Superstition may be good for you

Rome Braves by The Suss-Man (Mike)

by  105 student

To the detached observer, athletes may seem like a strange group of people, performing irrational routines in preparation for an event. Perhaps you have heard that Michael Jordan wore blue University of North Carolina shorts under his Bull’s uniform for good luck or that National Hockey League goaltender, Patrick Roy, was said to have talked to the goalposts throughout games, or noticed that Tiger Woods always wears red on Sundays. If you have ever played a sport, you or your team may have had certain rituals such as wearing purple socks on game days or eating waffles at the previous meal.

Superstition is generally first developed in hindsight, for example: an athlete reviews a performance and then establishes cause and effect between certain circumstances such as wearing green socks and playing well. In 1948, B.F. Skinner studied superstitious behavior in pigeons. After a pigeon was reduced to 75 percent of its weight (when well fed), a food hopper was presented at regular intervals into the pigeon’s cage. In the majority of cases, the birds started to perform distinct behaviors such as turning counter clockwise or swinging the head and body in a pendulum motion close to the time the food was presented. Even though there was no actual causal relationship, the birds continued to perform certain behaviors presumably because of an initial coincidence. By definition, superstitious actions do not have any inherent value yet many athletes still refuse to change their behavior. Are they wrong or simply stubborn by acting this way? Many studies indicate the opposite, superstitious behavior does serve a purpose.

Chance plays a part in the outcome of virtually all sports, creating a relatively uncertain environment. Optimal athletic performance demands a heightened mental state known as the flow state or being in the zone,essentially a good match between the demands of the sport and the abilities of the athlete (Marr, 2001). A survey of male and female athletes at the University of Western Ontario indicated that athletes use superstitions to regulate their emotions in stressful situations such as sporting events. Though superstitious behavior may have no rational foundation, athletes believe they have a greater sense of control over the outcome of the situation, helping them to reach an optimal mental state (Burke, 2006).

Regardless of an athlete’s specific rituals, superstitions may serve an important role in athletic performance. Remember this the next time you hear about an athlete’s strange pregame routine.

References

Burke, Kevin L. (2006). An Exploratory Investigation of Superstition, Personal Control, Optimism and Pessimism in NCAA Division I Intercollegiate Student-Athletes.  Athletic Insight, 8(2). Retrieved April 21, 2010 from http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol8Iss2/Superstition.htm

Gregory, Jane C. and Brain M. Petrie. (1972).  Superstition in Sport.  University of  Waterloo.  Presented at the Fourth Canadian Psychomotor Learning and Sports Psychology Symposium. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/34/0f/45.pdf

Marr, Arthur J. (2001). In the Zone: A Biobehavioral Theory of the Flow Experience.  Athletic Insight, 3(1). Retrieved from http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol3Iss1/Commentary.htm

Skinner, B.F. (1947). Superstition in the Pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, pgs. 168-172. Retrieved March 5, 2010 from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/

Skinner/Pigeon/

TV for Babies?

by Nicole Bronson

Wathing TV by roxeteer

Did you ever watch Barney or Sesame Street growing up?   Nowadays, in addition to Barney and Sesame Street, there are even more TV shows aimed at kids, ranging from a sponge that lives under the sea to a little Spanish-speaking girl who explores with her monkey friend!  There is even an entire TV channel, BabyFirst , which is devoted to TV programs for babies.  Technology, TV especially, seems to be more frequently targeting young kids as well as babies (Christakis & Zimmerman, 2009).  And despite warnings  that early TV exposure should not occur in children under 2 years of age, many parents still allow their children to watch TV younger than this age.  My best friend claims her 2 and 3-year old niece and nephew first started watching TV as soon as they were born! What parents may not know is that by allowing their children to watch TV at very young ages, they may be negatively impacting their children’s future cognitive performance and brains.

A  study conducted at Wake Forest University (2007)  investigated whether or not watching teletubbies teaches 15-24 month-old children new words.  The lead researcher, Marina Krcmar, compared 15-24 month-old children’s abilities to learn new words from teletubbies to their abilities to learn new words from a present adult speaker.  Interestingly, children were much better learning words from responsive adults than from the television program.  Thus, it seems learning new words at very young ages entails interaction with present, human teachers.  Children under the age of 2 may not be reaching their full cognitive and language potential learning from a TV, instead of an adult.

Also acknowledging the importance of determining the relationship between television children’s learning abilities,  the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released a new policy statement  about technology use by children younger than two.  The new statement was created in lieu of technological advancements and new research that has been conducted since the original policy statement was released in 1999.  The original policy statement discouraged media exposure for children under the age of 2.  Meanwhile, the new policy statement also discourages media exposure for this age group, while additionally providing more scientifically backed reasons for why media exposure should be avoided.  Similar to the Wake Forest University study, this new policy claims children under 2 cannot comprehend what they are watching, and therefore do not get much educational benefit from it.  Additionally, media exposure may exert negative health effects on children under age 2, just as it has been shown to do in preschool and elementary school children.  These negative health effects may include increased aggression, attentional problems, sleep troubles and obesity.  Even simply having the TV on in the background may have negative effects on children under age 2.  Focusing on the TV rather than their child, parents may inadvertently take away from the quality of parent-child interactions.  This long list of potential adverse effects due to early media exposure was sufficient enough for the AAP to reaffirm the claim they made in 1999 and continue to discourage media use by children less than 2 years of age.

With an increasing number of children under the age of 2 watching television, it’s important to understand if television does actually induce detrimental effects and if so, how exactly it exerts these effects.  Adverse effects may be influenced by television’s impact on brain development that is occurring very rapidly in children at an early age (Siegler, DeLoache & Eisenberg, 2011).  Although babies’ are born with the majority of neurons they will have for the rest of their lives, many changes occur within and between their neurons, especially early in life.  One such change that takes place is called arborization, where neurons’ dendrites grow and differentiate.  It literally looks like a tree! The development does not end there, however, as neurons then begin to form connections with thousands of other neurons in what is called synaptogenesis.  So many connections are made, however, that some must be pruned.  This synaptic pruning—loss of neuronal connections—occurs in about 40% of the synapses and is mediated by a “use it or lose it” phenomenon.  Basically experience is key in determining which synapses are used and therefore kept and which synapses are not used and therefore pruned.  Sensory experiences babies encounter early on in life are extremely important then for signaling, which neurons are appropriate to maintain and which are appropriate to prune.  The major concern with TV exposure for babies is that it takes away from critical sensory experiences they would have had if not watching TV.  As most TV watching is a passive experience, children are not being exposed to different types of stimuli—olfactory, tactile, gustatory—they may be exposed to if not watching TV.  A member of the AAP Council on Communication and Media, Dr. Brown, recommends that babies, instead of watching television, engage in unstructured play.  Unstructured play is important for motor development, problem solving and creative thinking and thus contributes greatly to sensory experiences.  Furthermore, with less TV distractions, parents and children may be able to interact more, potentially leading to better language development in the child.  Physical interactions are key for sensory development and cannot be sufficiently replaced by a video.

Doodle your way to better memory

by Daniele Selby

Doodle and photograph by itselea

How often do you daydream in class? Or when your mother lectures you, or when your friend tells you minute by minute what happened in the their day. Chances are you remember very little of what was said in those encounters. The same goes for studying while watching the television – sometimes it makes it harder to remember what you read. Generally, multitasking while trying to acquire new knowledge has a negative effect. Multitasking while learning can interfere with the recollection of the knowledge later (Schaffhausen, 2006). Yet interestingly, a new study has found some evidence that a specific kind of multitasking, doodling to be exact, can help memory recall.

At Plymouth University researchers performed memory tests on 40 volunteers. During these tests the subjects were asked to listen to a phone call and recall the names and places mentioned during the call afterwards. The call lasted two and minutes. Half of the volunteers were asked to doodle by coloring in shapes on a piece of paper, during the phone call. The subjects were not required to do so neatly, or with any amount of detail and attention. The other half were allowed to do as they pleased during the call. All the subjects were warned that the content of the phone call would be rather un-stimulating, and none were told this was a test of memory. Following the phone call the subjects were asked to explicitly name eight places and eight names mentioned during the call. On average, those who doodled recalled 7.5 of the required pieces of data while those who did not doodle only recalled 5.8.

It is believed that those who doodled were better able to recall the contents of the phone call because they stayed engaged during the call, rather than daydreaming or allowing their minds to wander. While doodling is a form of multitasking and might sound distracting, the level of attention and engagement which takes place while doodling – not drawing – is significantly less than that which takes place when day dreaming. People are more detached from their doodles than they are involved in their daydreams.

When testing memory and/or attention, second tasks are often used to block a particular mental process. If that process is essential to the performance of the main cognitive task at hand, then the performance of the task will be affected. The performance of the task is likely to be impaired if the second task interferes with the mental process. But this does not seem to be the case with doodling. Perhaps the reason we are inclined to doodle in the first place is that it helps us recall things we learn. There is no certain conclusion yet as to why doodling seems to help recall, but maybe this is evidence enough for all of us students to start scribbling.

References

Maron, D. F. (2009, February 26) Doodle Zone. Newsweek. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://www.newsweek.com/id/186738

Schaffhausen, J.  (2006, July 25) Multitasking May Harm Memory. ABC News. Retrieved March 4, 2010 from, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2230735

Wiley-Blackwell (2009, March 5). Do Doodle: Doodling Can Help Memory Recall. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 4, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/02/090226210039.htm

The wonders of dreaming

By Nick Johnson

Sleeping EEG Monitor by cobalt123

Why do we dream? Is it necessary to dream? Dreaming occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, during which the brain does not recognize any sensory input. One experiment concerning dreams studied REM sleep and how subjects reacted when they were awoken during REM sleep. (Dement, 1960). To establish a baseline percentage of REM sleep per total sleep time, the subjects were observed for a few nights. When they were woken up during non-REM sleep they showed no increase in dream time on the nights after the night when they were woken up continually. However, when the subjects were woken up frequently during REM sleep, they entered REM sleep more often on the recovery nights than on the baseline nights, indicating that the brain needed to make up for lost REM sleep time. Furthermore, subjects that had been woken up repeatedly during REM sleep showed changes in behavior that included anxiety and difficulty concentrating.

A similar experiment involved waking rats up during REM sleep. The observers placed a rat in a bucket full of water on an upside-down flower pot. When the rat wanted to sleep, it had to climb onto the flower pot, but when it entered REM sleep, muscular paralysis made the rat fall into the water and wake up. After several of these dreamless nights the rats were put into survival situations to test their reactions. Though rats have innate responses to threatening situations, the dream-deprived rats could not complete the tasks. According to the article, the rats, when placed in an open area, would not dash for cover, as an alert rat would, but instead would roam aimlessly. Furthermore, after each rat failed the basic survival tests, they were given amphetamines to determine if it was merely sleep-deprivation that was causing their behavior or if it was dream-deprivation that was the culprit. If sleep-deprivation was the cause then the amphetamines would have counteracted the rats’ tiredness but the experimenters found that the rats did not perform better on the survival tests, indicating that dream-deprivation caused their failure on the tests. Just as with the human subjects, the rats could not concentrate on the proper tasks and could not react correctly when they were deprived of REM sleep and therefore deprived of dreaming.  Consistent with the results of this study, some  scientists theorize that dreams served as a sort of theater to prepare one for situations one might encounter when awake.

Another hypothesis (Siegel, 2003) is that REM sleep may be necessary to prevent an overabundance of certain neurotransmitters. The release of monoamines, including the mood-related neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin, stops during REM sleep.  An overabundance might lead to desensitization and a lack of ability to regulate mood. Furthermore, during REM sleep there is a lot of brain activity that may help in allowing the brain to develop properly.  The platypus, which is blind at birth and receives little sensory input, has a lot of REM sleep, whereas the dolphin which is active from birth has very little. The platypus’ greater amount of REM sleep could possibly allow its brain to develop more since it did not have the chance to develop much at birth. The evidence from the results from both the experiments and observations shows the brain needs a certain amount of REM sleep per night to allow the brain to develop and to allow the organism to act properly in its waking hours.

References:
Dement, W. (1960, June 10). The Effect of Dream Deprivation. Science, 131, 1705-1707. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1705755?origin=JSTOR-pdf

Dixit, J. (2007, Nov. – Dec.). Dreams: Night School. Psychology Today. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20071029-000003&print=1

Siegel, J. (2003, November). Why We Sleep. Scientific American, 289. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://moodlepilot.vassar.edu/file.php/51/articles/html_files/Siegel%202003.html

Why do we dream? – The REM state. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.why-we-dream.com/remstate.htm

Students seriously suffering from sleep shortfall

By Michelle Duong

Fell Asleep in Class Again by Fenchurch

Have you felt tired lately? Cramming your papers and tests in the last minute with infinite amount of caffeine and deprive your body of sleep? The changing millennium has caused new problems to arise in our community.  Sleep deprivation is increasing among students and is one of the most significant concerns in society. A poll that was taken by the National Sleep Foundation showed that the average sleep time of students was 7 hours in 2001 and in 2009 the average was 6.7 hours; this is a 4 % decrease in eight years. There have been cases that showed students with less sleep performed more poorly in school than students who received an adequate amount of sleep (Carpenter, 2001). The amount of sleep per night causes fluctuations in alertness, especially in students’ behavior in the school setting throughout the day.  The US Centers for Disease Control recommends that adolescents should receive approximately nine hours of sleep each night to function optimally (CDC, 2008). Similarly, sleep deprivation in adulthood can lead to many motor vehicle accidents and alter behaviors (NIH, 2008).

When our body is deprived of sleep, the immune system’s ability to defend against antigens decreases. Eve van Cauter performed a study at the University of Chicago, where subjects were deprived of sleep and were exposed to a strand of the flu virus.  The blood tests of the sleep-deprived subjects indicated a significant difference in the number of produced antibodies compared to the control group who received adequate amounts of sleep. The statistics gathered from the study indicated that the sleep-deprived group produced 50% fewer antibodies than the control group. Sleep is also an important  time for our bodies to regenerate especially in the neural regions, and it help us to processes information and events that happened throughout the day (Myers, 2007).

Should school be rewarding?

by Alex Middeleer

We’ve learned in class that animals like rats can be conditioned to perform behaviors if those behaviors are accompanied by a suitable reward schedule.  Can that lesson be applied to high school teenagers?   How do prizes affect school performance?  Some big public schools have recently introduced money as an incentive for students to work harder and produce better statistics.  But academic work is no simple behavior, and humans are complex creatures to reward.  It turns out that blindly throwing rewards at students for doing well can have some serious negative effects.

In New York City and Dallas, Texas, the money plan has been implemented and seems to be working.  Kids are receiving big payments for doing well in school or acing their AP tests. As a result, more students are taking the APs, and more are passing. It’s even rumored that the most successful might be getting thousands of dollars (Guernsey 2009).

But how will those receiving money for their studies perform down the road?  Is this simple reward system doing any good besides increasing the number of AP tests that are passed? Will these kids stop studying as hard once the rewards go away?  It’s not clear whether the programs are completely beneficial.
Psychologists have been analyzing the issue for a while now, and report that there are indeed different types of motivation which affect our desire to work hard.  Extrinsic motivators, like candy or cash, are those simple rewards that encourage us to do something we may or may not want to do.  On the other hand, intrinsic motivation, like the ambition to become a great baseball star, is self-produced (Meyers 2007).

Anxiety and Learning

By Cait Burhans

Photo by rileyroxx

Have you ever gone into a test feeling completely worry-free, only to come out feeling you may have underperformed? In fact, having a moderate level of short term anxiety as you enter a situation may actually improve performance in that situation (Myers 551). A study by graduate student Gregory Samanez-Larkin out of Stanford University isolated one part of the brain involved in anxiety reactions. Researchers found that the anterior insula region of the brain lit up when scanning the brains of a group of people who were pre-screened to be free of anxiety disorders as they anticipated losing money. Higher levels of anxiety were correlated with higher levels of activity in this region. When the same group of people participated in a computer game for real money, the more anxious people tended to learn the game better and lose less money than their less anxious counterparts.

Although more anxious people who fall within the normal range of anxiety may be higher performing than their peers, there can be some extremely negative consequences to a significantly raised level of stress, even in the absence of an anxiety disorder. A study run by Jeansok Kim and Lauren Jones of the University of Washington took three groups of rats and allowed all three groups to learn a figure 8 maze with two possible loops over the course of several days, until they could complete 40 trials of either loop in less than 30 minutes. There was an 80% chance that the rats would find a reward of .04 ml of water at the end of either loop of the maze each trial. Then two of the groups were restrained and exposed to an unpredictable series of shocks for an hour, while the control group was left alone. One of the two shock groups was given a shot of muscimol, a drug that temporarily deactivated their amygdala (an area of the brain that processes information about fear, stress, and rewards). All groups were then returned to the maze and the amount of reward was increased to .12 ml of water in one loop. The control group and the shock plus amygdala inactivation group performed the same, completing the maze in the correct loop 35 out of 40 trials after 3 days, while the shock group only correctly completed 23 out of 40 trials, and given several more days only slightly improved their performance to 26 out of 40 trials. A single stressful episode impaired the learning of the shock group for many days.

In light of this research and the approach of finals week, I am hoping that my level of anxiety remains present but manageable and that no unforeseen stressful event disrupts my learning or performance.

References

Myers, D. G. (2007). Psychology (8th ed., in modules).  New York: Worth.

National Institute of Mental Health “Anxiety Disorders” Retrieved December 14, 2008, from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

Flora, C. (2008, April 25). The Perfect Level of Stress. Psychology Today. Retrieved December 14, 2008, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20080425-000001.html

University of Washington (2008, November 21). Stress Hinders Rats’ Decision-making Abilities. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 14, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2008/11/081118150635.htm

Frequently facing forboding fears

by Brittany Parks

Photo by Jim Grady

Do you have a worst fear? Are you afraid of falling from high places, for example? What if someone told you that you could learn to overcome your worst fear? Well, science supports the idea that you can. One way to combat your biggest fear is to face it.

A UCLA study shows that the more frequently one faces a fearful situation, the sooner they can learn to overcome it. The researchers exposed mice to a white noise that was followed by a shock; therefore, the white noise became the “conditioned stimulus” that the mice learned to fear on its own because they learned to anticipate the pain of the shock. By exposing the rats to the white noise, without the shock, for long periods of time and little time between each exposure, the rats learned to overcome the fear of the white noise all together. Thus, proving that the more you face your fear the sooner you will learn to overcome it.

Learning to overcome your fear can also produce other benefits. By learning to overcome fear in one situation, you will have less anxiety when put any other dangerous situations. Researchers Kendal and Pollak also studied mice to support the theory of “learned safety,” the conditioned inhibition of fear. In their studies, the scientists conditioned two groups of rats. The first was the “fear conditioned” group which received a shock every time they heard a certain tone. The second was the “safety conditioned” group who did not receive a shock every time they heard the tone; thus, they learned not to fear the tone. When each group was placed in a pool of water with no escape, the “safety conditioned” group experienced less anxiety when facing the fearful situation. Learning to feel safety in a situation that may have seemed harmful can lead one to feel less stress when facing other experiences that may cause one to normally experience the feeling of fright.

Although each of these studies observes the fear patterns of mice, not humans, and although mice face different fear filled experiences than humans, mice react to fear filled situations in a similar manner as humans. This is because the brains of mice and humans both contain the same memory functions that can aid in “conditioning” of a fear to remember the fear or, in this case, to get rid of it.  So, are you afraid of falling from high places? I advise a trip to the nearest them park for a thrill packed experience on the tallest Ferris wheel, and I advise you to ride it as many times as you can. And after triumphing over your fear of heights, why not head over to the clowns. I’m sure this fear will not seem so bad after all after scaling a hundred feet in a little fenced basket.

References

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2008, October 9). Learning How Not To Be Afraid. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 9, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008150445.htm

American Psychological Association (2003, October 6). Scientist Find More Efficient Way To ‘Unlearn’ Fear. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 10, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031006064929.htm

Studying, sleeping, and synapses

by 105 student

Do you often pull all-nighters? Well, a study conducted by Dr. Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin found that the lack of sleep associated with pulling all-nighters may actually do more harm than good in terms of learning. When you’re awake, the overall strength of the synapses increases due to stimuli such as learning, and in large part due to the brain’s plasticity. Like all good things, this strengthening can’t continue without energy which is limited. This is where sleep comes in. Dr. Tononi and his researchers hypothesized that while sleeping, the strength of the synapses weakens so that it can restore the brain for another day which means providing more energy and space for learning. Experiments with rats supported their findings when they found that the rats had stronger synapses after periods of wakefulness than after sleep.

What’s interesting about this finding is that it conflicts with the previous notion that brain synapses that are activated during wakefulness become reactivated during sleep, which consolidates learning by making these synapses stronger. A 2004 study found that learning was consolidated during sleep by examining sleeping volunteers and analyzing their brains after they learned to navigate through a virtual town .
So, although those all-night cram sessions may help you in the short run, they are most likely going to end up preventing you from learning new interesting things.

Prisoner’s Dilemma and Behavioral Learning

by Connor O’neill

The police arrest two suspects, you and your accomplice. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of you to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If you both stay silent, you both are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: how would you act?