists’ toes was highly similar to a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24014446">typical hand pattern</a>. That is, the pattern generated by touching the fingers of two-handed people, in their brain’s hand area.</p>
<p>We next moved from looking in the foot area of the brain, to see what was happening in their (missing) hand area when we touched the artists’ toes. This could provide more extreme examples of brain plasticity. We found that the pattern of activity in the hand area was also “hand-like” in the artists. This might indicate the artists are recruiting some of the “unused” hand area to support their skilled toe movement.</p>
<p>All in all, our results suggest that using your toes in a hand-like manner causes hand-like activity in the brain.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YrPA0K4ykcU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Losing toe maps</h2>
<p>Our results make sense from a brain plasticity perspective – if you don’t use your toes separately in action, your brain does not need to represent each toe separately. The results also make sense given our primate cousins have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cne.901920402">organised toe maps</a>, in a similar brain position and orientation to the artists.</p>
<p>This could indicate one of two things. One, either all primates (human and non-human) have the genetic potential for toe maps, but typical humans don’t develop them because we don’t use our toes individually. Or, it could mean that we are born with toe maps as babies, but lose them over time if we don’t use our toes the right way.</p>
<p>Whether toe maps fail to develop or fail to persist remains to be determined. But looking at the toe maps of babies – or even populations who live without shoes – could be the key to unlocking this mystery of brain plasticity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Dempsey-Jones 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>
Ultra-clear maps of individual toes were found in the brains of two foot painters – these are not found in typically developed humans.
Harriet Dempsey-Jones, Postdoctoral Researcher in Cognitive Neurosciences, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/116663
2019-08-08T20:06:35Z
2019-08-08T20:06:35Z
Curious Kids: why do I sometimes forget what I was just going to say?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286868/original/file-20190805-117861-1tte4c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6211%2C4147&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Everyone forgets things sometimes. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cute-little-asian-boy-feel-strain-784533127?src=sW4Ng_XroqbHx9blIK7FZw-1-18&studio=1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.</em> </p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Why do I sometimes forget to say something mere moments before I say it? - Labib, aged 12, Irvine, CA.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>That’s an interesting question, Labib.</p>
<p>Forgetting to do or to say things happens to all of us sometimes. </p>
<p>Have you ever walked into a room and realised you can’t remember what you were looking for? We tend to do this more when we are thinking of a few things at once or doing two things at the same time.</p>
<p>Some people call this “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-task_paradigm">dual-tasking</a>”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-adults-think-video-games-are-bad-76699">Curious Kids: Why do adults think video games are bad?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Have you ever crossed the road while chatting to a friend at the same time, or walked across a room while tapping away on a tablet or phone? That’s dual-tasking.</p>
<p>Everyone does it and we <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40279-015-0369-9">tend to get better</a> at it as we get older and learn new skills.</p>
<p>But while our brain is a truly amazing computer – more powerful than any real computer – it can only use so much mental energy at one time. </p>
<h2>Your brain is a power station</h2>
<p>Think of your brain as a power station, providing electricity to a number of cities. </p>
<p>If some cities cry out for a lot of energy (by having all their light switches on), other cities would have less power to work with. There’s only so much electricity to go around. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286864/original/file-20190805-117866-aoy5et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our brain is like a power station, providing energy to lots of different tasks we might be trying to do.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/artificial-intelligence-concept-electric-brain-people-1135626104?studio=1">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the same way, your brain only has so much energy to share around at any one time. Younger kids have small brains and have less mental energy available than older kids. In the same way, a teenager’s brain is less mature than an adult brain. </p>
<p>Now, this brings us back to the question of forgetting things. </p>
<p>An older (and more experienced) brain means more mental energy to share between tasks. </p>
<p>For young kids, dual-tasking is possible. However, some studies suggest that it can be a little more <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40279-015-0369-9">difficult for younger kids</a> compared with older kids.</p>
<p>Why? The power station in their brain is a little smaller and is not producing quite the same amount of energy as older kids. </p>
<h2>Practise makes perfect</h2>
<p>The more we practise our skills (like riding a bike, playing a sport, or baking a cake), the better we are at doing another task at the same time.</p>
<p>For a very skilled sportsperson (like a footballer), juggling a football while having a chat with a friend would be easy. </p>
<p>Their football skills are so automatic that they don’t need much mental energy to do it, leaving more for other things.</p>
<p>However, for someone who is just learning, juggling a ball may require a lot of mental energy just by itself. There is not much leftover for holding a conversation.</p>
<p><img width="100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/S7EOVjt13qKJcatWqG/source.gif"></p>
<h2>So, why do I sometimes forget to say something before I say it?</h2>
<p>The answer is you are likely to have been “dual-tasking” just before speaking. </p>
<p>It might have been because you were thinking about the words you wanted to say and something else at the same time. Or maybe you were concentrating on listening while trying to think of what to say.</p>
<p>Sometimes, your brain just can’t do two complicated things at once. You might not have enough mental energy in that moment. </p>
<p>Forgetting things is normal for everyone and can happen when you are doing too many things at once.</p>
<p>When it happens to you, take a deep breath and relax! </p>
<p>Perhaps those words will come back to you later when you clear your head and re-energise.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-much-does-a-brain-weigh-112000">Curious Kids: how much does a brain weigh?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Wilson receives funding from The Australian Research Council (ARC). </span></em></p>
Have you ever walked into a room and realised you can’t remember what you were looking for? We tend to do this more when we are thinking of a few things at once or doing two things at the same time.
Peter Wilson, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119741
2019-07-16T18:44:43Z
2019-07-16T18:44:43Z
An electronic chip that makes ‘memories’ is a step towards creating bionic brains
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282995/original/file-20190708-51284-1qai2nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researcher Taimur Ahmed holds the newly designed chip.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What better way to build smarter computer chips than to mimic nature’s most perfect computer – the human brain?</p>
<p>Being able to store, delete and process information is crucial for computing, and the brain does this extremely efficiently.</p>
<p>Our new electronic chip uses light to create and modify memories, moving us closer towards artificial intelligence (AI) that can replicate the human brain’s sophistication.</p>
<p>To develop this, we drew inspiration from a new technique called <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/optogenetics-6523">optogenetics</a>, to develop a device that replicates the way the brain stores (and loses) information. Optogenetics involves using light to control cells in living tissue, typically nerve cells (neurons).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/exciting-cells-and-controlling-heartbeats-could-optogenetics-create-drug-free-treatments-56539">Exciting cells and controlling heartbeats – could optogenetics create drug-free treatments?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This area of science allows us to delve into the body’s electrical system with incredible precision, using light to manipulate neurons so they can be turned on or off. So what if we applied the same approach to designing computer chips?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282997/original/file-20190708-51268-s7rak0.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">The RMIT brain chip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Using light to make memories</h2>
<p>Neural connections happen in the brain through electrical impulses. When tiny energy spikes reach a certain threshold voltage, the neurons bind together - and you’ve started creating a memory.</p>
<p>Our new chip, details of which are published in the journals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201900966">Small</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201901991">Advanced Functional Materials</a>, aims to do the same thing using electronics. </p>
<p>It is based on an ultrathin material that changes electrical resistance in response to different wavelengths of light. This enables it to mimic the way neurons work to store and delete information in the brain.</p>
<p>This means we can simulate the brain’s inner workings simply by shining different colours onto our chip. </p>
<p>We have also demonstrated that the chip can perform basic information processing - involving simple <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate">logic operations</a> in which several inputs can be combined to produce a particular output. This ticks yet another box for brain-like functionality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282996/original/file-20190708-51262-z9bbgr.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">The chip is activated by different wavelegths of light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the chip works</h2>
<p>Shining a light onto the chip generates an electric current in the chip’s light-sensitive material. Switching between colours causes the current to reverse direction from positive to negative.</p>
<p>This direction switch is equivalent to the binding and breaking of connections between neurons in the brain, a mechanism that enables neurons to connect (and form new memories) or disconnect (and forget them again).</p>
<p>In optogenetics, light-induced modification of neurons causes them to turn on or off, enabling or inhibiting connections to the next neuron in the chain. This light-based process is what our chip can mimic.</p>
<p>To develop the technology, we used a material called black phosphorus, with a slightly deformed molecular structure due to missing atoms. Defects like this are typically viewed as a problem for electronics, but we have exploited it to our advantage. The defects allow us to manipulate the material’s behaviour to mimic both neural connections and disconnections, depending on the wavelength of light shining on it.</p>
<h2>Thinking ahead</h2>
<p>Our new chip takes us further on the path towards fast, efficient and secure light-based computing.</p>
<p>It also brings us an important step closer to creating a bionic brain that can learn from its environment just like we do.</p>
<p>Being able to replicate neural behaviour on an electronic chip also offers exciting avenues for research to better understand the brain and how it is affected by disorders that disrupt neural connections, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.</p>
<p>The human brain is made up of billions of neurons in connected networks. They communicate with each other by using a sequence of electrical signals to express different behaviours, such as learning through sensory organs or more complicated processes like emotions and memory. </p>
<p>Any disruption to these signalling sequences can lead to a loss of these vital neural connections, potentially causing memory loss and dementia. </p>
<p>Curing these disorders would require identifying the faulty neurons and restoring their signalling routine, without affecting the functioning of other neurons in the network. </p>
<p>So by having a computer model of the brain, neuroscientists would be able to simulate brain functions and abnormalities, and work towards cures, without the need for living test subjects.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brain-a-radical-rethink-is-needed-to-understand-it-74460">The brain: a radical rethink is needed to understand it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our technology could also potentially be incorporated into wearable electronics, bionic prosthetics, or smart gadgets imbued with artificial intelligence. </p>
<p>But there are still several hurdles to clear before this technology can be commercialised. And needless to say, we still have a long way to go to build a network as large and complex as a human brain, or even a segment of it that could be useful to neuroscientists.</p>
<p>But we hope ultimately that this technology could interface with living tissues, giving rise to bionic devices such as retinal implants. The human retina contains cells that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light, generating a signal that the brain interprets as different colours. As our chip also responds differently to different wavelengths, it could potentially one day be used to make artificial retinas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119741/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>
Our brains create new memories, and forget old ones, by forging and breaking connections between nerve cells. Now researchers can do something similar using a light-sensitive electronic chip.
Sumeet Walia, Senior Lecturer and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, RMIT University
Taimur Ahmed, Research Fellow, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115835
2019-07-01T10:51:59Z
2019-07-01T10:51:59Z
How can you tell if another person, animal or thing is conscious? Try these 3 tests
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281832/original/file-20190628-94688-5f6gti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C204%2C3600%2C2489&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers have ideas how to probe consciousness in another.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/interplay-human-profiles-swirls-colorful-paint-587423351">agsandrew/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How can you know that any animal, other human beings, or anything that seems conscious, isn’t just faking it? Does it enjoy an internal subjective experience, complete with sensations and emotions like hunger, joy, or sadness? After all, the only consciousness you can know with certainty is your own. Everything else is inference. The nature of consciousness makes it by necessity a wholly private affair.</p>
<p>These questions are more than philosophical. As intelligent digital assistants, self-driving cars and other robots start to proliferate, are these AIs actually conscious or just seem like it? Or what about patients in comas – how can doctors know with any certainty what kind of consciousness is or is not present, and prescribe treatment accordingly?</p>
<p>In my work, often with with psychologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Jonathan Schooler</a> at the University of California, Santa Barbara, we’re developing a framework for thinking about the many different ways to possibly test for the presence of consciousness.</p>
<p>There is a small but growing field looking at how to assess the presence and even quantity of consciousness in various entities. I’ve divided possible tests into three broad categories that I call the measurable correlates of consciousness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272627/original/file-20190505-103060-n7tnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are three types of ways to gauge consciousness.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can look for brain activity that occurs at the same time as reported subjective states. Or you can look for physical actions that seem to be accompanied by subjective states. Finally, you can look for the products of consciousness, like artwork or music, or this article I’ve written, that can be separated from the entity that created them to infer the presence – or not – of consciousness.</p>
<h2>Neural correlates of consciousness</h2>
<p>Over the last two decades, scientists have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1232509">proposed various ways</a> to probe cognition and consciousness in unresponsive patients. In such cases, there aren’t any behaviors to observe or any creative products to assess.</p>
<p>You can check for the neural correlates of consciousness, though. What’s physically going on in the brain? Neuroimaging tools such as EEG, MEG, fMRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation (each with their own strengths and weaknesses), are able to provide information on activity happening within the brain even in coma and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state">vegetative patients</a>. </p>
<p>Cognitive neuroscientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2Dd5uoIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Stanislas Dehaene</a> has identified what he calls <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/308282/consciousness-and-the-brain-by-stanislas-dehaene/9780143126263/">four signatures</a> of consciousness – specific aspects of brain activity he deems necessary for normal consciousness. He focuses on what’s known as the “P3 wave” in the dorsolateral cortex – the part of the brain behind the top of your forehead – because it seems to correlate most reliably with normal conscious states. He also focuses on long-range synchronized electric fields between different parts of the brain as another key signature of consciousness. </p>
<p>In tests which look for these signals in vegetative and minimally conscious patients, Dehaene and his colleagues have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awu141">successfully predicted which patients</a> are most likely to regain more normal states of consciousness. </p>
<p><a href="https://sidkouider.com">Sid Kouider</a>, another cognitive neuroscientist, has examined infants in order to assess the likelihood that very young babies are conscious. He and his team looked for specific neural signatures that go along with subjective experience in adults. They looked specifically for a certain type of brain waves, similar to the P3 wave Dehaene focuses on, that are reliable indicators of consciousness in adults. They found clear analogs of the P3 wave in the brains of babies as young as five months old. Kouider concludes – unsurprisingly – that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1232509">even young babies are very likely conscious</a> in various complex ways, such as recognizing faces. </p>
<h2>Behavioral correlates of consciousness</h2>
<p>When considering potentially conscious entities that can’t communicate directly, and that won’t allow neuroscientific measurement tools on their head (if they even have heads), it’s possible to consider physical behaviors as clues for the presence and type of consciousness.</p>
<p>You know that a massive range of human behaviors are accompanied by conscious experience. So when you see similar behaviors in other animals or even non-animals, can you reasonably infer the presence of consciousness?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281835/original/file-20190628-94712-d4ttkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&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’s going on in there?</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>
<p>For example, are cats conscious? Their brain architecture is a little different than humans’. They have very minimal prefrontal cortex, which some scientists think is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.360.6395.1311-g">center of many higher-order activities</a> of the human brain. But is a prefrontal cortex necessary for consciousness? </p>
<p>Cat behavior is complex and pretty easy to map onto human behavior in many ways. Cats purr, flex their toes and snuggle when petted, in similar ways to people demonstrating pleasure when physically stimulated – minus the purrs, of course. They meow loudly for food when hungry and stop meowing when fed. They demonstrate curiosity or fear about other cats or humans with various types of body language. </p>
<p>These and many other easily observable behaviors add up to convincing evidence for most people that cats are indeed conscious and have rich emotional lives. You can imagine looking for other familiar behaviors in a rat, or an ant or a plant – if you see things close enough to what you’d expect in conscious humans, you may credit the observed creature with a certain type of consciousness.</p>
<h2>Creative correlates of consciousness</h2>
<p>If, for whatever reason, you can’t examine neural or behavioral correlates of consciousness, maybe you can look to creative outputs for clues that would indicate consciousness. </p>
<p>For example, when examining ancient megalithic structures such as Stonehenge, or <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/neanderthals-cave-art-humans-evolution-science/">cave paintings</a> created as far back as 65,000 years ago, is it reasonable to assume that their creators were conscious in ways similar to us? Most people would likely say yes. You know from experience that it would take high intelligence and consciousness to produce such items today, so reasonably conclude that our ancient ancestors had similar levels of consciousness. </p>
<p>What if explorers find obviously unnatural artifacts on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? It will depend on the artifacts in question, but if astronauts were to find anything remotely similar to human dwellings or machinery that was clearly not human in origin, it would be reasonable to infer that the creators of these artifacts were also conscious. </p>
<p>Closer to home, artificial intelligence has produced some pretty <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/arts/design/ai-art-sold-christies.html">impressive art</a> – impressive enough to <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">fetch over US$400,000 in a recent art auction</a>. At what point do reasonable people conclude that creating art requires consciousness? </p>
<p>Researchers could conduct a kind of “artistic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing Test</a>”: ask study participants to consider various artworks and say which ones they conclude were probably created by a human. If AI artwork consistently fools people into thinking it was made by a person, is that good evidence to conclude that the AI is at least in some ways conscious? So far AI aren’t convincing most observers, but it’s reasonable to expect that they will be able to in the future. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281936/original/file-20190630-105176-mf1084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is a definitive test for consciousness on the horizon?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-wearing-brainwave-scanning-headset-sits-1036798321">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where’s my ‘consciousness-ometer’?</h2>
<p>Can anyone get a definitive answer about the presence of consciousness, and how much? Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is no. There is not yet a “consciousness-ometer,” but various researchers, including Dehaene, have some ideas.</p>
<p>Neuroscientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=914hL5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Giulio Tononi</a> and his colleagues like <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/">Christof Koch</a> focus on what they call “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588">integrated information</a>” as a measure of consciousness. This theory suggests that anything that integrates at least one bit of information has at least a tiny amount of consciousness. A light diode, for example, contains just one bit of information and thus has a very limited type of consciousness. With just two possible states, on or off, however, it’s a rather uninteresting kind of consciousness. </p>
<p>In my work, my collaborators and I share this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2079-4_11">“panpsychist” foundation</a>. We accept as a working hypothesis that <a href="https://doi.org/10.22541/au.154659223.37007989">any physical system has some associated consciousness</a>, however small it may be in the vast majority of cases.</p>
<p>Rather than integrated information as the key measure of consciousness, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-consciousness-all-come-down-to-the-way-things-vibrate-103070">we focus on resonance and synchronization</a> and the degree to which parts of a whole resonate at the same or similar frequencies. Resonance in the case of the human brain generally means shared electric field oscillation rates, such as gamma band synchrony (40-120 Hertz). </p>
<p>Our consciousness-ometer would then look at the degree of shared <a href="https://medium.com/@aramis720/resonance-and-process-philosophy-e5b801045ca6">resonance</a> and resulting information flows as the measure of consciousness. Humans and other mammals enjoy a particularly rich kind of consciousness, because there are many <a href="https://medium.com/@aramis720/resonance-chains-and-new-models-of-the-neuron-7dd82a5a7c3a">levels</a> of pervasive shared synchronization throughout the brain, nervous system and body.</p>
<p>Tests for consciousness are still in their infancy. But this field of study is undergoing a renaissance because the study of consciousness more generally has finally become a respectable scientific pursuit. Before too long it may be possible to measure just how much consciousness is present in various entities – including in you and me.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tam Hunt has received some funding from the Fetzer Institute. </span></em></p>
The only consciousness you can ever be certain about is your own. But there are different types of clues that could hint at what’s happening within another entity.
Tam Hunt, Affiliate Guest in Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115833
2019-04-24T18:01:13Z
2019-04-24T18:01:13Z
‘I got there first!’ How your subjective experience of time makes you think you did – even when you didn’t
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270554/original/file-20190423-175507-1djqdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C2600%2C1859&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can both be sure the other hit it out?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J and L Photography/Getty Images (for web use only)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a championship match between two rival basketball teams. The game is tied, seconds left on the shot clock, two players lunge forward, reaching for the ball. In a split second, their hands both collide with the ball, but neither player gains possession. Instead, the ball goes soaring out of bounds. Immediately an argument erupts as each player claims the other knocked the ball out. The referee desperately tries to break the two apart and make the correct call.</p>
<p>Heated arguments like this are an all-too-familiar sight in competitive sports. From tennis to baseball to football (both versions) to basketball, referees and umpires have a tough job: making high-stakes judgment calls on what happened and where, knowing full well that no matter what they decide, players and fans alike will be outraged.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CvwGEhgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">As cognitive scientists</a>, <a href="https://psychology.asu.edu/research/labs/pearl-lab">my colleagues and I</a> are interested in explaining differences in perception among people watching the same events unfold. In baseball, researchers already know that differences in the speed of sound versus the speed of light can cause <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000588">different perceptions</a> of whether a player is safe or out. What about in the basketball example? Are both players simply lying to get the ball back to their team, or is there something more going on?</p>
<h2>How time passes is subjective</h2>
<p>First, you need to understand a little about time. Time is subjective. Physicists have known this to be true since 1905, thanks to Einstein himself. Most simply, his theory suggested that time passes differently depending on factors like speed and gravity. (<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-breaks-down-interstellar-black-holes-time-dilations-and-massive-waves">Remember the movie “Interstellar”</a>?)</p>
<p>Subjective time, however, is not limited to the fantasies of science fiction and thought experiments in physics. Many researchers, such as neuroscientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wCMlrLAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">David Eagleman</a>, have studied neurological time and how your own experiences can shape your perception of time, such as how time seems to slow down <a href="https://www.eagleman.com/books/synesthesia/18-media/59-time-perception-why-do-we-say-time-seems-to-slow-down-during-a-traumatic-experience">during a traumatic experience</a>.</p>
<p>In 2002, cognitive neuroscientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NqmgC9gAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Patrick Haggard</a> and his colleagues showed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn827">voluntary action has the ability</a> to shape one’s perception of time. In their study and subsequent replications, it was shown that an action and its effect can be perceptually “bound” together in time.</p>
<p>For example, if you use an outdated computer, you may be familiar with the experience of double-clicking a folder, only for it to open several hundred milliseconds later. At first, this delay can be frustrating. But over time, you adapt to the delay and it feels nearly instantaneous.</p>
<p>This process of adapting to the delay, called “intentional binding” by researchers, paved the way for studies investigating how the feeling of ownership over events affects your perception of what happened. With the slow computer, you know that the folder opening was a result of your clicking, even if it happened later. This knowledge and feeling of ownership over the opening of the folder is what results in intentional binding, and leads to the delay feeling shorter as you adapt to it. </p>
<h2>Putting time estimates to the test</h2>
<p>Going back to those two basketball players (who’ve called a time out to cool off while we figure this out) – objectively, they can’t both have touched before the other. However, we wanted to know whether both players could have really experienced that they touched the ball first and the other person knocked it out. </p>
<p>In order to test this possibility, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav5698">we devised a simple experiment</a>. Two participants sat across from one another at a table. Following a flash of light, each used their right hand to tap the other’s left hand as quickly as they could. They then made a temporal order judgment – a decision on which event happened first.</p>
<p>In order to isolate just the perceptual experiences of the two taps, we set up a divider between the participants to make sure they couldn’t see each other or know how the other person responded. Participants also received no feedback about whether their judgments were correct or incorrect.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270388/original/file-20190423-175518-1fqw404.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volunteers sat across from one another with a divider in between. When the light flashed, participants tapped one another and made a judgment about which tap happened first. Sensors on their hands recorded the actual times when the touches occurred.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Ewing, Arizona State University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our experiment, participants were significantly more likely to report that they touched first. Even when both participants tapped each other at the same time, participants reported that their own touch happened first 67% of the time. This bias functionally translates into an apparent delay in processing their partner’s touch – even when their own touch was 50 milliseconds later than their partner’s touch, participants perceived both events to be simultaneous.</p>
<p>We controlled for each participant’s ability to see their partner, but we still wondered whether this bias could be socially influenced. So we ran another experiment with a similar setup, except this time the other participant was replaced with a mechanical device that tapped their hand.</p>
<p>Even when making judgments between their own touch and a mechanical touch, participants still reported that their own touch occurred first. This time, when their touch and the mechanical touches were simultaneous, there was a 75% probability that participants said they themselves touched first. In fact, even when we removed the mechanical touch altogether and replaced it with an auditory click, participants still perceived their touch as happening first.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270587/original/file-20190424-19276-5pxkm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers mathematically modeled the timing people perceived (on the vertical axis) against the objective timing (on the horizontal axis) of the touch. Even when touches were simultaneous, participants were more likely to report that their own tap happened first.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Your own actions seem to happen sooner</h2>
<p>These results show that people really do experience the order of events differently, perceiving externally generated events as happening later than events they themselves caused. This bias, which we named the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav5698">Egocentric Temporal Order Bias</a>,” builds upon existing research showing the importance of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.04.015">vantage in perception</a>. It further supports the subjective nature of time perception, and can help explain why sports calls can become so heated and divisive. Differences in perspective can result in conflicting experiences of the same event.</p>
<p>Returning to our two basketball players, our experiment suggests that both players are indeed telling the truth: Each experienced their own touch first, and so think their opponent was the one who knocked the ball out of bounds. Rather than continuing to argue, perhaps our on-court rivals can recognize their two different experiences of what happened, accept the ref’s call that they really both touched the ball simultaneously and <a href="https://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_8.html?nav=ArticleList">resume play by a jump ball</a>.</p>
<p>Outside the realm of sports, research looking into biases and illusions in perception can help inform our relationship with technology. If the bias we found truly represents a delay in registering unexpected events, technologies like <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/342781/watch-this-tesla-model-3-stop-itself-to-avoid-horrific-crash-video/">automated emergency braking systems</a> can help save lives.</p>
<p>As for why people experience this bias in the first place, the answer isn’t immediately clear. My colleagues and I speculate that it may support a constructive model of perception, where your conscious experience is not an objective representation of reality, but rather built by your brain using information from your senses to <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjbn3/consciousness-is-just-a-bunch-of-hallucinations-we-collectively-agree-on">generate the world around you, much like a dream</a>. However, there are many potential explanations for mechanisms that could be causing this bias.</p>
<p>So as the crowd roars and celebrates their new champion, we researchers still have work to do. Perhaps our new findings will lend insights to an argument in another sport… but that’s a whole different ball game.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ty Tang receives funding from the Global Sports Institute. </span></em></p>
Sports fans see it all the time: two people arguing about a split-second difference in who did what. New research suggests human beings have a bias to perceive their own actions as happening sooner.
Ty Tang, Research Scientist in Cognitive Science, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107973
2018-12-20T11:32:49Z
2018-12-20T11:32:49Z
What if consciousness is just a product of our non-conscious brain?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251294/original/file-20181218-27761-i4t1pn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/profile-young-man-mental-activity-brain-1226454388?src=EgvMjLFf5dk6UsauMVjUnA-1-9">Lia Koltyrina/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the very word used to describe it has been “<a href="https://archive.org/details/psychologyscienc00millrich">worn smooth by a million tongues</a>”, consciousness is a fertile topic for confusion. We all know what it is to be conscious. It is, basically, being aware of and responding to the world. Similarly, we all possess a common sense notion of <a href="http://cogprints.org/6453/1/How_to_define_consciousness.pdf">how consciousness works</a>. </p>
<p>But common sense can be easily confused. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/685443?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Consider these questions</a> for example: if you felt pain in an amputated leg, where is the pain? If you say it is in your head, would it be in your head if your leg had not been amputated? If you say yes, then what reason have you for ever thinking you had a leg? </p>
<p>One source of confusion when explaining “consciousness” stems from common sense and formal accounts that frame the study of mental life. These are typically discussed <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3767904/">in terms of a binary split</a> between conscious intentional processes versus non-conscious involuntary processes – the latter of which are outside our awareness. When walking, for example, we have a conscious awareness of the intention to go somewhere. Yet putting one foot in front of the other is a non-conscious action.</p>
<p>Following this, most of us consider consciousness – our subjective awareness – to be responsible for creating and controlling our thoughts, memories and actions. At the same time, we recognise that some of these psychological processes are carried on beyond our awareness. For example, when picking up a pen we may know what we are going to write about but the selection and articulation of individual words are non-conscious processes. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uhRhtFFhNzQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The key driver behind this traditional distinction stems from our own powerful belief that causality links subjective awareness with the daily experience of appearing to have control over our thoughts, feelings and actions. Over the past 100 years, however, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264940806_The_biological_function_of_consciousness">a growing body of evidence</a> has begun to question this binary distinction. There is now increasing agreement that most, if not all, of the contents of our psychological processes – our thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, emotions, intentions, actions and memories – are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460684">actually formed backstage</a> by fast and efficient non-conscious brain systems.</p>
<h2>The non-conscious nature of being</h2>
<p>Previously, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-consciousness-is-not-what-drives-the-human-mind-86785">we argued that</a> while undeniably real, the “experience of consciousness” or subjective awareness is precisely that – awareness. No more, no less. We proposed that while consciousness is created by brain systems, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924">has no causal relationship with or control</a> over mental processes. The fact that personal awareness accompanies the contents of the personal narrative is <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.180416/page/n5">causally compelling</a>. But it is not necessarily relevant to understanding and explaining the psychological processes underpinning them.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://archive.org/details/psychologyscienc00millrich">quote from George Miller</a> – one of the founders of cognitive psychology – helps explain this idea. When one recalls something from memory, “consciousness gives no clue as to where the answer comes from; the processes that produce it are unconscious. It is the result of thinking, not the process of thinking, that appears spontaneously in consciousness”.</p>
<p>Taking this further, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924">we propose</a> that subjective awareness – the intimate signature experience of what it is like to be conscious – is itself a product of non-conscious processing. This observation, was well captured by pioneering social psychologist Daniel Wegner when <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/illusion-conscious-will">he wrote</a> that, “unconscious mechanisms create both conscious thought about action and the action, and also produce the sense of will we experience by perceiving the thought as the cause of the action”.</p>
<p>Our proposition that both the subjective experience of consciousness (personal awareness) and associated psychological processes (thoughts, beliefs, ideas, intentions and more) are <em>products</em> of non-conscious processes is consistent with the fact that non-conscious automatic brain systems reliably carry out all of our core biological processes (such as respiration and digestion) efficiently, and often without our awareness. </p>
<p>It is also consistent with a wider prevailing observation found in the natural sciences – especially neurobiology. In this field conscious primacy is not nearly as prevalent as it is in psychology. Complex and intelligent design in living things are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x">not assumed to be driven by conscious processes</a>. Instead they are thought to come from adaptive processes which accrued through natural selection. </p>
<h2>Moving on from the divide</h2>
<p>If we are indeed “<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02173/full">subjects of unconscious authoring</a>” then continuing to characterise psychological states in terms of being conscious and non-conscious is unhelpful. It constrains the theoretical understanding of psychological processes. Furthermore, if all psychological processes and their products rely on non-conscious systems, then the idea that the brain has automatic and controlled processes needs a rethink too. It might be better to describe them as differences on a continuum of non-conscious processing, rather than alternative systems. </p>
<p>Such a proposal does not dispense with the common sense reality of one’s personal qualitative experience, nor with the previous findings of cognitive neuroscience. However, it offers an opportunity to reduce some of the confusion that comes with use of the terms “consciousness” and “contents of consciousness”. Both of which continue to imply that consciousness has a functional role in distinguishing psychological processes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107973/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>
If consciousness is a by-product of our brains’ nonconscious processes, where does that leave us?
Peter W Halligan, Hon Professor of Neuropsychology, Cardiff University
David A Oakley, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102282
2018-09-07T14:00:25Z
2018-09-07T14:00:25Z
Do blind people have better hearing?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234863/original/file-20180904-45151-1vync4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5760%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1007019028?src=3R37ZLjnzeuDE8nl6Spl3A-1-28&size=huge_jpg">Africa Studio/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The sensation of sound occurs when the vibrations from sounds enter our ear and cause little hairlike structures – called hair cells – within our inner ear to move back and forth. The hair cells transform this movement into an electrical signal that the brain can use. </p>
<p>How well a person can hear largely depends on how intact these hair cells are. Once lost, they don’t grow back – and this is no different for blind people. So blind people can’t physically hear better than others.</p>
<p>Yet blind people often outperform sighted people in hearing tasks such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595515300174">locating the source of sounds</a>. The reason for this emerges when we look beyond the sensory organs, at what is happening with the brain, and how the sensory information is processed by it. </p>
<p>Perception occurs when the brain interprets signals that our sensory organs provide, and different parts of the brain respond to the information arriving from different sensory organs. There are areas that process visual information (the visual cortex) and areas that process sound information (the auditory cortex). But when a sense like vision is lost, the brain does something remarkable: it <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3898172/">reorganises the functions of these brain areas</a>. </p>
<p>In blind people, the visual cortex gets a bit “bored” without visual input and starts to “rewire” itself, becoming more responsive to information from the other remaining senses. So blind people may have lost their vision, but this leaves a larger brain capacity for processing the information from other senses. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234867/original/file-20180904-45135-9p33j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The visual cortex can rewire itself to respond to sounds or touch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/134423357?size=huge_jpg">Cliparea/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The extent of reorganisation in the brain depends on when someone loses their sight. The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3898172/">brain can reorganise itself at any point in life</a>, including adulthood, but during childhood the brain is more able to adapt to change. This is because during childhood the brain is still developing and the new organisation of the brain does not have to compete with an existing one. As a result, people who have been blind from a very early age show a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3898172/">much greater level of reorganisation in the brain</a>. </p>
<p>People who become blind early in life tend to outperform sighted people, as well as those who became blind later in life, in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/430309a">hearing</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982203009849">touch</a> perceptual tasks.</p>
<h2>Echolocation</h2>
<p>The reorganisation in the brain also means that blind people are sometimes able to learn how to use their remaining senses in interesting ways. For example, some blind people learn to sense the location and size of objects around them using <a href="https://community.dur.ac.uk/lore.thaler/thaler_goodale_echo_review2016.pdf">echolocation</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2IKT2akh0Ng?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>By producing clicks with their mouths and listening for the echoes, blind people can locate objects in their surroundings. This ability is tightly linked with the <a href="https://community.dur.ac.uk/lore.thaler/thaler_goodale_echo_review2016.pdf">brain activity in the visual cortex</a>. In fact, the visual cortex in blind echolocators responds to sound information in almost the same way as it does to visual information in the sighted. In other words, in blind echolocators, hearing has replaced vision in the brain to a very large extent.</p>
<p>But not every blind person is automatically an expert echolocator. Whether a blind person is able to develop a skill like echolocation depends on the time spent learning this task – <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595514000185">even sighted people can learn this skill with enough training</a>, but blind people will probably benefit from their reorganised brain being more tuned towards the remaining senses. </p>
<p>Blind people will also rely more on their remaining senses to do everyday tasks, which means that they train their remaining senses on a daily basis. The reorganised brain together with the greater experience in using their remaining senses are believed to be important factors in blind people having an edge over sighted people in hearing and touch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loes van Dam is an Associate Editor for the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics </span></em></p>
Blind people don’t have superhuman ears but their brains can rewire themselves to give them an edge over those who can see.
Loes van Dam, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Essex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96665
2018-09-04T09:53:37Z
2018-09-04T09:53:37Z
Life’s purpose rests in our mind’s spectacular drive to extract meaning from the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234635/original/file-20180903-41702-52102k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Searching for meaning.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/cross-my-name-series-stripe-red-686298127">agsandrew/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What is the purpose of life? Whatever you may think is the answer, you might, from time to time at least, find your own definition unsatisfactory. After all, how can one say why any living creature is on Earth in just one simple phrase?</p>
<p>For me, looking back on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Guillaume_Thierry">18 years of research</a> into how the human brain handles language, there seems to be only one, solid, resilient thread that prevails over all others. Humanity’s purpose rests in the spectacular drive of our minds to extract meaning from the world around us.</p>
<p>For many scientists, this drive to find sense guides every step they take, it defines everything that they do or say. Understanding nature and constantly striving to explain its underpinning principles, rules and mechanisms is the essence of the scientist’s existence. And this can be considered the most simplified version of their life’s purpose.</p>
<p>But this isn’t something that just applies to the scientifically minded. When examining a healthy sample of human minds using techniques such as brain imaging and <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/electroencephalogram/">EEG</a>, the brain’s relentless obsession with extracting meaning from everything has been found in all kinds of people regardless of status, education, or location. </p>
<h2>Language: a meaning-filled treasure chest</h2>
<p>Take words, for instance, those mesmerising language units that package meaning with phenomenal density. When you show a word to someone who can read it, they not only retrieve the meaning of it, but all the meanings that this person has ever seen associated with it. They also rely on the meaning of words that resemble that word, and even the meaning of <a href="https://journals.lww.com/neuroreport/Abstract/2011/02160/Literate_humans_sound_out_words_during_silent.4.aspx">nonsensical words</a> that sound or look like it.</p>
<p>And then there are bilinguals, who have the particular fate of having words in different languages for arguably overlapping concepts. Speakers of more than one language automatically access translation in their native language when they encounter a word in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/104/30/12530">their second language</a>. Not only do they do this without knowing, they do it even when they have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027713001625?via%3Dihub">no intention of doing so</a>.</p>
<p>Recently, we have been able to show that even an abstract picture – one that cannot easily be taken as a depiction of a particular concept – connects to words in the mind in a way <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-25441-5">that can be predicted</a>. It does not seem to matter how seemingly void of meaning an image, a sound, or a smell may be, the human brain will project meaning onto it. And it will do so automatically in a subconscious (albeit predictable) way, presumably because the bulk of us extract meaning in a somewhat comparable fashion, since we have many experiences of the world in common.</p>
<p>Consider the picture below, for example. It has essentially no distinctive features that could lead you to identify, let alone name, it in an instant.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219051/original/file-20180515-195341-1ftnjbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grace or violence?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexpanoiu/16257176732/in/album-72157625037972533/">Alexandru Panoiu/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You would probably struggle to accurately describe the textures and colours it is composed of, or say what it actually represents. Yet your mind would be happier to associate it with the concept of “grace” than that of “violence” – even if you are not able to explain why – before a word is handed over to you as a tool for interpretation.</p>
<h2>Beyond words</h2>
<p>The drive of humans to understand is not limited to just language, however. Our species appears to be guided by this profound and inexorable impulse to understand the world in every aspect of our lives. In other words, the goal of our existence ultimately seems to be achieving a full understanding of this same existence, a kind of kaleidoscopic infinity loop in which our mind is trapped, from the emergence of proto-consciousness in the womb, all the way to our deathbed. </p>
<p>The proposal is compatible with theoretical standpoints in quantum physics and astrophysics, under the impetus of great scientists like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler">John Archibald Wheeler</a>, who proposed that information is the very essence of existence (“<a href="https://plus.maths.org/content/it-bit">it for bit</a>” – perhaps the best ever attempt to account for all meaning in the universe in one simple phrase). </p>
<p>Information – that is atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, societies – is self-obsessed, constantly looking for meaning in the mirror, like Narcissus looking at the reflection of the self, like the molecular biologist’s DNA playing with itself under the microscope, like AI scientists trying to give robots all the features that would make them indistinguishable from themselves.</p>
<p>Perhaps it does not matter if you find this proposal satisfying, because getting the answer to what the purpose of life is would equate to making your life purposeless. And who would want that?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guillaume Thierry 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>
Meaning and purpose aren’t the same, but one does drive the other.
Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.