With the recent announcement of Jerry Berger’s (2009) soon-to-be-published (but available to download here) Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey I will be writing a series of articles considering the theories, methods and repercussions of both Berger’s 2009 research and the original that started this journey over 50-years-ago.

• Part I: Ethics
• Part II: Was it really a replication?
• Part III: What does this mean?
• Part IV: All evil starts with 15 volts?

Milgram’s experiment is infamous in the world of Psychology with every student who has ever taken any intro-to-psychology class being able to recant the horrific stories of participants willing to administer shocks of 450 volts to someone whom they believed was just another participant. Even when they heard protests coming from the ‘learner’ they continued just because of the encouragement of a perceived authority figure.

Back in July I wrote a post that considered the question: would I pull that switch? Now we have a replication of the original Milgram research that tries to answer exactly that question; and the answer seems to be: yes – we are just as willing to pull that switch today as participants were over 50 years ago!

Obedience rates in the 2006 replication were only slightly lower than those Milgram found 45 years earlier. Contrary to expectation, participants who saw a confederate refuse the experimenter’s instructions obeyed as often as those who saw no such model. Men and women did not differ in their rates of obedience, but there was some evidence that individual differences in empathic concern and desire for control affected participants’ responses. Burger, 2009 (in press).

One of the reasons that more replications of Milgram’s research haven’t been conducted are the emmense ethical considerations that must be taken into account; especially with todays current standards of ethical treatment of participants. Berger (2009) justified his replication by taking several additional steps to ensure the welfare of his participants:

1. A two-step screening process which was designed to ‘filter out’ any participants who may ‘react negatively’ to the experiment;
2. Participants were told at least three times (twice in writing) that they could withdraw at any time;
3. Only a 15 volt ‘test shock’ was administered to the participants (which is thought to be ‘very mild’);
4. There was very little time between the end of the experiment and the debriefing of the participants (whereas Milgram did like to tease and question the participants in his study prior to the ‘ta-da’ moment of truth);
5. Finally, the research who ran the experiment was a clinical Psychologist who was instructed to end the experiment at any sign of ‘excessive stress’.

Is this enough though? Anyone who has seen video of the original Milgram experiment will testify that the participants there were very-much distressed about the entire event and do the benefits to science actually outweigh conducting this experiment again? Berger does consider this though with a compelling argument in his discussion:

Milgram’s obedience studies have maintained a place in psychology classes and textbooks largely because of their implications for understanding the worst of human behaviors, such as atrocities, massacres, and genocide. Indeed, Milgram frequently drew inferences from his studies to account for the behavior of people who went along with the Holocaust. Although one must be cautious when making the leap from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such as genocide, understanding the social psychological factors that contribute to people acting in unexpected and unsettling ways is important. Berger, 2009, p10.

Is it important that we conduct research like this? Do these pieces of research really forward our understanding of human behaviour? I’ve been following the commentry of this research in the ‘blog-sphere’ and on many psychological e-lists and opinion is still divided.

If nothing else it makes us ask that question of ourselves once again: would I pull that switch?

Tags: AS, core studies, Milgram, obedience, Research, Social

Could it soon really be possible to look inside the brain in ‘real time’. Over the last three decades we have made leaps-and-bounds in developing non-invasive processes to scan brains; PET, MRI, fMRI etc. These scanning techniques have allowed psychologists an insight into the processes of the brain during specific tasks or just to investigate the size, location and use of particular brain structures, but the time needed to process the vast amount of information that is collected has meant that there’s no ‘real time’ option of seeing exactly what is happening, there-and then.

However, neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demonstrates a new way to use fMRI to show brain activity – thoughts, emotions, pain – while it is happening. In other words, you can actually see how you feel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is it possible that in the future we may be able to ‘control’ how we feel; the pain that we perceive. It seems that it through a similar process used by biofeedback techniques today could be employed using these new brain scanning techniques.

In my mind this is an incredible advancement in this technology. Not only can we see into the brain but we don’t have to wait for computers to process the data – we can see it real time. If we can get feedback on our mental process then we can perhaps learn to control our brain on a whole new level. For example, perhaps it is possible to learn to suppress pain altogether on command?

What are your thoughts?

Tags: brain scanning, pain, pain measurement, Physiological, Research

Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers.

In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories.

This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers. Rather, their answers tended to concentrate on the utterance in isolation. This replicates Happé’s result. Although the majority of both clinical groups provided context-inappropriate interpretations, the autism group had the greater difficulty. 

It was argued that if the Eyes Task was indeed tapping theory of mind, then performance on the Eyes Task should correlate with performance on Happe’s strange stories – and this is what was found. See Holah for a great summary of the 1997 study.

As they seem to be difficult to come across here’s a selection of ‘Strange Stories’ that were used by Kaland et al. (2005) in a replication-type-study of Baron-Cohen’s (1999) research into those with ASD’s ability to correctly answer these questions.

Thanks to Rosey on the OCR e-list for trawling articles and finding the Kaland et. al (2005) study.

Tags: AS, Baron-Cohen, Cognitive, core studies, resources

I’m often bullied into watching episodes of Grey’s Anatomy (honest – it was just on!) and occasionally I understand what McDreamy might be saying about hemispherectomies and neural-pathways; but I didn’t realise that Grey’s is raising awareness of health issues throughout the globe.  Well done Dr. Grey and cast.

According to a recent article on the CBS News site a Grey’s Anatomy episode with embedded messages about HIV awareness shifted viewers attitudes about HIV especially attitudes surrounding mothers with HIV and the chances of their baby contracting the disease.

“Health educators slipped a message about HIV-positive mothers into a story line in the popular TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Then they tested whether viewers got that message.”

Three surveys were conducted: one before the episode aired, one shortly after and a follow-up 6 weeks after.  One of the questions asked in the survey was in relation to the probability of contracting HIV from a mother who had the disease.

“As far as you know, if a woman who is HIV positive becomes pregnant and receives the proper treatment, what is the chance that she will give birth to a healthy baby, not infected with HIV?”

Before the show aired only 15% of people questioned got the correct answer (more than a 90% chance), soon after the show this went up dramatically to 61% and at the six-week follow-up 45% got the question correct.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The author of the research, Victoria Rideout, suggests that while watching television we absorb information.

“For better or worse, viewers do absorb the health information they see on TV, so it’s important for these shows to get it right … This study shows the enormous potential for entertainment television to serve as a health educator.”

This obviously raises many questions as far as health promotion goes.  Firstly, that the medium of television, and more importantly entertainment programmes can be very powerful in getting positive messages and health awareness out to the viewers.

However, this power has to be used carfully – if viewers believe that the information they are ‘absorbing’ from medical entertainment programmes are accurate (as almost 60% of viewers do) we need to ensure that there’s no false or misleading information in these programmes.  A real double-edged sword.

Tags: A2, adverts, health, health promotion, prevention, Research

With all my efforts being put into teaching and getting my little darlings ready for their exams it’s been a quiet time around here recently. To add to that loosing this weekend to a marking meeting (at least it was in the beautiful Cambridge) has meant that I haven’t had time to write; but I woke up early. So to make up for it here are some interesting stories from around the web that I have come across over the last few weeks.

PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG, or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

A Portrait of the Brain
In his recent book “A Portrait Of the Brain” neurologist Adam Zeman seeks to explore the brain all the way from its atoms to the soul. He does this Oliver Sacks-style, by discussing patients he has encountered. Listen to the chap talking about this and more. Via BPSRD.

The Amazing Intelligence of Crow
Joshua Klein is fascinated by crows. (Notice the gleam of intelligence in their little black eyes?) After a long amateur study of corvid behaviour, he’s come up with an elegant machine that may form a new bond between animal and human. Another amazing video from TED.

Idiots Guide to the DSM-IV
Psychological disorders range from personality disorders to sleep disorders. Here’s a complete list of the 16 DSM-IV mental illnesses, plus brief definitions. Via Suite101. And if you’re feeling a little more adventurous there’s the full version of the DSM-IV-TR and the ICD-10 online.

From A-to-Zee
From Dr. Mezmer’s Blog of Bad Psychology a different spin on a psychological glossary.

Is this you?
“You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.” A nice little ditty on the Barnum Effect over at Robs Psychological Ramblings.

and finally …

Is it magic?
Magical thinking is described in a number of ways. Superstition is the most common, where we assume rituals will somehow affect the future despite having no causal connection to what we want to change. MindHacks has commentary on a PsychologyToday article on magical thinking.

Tags: PSYlent, rant, resources

The question as to whether humans are the only ones on this planet who have the ability to comprehend and use language has been of great argument since the beginning of psychology. At the moment we follow the progression of Washoe (RIP) and her ‘learning’ of American Sign Language and with the arrival of the new 2008 specification we will see Kanzi’s abilities using a lexicon (click for image). Is it possible to teach a chimp to use a form of language to communicate? What are the boundaries of language? How do we interpret language?

Kanzi understands thousands of words and he uses sentences, talks on the phone, and likes to gossip. In short, he uses language in many of the same ways humans do. But, that’s not supposed to be possible. Since the 1950s, linguists including Noam Chomsky have argued that language is unique to humans and requires an innate understanding of grammar.

Recent research has suggested that chimps may have a ‘language ready brain‘. In the new study, the researchers non-invasively scanned the brains of three chimpanzees as they gestured and called to a person in request for food that was out of their reach. Those chimps showed activation in the brain region corresponding to Broca’s area. Scientists have identified Broca’s area, located in part of the human brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus, as one of several critical regions that light up with activity when people plan to say something and when they actually talk or sign.

This research suggests therefore that chimps could have a brain that is hard-wired to understand and process language. However, researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have identified a language feature unique to the human brain that is shedding light on how human language evolved (more about this new research here).

So, the argument is still going on and research like that conducted by Gardner and Gardner, and Savage-Rumbaugh is compelling as to the amazing abilities of these animals.

Here in a TED video from 2004 Sue Savage-Rumbaugh asks whether uniquely human traits, and other animals’ behaviours, are hard-wired by species. Then she rolls a video that makes you think: maybe not. The bonobo apes she works with understand spoken English. One follows her instructions to take a cigarette lighter from her pocket and use it to start a fire.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the video bonobos are shown making tools, drawing symbols to communicate, and playing Pac-Man; all tasks learned just by watching. Maybe it’s not always biology that causes a species to act as it does, she suggests. Maybe it’s cultural exposure to how things are done.

Have these animals learned a language? Possibly. Even if you listen to the critics of the research what we have seen in these videos and the research surrounding language acquisition in animals is surely some evidence of abilities that are far superior to what would be expected.

Tags: AS, core studies, developmental, language, savage-rumbaugh, Spec 2008, video

Back in January I talked about a fascinating video from a TED conference where Vilayanur Ramachandran discussed a new ‘treatment’ for phantom limb pain that he had come up with: the mirror box. I’m fascinated by phantom limb pain as I feel that it provides massive support for the thesis that pain perception is a psychological perception rather than a purely physiological phenomenon.Well over the last few months there has been a few really interesting posts from around the web that concern phantoms that I will summarise here. All these pieces of research can be used in the A2 Psychology of Pain topic.

Inspired by Ramachandran’s talk at TED a group of military hospitals researched the ‘mirror box’ concept that he put forward on 22 patients with amputated lower limbs and found some impressive results. After 4 weeks of treatment, 100% of patients in the mirror group reported a decrease in pain [and] two patients had brief reactions (<2 minutes) of grief on viewing the reflected intact lower limb.

If you want to read more about this then you can go over the CNN coverage of the research.

More on phantoms and the brains perception of the body comes from an edition of ABC’s National Opinion programme where they John Bradshaw discusses how our perception and ownership of our body can break down after brain injury – leading to disorders where we think our limbs are someone else’s, where we feel there’s a phantom body behind us, or where we think we’ve been cloned. [From Mind Hacks]

Finally, and most strangely, an article on phantom penises:

Since male-to-female transsexuals typically feel themselves to be ‘a woman in a man’s body’, Ramachandran and McGeoch reasoned that their response to penectomy might well be different from that of other patients. And so it proved: while 58% of men who have undergone penectomy for other reasons reported sensation in a phantom penis afterwards, only 30% of those who had done so as part of gender reassignment had a similar experience. So people who felt that a penis was not part of their true body image were much less likely to experience a phantom penis after removal.

Stranger still, perhaps, 62% of a group of female-to-male transsexuals reported having had phantom penis sensations before any surgery. In many cases the sensations dated back for years: in others, they did not occur until hormone treatment had begun. No non-transsexual women, unsurprisingly, reported the sensation of having a phantom penis (’even when prompted’ as the researchers say). [From Conscious Entities via Dr. X]

Well a wide-ranging selection of articles there. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post I am a big believer in the idea of a cognitive body image that has a profound effect on the way that we perceive our body and the senses that we get from it. From pain perceived in a limb that is not present to having sensations in a penis that has been removed it is all compelling evidence for the cognitive and psychological influence of the mind on our perceptions.

Tags: A2, health, pain, phantom

There has been quite a bit of research on the effectiveness of police lineups and whether presentation of the ’suspects’ could affect the reliability of the outcome (see here for a huge list of research). One of the big questions is should we show all the suspects together (as above) or is identification more reliable if we present each of the suspects one-at-a-time. In the A2 Psychology of Testimony area we cover aids to recall and recognition and this issue is a very pertinent one.

Much research has provided evidence that this ‘all at once’ approach can have many faults as witnesses expect that the criminal must be there and therefore go for the one that ‘best suites’ the memory of the suspect. With a sequential lineup the witness is not aware of how many people are going to be presented. Each suspect is brought up to the window and the witness must say yes or no. They do not get to go back to look at others again. Some researchers (like Cuttler & Penrod, 1995) have shown this to be a far superior and more reliable way to conduct lineups.

However, a recent report from the US has suggested this might not be the case:

In response to the problems associated with the traditional lineup, pioneering researchers such as Gary Wells spent years developing, researching and testing new lineup procedures. The two major advancements to arise from this thirty year research agenda were The Sequential Lineup, whereby witnesses view suspects one at a time rather than simultaneously; and Double-Blind Techniques whereby the person responsible for the lineup does not know who the real suspect is.

In March 2006, however, a study of an Illinois pilot program, also known as The Mecklenburg Report turned conventional wisdom on its head by claiming that sequential lineups actually result in more false identifications than traditional lineups. [From All About Forensic Psychology]

The Macklenburg report has come under criticism for being methodologically flawed and irresponsible. I have spent a few hours reading several papers which argue both sides of the argument and it seems that most of the research (over 30 years of it actually) supports the idea that sequential lineups are much better – but still police forces around the world are using the conventional ‘all-at-once’ approach.

Read more about this and eyewitness testimony at All About Forensic Psychology.

Tags: A2, Cognitive, crime, testimony

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

Well here we are again – the first PSYlent for a while (but it’s been a busy few weeks with a visit from Ofsted, exam results and coursework) but there’s some excellent bits from around the web for you. Read on for this weeks, months, until-next-time-I-write-it’s PSYlent.

Am I Normal?
BBC Radio 4 has just concluded another run of its fantastic series Am I Normal? which looks at the science of differences in our minds, brains and abilities. For more on this see Mind Hacks (via BPSRD).

Use your head!
By Christmas people will be able to buy a headset for £150 that enables you to control virtual objects on a computer screen using the power of your mind. For more and videos of it in action go to Philosophy of Mind.

Can you count?
Excellent health-promotion via the ‘watch for bikes’ advert. Can you count the passes – I got it right!

Little lie-detectors
Toddlers as young as 19 months are able to distinguish jokes from mistakes – a skill that lays the groundwork for their later ability to recognise lies and false beliefs. From the BPSRD.

And finally …

Something to listen to…
New Scientist has put a feature on line that demonstrates five cool auditory illusions. Possibly the freakiest, is psychologist Diana Deutsch’s illusion called ‘Phantom Words’ (via Mind Hacks).

Tags: PSYlent

It’s widely accepted that when a person suffers from stress this has massive negative effects on that person; both psychologically and physically.  Much research has provided support to the idea that a being stressed can effect our immune system quite drastically making us prone to illness.  However, could being exposed to a stressed parental environment cause the same problems vicariously onto the children of stressed parents?

Recent research has suggested that stressed parents might not just be effecting their own health but actually having a negative impact on their children’s too.  Caserta et al. (2008) found that children of parents who suffered from stress are more likely to get sick.  Through a longitudinal study of 3 years following family groups (169 children aged 5-10) it was found that those children of stressed parents were more likely to have raised illness through parental self-reports.

Caserta’s team found that the total number of illnesses, both with and without fever, was significantly higher in the children of parents who reported high levels of emotional stress. The team also measured the levels of immune cells in the children, and found those with highly stressed parents were much more likely to have heightened immune activity – a sign that they were working hard to fend off infection. [from NewScientist]

This research could raise an interesting debate about the situation of stress: does stress have it’s roots in situational or dispositional psychology?  This research followed families who were all genetically related therefore it could have been that there was a genetic disposition to being stressed that was passed down from parents to children which would suggest that it’s not the situation that is causing the stress.  One has to be careful not to be too deterministic here though as the situation and environment that a child is raised in obviously has massive impact on their personality and ability to cope with stress.

Important to note for parents or parents-to-be: if you’re finding yourself struggling to cope with stress get support from your GP or on-line from the BBC or NHS Direct.  Alternatively there’s this useful stress reduction tool!

Tags: A2, health, stress

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

Well here we are again – the first PSYlent for a while but there’s some excellent bits from around the web for you from why scratching is actually good for you to the must have accessory of the year. Read on for this weeks-months-until the next time I write it’s PSYlent.

Wikipedia and the New Curriculum
Should we really be that over-zealous in banning and slating the new digital era? Interesting article over at Science Progress discusses the issue.

Itch away …
In the first study to use imaging technology to see what goes on in the brain when we scratch and why it can be hard to stop.

How to avoid joining a cult
Learn to spot the tell-tale signs of a cult. Discover the various motives and brainwashing techniques of persuasive groups.

The limits of Cognitive Dissonance
One of my favourite theories in psychology: cognitive dissonance has limits. Psyblog discusses the fact that although cognitive dissonance is a powerful, well-known predictor of human thought and behaviour, its limits are less well understood.

And finally …

Is that a brain on your head?
It’s not often you find yourself thinking ‘you know, I really need a brain hat, but I just can’t decide which one to buy’ but if you do pop over to MindHacks to see which one suites-you-sir!

Tags: PSYlent

There has been a lot of talk about Phil Zimbardo recently – he seems to be getting everywhere making sure that we all know about his new(ish) book – from appearances on popular US television to lectures on evil and the Lucifer Effect there’s been plenty of discussion.

We study (well at least at the moment) Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment in the AS where we try to understand why seemingly ‘normal people’ commit awful acts. Zimbardo puts this down to social roles and who these influence us with his role theory – but does this actually help us understand why ordinary people commit unspeakable acts?

The phrase the ‘banality of evil’ was coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt after witnessing the trial of high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann who seemed to be the most mundane of individuals whose evil acts were driven by the requirements of the authority and orders from above (mindhacks). Since Zimbardo’s SPE there have who provided support for this thesis there has been and it’s been a topic for heated debate (enter Reicher and Haslam among many).

As aniconic image of human rights abuse, it is hard to equal: a hooded man with electrodes attached to his fingers stands precariously on a small box. One slip and he risks a numbing electric shock. In April 2004 this picture and others showing American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad cast a pall over the US military’s conduct in Iraq that has never lifted. The electrode stunt was dreamed up by a group of US army reservists working as military policemen at the prison. Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick was one of them. It was not the only abuse he perpetrated at Abu Ghraib. Among other things, he admitted making three prisoners masturbate while his colleagues looked on, and thumping another so hard in the chest that he had to be resuscitated. [from New Scientist]

Since this event psychologists have been trying to understand why? Why the officers would do such and act, and can this be justified by saying ‘it wasn’t me: the situation made me do it?’ Again, Zimbardo would suggest that you can put the ‘blame’ on the situation and he testified to this in the court case against the officers involved in the above act.

Alternatively, could our behaviour be a result of identification with particular groups?

Haslam and Reicher suggest that brutality occurs when people identify strongly with groups that have a brutal ideology. They believe that whether we listen to authorities or support victims depends upon the extent to which we perceive ourselves to share social identification with them. This argument is based on social identity theory. [from AQA PsychBLOG]

Here I am going to discuss current thinking (although it is divided) as the the real cause of such behaviour. Since the SPE much research has been conducted to investigate the psychology of the situation including the replcation (of sorts) that Reicher and Haslam conducted in 2001 (and which is in the 2008 specification) that suggests that social identity theory is a much better explanation of such behaviour.

What sort of person volunteers for a prison experiment?
A further issue that has been raised recently that again contends the conclusions which Zimbardo came to relates to the participant sample which he used. Could it be the case that you have to be a ’special’ type of person to volunteer to be a participant in a prison experiment?

Research conducted by Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland has investigated this. They posted two adverts, similar to the ones used in Zimbardo’s original SPEs, in several campus newspapers. One advert invited male participants for “a psychological study of prison life” the other invited participants for “a psychological study”.

Volunteers for the prison study scored significantly higher on measures of the abuse-related dispositions of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance and lower on empathy and altruism, two qualities inversely related to aggressive abuse. Although implications for the SPE remain a matter of conjecture, an interpretation in terms of person-situation interactionism rather than a strict situationist account is indicated by these findings. Implications for interpreting the abusiveness of American military guards at Abu Ghraib Prison also are discussed. [link to abstract taken from CrimePsychBlog]

This research would suggest that the research that we are using is intrinsically floored as the sample’s are distorted. Could there actually be a problem with the participants selected, or in the case of the SPE and Reicher and Haslam’s research ‘volunteered’ actually have a baring on the resulting behaviour?The implications of this argument on Zimbardo’s SPE is conjecture as there’s no way that we can retrospectively test all the participants in the study but it’s a issue for discussion as to the reductionist conclusions on which his study stands.

Does the Zimbardo SPE really reflect real prison life?
Of course the SPE and even Reicher and Haslam’s ‘The Experiment’ are very articicual situations so can we actually give any weight to the conclusions from them? Could it just be that “[The studies] are often brilliantly controlled and scientifically rigorous but bear as much resemblance to social interaction as an Oxo cube does to a cow. Such studies can be described as impeccable trivia.” (Banyard)

Does this [SPE] experiment mirror what occurs in real prisons? Probably. Writing in Inside Rikers: Stories from the World’s Largest Penal Colony Jennifer Wynn interviews prison guards from New York City’s largest penal colony, Rikers Island. One captain explained that guards easily become used to the level of violence inflicted on inmates – it’s part of the job and they soon become immune. Some can’t understand how they become different people at work. [from Psyblog]

Even if it is the case that ’similar’ behaviour can be seen in real prisons can we really then make the jump to other situations such as evil acts during wars?

Can we answer the question: why?
The research seems to be torn on the situation of unspeakable acts. As it should be I feel. Recently I saw a presentation by Reicher and Haslam and they started by stating that there is a debate that has to be had – why do some people commit awful acts and others not. It’s a debate that psychology may be able to answer, but at the moment many psychologists wont even sit at the table thinking their way of explaining the behaviours is right.

“Turning civilians into soldiers and teaching them to kill has always been difficult work, but these new challenges and demands have made it harder still, so the Army has made sweeping changes in the basic combat training that every recruit must go through.” [quote]

Does this not suggest that as it is not the social role of a solder which influences actions but identity with that group. If it were as simple as the social role then it wouldn’t be ‘difficult work’. Every aspect of Army training is designed to make a bond between the recruits – they identify themselves as being a group. Well that’s one way of looking at it.

One thing I think that we need to be careful of though is being too deterministic – many people perform unspeakable acts every day, some will do it for situational reasons, others for dispositional reasons. Contrary to Zimbardo’s situationist perspective, findings now seem to be compatible with a more interactionist view of human behaviour – the fact that people’s personalities affect the situations they find themselves in.

And remember many ordinary people perform miraculous and altruistic acts everyday too!

References
Carnahan, T. & McFarland S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007, 33, 603-614.

Haney, C., Banks, W.C. & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973) A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4-17.

Haslam, S. A. & Reicher, S. (2007). Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three Dynamics of an Interactionist Social Psychology of Tyranny. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33(5), 615-622

Reicher, S. & Haslam, S. A. (2006) Rethinking the psychology of tyranny. The BBC prison study. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1-40

Further Reading on the topic

• Mind Hacks: Challenging the banality of evil
• Zimbardo Lecture on How Good People Turn Evil
• New Scientist: They made me do it
• The Army we have
• Psyblog: Our Dark Hearts: The Stanford Prison Experiment
• Questioning the banality of evil (PDF)
• AQA PB: Questioning the banality of evil

Tags: AS, obedience, reicher haslam, Social, Zimbardo

Over the next few weeks I am going to cover the five new studies on the 2008 specification and see what resources are around for them already. I was lucky enough to go the the OCR inset in Leeds on Wednesday where both Griffiths and Richer & Haslam were speaking. It was a good day and the speakers were excellent (shame OCR gave the wrong version of the specification out to us all though).

This is a ‘working post’ so I’ll keep adding to the list of resources as I get them so if you find anything or want to share them with the readers please do contact me.

On to Griffiths 1994 …

If you’re a regular reader you will have already come across the interview with Mark back in July where he outlined the context of the study, what happened in the study and answered some questions as to evaluating the study. The study identifies the though processes which gamblers go through while playing slot machines and attempts to explain their behaviour in relation to these cognitive biases.

“… Rational choice theory predicts that people will not gamble, thus it is theorised that regular gamblers gamble because they make the wrong decisions – that cognitive bias (irrational thinking) distorts their reasoning. The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the cognitive processes and behaviour of persistent fruit machine gamblers.”

There’s a good overview of the study in Phil Banyard’s new edition of Introducing Psychological Research or you can get the full text study below. Mark was kind enough to let me publish a copy of the PowerPoint that he presented at the OCR conference so all those who didn’t get there wont miss out.

Griffiths Resources

• Audio of Griffiths interview.
• Write up of Griffiths interview.
• Full text article of Griffiths’ 1994 BJP study.
• OCR Griffiths Poster (for class room displays etc.)
• PowerPoint of the study (as used by Mark Griffiths at the OCR conferences – thanks to Mark for sending this)
• GoogleBook of “Adolescent Gambling” by Mark Griffiths.

If you want any of the full text articles you can get them all here and there’s more news about Spec 2008 here.

Tags: AS, griffiths, Individual, new studies, resources, Spec 2008

With all the conferences that are going on lots of us are starting to look forward to the new 2008 specifications: what are the studies like; what else have the authors done? One of the new studies in the physiological psychology module of the AS is Maguire’s research into the size of London cabbies’ hippocampus. Through the use of MRI scanners her and her team have studied the hippocampi of London cabbies to investigate if their choice of vocation has had any cognitive or physiological effect on their brain.

McGuire’s team famously discovered in 2000 that London Taxi drivers have bigger than average hippocampi, a brain structure known to be heavily involved in learning routes and spatial representations … The study found that the size of the hippocampus correlated with the length of time being a taxi driver, suggesting that driving taxis may develop and change the hippocampus. [quote]

The conclusions of this research have massive implications and this was noted when Maguire received an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003:

For her work showing that the brains of London taxi drivers were more highly developed than the brains of non-taxi drivers, Eleanor Maguire won the 2003 Ig Nobel medicine prize. Dr Maguire, senior research fellow in neuropsychology with the Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, was the lead author of “Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (2000;97:4398-403). [quote]

More recently Maguire has been conducting research into the possible implications of the cabbies extended hippocampi on their other cognitive functions. At a recent Society for Neurosceince conference Maguire presented a paper where she suggests that there may be a cognitive ‘price-to-pay’ for the expert navigational abilities a cabbies large hipocampi allows them.

[Maguire et. al] found that compared with bus drivers, taxi drivers had greater gray matter volume in mid-posterior hippocampi and less volume in anterior hippocampi. Furthermore, years of navigation experience correlated with hippocampal gray matter volume only in taxi drivers, with right posterior gray matter volume increasing and anterior volume decreasing with more navigation experience. This suggests that spatial knowledge, and not stress, driving, or self-motion, is associated with the pattern of hippocampal gray matter volume in taxi drivers. We then tested for functional differences between the groups and found that the ability to acquire new visuo-spatial information was worse in taxi drivers than in bus drivers. We speculate that a complex spatial representation, which facilitates expert navigation and is associated with greater posterior hippocampal gray matter volume, might come at a cost to new spatial memories and gray matter volume in the anterior hippocampus. [quote]

While at the conference Maguire was interviewed for the NeuroPod (a podcast produced by Nature) and she comments on the findings of this new study (the MP3 file is here; the interview starts at 23:50).

Basically, the findings of the 2006 research state that even though cabbies may have a larger hippocampus it seems to come at a cost to new learning and memory; specifically to associative memory. The growth of certain parts of the hippocampus is accompanied by a decrease in the anterior hippocampus which is instrumental in memory.

This research could suggest that this ‘give-and-take’ relationship between brain structures could be seen in different areas although there is little research in this area at the moment.

As far as OCR goes it will be interesting to follow Maguire’s future research to see what else comes out from this comparative research between London cabbies and other groups of people. So it seems that although these cabbies have a depth of knowledge of London and are expert at navigating around the capital, this talent could have the consequence of memory problems or even other cognitive deficits.

Hat-tip to Mind Hacks.

Maguire, E.A., Woollett, K., Spiers, H.J., (2006) London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI and Neuropsychological Analysis. Hippocampus, 16: 1091-1101.

Maguire, E. A., Gadian, D. G., Johnsrude, I. S., Good, C. D., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak , R.S. & Frith, C. D. (2000) Navigation-related structural changes in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA. 97. 4398–4403

Tags: AS, Maguire, Physiological, podcast, Spec 2008

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

Welcome to 2008! I hope that you’ve all had a very restful and relaxing break over the Christmas time (students among you I hope you’ve been busy revising for any exams that you have this month). Here’s a bumper PSYlent for you to start the year off … some interesting, weird and wonderful stories from around the web.

How many blondes does it take …
Blondes have the potential to make people act in a dumber way, because they mimic the unconscious stereotype of the dumb blonde. DrX has the story.

Sticking to the topic of dumb or irrational things
Jeremy D over at PsyBlog has is obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational thing and has collated 10 wonderful psychological studies.

Beat the ‘brain drain’
Those of us who feel we are busy all the time can experience burn out, exhaustion and fatigue from spending long periods of time in focused concentration. If that’s you pop over to Life Hacker to see how to defeat the drain.

Chimps like us?
Chimps often seem so much like us. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany have been trying to determine which skills differentiate us from our primate relatives.

Ever wanted to play Dr?
Now’s your chance: Edheads.org has two virtual surgery procedures on offer – hip replacement and knee replacement – all without the gore! Hat-tip to Healthbolt.

Thanks!
Particularly at this time of year, we are often reminded that it is better to give than receive but according to latest research into positive psychology, receiving can be just as good for the soul providing you remember to say thanks. Thanks to Exploring Psychology for this story.

What is “The Self”?
“The self” is one of the most challenging and interesting issues in philosophy of mind and Cognitive Science. We all have a phenomenal conscious feeling that our experiences are unified into one identity – a self; that our experiences belong to someone. However what this self actually is or whether it actually exists is open to debate.

Finally a few other links to have a look at: The Brain from top-to-bottom and The Manipulation of Human Behavior.

Tags: PSYlent

A good while back I compiled a list of references and more importantly full text links for all of the core studies. Well now the new 2008 spec has been finalised it’s time for the updated references. If you’re looking for the ‘old’ (2000-2007) spec studies see this page. All of the files are being hosted by PsychExchange.co.uk or Box.net.

First and foremost links to some files for the new specification:

• AS/A2 Specification Details
• Specimen Materials
• Link to OCR Page for Spec 2008 (keeps moving though – thanks OCR!)

Cognitive Psychology

LOFTUS, E. & PALMER, J. (1974) Reconstruction of automobile destruction. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behaviour. 13. 585–589 [full text or here]

BARON-COHEN, S., JOLLIFFE, T., MORTIMORE, C. & ROBERTSON, M. (1997) Another advanced test of theory of mind: evidence from very high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 38: 813–822 [Full text or here]

SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH, S. Spontaneous Symbol Acquisition and Communicative Use by Pygmy Chimpanzees (1986). [Full Text]

Developmental Psychology

SAMUEL, J. & BRYANT, P. (1984) Asking only one question in the conservation experiment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 25. 315–318 [full text]

BANDURA, A., ROSS, D. & ROSS, S. (1961) Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 63. 375-382 [full text]

FREUD, S. (1909) Analysis of a phobia of a five-year old boy. Pelican Freud Library. Vol. 8. Case Histories 1

Physiological Psychology

MAGUIRE, E. A., GADIAN, D. G., JOHNSRUDE, I. S., GOOD, C. D., ASHBURNER, J., FRACKOWIAK, R.S. & FRITH, C. D. (2000) Navigation-related structural changes in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA. 97. 4398–4403 [full text or here]

DEMENT, W. & KLEITMAN, N. (1957) The relation of eye movements during sleep to dream activity. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 53 (5). 339–346 [full text]

SPERRY, R. (1968) Hemisphere deconnection and unity in consciousness. American Psychologist. 23. 723–733 [full text]

Social Psychology

MILGRAM, S. (1963) Behavioural study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 67. 371–378 [full text]

REICHER, S. & HASLAM, S. A. (2006) Rethinking the psychology of tyranny. The BBC prison study. [full text]

PILIAVIN, I., RODIN, J. & PILIAVIN, J. (1969) Good Samaritanism; an underground phenomenon? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 13(4). 289–299 [full text]

The Psychology of Individual Differences

ROSENHAN, D. (1973) On being sane in insane places. Science. 197. 250–258 [full text]

THIGPEN, C. & CLECKLEY, H. (1954) A case of multiple personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 49. 135–151 [full text]

GRIFFITHS, M.D. (1994). The role of cognitive bias and skill in fruit machine gambling. British Journal of Psychology. 85. 351–369 [full text] [PsychBLOG Interview]

Tags: AS, core studies, full text, psychexchange, resources, Spec 2008

Which gender experiences the most pain? The age old question is still rife: what hurts more, child birth or being kicked in the … well .. man bits?  I try to raise this question when talking about measuring pain in the Health section of the A2 using the McGill Pain questionnaire to quantify – well at least in part – the pain experienced at different times.

A recent piece of research has found that at 5 out of 12 pressure points men’s pain threshold was higher than womens.  However, we have to note that individual differences are rife in perception of pain.  Men may have just been more likely to report that the pain wasn’t there to prove their ‘butch man persona’.  Maybe we could have used some form of physical measure to attempt to get a more objective idea of the perception of pain.

You can read Christian’s comments on the study over at the BPSRD or go find the original study and see what you think.

Garcia, E., Godoy-Izquierdo, D., Godoy, J.F., Perez, M. & Lopez-Chicheri, I. (2007). Gender differences in pressure pain threshold in a repeated measures assessment. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 12, 567-579.   Hat tp to the BPSRD.

Tags: A2, health, pain

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

Although there’s been a lot of excitement this week with the release of the new 2008 specification there’s still been lots more going on. This week’s PSYlent is especially for the ladies (although men might want to read and learn!)

Now buzz off!
Is it time to break up with your vibrator? We all know that loving yourself (literally) is both fun and healthy. The benefits go on-and on-and-on! The more you know about your own body, the better things will be when you’re sharing it with someone else. Solo escapades relieve tension but could you be addicted?

That time of the month?
The Menstrual Joy Questionnaire: The Guardian takes a look at one of the more curious corners of psychology research.

Find PMS Relief With Chocolate
Natural remedies for PMS include gourmet chocolate, chasteberry extract & natural health supplements. Here’s some natural cures for those nasty symptoms of PMS. More at Suite 101.

The Hidden Purpose of Chat-up Lines
When it comes to the human mating game, men are often portrayed as having little power or guile. Research finds it is women that control early interactions, from first signaling the man to approach to deciding whether to engage in sex. You’ll have to go to PsyBlog for the punch-line though.

Tags: PSYlent, Research

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

A new bumper installment of PSYlent (the first one for quite a while actually) is here for you to read. Keep up-to-date with all that’s going on int psychology that’s a little weird and wacky – well at least I think so. Read on for this weeks episode …

The man with almost no brain
The removal of an entire hemisphere of the brain can be performed with little or no noticeable changes in behaviour is a demonstration of the remarkable adaptability of the human brain so Neurophilosophy say.

The science of the song-in-the-head
Ever hear a song play over and over again in your mind, and be unable to do anything about it? It happens to us all. Over at The Situationist they have an interview with the person who should be able to tell us why!

For all those teachers with yawning students
Yawning may reveal more about a person than their boredom threshold, according to research. A susceptibility to contagious yawning may actually be a sign of a high-level of social empathy – head over to CogNews for the lowdown.

Have you washed your hands?
Believe it or not, your fingerprints can reveal whether you’re male or female (scientists determine that from the amount of urine in your print) and if you eat meat. For more on this lovely topic see Psychology101.

Why do we do ‘it’?
Many scientists assume people have sex for simple and straightforward reasons such as to experience sexual pleasure or to reproduce, but new research at The University of Texas at Austin reveals hundreds of varied and complex motivations that range from the spiritual to the vengeful, or so CogNews would have you think!

BBC Sexual Behaviour series begins
BBC Radio 4 is running a special season on sexuality that will cover everything from the history cultural views on sex to the medical aspects of sexual dysfunction. Hat-tip to MindHacks for pointing this one out.

And finally …

Enough Wikipedia?
Now it’s that time that we’re all looking for coursework and studies maybe you should ditch it and see what else is out there – if you’re looking for research here’s 20 non-wikipedia online reference sources and for those of you who refuse to budge there’s 10 Wikipedia tricks.

Tags: PSYlent, Research

After the popularity of the last two autism research carnivals (one & two) it’s time for another one. I would love to write and comment on all of these studies but if I did this would be an autism blog as there is so much research going on in the field of autism at the moment. So, here’s some more autism research for you to have a read through; and of course I have tried to choose all those that will be of use when teaching the Baron-Cohen study, or at least be appropriate for the background.

Autism linked with higher testosterone levels
The Independent – London September 12, 2007 Powerful evidence has emerged that may soon lead scientists to discover the causes of autism which, in one form or another, now affects about one in every 100 children in Britain.

Children with autism are immune to contagious yawning
Have you ever noticed that yawning is so contagious it can spread round a room like a Mexican wave? Scientists still aren’t in agreement as to why this happens but one idea is that the phenomenon depends on our capacity for empathy. There’s also more on this over at MindHacks.

New techniques discovered to reverse autism
Over the last 6 years, “I6S” has been performing specific research on assisting those mothers/caretakers who may be the only one that is helping their Autistic Child. The work has revealed some groundbreaking techniques that have shown how to stop the progression and often reverse Autism.

Girls with autism
The New York Times has an in-depth article on autism in girls, a topic largely neglected in the research literature owing to the fact that males are much more likely to be diagnosed with the condition.

New study on autism focuses on environment
Researchers have long suspected that autism’s causes are rooted in one’s genes, combined with some kind of a hit from the environment. But pinpointing the interplay of these factors has been daunting, in part because the probing tends to come after a child is diagnosed.

Autism, honesty and the capacity to deceive
Online magazine InCharacter has an article on what autism can tell us about honesty and deception, by autism researcher Prof Simon Baron-Cohen.

And that’s about it for now. If you know of any autism research that could be featured in the next carnival do let me know.

Tags: AS, autism, Baron-Cohen, Carnival, Cognitive, Research

Back into normal postings now with a study published by PLoS regarding the possible effects of brain damage on behaviour, specifically violent behaviour. In the Raine (1997) study that we cover as part of the physiological psychology module in the AS it is put forward that slight differences in levels of processing in specific parts of the two hemispheres and a lowering of communication over the corpus callosum were found in murders who had pleaded NGRI.

I have written about other studies which have hypostesised that they may be a link between the functions of the brain and violence before but as you can read it highlights one distinct issue. If take the argument that poorly functioning parts of the brain are to blame for violent behaviour does this take away the ‘freewill’ from any acts; therefore mitigating that person from blame and prosecution?

… the exciting discoveries of neuroscience resonate far beyond mere philosophical banter and may have important implications for the way government institutions, including education and legal systems, operate. For example, to the extent that legal systems attempt both to move behaviour in socially desirable directions and also to adjudicate transgressions fairly, the legal system’s effectiveness can be improved by deepening our understandings about why people behave as they do and both how and why people respond to various changes in legal incentives. Specifically, neuroscience may have important implications for both how we understand the multiple influences on violent behaviour and how the legal system may better engage with violent criminals. [quote]

In the article Mobbs et al. highlight some cases where brain abnormalities have lead to behavioural changes (not all violent changes though):

(A) Brain scan of patient J. S., who exhibited sociopathic behaviour [5].

(B) fMRI sagittal slice of the brain of patient J. Z., showing a lesion that was caused by the resection of pituitary tumour [4]. This lesion led to anti-social conduct, which was not exhibited before the surgery.

(C) Orbitofrontal damage associated with symptoms of paedophilia and sexual misconduct in the case of a 40-year-old male patient.

(D) Photograph of a patient after head injury (right) and fMRI scan 60 years later showing PFC damage (left) [53]. This patient showed personality changes, but no signs of anti-social conduct.

(E) Cranial X-ray of a man who attempted suicide with a crossbow. Although the individual exhibited premorbid APD, the PFC damage caused by the crossbow arrow resulted in reversal of anti-social conduct [54].

Further to this Mobbs et al goes on to identify that there are also methodological problems with using imaging software to attempt to understand the functioning of the brain.

There are many exciting possibilities for how law and neuroscience may eventually partner—with neuroscientists discovering new things about the brain potentially relevant to law, and law asking questions that new neuroscientific research may help address. However, it is important to keep in mind a variety of limitations of brain-imaging technology. We highlight six.

In their concluding remarks the issue of causality is raised. Although there are examples where it has been shown that brain abnormalities have, at least in part, contributed to violent or psychopathic behaviour it is by no means a predictor of such behaviour. Even if it was a predictor could we actually do anything about it? On ethical and moral grounds could we [as a society / community etc] actually condone intervention on the basis that a person posibally has a preduisposition to violent behaviour before any violent acts have been comitted. Maybe that’s not too far away from what we see in Minority Report.

An excellent article that is well written an accessable. It’s critique of the techniques used by researchers in this area is superb and, as mentioned above, links in well with Raine and the other physiological (or even A2 crime) related discussions. Your thoughts in the comments as always.

Law, Responsibility, and the Brain Mobbs D, Lau HC, Jones OD, Frith CD PLoS Biology Vol. 5, No. 4, e103 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050103ho

Tags: AS, freewill, Physiological, Raine, Research

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

The next installment of PSYlent – and the last one for three weeks as I’ll be basking in the Italian sun as I potter around the country. So, here’s plenty to keep you going (and don’t forget that there’s all those other blogs to have a look at too – but do come back here for the best roundup ;) )

Bored with reading?
Well if that’s the case then why not try out loads of optical illusions? Jeremy has a good collection of them over at PsyBlog.

What’s in the new book?
DSM-IV is getting on a bit now and the new version of the book has been penciled in for 2010. Recently they have announced those people who will be working on the text.

The artistic savant?
I remember seeing a BBC documentary about an autistic boy who had an amazing artistic ability. After seeing even the most complex landscape (London skyline) could draw it from memory. Thanks to Neurophilosophy post I’ve tracked him (Stephen Wiltshire) and his website of pictures. They’re mind blowing.

Label your emotions to reduce their impact
A brain scanning study has found that naming emotions reduces the intensity of emotion processing in the brain, possibly outlining a brain network responsible for the old saying ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’. MindHacks has the lowdown.

Why men are much greater consumers of pornography than women?
According to a new study men take the same pleasure out of looking at an attractive female form as they do from having a curry or making money whereas women do not take any significant reward from looking at pictures of men. Men: when you’ve finished looking at those ‘less desirable sites’ you can pop over to The Neurocritic to find out more.

And finally …

The happiest place in the world is …
The search for happiness is not a new quest – and it seems that it could be as easy as moving to another country.  The happiest country in the world is Denmark, with the UK coming a depressing 41st. For the full happy picture see Laura’s blog.

Tags: PSYlent, Research

With so much research being conducted on autism at the moment I could write a new post each day on what’s going on (but there’s excellent blogs out there that are doing this already). So, based on the last ‘Autism Research Carnival‘ I thought that I’d update you and let you know what’s going on now and the new developments in this field.

Autistic children could learn through stereotypes
Autistic children have a capacity to understand other people through stereotypes, say scientists at UCL (University College London). The research shows that autistic children are just as able as others to predict people’s behaviour when stereotypes, such as gender and race, are the only available guide.

Autism and Denial
Stories about those celebrities who deny they have autism and discussion on how they could forward the awareness cause.

Gene Mutation Linked to Risk of Autism
A new study from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee found that a mutation of the portion of the MET gene that governs the production of its protein was associated with the risk of autism.

Tags: AS, autism, Baron-Cohen, Carnival, Research

I’ve made a few posts on here about pain and the perception of pain. The gate theory of pain suggests that perception of pain can be influenced by external influences like distraction. Could smell have a similar effect on the perception of pain? Well a new study would have us believe that it can, especially if it’s a sweet smell.

The research conducted by Prescott and Wilkie (2007) aimed to see if participants could hold their hand in a vat of cold water for longer depending on the type of smells presented at the same time:

The mechanism underlying reported analgesic effects of odors in humans is unclear, although odor hedonics has been implicated. We tested whether odors that are sweet smelling through prior association with tasted sweetness might influence pain by activating the same analgesic mechanisms as sweet tastes. Inhalation of a sweet-smelling odor during a cold-pressor test increased tolerance for pain compared with inhalation of pleasant and unpleasant low-sweetness odors and no odor. There were no significant differences in pain ratings among the odor conditions. These results suggest that smelled sweetness can produce a naturally occurring conditioned increase in pain tolerance. [abstract]

The results showed that those participants who were presented with the sweet smelling odors were able to keep their hands in the water for over twice as long as the other participants (for a much more detailed discussion of the study see Mixing Memory).

So, how can smells actually effect our perceptions of pain?

This experiment obviously doesn’t test any causal hypotheses, but Prescott and Wilkie suggest that because the sweetness of smells is largely learned, through associations with sweet tastes, the analgesic effects of sweet smells are likely the result of learned associations as well. Sweet tastes have been show to increase pain tolerance, and by association, sweet smells come to do so as well. [quote]

A really interesting study which again shows that the mind can have a massive effect over our perceptions of pain.

Further Reading:

• Prescott, J., & Wilkie, J. (2007). Pain tolerance selectively increased by sweet-smelling odor. Psychological Science, 18(4), 308-311.
• Mixing Memory: Do Sweet Smells Make Pain More Tolerable?

Tags: A2, health, pain, Research

Here is the next PSYlent, the weekly overview of those stories that I think are pretty interesting in psychology but don’t really apply to OCR. Seems a shame to miss out on them just because I can’t get them to fit into the specifications. So, here are those studies that would have been without a voice on PsychBLOG; or as I’m going to call them: PSYlent!

I have plowed my way through the backlog of posts, journal articles and emails that I’d been torn away from while marking and here is a another episode of PSYlent for you. So, without further ado, for your reading pleasure, here is the next (and overdue) “what I’ve been reading this week” …

Is TV really helping criminals perform the ‘perfect crime’?
For a long time there’s been discussion about a new ‘CSI Generation‘ of criminals who are watching things like CSI and the Discovery Channel to ’study’ how to litrally get away with murder. But is this really the case? CrimePsychBlog might have the answer.

How do you make a blonde laugh on Friday?
Blonds are dumb, foreigners lazy, women can’t do math. We continuously encounter such statements in our every-day lives – even if most people obviously wouldn’t take them seriously. A really good commentary on stereotypes and discrimination over at In-Mind. Oh, and the answer is: tell her a joke on Monday!

Women, rewards and the menstrual-cycle
A recently published study has found that females show greater brain activation to uncertain rewards during the most fertile stage of the menstrual cycle, perhaps explaining why women dress more attractively and have altered sexual preferences during this time. MindHacks has the full story and links to the full research.

What’s going on inside?
It seems over the last few weeks there’s been a great interest in brain scanning. Many posts outlining the differences between the types of scanning or the abilities of new methods. PET Scans and fMRI Compared, A basic introduction to fMRI and MRI, and New brain scan combines best of both.

Put it in your mouth and suck!
All those times you’ve been reading Freud and felt a bit peckish? Well now you can suck on Freud as you’re reading Freud.

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature
Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn’t sexist, and blonds are more attractive – read the full article over at Psychology Today and see if you agree.

And finally, really off topic I know but a wonderful concept that I am going to be subscribing to. No longer will I be writing essay-esq responses to any emails that I receive – just 5 sentences.

Tags: PSYlent, Research