Dreams, drugs, intelligence, memory, infant brains, psychoanalysis, human evolution and many more – Loads of online broadcasts from Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ Radio 4 series to be found here – all free – it makes one proud to be a licence payer….
Posts archived in Abnormality
Some of you may not be aware of the wonderful BPS research digest which presents short descriptions of recent research. It is published fortnightly. You can subscribe to it or just have a look here.
The most recent digest published details of research by Arne Mukamel et al. (2010) which seems to have produced the first ever direct glimpse of mirror neurons in humans. The researchers made use of investigations being conducted on patients with severe epilepsy. These patients had electrodes implanted into their brains to identify the location of their seizures – this meant the researchers could record the acivity of individual cells. Mukamel et al. arranged for 21 of the patients and his colleagues recruited 21 of these patients to look at videos of hand gestures or facial expressions on a laptop, or to perform those same gestures and expressions. Most of the 1177 cells that were recorded showed a response either to the execution of an action or the sight of that action, not both. However, 8% of the cells responded to both i.e. were ‘mirror’ neurons. The observed cells were located in the front of the brain, the region involved in planning and controlling actions, abstract thinking and memory.
Past research suggested that mirror neurons existed in the regions of the brain involved in performing actions so this new research may support the idea that mirror neurons are important for empathy. The ultimate test would be to block the activity of mirror neurons and see if a person could still understand the actions of another person.
Train your baby to grow up a genius? That is the idea behind a load of commercial stimulus materials such as the Disney Baby Einstein videos, books, flashcards, toys, and so on (seemingly anything marketable ). We have described these products on page 219 of the A2 Complete Companion, along with a study that showed that watching the DVDs can lead to a poorer developmental outcome. Now Disney is refunding the cost of the videos to anyone who purchased them!! The refunds are because a range of studies have shown that watching TV is potentially harmful for the under-2s, and linked early TV watching to attentional problems at around age 7. It would be interesting to know if the brain’s developing connections are affected by environmental input, something which has very tricky ethical issues but which might be abe to be done as a natural experiment. The emphasis on stimulating cognitive development is still on positive adult-child interactions.
“For as long as IQ tests have existed, there has been a steady, progressive and ubiquitous improvement in the average scores people achieve at a given age, mainly because of a raising of the lower scores. On average, IQ is increasing by 3 per cent per decade. The effect is so strong that it implies that half of children in 1932, if given today’s tests, would score under 80 – the threshold for mental retardation.
Known as the Flynn Effect (after James Flynn), this phenomenon was initially dismissed as a result of changes in tests, or a reflection of better schooling. But the facts do not fit. Improvement is most marked in the types of test that relate least to educational content. Moreover, the effect is weakest in the cleverest children. It is a levelling-up phenomenon that results in a happy increase in equality.
After much agonising debate among psychologists, three explanations seem to make the most sense. The first is that (despite fast food) most children now get sufficient essential nutrients, vitamins, amino acids and oils to allow their brains to develop to their full potential. The second is that today’s children grow up in a world full of graphics, colours and chat, which stimulate their brains. Flynn prefers the third explanation: that the modern (smaller) family, even at the low end of the income scale, is now riddled with technology and intellectually demanding work – from paying bills to setting up computers. You can argue that IQ may not be representative of intelligence. But you cannot deny that something is getting better – and more equal”.
Full article here
What is she thinking? Mirror neurons have been hailed by some as a discovery of major importance (for exampl,e the neurologist V.S. Ramachandran). It is claimed that they may explain the ability of humans to understand what someone else is feeling and thinking. This is not mind-reading but ‘Theory of Mind’ – the understanding that other people have a separate mind to your own and therefore do not see or experience the world as you do. A certain group of neurons were discovered in macaque monkeys which were activated when the monkey was inactive itself but was watching another monkey perform an action. The big question is whether such mirror neurons, as they are called, will be able to explain empathy, autism, morality, language and more, or whether it’s all a storm in a tea cup .
This topic is covered in the A2 specification that some of you will be studying – so you might be interested in a recent item in the New Scientist. A team of scientists have provided evidence that mirror neurons (MNs) are not always activated when understanding the actions of others. This overturns the current views on MNs and suggests that a rethink may be needed.
Natalie Portman is best known for her acting, in films such as Star Wars and Cold Mountain. However, she isn’t just a pretty face and talented actress but also a keen student of Psychology, having studied for a degree in the subject at the prestigious Harvard University. While there she was the co-author of a journal article (using her real name of Natalie Hershlag). The research study concerned object permanence in young infants, a concept introduced by Jean Piaget to explain the ability to understand that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight, such as a toy being hidden behind a pillow. Piaget regarded object permanence as one of the early milestones in developed, achieved around the age of 8 months. (Though, other researchers, such as Renée Baillargeon, have devised numerous ingenious experiments to demonstrate that infants may have this ability at a much younger age). The research by Natalie and her co-workers looked at the role of brain maturation in object permanence. Specifically they studied frontal lobe activity in infants using a new technique – near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Other brain scanning techniques don’t work with infants because they wriggle about too much, whereas NIRS involves wearing a kind of high-tech hat. In NIRS an infrared light to detect how much oxygenated blood is in target regions of the brain, which indicates what regions are most active. Using this technique the study showed that children who had not developed object permanence showed no activity in the frontal lobes, whereas in children who did look for a hidden object (i.e. had object permanence) the frontal lobes were active. This supports the view that frontal lobe activity underlies object permanence. The study was also important in developing a technique that could be used in studying the brain development of infants.
Brain decline begins at 27……
Professor Timothy Salthouse of Virginia University found reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualisation all decline in our late 20s.
Therapies designed to stall or reverse the ageing process may need to start much earlier, he said
Over FIFTY psychological explanations of learning – all in one place…..
I wonder if some kind of advanced form of theoretical systematic review could iron out all of the inevitable overlaps and maybe shake it all down to a manageable three or four key factors? – I wonder what they’d be? Would the ’key’ theorists everybody has heard of play the biggest role? Or would some obscure approach that seldom emerges in lectures outside of a PhD course prove to have the most robust supporting evidence? – I often feel a lot of the classics we teach, in every field of psychology, can carry a weight or ‘historical resonance’ far beyond the quality of the actual research results….
My money would be on Vygotsky – not for any reason other than it feels right to me (You might get a mark for this very feeling in an exam if you call it ‘intuitive appeal’). For example, I like his idea of ‘scaffolding’ :
Instructional scaffolding is the provision of sufficient supports to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include:
- Resources
- A compelling task
- Templates and guides
- Guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills
These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.
- building a tower of knowledge together with a nudge and a prod – shoring up this bit, talking up that bit onto a firmer footing. It’s a pleasingly rugged, masculine model of teaching- Like the guys who scaffolded our place: Roll up in a van whistling a cheery tune, throw up a rough structure for students to build their knowledge skywards, knock off mid-afternoon, never come back to take it down again….
Matters of psychological interest conveyed for your convenience and edification in the modern realplayer format. Bought to you by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the wonders of the electronic interweb: