Movement and exercise

When two athletes are the same size and strength, what makes one better than the other? In many sports, the best athletes are the ones who can react more quickly to game situations than others. Are they just generally better at focusing their attention where it needs to be? Or have they learned some skill set specific to the game at hand? Attention researchers have made some efforts to learn if athletes perform better in visual tasks than non-athletes, but the results have been mixed. In some experiments, athletes react faster than non-athletes, but in others, there is no discernible…
We've reported on studies about cell phones and driving before. A general consensus has formed that driving with cell phones (even hands-free phones) is dangerous. What matters most, it appears, isn't so much the physical aspect -- holding and operating the phone -- but how demanding the conversation itself is. Research on aging has suggested that older drivers may be even more impaired by driving with a cell phone than younger drivers, since older adults tend to perform worse on "dual task" activities than younger adults. But what about the years of driving experience that older adults have…
When human infants are born, the physical structure of their brains has not fully developed: the human brain continues to grow for more than two years after birth. It's very clear that newborn infants don't have the same cognitive abilities as babies even 6 months older. For example, they can't move their heads follow along a movement with their eyes. They appear to have very little control over their limbs. Three-month-olds have difficulty reaching and grasping objects. For humans, walking or crawling isn't a remote possibility for more than six months. Contrast this to wildebeasts, for…
There was a fascinating article in the Washington Post last May about Dilbert creator Scott Adams' battle with focal dystonia. Though the symptoms of this disorder are involuntary muscle contractions (in Adams' case, his right pinky finger), the root of the problem is in the brain. For Adams, it has meant suspending his cartooning career more than once. The first time, he taught himself to draw with his left hand, only to see the symptoms reappear there. He's also tried grueling physical therapy regimens. His most recent effort to battle dystonia has been drawing his cartoons using a…
There is little doubt that the cognitive demands of conversation can affect our awareness of the world around us. Everyone has a story of a near-miss collision with some clueless airhead driving who was jabbering away on the cell phone. A co-worker once tearfully told me of the time she was in an argument with her boyfriend while parked in his car at the side of the road. Furious, he got out of the car and slammed the door. He never noticed the passing car that hit him and instantly killed him. Was this a freak accident, or does conversation—and not just cell phone conversation—impair our…
Dozens of studies have confirmed both psychological and physical benefits of exercise. The results seem clear enough: a regular program of cardiovascular exercise has been shown not only to promote physical well being, but also to abate depression, decrease anxiety, and improve overall quality of life. But James Annesi noted that most of these studies were implemented the same way: participants agree to a preset program of exercise, carefully controlled and monitored by experimenters. Might the psychological benefits only be an artifact of all the attention they were getting? It's possible,…
My favorite bike shop has a photo of bicyclists lighting up cigarettes for each other as they rode along during a 1920s stage of the Tour de France. After getting over our astonishment that they can actually manage to light cigarettes without even getting off their bikes, we look at the photo today and think "how could those riders not know what those cigarettes were doing to their lungs?" Surely today's athletes know that using drugs ranging from nicotine to alcohol to cocaine can seriously impair their ability to perform in competition, don't they? Supporters of scholastic athletics point…
With my high school reunion coming up, memories just seem to well up out of nowhere. One of the most powerful was that of my cross-country coach's booming voice yelling "stride, Munger, stride!" across the track. I wasn't the best runner on the team, but whenever I heard that voice, I'd always start running faster. Sometimes when I'm out for my morning run, I wish I still had my coach's voice to urge me on. I've never had any doubt that verbal encouragement helped me perform better on the track, but I have wondered what exactly about the encouragement is helping. Does it just increase my "…
It has been known for some time that cell phones can lead to driving accidents. After watching the behavior of some other drivers on the road, I'm sometimes surprised that there aren't more cell-phone-related accidents than there already are. With well over 100 million cell phone users in the U.S. alone, the problem isn't going to get any smaller. Until recently, there has been some dispute about exactly why cell phones are unsafe for drivers. Two high-profile studies in the 1990s suggested that any manual manipulation of devices in a car, including not only dialing a cell phone, but also…
Learning to walk was a passion for my son Jimmy. He would sweat and struggle with it until finally he had it mastered—and then it was off to the races. My daughter Nora, by contrast, didn't seem to mind not being able to walk. After all, if you didn't walk, then some sweet grown-up would soon show up and carry you wherever you wanted to go. The photo below illustrates another way Nora convinced others to do the walking for her: Nora apparently was oblivious to the fact that parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles around the world watch infants' progress in walking with anxious anticipation…