I'd like to replicate an experiment I recently read about in Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert's new book Stumbling On Happiness, a philosophical tract masquerading as a self-help book. Despite residing in the nose bleed section of the ivory tower, Gilbert is a lucid, common-sense thinker with some truly worthwhile insights regarding the human temperament. We'll delve into some of them at a later date. In the meantime, I wanted to give you a taste of the kind of "AHA" moments the book delivers. Here's what you have to do:1) Imagine you're going to have a spaghetti dinner tomorrow night. 2…
A new Neurontic feature, Sunday's Silly Science Roundup showcases scientific findings that make you go "duh." After spending a great deal of time and money, a group of researchers at University College London are willing to go out on a limb and say "Irrational Decisions are Based on Emotion." Hellbent on convincing the two remaining skeptics in the developed world, scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute conducted a long-term study proving that "TV Watching Lowers Physical Activity." This just in from the great minds at the Montreal Neurological Institute: "Anticipation Heightens Smoker…
While we're on the subject of brain size, I wanted to share another interesting Temple Grandin theory. In Animals in Translation, Grandin suggests that we humans may be suffering from a species superiority complex. While she agrees that domestication was responsible for a 10 percent reduction in brain size in dogs, she contends that the civilizing process cut both ways. Taming wolves had a profound effect on the evolution of the human brain, according to Grandin. Recent scientific findings suggest that human-wolf cohabitation began as long as 100,000 years ago. If these findings are correct…
Okay, I know I promised the next entry would be devoted to Temple Grandin's views on language -- a subject well worth exploring -- but I've found myself distracted by some of my other reading this week. (So much to read, so little time.) Be assured, we'll delve into "Grandin on Language" at a later date. Today, I find my thoughts once again turning to the teaspoon of gray matter separating the male and female brain. ("When it comes to brains, does size really matter?) I revisited this entry after the Tangled Bank Carnival and found myself no less irate over Terence Kealey's pseudoscientific…
I've been meaning to read Temple Grandin ever sense reading about her in Oliver Sacks' 1995 book, An Anthropologist on Mars. But for some reason, her books continually ended up on the bottom of the pile on my nightstand. What a shame. Having just finished Grandin's Animals in Translation, I regret dragging my feet for so long. Her life story is like catnip for the psychologically curious. Arguably America's foremost animal behavioralist, Grandin has spent her 32-year career working to ensure that the animals that end up in slices on our dining room tables are treated with care and compassion…
Men's brains weigh about 2.5 pounds. Women's brains are 100 grams less, the equivalent of one teaspoon. To most people, this difference seems negligible--hardly the stuff of controversy. Scientists have yet to determine the reason for the size differential. Neuroscience is still in its infancy, and it will likely be many years before researchers gather enough evidence to tell us. In the mean time, most have adopted a common sense explanation: women are typically smaller than men therefore their brains are smaller. But if you spend enough time reading about neuroscience, you'll inevitably…
I know I'm dating myself by referencing an SNL bit circa 1986, but I couldn't resist. Those of you who've read Microscopic Mind Control know that toxoplasma, the bacteria people pick up from house cats, is purported to make women more "outgoing and warmhearted." Well, according to New York State University Psychologist Gordon Gallup, semen is an even more powerful organic anti-depressant. In 2002, Gallup conducted a study that suggested that women who regularly engage in unprotected sex (both vaginal and oral) are happier than their conscientious counterparts. (Semen Acts as Anti-depressant…
Most people don't know that Sigmund Freud was a frustrated neurologist. Before he abandoned himself to abstraction, the father of psychoanalysis was a practicing physician, intent on developing "a neural model of behavior." (Kandel Interview) But Freud found neuroscience too blunt a tool, in the early twentieth century, to serve his purposes. If brain science had been further along at the turn of the century, we might have been spared the Oedipus Complex and the concept of penis envy. But we may also have missed out on his theory that dreams are a form of wish fulfillment--a hypothesis that…
We've all noted the fickleness of the nutritional standards. One week we're told that eating eggs is tantamount to courting death; the next week, they're deemed safe in moderation. One second eating pasta is called the Mediterranean Diet; the next second, enjoying a spaghetti dinner is the equivalent of mainlining lard. First coffee is good for you; and then it's bad for you. We all switch to decaf only to find out that it's even worse for you. Up until about three months ago, I was as bewildered as everyone else. But now that I spend a good chunk of my time perusing scientific journals, I'm…
I have spent most of my life losing keys, driver's licenses, cigarette lighters--even the occasional car. I couldn't tell you which direction is west to save my life. My math skills are abysmal. I'm clumsy, forgetful, and utterly useless when it comes to names. I can, however, tell you that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was anorexic long before we had a word for it; calculus was invented by two men almost simultaneously (Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebnez); and that Yale literary critic Harold Bloom thinks that Shakespeare is responsible for inventing the modern concept of humanity. At times,…
Phantom limbs are not a modern phenomenon. There are records of people "haunted" by amputated appendages dating all the way back to the sixteenth century. Consequently, we have more than 500 years worth of theories about what causes phantom limbs--some quite ingenious. After losing his right arm in the Napoleonic Wars, British naval hero Lord Nelson believed that his phantom arm was proof positive of the existence of a soul. After all, if his arm could outlive its corporeal existence, why not the rest of him? This was a soothing hypothesis. Most were not. For the uninitiated, phantom limbs…
I'm sure someone has come up with an elaborate theory to explain why Blade Runner had such a profound impact on GenXers, but I've yet to read it. All I know is that ever since I watched Daryl Hannah doing somersaults in that black leotard, I've been obsessed with the idea of androids. The slow progress of robotics engineering has long been a source of frustration to me. Sure, Sony's Aibo robot dogs are cute, but they're hardly lifelike. I mean, come on--even Teddy Ruxpin had fur. Consequently, I was dubious about reports that Hiroshi Ishiguro, Director of Osaka University's Intelligent…
Would you rather be miserable and smitten, or serene and passionless? If you're suffering from depression and your doctor has prescribed SSRIs (or serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors) these are your options, according to anthropologist Helen Fisher. Fisher, who has been called the "doyenne of desire," believes that Prozac and other SSRIs are robbing us of our ability to form satisfying romantic relationships. It's no secret that SSRIs squelch the sex drive. Over the past decade, Prozac's libido-dampening effects have become such a part of the cultural conversation that the issue was even…
In the wake of World War II, stunned by the German peoples adoption of Hitler's horrific vision of Aryan purity, psychologists set out to discover the mechanisms of social control. One of the most famous studies to emerge during this period was conducted by Gestalt Therapist Solomon Asch. In the early 1950s, Asch designed a series of studies, which became known as the Asch Conformity Experiments. Asch recruited a group of students to participate in what he called a "vision test." Each participant was seated in a classroom filled with what he presumed to be fellow test subjects. In reality,…
As a born skeptic, I was always convinced that hypnosis was quack science. Then I reached the end of my tether. I'd promised myself I would quit smoking before I turned 30. In the months approaching my birthday, I still found myself sucking down a pack a day. I tried self-control. I tried tapering. I tried cold turkey. Nothing worked. Unwilling to commit to regular Smokers Anonymous meetings, I decided to try hypnosis. Three hundred dollars later, I found myself in a small, dingy office sitting across from a maddeningly serene hypnotherapist with a shock of red hair. He led me through a…
I've been talking a lot about genes lately (because I'm obsessed) and what I'm finding is that many people are alarmed by genetics. I believe there are two primary reasons for this--one quite valid. A Vast Social Engineering Project? This fear of genetics arises, in part, from the belief that we may soon find ourselves enmeshed in a vast social engineering project. Neuroscientists already have the power to tinker with human nature and this power will only increase with time. It's likely that within the next 10 years, people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder will have the option…
You know those guys in high school who never learned to talk to girls? The ones who didn't bother with acne medication, sported glasses that appeared to have been passed down from a long-dead uncle, and knew an alarming amount of Star Trek trivia? Well, apparently, they've all grown up and become neuroscientists. It's the only possible explanation. No one else could have come up with the idea of teaching a disembodied brain to fly an F-22 fighter jet. That's right, folks--a group of neuroscientists in Florida grew a brain in a Petri dish and taught it how to fly. They extracted 25,000 neural…
"It is better to tackle ten fundamental [scientific] problems and succeed in only one, than to tackle ten trivial ones and solve them all," Francis Crick once told his devoted pupil V.S. Ramachandran, director of San Diego State's Center for Brain and Cognition. Ramachandran, apparently, took this advice to heart. The man who contends that neuroscience is ushering in "the greatest [scientific] revolution of all" believes that understanding the circuitry of the brain will soon allow us to tackle the existential questions that have plagued philosophers for centuries. He is so confident, in fact…
In Mind Wide Open, Steven Johnson writes about advances in neurofeedback technology. "Your Attention Please" describes Johnson's attempts to peddle a virtual bicycle using the power of his brain. He's at a training session organized by a firm called The Attention Builders. As the name suggests, the company is in the business of building attention. The firm's software was designed to familiarize children suffering from attention deficit disorder (ADD) with the experience of concentrating. To do this, they employ some new-fangled technology. A helmet that wouldn't look out of place in TRON is…
Clarence Darrow famously said: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." It's likely that Dr. John Halpern experienced a similar kind of schadenfreude on hearing of Timothy Leary's death in 1996. For those of you too young to remember him as anything other than Uma Thurman's godfather, Leary was a renowned academic who launched the now infamous Harvard Psilocybin Project. The research project, which Leary developed in partnership with Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), used psychedelics to facilitate "life-altering spiritual insights" in…