Brain & Behavior

[Michael Scally MD]

Adolphs R. The unsolved problems of neuroscience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S1364-6613(15)00023-6
Some problems in neuroscience are nearly solved. For others, solutions are decades away. The current pace of advances in methods forces us to take stock, to ask where we are going, and what we should research next.

Problems that are solved, or soon will be:
I. How do single neurons compute?
II. What is the connectome of a small nervous system, like that of Caenorhabitis elegans (300 neurons)?
III. How can we image a live brain of 100,000 neurons at cellular and millisecond resolution?
IV. How does sensory transduction work?

Problems that we should be able to solve in the next 50 years:
V. How do circuits of neurons compute?
VI. What is the complete connectome of the mouse brain (70,000,000 neurons)?
VII. How can we image a live mouse brain at cellular and millisecond resolution?
VIII. What causes psychiatric and neurological illness?
IX. How do learning and memory work?
X. Why do we sleep and dream?
XI. How do we make decisions?
XII. How does the brain represent abstract ideas?

Problems that we should be able to solve, but who knows when:
XIII. How does the mouse brain compute?
XIV. What is the complete connectome of the human brain (80,000,000,000 neurons)?
XV. How can we image a live human brain at cellular and millisecond resolution?
XVI. How could we cure psychiatric and neurological diseases?
XVII. How could we make everybody’s brain function best?

Problems we may never solve:
XVIII. How does the human brain compute?
XIX. How can cognition be so flexible and generative?
XX. How and why does conscious experience arise?

Meta-questions:
XXI. What counts as an explanation of how the brain works? (and which disciplines would be needed to provide it?)
XXII. How could we build a brain? (how do evolution and development do it?)
XXIII. What are the different ways of understanding the brain? (what is function, algorithm, implementation?)

 

[Michael Scally MD]

We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793

David Dunning Oct 27, 2014

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.


Ehrlinger J, Johnson K, Banner M, Dunning D, Kruger J. Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 2008;105(1):98-121. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702783/

People are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.


Kruger J, Dunning D. Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999;77(6):1121-34. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1999-15054-002

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.


Staub S, Kaynak R. Is an Unskilled Really Unaware of it? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2014;150(0):899-907. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814051489

Two psychologists, Justin KRUGER from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and David DUNNING from Cornell University, published their study named “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” in 1999 (Kruger & Dunning). The summary of their work concludes that “…incompetent individuals have more difficulty recognizing their true level of ability than do more competent individuals and that a lack of metacognitive skills may underlie this deficiency” (Kruger & Dunning, 1999.pg. 31). Many studies which have followed Kruger and Dunning, including their own follow-up studies, have looked at students'self-assessment toward their own tests or learning abilities. A few studies have adopted this study to different fields such as consumer product choice (Burson, 2004) and economic agents and decision errors (Ferraro, 2010). Although the educational perspective was explored in the original study, the leadership in an educational setting was not investigated. The current study focuses on a review of relevant literature regarding Kruger and Dunning's work, in addition to applying their theory via a case study of a specific leadership position in an institution of higher education.

 

[kawilt]

We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793

David Dunning Oct 27, 2014

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.


Ehrlinger J, Johnson K, Banner M, Dunning D, Kruger J. Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 2008;105(1):98-121. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702783/

People are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.


Kruger J, Dunning D. Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999;77(6):1121-34. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1999-15054-002

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.


Staub S, Kaynak R. Is an Unskilled Really Unaware of it? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2014;150(0):899-907. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814051489

Two psychologists, Justin KRUGER from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and David DUNNING from Cornell University, published their study named “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” in 1999 (Kruger & Dunning). The summary of their work concludes that “…incompetent individuals have more difficulty recognizing their true level of ability than do more competent individuals and that a lack of metacognitive skills may underlie this deficiency” (Kruger & Dunning, 1999.pg. 31). Many studies which have followed Kruger and Dunning, including their own follow-up studies, have looked at students'self-assessment toward their own tests or learning abilities. A few studies have adopted this study to different fields such as consumer product choice (Burson, 2004) and economic agents and decision errors (Ferraro, 2010). Although the educational perspective was explored in the original study, the leadership in an educational setting was not investigated. The current study focuses on a review of relevant literature regarding Kruger and Dunning's work, in addition to applying their theory via a case study of a specific leadership position in an institution of higher education.

A lot of this reminds me of military brass

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Consciousness -- the internal dialogue that seems to govern one's thoughts and actions -- is far less powerful than people believe, serving as a passive conduit rather than an active force that exerts control.

Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella's "Passive Frame Theory" suggests that the conscious mind is like an interpreter helping speakers of different languages communicate.

"The interpreter presents the information but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared," Morsella said. "Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn't do as much work as you think."

Morsella and his coauthors' groundbreaking theory, published online on June 22 by the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self.

Consciousness, per Morsella's theory, is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Because the human mind experiences its own consciousness as sifting through urges, thoughts, feelings and physical actions, people understand their consciousness to be in control of these myriad impulses. But in reality, Morsella argues, consciousness does the same simple task over and over, giving the impression that it is doing more than it actually is.

"We have long thought consciousness solved problems and had many moving parts, but it's much more basic and static," Morsella said. "This theory is very counterintuitive. It goes against our everyday way of thinking."

According to Morsella's framework, the "free will" that people typically attribute to their conscious mind -- the idea that our consciousness, as a "decider," guides us to a course of action -- does not exist. Instead, consciousness only relays information to control "voluntary" action, or goal-oriented movement involving the skeletal muscle system.

Compare consciousness to the Internet, Morsella suggested. The Internet can be used to buy books, reserve a hotel room and complete thousands of other tasks. Taken at face value, it would seem incredibly powerful. But, in actuality, a person in front of a laptop or clicking away on a smartphone is running the show -- the Internet is just being made to perform the same basic process, without any free will of its own.

The Passive Frame Theory also defies the intuitive belief that one conscious thought leads to another. "One thought doesn't know about the other, they just often have access to and are acting upon the same, unconscious information," Morsella said. "You have one thought and then another, and you think that one thought leads to the next, but this doesn't seem to be the way the process actually works."

The theory, which took Morsella and his team more than 10 years to develop, can be difficult to accept at first, he said.

"The number one reason it's taken so long to reach this conclusion is because people confuse what consciousness is for with what they think they use it for," Morsella said. "Also, most approaches to consciousness focus on perception rather than action."

The theory has major implications for the study of mental disorders, Morsella said. "Why do you have an urge or thought that you shouldn't be having? Because, in a sense, the consciousness system doesn't know that you shouldn't be thinking about something," Morsella said. "An urge generator doesn't know that an urge is irrelevant to other thoughts or ongoing action."

The study of consciousness is complicated, Morsella added, because of the inherent difficulty of applying the conscious mind to study itself.

"For the vast majority of human history, we were hunting and gathering and had more pressing concerns that required rapidly executed voluntary actions," Morsella said. "Consciousness seems to have evolved for these types of actions rather than to understand itself."


Morsella E, Godwin CA, Jantz TK, Krieger SC, Gazzaley A. Homing in on Consciousness in the Nervous System: An Action-Based Synthesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.FirstView 2015;:1-106. http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=9795408&fileId=S0140525X15000643

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system?

The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data.

To this end, we developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally-coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation.

The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, serving the somatic nervous system. Inside this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior.

The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and ‘low level’ than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness.

Passive Frame Theory begins to illuminate
(a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function,
(b) how consciousness achieves this function, and
(c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes.

Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is descriptive (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than normative (construing processes in terms of how they should function).

Passive Frame Theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The Highest Form of Intelligence: Sarcasm Increases Creativity for both Expressers and Recipients

Highlights
· Sarcasm is an instigator of conflict but also a catalyst for creativity.
· General forms of sarcasm promote creativity through abstract thinking for both expressers and recipients.
· Expressing sarcasm to or receiving sarcasm from trusted others increases creativity without elevating conflict.
· We manipulated sarcasm via a simulated conversation task and a recall task.
· We employed three different creativity measures and a well-established measure of abstract thinking.

Huang L, Gino F, Galinsky AD. The highest form of intelligence: Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074959781500076X

Sarcasm is ubiquitous in organizations. Despite its prevalence, we know surprisingly little about the cognitive experiences of sarcastic expressers and recipients or their behavioral implications.

The current research proposes and tests a novel theoretical model in which both the construction and interpretation of sarcasm lead to greater creativity because they activate abstract thinking.

Studies 1 and 2 found that both sarcasm expressers and recipients reported more conflict but also demonstrated enhanced creativity following a simulated sarcastic conversation or after recalling a sarcastic exchange.

Study 3 demonstrated that sarcasm’s effect on creativity for both parties was mediated by abstract thinking and generalizes across different forms of sarcasm.

Finally, Study 4 found that when participants expressed sarcasm toward or received sarcasm from a trusted other, creativity increased but conflict did not.

We discuss sarcasm as a double-edged sword: despite its role in instigating conflict, it can also be a catalyst for creativity.

 

[BBC3]

So some might say we actually create and define it. Or perhaps give it a reason to live... Collective and individual energy. Unknown. One mans view and another's/ Mirrors, stealth, or cloaking device...

You got to wonder if there is a max threshold relative to principle, and it it "Thins" or "compleXicates"...? Is there so much to go around.?

Consciousness -- the internal dialogue that seems to govern one's thoughts and actions -- is far less powerful than people believe, serving as a passive conduit rather than an active force that exerts control.

Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella's "Passive Frame Theory" suggests that the conscious mind is like an interpreter helping speakers of different languages communicate.

"The interpreter presents the information but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared," Morsella said. "Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn't do as much work as you think."

Morsella and his coauthors' groundbreaking theory, published online on June 22 by the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self.

Consciousness, per Morsella's theory, is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Because the human mind experiences its own consciousness as sifting through urges, thoughts, feelings and physical actions, people understand their consciousness to be in control of these myriad impulses. But in reality, Morsella argues, consciousness does the same simple task over and over, giving the impression that it is doing more than it actually is.

"We have long thought consciousness solved problems and had many moving parts, but it's much more basic and static," Morsella said. "This theory is very counterintuitive. It goes against our everyday way of thinking."

According to Morsella's framework, the "free will" that people typically attribute to their conscious mind -- the idea that our consciousness, as a "decider," guides us to a course of action -- does not exist. Instead, consciousness only relays information to control "voluntary" action, or goal-oriented movement involving the skeletal muscle system.

Compare consciousness to the Internet, Morsella suggested. The Internet can be used to buy books, reserve a hotel room and complete thousands of other tasks. Taken at face value, it would seem incredibly powerful. But, in actuality, a person in front of a laptop or clicking away on a smartphone is running the show -- the Internet is just being made to perform the same basic process, without any free will of its own.

The Passive Frame Theory also defies the intuitive belief that one conscious thought leads to another. "One thought doesn't know about the other, they just often have access to and are acting upon the same, unconscious information," Morsella said. "You have one thought and then another, and you think that one thought leads to the next, but this doesn't seem to be the way the process actually works."

The theory, which took Morsella and his team more than 10 years to develop, can be difficult to accept at first, he said.

"The number one reason it's taken so long to reach this conclusion is because people confuse what consciousness is for with what they think they use it for," Morsella said. "Also, most approaches to consciousness focus on perception rather than action."

The theory has major implications for the study of mental disorders, Morsella said. "Why do you have an urge or thought that you shouldn't be having? Because, in a sense, the consciousness system doesn't know that you shouldn't be thinking about something," Morsella said. "An urge generator doesn't know that an urge is irrelevant to other thoughts or ongoing action."

The study of consciousness is complicated, Morsella added, because of the inherent difficulty of applying the conscious mind to study itself.

"For the vast majority of human history, we were hunting and gathering and had more pressing concerns that required rapidly executed voluntary actions," Morsella said. "Consciousness seems to have evolved for these types of actions rather than to understand itself."


Morsella E, Godwin CA, Jantz TK, Krieger SC, Gazzaley A. Homing in on Consciousness in the Nervous System: An Action-Based Synthesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.FirstView 2015;:1-106. http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=9795408&fileId=S0140525X15000643

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system?

The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data.

To this end, we developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally-coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation.

The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, serving the somatic nervous system. Inside this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior.

The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and ‘low level’ than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness.

Passive Frame Theory begins to illuminate
(a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function,
(b) how consciousness achieves this function, and
(c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes.

Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is descriptive (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than normative (construing processes in terms of how they should function).

Passive Frame Theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Atir S, Rosenzweig E, Dunning D. When Knowledge Knows No Bounds: Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge. Psychological Science. http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/When-knowledge-knows-no-bounds.pdf

People overestimate their knowledge, at times claiming knowledge of concepts, events, and people that do not exist and cannot be known, a phenomenon called overclaiming.

What underlies assertions of such impossible knowledge?

We found that people overclaim to the extent that they perceive their personal expertise favorably.

Studies 1a and 1b showed that self-perceived financial knowledge positively predicts claiming knowledge of nonexistent financial concepts, independent of actual knowledge.

Study 2 demonstrated that self-perceived knowledge within specific domains (e.g., biology) is associated specifically with overclaiming within those domains.

In Study 3, warning participants that some of the concepts they saw were fictitious did not reduce the relationship between self-perceived knowledge and overclaiming, which suggests that this relationship is not driven by impression management.

In Study 4, boosting self-perceived expertise in geography prompted assertions of familiarity with nonexistent places, which supports a causal role for self-perceived expertise in claiming impossible knowledge.

 

[BBC3]

Thank you for the REALITY CHECK.. Just wish I never met it...

Although studies 1A and 1B may apply. IFFF... you KNOW or ARE the right "People"...

Who did you say did those ..? Miliken or Boesky...?
Oh, I forgot they died once it was proven you had to sell a bond to PRINT a dollar...

We all choose our own prison...

Atir S, Rosenzweig E, Dunning D. When Knowledge Knows No Bounds: Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge. Psychological Science. http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/When-knowledge-knows-no-bounds.pdf

People overestimate their knowledge, at times claiming knowledge of concepts, events, and people that do not exist and cannot be known, a phenomenon called overclaiming.

What underlies assertions of such impossible knowledge?

We found that people overclaim to the extent that they perceive their personal expertise favorably.

Studies 1a and 1b showed that self-perceived financial knowledge positively predicts claiming knowledge of nonexistent financial concepts, independent of actual knowledge.

Study 2 demonstrated that self-perceived knowledge within specific domains (e.g., biology) is associated specifically with overclaiming within those domains.

In Study 3, warning participants that some of the concepts they saw were fictitious did not reduce the relationship between self-perceived knowledge and overclaiming, which suggests that this relationship is not driven by impression management.

In Study 4, boosting self-perceived expertise in geography prompted assertions of familiarity with nonexistent places, which supports a causal role for self-perceived expertise in claiming impossible knowledge.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[Open Access] Modafinil for Cognitive Neuroenhancement in Healthy Non-Sleep-Deprived Subjects

Battleday RM, Brem AK. Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement in healthy non-sleep-deprived subjects: a systematic review. European Neuropsychopharmacology. http://www.europeanneuropsychopharmacology.com/article/S0924-977X(15)00249-7/fulltext

Modafinil is an FDA-approved eugeroic that directly increases cortical catecholamine levels, indirectly upregulates cerebral serotonin, glutamate, orexin, and histamine levels, and indirectly decreases cerebral gamma-amino-butrytic acid levels.

In addition to its approved use treating excessive somnolence, modafinil is thought to be used widely off-prescription for cognitive enhancement.

However, despite this popularity, there has been little consensus on the extent and nature of the cognitive effects of modafinil in healthy, non-sleep-deprived humans.

This problem is compounded by methodological discrepancies within the literature, and reliance on psychometric tests designed to detect cognitive effects in ill rather than healthy populations.

In order to provide an up-to-date systematic evaluation that addresses these concerns, we searched MEDLINE with the terms “modafinil” and “cognitive”, and reviewed all resultant primary studies in English from January 1990 until December 2014 investigating the cognitive actions of modafinil in healthy non-sleep-deprived humans.

We found that whilst most studies employing basic testing paradigms show that modafinil intake enhances executive function, only half show improvements in attention and learning and memory, and a few even report impairments in divergent creative thinking.

In contrast, when more complex assessments are used, modafinil appears to consistently engender enhancement of attention, executive functions, and learning.

Importantly, we did not observe any preponderances for side effects or mood changes.

Finally, in light of the methodological discrepancies encountered within this literature, we conclude with a series of recommendations on how to optimally detect valid, robust, and consistent effects in healthy populations that should aid future assessment of neuroenhancement.

 

[ergomaniac]

just thought this was interesting.
scientist researching brain disorders create super-clever mice.
sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150814101521.htm
researchers have created unusually intelligent mice by altering a single gene and as a result the mice were also less likely to feel anxiety or recall fear.
the researchers altered a gene in mice to inhibit the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase-4B (PDE4B), which is present in many organs in the vertebrate body, including the brain.
the researchers are now working on drugs that will specifically inhibit PDE4B. these drugs will be tested on animals to see whether any would be suitable for clinical trials in humans.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Pettersson E, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P. Common psychiatric disorders share the same genetic origin: a multivariate sibling study of the Swedish population. Mol Psychiatry. http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/mp2015116a.html

Recent studies have shown that different mental-health problems appear to be partly influenced by the same set of genes, which can be summarized by a general genetic factor. To date, such studies have relied on surveys of community-based samples, which could introduce potential biases.

The goal of this study was to examine whether a general genetic factor would still emerge when based on a different ascertainment method with different biases from previous studies.

We targeted all adults in Sweden (n=3,475,112) using national registers and identified those who had received one or more psychiatric diagnoses after seeking or being forced into mental health care.

In order to examine the genetic versus environmental etiology of the general factor, we examined whether participants’ full- or half-siblings had also received diagnoses.

We focused on eight major psychiatric disorders based on the International Classification of Diseases, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, alcohol use disorder and drug abuse. In addition, we included convictions of violent crimes.

Multivariate analyses demonstrated that a general genetic factor influenced all disorders and convictions of violent crimes, accounting for between 10% (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and 36% (drug abuse) of the variance of the conditions.

Thus, a general genetic factor of psychopathology emerges when based on both surveys as well as national registers, indicating that a set of pleiotropic genes influence a variety of psychiatric disorders.

 

[ergomaniac]

know its a placebo? study shows the 'medicine' could still work.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150724135629.htm

"in short, he discovered that the placebo effect still works even if research participants know the treatment they are receiving to ease pain has no medical value whatsoever."

 

[BBC3]

I suspect there is "brain enhancing research" going on WAAYY OUTSIDE the bounds which we are aware. Take for example the two labs which I have a pic up in the DOGS SECTION. (i am their uncle). But these are the smartest line of labs I have ever seen and I have seen a lifetime of them. They have a different look in their eyes which I have not seen before. These two are brothers and communicate together like nothing I have seen before either. For example, one day one of them picked up a baby turtle. He looked at the other as to say, 'Hey, Check this out..!!", Then he flung the turtle in the air to the other one who caught it with his mouth and almost acknowledged as to say "Cool".. Whats even more intersting is their yellow eyes. Confused me for the longest time. Now realizing, I suspect that someone has "SPUN UP" the American Wolf Gene in them too. Which would have to be a scientific medical based gene alteration, as the dogs would not maintain as much full Lab characteristic if they were just "de-breeded" back over with a wolf/ which is the genetic predecessor to the dog... (not the coyote which most folks don't realize is not a dog or wolf)... These labs also have the flavor of a real wild streak with a hair trigger, yet remain subservient to humans. They learn like children moreso than any lab I have ever seen. and amazingly they are more communicate efficient in that they carry on complete conversations without uttering a sound. And they thought we were top of the line.. LOL

just thought this was interesting.
scientist researching brain disorders create super-clever mice.
sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150814101521.htm
researchers have created unusually intelligent mice by altering a single gene and as a result the mice were also less likely to feel anxiety or recall fear.
the researchers altered a gene in mice to inhibit the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase-4B (PDE4B), which is present in many organs in the vertebrate body, including the brain.
the researchers are now working on drugs that will specifically inhibit PDE4B. these drugs will be tested on animals to see whether any would be suitable for clinical trials in humans.

 

[ergomaniac]

know its a placebo? study shows the 'medicine' could still work.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150724135629.htm

"in short, he discovered that the placebo effect still works even if research participants know the treatment they are receiving to ease pain has no medical value whatsoever."

sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150930140131.htm

"when it comes to treating depression, how well a person responds to fake medicine may determine how well they'll respond to a real one. those who can muster their brains own chemical forces against depression, it appears, have a head start in overcoming its symptoms with help from medication. but those whose brain chemistry doesn't react as much to fake medicine, or placebo, struggle after getting active drug."

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Pennycook G, Cheyne JA, Barr N, Koehler DJ, Fugelsang JA. On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision Making. 2015;10(6):549-63. http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf

Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation.

Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.

We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”).

Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief).

Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements.

These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims.

Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

What Is Stupid?: People's Conception Of Unintelligent Behavior

Highlights
· In a content analysis of stories we found that people use the label ‘stupid’ for three separate categories of actions.
· The level of observed stupidity was dependent on the level of responsibility and the consequences of the action.
· These results bring us closer to understanding the rationalistic norms that people use in monitoring and evaluating behavior.

Aczel B, Palfi B, Kekecs Z. What is stupid?: People's conception of unintelligent behavior. Intelligence 2015;53:51-8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289615001233

This paper argues that studying why and when people call certain actions stupid should be the interest of psychological investigations not just because it is a frequent everyday behavior, but also because it is a robust behavioral reflection of the rationalistic expectations to which people adjust their own behavior and expect others to.

The relationship of intelligence and intelligent behavior has been the topic of recent debates, yet understanding why we call certain actions stupid irrespective of their cognitive abilities requires the understanding of what people mean when they call an action stupid.

To study these questions empirically, we analyzed real-life examples where people called an action stupid.

A collection of such stories was categorized by raters along a list of psychological concepts to explore what the causes are that people attribute to the stupid actions observed.

We found that people use the label stupid for three separate types of situation:
(1) violations of maintaining a balance between confidence and abilities;
(2) failures of attention; and
(3) lack of control.

The level of observed stupidity was always amplified by higher responsibility being attributed to the actor and by the severity of the consequences of the action.

These results bring us closer to understanding people's conception of unintelligent behavior while emphasizing the broader psychological perspectives of studying the attribute of stupid in everyday life.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The truth about dishonesty



According to Dan Ariely, an expert on human motivation and behaviour, rationalisation makes it very easy to be dishonest without feeling like you’re doing anything terrible.

Moreover, good people doing good work who cheat a little bit do more harm than big cheaters.

But, it turns out, reminders about moral codes, even when they’re not your own, result in less cheating, as does the chance to open a new page, such as through confessing or asking forgiveness.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Sex Beyond The Genitalia: The Human Brain Mosaic

Sex/gender differences in the brain are of high social interest because their presence is typically assumed to prove that humans belong to two distinct categories not only in terms of their genitalia, and thus justify differential treatment of males and females.

Here we show that, although there are sex/gender differences in brain and behavior, humans and human brains are comprised of unique “mosaics” of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males.

Our results demonstrate that regardless of the cause of observed sex/gender differences in brain and behavior (nature or nurture), human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain.

Joel D, Berman Z, Tavor I, et al. Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/24/1509654112.abstract

Whereas a categorical difference in the genitals has always been acknowledged, the question of how far these categories extend into human biology is still not resolved.

Documented sex/gender differences in the brain are often taken as support of a sexually dimorphic view of human brains (“female brain” or “male brain”).

However, such a distinction would be possible only if sex/gender differences in brain features were highly dimorphic (i.e., little overlap between the forms of these features in males and females) and internally consistent (i.e., a brain has only “male” or only “female” features).

Here, analysis of MRIs of more than 1,400 human brains from four datasets reveals extensive overlap between the distributions of females and males for all gray matter, white matter, and connections assessed.

Moreover, analyses of internal consistency reveal that brains with features that are consistently at one end of the “maleness-femaleness” continuum are rare.

Rather, most brains are comprised of unique “mosaics” of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males. Our findings are robust across sample, age, type of MRI, and method of analysis.

These findings are corroborated by a similar analysis of personality traits, attitudes, interests, and behaviors of more than 5,500 individuals, which reveals that internal consistency is extremely rare.

Our study demonstrates that, although there are sex/gender differences in the brain, human brains do not belong to one of two distinct categories: male brain/female brain.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Free Will Is Dead, Let’s Bury It.
Backreaction: Free will is dead, let’s bury it.

by Sabine Hossenfelder - NORDITA

I wish people would stop insisting they have free will. It’s terribly annoying. Insisting that free will exists is bad science, like insisting that horoscopes tell you something about the future – it’s not compatible with our knowledge about nature.

According to our best present understanding of the fundamental laws of nature, everything that happens in our universe is due to only four different forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear force. These forces have been extremely well studied, and they don’t leave any room for free will.

There are only two types of fundamental laws that appear in contemporary theories. One type is deterministic, which means that the past entirely predicts the future. There is no free will in such a fundamental law because there is no freedom. The other type of law we know appears in quantum mechanics and has an indeterministic component which is random. This randomness cannot be influenced by anything, and in particular it cannot be influenced by you, whatever you think “you” are. There is no free will in such a fundamental law because there is no “will” – there is just some randomness sprinkled over the determinism.

In neither case do you have free will in any meaningful way.

These are the only two options, and all other elaborations on the matter are just verbose distractions. It doesn’t matter if you start talking about chaos (which is deterministic), top-down causation (which doesn’t exist), or insist that we don’t know how consciousness really works (true but irrelevant). It doesn’t change a thing about this very basic observation: there isn’t any known law of nature that lets you meaningfully speak of “free will”.

If you don’t want to believe that, I challenge you to write down any equation for any system that allows for something one could reasonably call free will. You will almost certainly fail. The only thing really you can do to hold on to free will is to wave hands, yell “magic”, and insist that there are systems which are exempt from the laws of nature. And these systems somehow have something to do with human brains.

The only known example for a law that is neither deterministic nor random comes from myself. But it’s a baroque construct meant as proof in principle, not a realistic model that I would know how to combine with the four fundamental interactions. As an aside: The paper was rejected by several journals. Not because anyone found anything wrong with it. No, the philosophy journals complained that it was too much physics, and the physics journals complained that it was too much philosophy. And you wonder why there isn’t much interaction between the two fields.

After plain denial, the somewhat more enlightened way to insist on free will is to redefine what it means. You might settle for example on speaking of free will as long as your actions cannot be predicted by anybody, possibly not even by yourself. Clearly, it is presently impossible to make such a prediction. It remains to be seen whether it will remain impossible, but right now it’s a reasonable hope. If that’s what you want to call free will, go ahead, but better not ask yourself what determined your actions.

A popular justification for this type of free will is insisting that on comparably large scales, like those between molecules responsible for chemical interactions in your brain, there are smaller components which may have a remaining influence. If you don’t keep track of these smaller components, the behavior of the larger components might not be predictable. You can then say “free will is emergent” because of “higher level indeterminism”. It’s like saying if I give you a robot and I don’t tell you what’s in the robot, then you can’t predict what the robot will do, consequently it must have free will. I haven’t managed to bring up sufficient amounts of intellectual dishonesty to buy this argument.

But really you don’t have to bother with the details of these arguments, you just have to keep in mind that “indeterminism” doesn’t mean “free will”. Indeterminism just means there’s some element of randomness, either because that’s fundamental or because you have willfully ignored information on short distances. But there is still either no “freedom” or no “will”. Just try it. Try to write down one equation that does it. Just try it.

I have written about this a few times before and according to the statistics these are some of the most-read pieces on my blog. Following these posts, I have also received a lot of emails by readers who seem seriously troubled by the claim that our best present knowledge about the laws of nature doesn’t allow for the existence of free will. To ease your existential worries, let me therefore spell out clearly what this means and doesn’t mean.

It doesn’t mean that you are not making decisions or are not making choices. Free will or not, you have to do the thinking to arrive at a conclusion, the answer to which you previously didn’t know. Absence of free will doesn’t mean either that you are somehow forced to do something you didn’t want to do. There isn’t anything external imposing on you. You are whatever makes the decisions. Besides this, if you don’t have free will you’ve never had it, and if this hasn’t bothered you before, why start worrying now?

This conclusion that free will doesn’t exist is so obvious that I can’t help but wonder why it isn’t widely accepted. The reason, I am afraid, is not scientific but political. Denying free will is considered politically incorrect because of a wide-spread myth that free will skepticism erodes the foundation of human civilization.

...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Many studies have shown that movements are preceded by early brain signals. There has been a debate as to whether subjects can still cancel a movement after onset of these early signals. We tested whether subjects can win a “duel” against a brain–computer interface designed to predict their movements in real time from observations of their EEG activity. Our findings suggest that subjects can exert a “veto” even after onset of this preparatory process. However, the veto has to occur before a point of no return is reached after which participants cannot avoid moving.

Schultze-Kraft M, Birman D, Rusconi M, et al. The point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements

In humans, spontaneous movements are often preceded by early brain signals. One such signal is the readiness potential (RP) that gradually arises within the last second preceding a movement. An important question is whether people are able to cancel movements after the elicitation of such RPs, and if so until which point in time. Here, subjects played a game where they tried to press a button to earn points in a challenge with a brain-computer interface (BCI) that had been trained to detect their RPs in real time and to emit stop signals. Our data suggest that subjects can still veto a movement even after the onset of the RP. Cancellation of movements was possible if stop signals occurred earlier than 200 ms before movement onset, thus constituting a point of no return.