Posts Tagged Sciblogs

I’m Certain That I Can Certainly be Wrong or Confidence and Memory, Is one a Good Measure of the Other? Darcy Cowan Mar 05

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A man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord even more so.

The Doctor, in “The Five Doctors”

ResearchBlogging.org
We all know that our memories can’t always be trusted, time and life tends to erode the confidence we have in our memories. At least that is the case for normal memories. We also tend to have special memories that seem to be burned into our brains, events in our lives that hold such significance that it feels like we are in some sense still experiencing the moment the memory represents. Such memories are described as being “flashbulb memories” as if at that moment as sort of metaphysical flash went off and recorded every detail of an event vividly in our consciousness.

This “flashbulb” effect allows us to confidently recall these events days, weeks or even years later. Memories such as this may be unique to each individual but there are commonly cited examples of shared flashbulb memories such as where a person was and what they were doing when they heard about the events of 9/11. In fact this event was used in an experiment to test the accuracy of this type of memory. At Duke University on September 12th 2001, 54 students recorded their memories of hearing about the incident as well as a recent everyday event by answering a series of questions about the events. Then either 1, 6 or 32 weeks later they answered another questionnaire and this was used to evaluate the confidence and consistency of the memories.

Surprisingly there was no difference in the consistency of memory recall for the flashbulb memory compared to the everyday memory but the flashbulb memory continued to be reported with a high degree of confidence while confidence in the everyday memory decreased. This implies that while we can be very confident in the details of a memory this is no guarantee of their accuracy. In fact other studies between confidence and accuracy of recall (for example in eye witness reports of crimes) shows the same lack of correlation between how confident we are and how accurately our recall matches events.

With regard to confidence in memories hypnosis is often put forward as a means of increasing the reliability of recall (even featuring on Mythbusters). There is evidence however that what actually happens is the hypnosis increases the confidence of the recall but is not effective at increasing the accuracy of the information gained through this process.

Finally, as a little reward for getting this far that is modestly related to this subject, here’s an interesting little test that is meant to measure your risk IQ based on your confidence in the answers to certain questions rather than on the answers themselves. (as previously blogged on by Alison over on Bioblog). So go take the test and feel free to report back your score.

References:

Talarico, J., & Rubin, D. (2003). Confidence, Not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories Psychological Science, 14 (5), 455-461 DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.02453
Smith, V., Kassin, S., & Ellsworth, P. (1989). Eyewitness accuracy and confidence: Within- versus between-subjects correlations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74 (2), 356-359 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.74.2.356
Green, J., & Lynn, S. (2005). Hypnosis versus relaxation: accuracy and confidence in dating international news events Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19 (6), 679-691 DOI: 10.1002/acp.1133

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Filed under: Psychological, Sciblogs, Science, skepticism Tagged: Add new tag, Cognitive science, Duke University, Five Doctors, Intelligence quotient, memory, psychology, Review, Science, Science and Society, Social Sciences, Time Lord, Witness

Intelligence, Monogamy and Journalistic Licence Darcy Cowan Mar 02

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ResearchBlogging.org
Last week news came out about a study linking intelligence with liberal attitudes and atheistic beliefs, oh and in men an increased tendency for monogamy. Today I read the NZ Herald’s short take on the study, a semi-chauvinistic piece pointing out how we evolved intelligent men can think our way to monogamy while those sexually immoral women can’t. I felt just a little dirty reading it. Ok, perhaps it isn’t really that bad but having being familiar with the study before reading the story that’s how it stuck me.

The full published study is locked behind Social Psychology Quarterly’s pay wall but the lead author, evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, rather nicely provides copies of his papers on his own website. I like him already. The paper, rather provocatively called “Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent.”, discusses a concept Kanazawa calls the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. Essentially this states that our behaviours were shaped by our evolutionary past and that intelligence may allow us to adapt these behaviours and introduce new behaviours that are “evolutionarily novel”. In this scenario general intelligence (IQ) evolved as a mechanism by which we could adapt to novel situations that our genes alone had not equipped us to deal with.

To investigate this principle three types of evolutionarily novel behaviours/values were examined to determine if there was any correlation with intelligence. To wit the behaviours looked at were liberalism, atheism and monogamy. Throughout the paper the relation of monogamy to men as being evolutionarily novel specifically excludes women, not because women’s behaviour in this regard cannot be moderated by intelligence but because monogamy is not a novel concept for women. In our evolutionary past women (according to the hypothesis) would always have been more monogamous and so this would be classed as an evolutionarily familiar strategy which does not require higher intelligence to change thus the prediction that intelligence would not be correlated with greater monogamy in women where it would be in men.

In fact multiple studies have already shown that across cultures women tend to be more monogamous so what this study implies is that men have to be more intelligent (in order to overcome our stupid genes) just to get on a par with women. Frankly though this is the least interesting part of the study. More fascinating (though also more potentially inflammatory) is the association of intelligence with liberal and atheistic modes of thought. For the purposes of the study Kanazawa simplified the definition of liberalism to:

“the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.”

Stated in this way the concept actually looks a little unfamiliar to me as well as my hypothetical ancestor. But if I consider it for a while I can squint my eyes and see it as encompassing most of those values I generally lump together as being liberal. In any case Kanazawa’s argument boils down to the conjecture that our ancestors would not have lived in societies in which we would have been surrounded by large numbers of unrelated individuals such as we are now. In this case they would not have had much incentive to develop behaviours which valued unrelated strangers as much as ourselves, in fact I could see this sort of behaviour as actually being detrimental.

This may explain why liberal people are more intelligent than their conservative counterparts but it does not address the question as to why intelligence might lead to the adoption of these principles, why aren’t we just more intelligent conservatives? What’s so great about being liberal?

The question might be slightly clearer in the case of atheistic beliefs as those that espouse this point of view tend to make it into an argument about truth. Certainly there must be an advantage to knowing the truth about the world around us but how this might relate to a more or less abstract truth such as the existence or absence of a deity is not obvious. I would be interested to see if intelligence is more highly correlated with believing more concrete truths about the world independent of actual scientific training (which presupposes that the beliefs formed about the world in this fashion are approaching trueness).

Fun as these topics maybe to speculate about it’s difficult to say how much these sorts of studies tell us about the evolutionary origins of particular behaviours as I have seen in comments to this study elsewhere it smacks of just so stories. I’m not an evolutionary psychologist so I’d rather stay away from interpretation in this vein but perhaps we would do well to take any conclusions with a grain of salt, especially if those conclusions are what we want to hear.

Reference:
Kanazawa, S. (2010). Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent Social Psychology Quarterly DOI: 10.1177/0190272510361602

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Filed under: Psychological, Religion, Sciblogs, Science Tagged: Atheism, evolution, Intelligence, Intelligence quotient, Liberalism, Monogamy, psychology, Review, Satoshi Kanazawa, Science, Science and Society

New Zealand Pharmacy Ethics in Relation to Homeopathy in the Wake of Homeopathy Report Darcy Cowan Feb 24

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Earlier this year I wrote a post (along with fellow Sciblogger Grant) concerning the sale of homeopathic remedies in pharmacies. Monday night saw the release of England’s Science and Technology Committee’s “Evidence Check 2″ report on Homeopathy (also ably covered by Grant). One of the issues covered by the report is that of pharmacy responsibilities regarding sale of these remedies. Essentially the report recommended that sales continue but with adequate disclaimers stating that there is no scientific evidence that homeopathic products work beyond the placebo effect.

I see this as a compromise between commercial freedom to sell safe, though not necessarily effective, products and patient informed consent. It’s reasonable even if I disagree that it is ideal. Regardless, I thought it was a good excuse to look once again at our own pharmacies and see how the selling of scientifically unsupported remedies aligns with their professional responsibilities.

Enquiring into this area I was directed to the Pharmacy Council Code of Ethics for pharmacists. The Pharmacy Council seems to fill the function of professional association and regulatory body for pharmacists their functions including:

prescribe the qualifications required for scopes of practice within the profession, and, for that purpose, to accredit and monitor educational institutions and degrees, courses of studies, or programmes

and

consider the cases of health practitioners who may be unable to perform the functions required for the practice of the profession

Perusing the Code of Ethics (which may be found Here) I found a number of sections that I feel should preclude pharmacists from selling homeopathic remedies in good conscience. In order to try and represent the spirit of the code as accurately as possible I have included here both the relevant over-arching Principles that pharmacists should strive for as well as the Specific Obligations that I feel make my point (any emphases are mine).

The first principle is one of patient autonomy:

Principle 1: Autonomy
The pharmacist shall promote patient
self-determination, respecting the
patient’s right to understandable
information, privacy, and confidentiality

1.4 Professional services
Where the patient is seeking or receiving, from the
pharmacist or from other personnel for whom he or
she has responsibility, any professional service or
intervention, the pharmacist must ensure that the
patient is provided with credible, understandable
information about reasonably expected results,
outcomes or effects of the service or intervention, any
risks of receiving the service or intervention, and any
insufficiency of evidence about the efficacy of the
service or intervention, to allow the patient to make
an informed choice.

This to my reading implies that should pharmacists sell homeopathic remedies they are obligated to inform the patient of the lack of scientific underpinnings for the use of the remedy. One of the objections I have run into regarding the sale of these remedies in pharmacies is that they are commercial enterprises and are within their rights to sell products regardless of their medicinal value. This is partially true but these remedies are specifically sold to treat symptoms, not as entertainment, confection or cosmetic. The Code has several entries covering this aspect the first of which is:

1.5 Independent information
The pharmacist must ensure that their advice is
independent of personal commercial considerations.

Does this not imply that the sale of unscientific medicines should not be undertaken simply because it make financial sense? We will return to this point later.

The next Principle covers patient needs:

Principle 2: Beneficence
The pharmacist shall optimise medicines
related health outcomes for the patient
according to their concerns, needs,
cultural values and beliefs

2.2 Quality use of medicines
The pharmacist must provide scientifically-based,
unbiased medicines information to healthcare
providers, patients and the community in order to
optimise medicines related health outcomes.

My reading of this point leads me to understand that any information provided regarding pharmacy products must have scientific backing and moreover must not be biased by the pharmacist’s own views. Any such information regarding homeopathy must therefore be negative.

But, what if the pharmacist is not asked for this information? After all, I do not usually go in asking for a lecture if I already think I know what I need. I think the next obligation covers this instance:

2.8 Involvement in sale of medicines and other
therapies
The pharmacist must be involved and intervene in the
sale of any medicine, complementary therapy, herbal
remedy or other healthcare product whenever this is
necessary to ensure a reasonable standard of
pharmaceutical care.

Scientifically speaking homeopathy should not be considered to encompass a “reasonable standard of pharmaceutical care”.

The next Principle of relevance concerns fairness:

Principle 4: Justice
The pharmacist shall practise fairly and
justly and promote family, whanau and
community health

4.4 Commercial interests not to override good
practice
The pharmacist must ensure that commercial interests
are not permitted either to override the independent
exercise of their own professional judgement on
behalf of a patient or to compromise the standard of
care provided by them or to affect their cooperation
with other healthcare providers.

Once again the issue of financial gain over patient care is addressed with commercial interests coming off second best when the standard of care is concerned.

The next Principle is one I feel is of especial importance when the reputation of pharmacists in the wider community is considered and their self representation in the media is a factor (remember, they’re the health professional you see most often). This is trustworthiness, pharmacists are seen as, and promote themselves as, first and foremost medical professionals not business interests. The sale of homeopathic medicines is antithetical to this position and undermines their credibility in this regard, in direct contraction to the Code of Ethics as follows:

Principle 7: Trustworthiness
The pharmacist shall act in a manner
that promotes public trust in the
knowledge and ability of pharmacists
and enhances the reputation of the
profession

7.7 Non-medical goods and services
The pharmacist must not purchase or sell from a
pharmacy any product or service which may be
detrimental to the good standing of the profession or bring the profession into disrepute.

If the sale of scientifically worthless remedies such as homeopthy does not do this I don’t know what would, perhaps offering Therapeutic Touch?

Finally the Principle of dignity undermines the pharmacist’s sale of unsupported medicines:

Principle 8: Dignity
The pharmacist shall provide
information about professional services,
medicines and healthcare products in a
dignified manner without making
exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims

8.4 Medicines not ordinary articles of
commerce
A pharmacist must only participate in promotional
methods that do not encourage the public to equate
medicines with ordinary articles of commerce.

If the previous examples of why remedies should not be sold with the sole purpose of earning money for the pharmacist this should put that argument to rest. The sale of medicines (which many people consider homeopathy to be) should not be equated with ordinary articles of commerce. This puts the lie to arguing that these remedies are simply another commodity to be bought and sold like chewing gum regardless of therapeutic value.

8.8 Evidence of efficacy
The pharmacist must only promote to a potential
purchaser that any medicine, complementary therapy,
herbal remedy or other healthcare product associated
with the maintenance of health is efficacious when
there is credible evidence of efficacy.

This last obligation explicitly refers to promotion of a therapy to a patient by the pharmacist which I don’t think any reputable pharmacist would do for homeopathy but arguably the presence of the product in the store constitutes an implicit promotion of it to potential customers. This point goes back to the principle of trustworthiness, the public trusts the pharmacist to stock efficacious products. To include unscientific therapies among their wares undermines and betrays this trust. Perhaps I am naive to think so but I think the Pharmacy Council’s own Code of Ethics backs me up when I say that we should hold pharmacists to a higher standard than your average shop owner.

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Filed under: Alternative medicine, Medicine, Sciblogs, Science, skepticism Tagged: health, Health and Medicine, Health care, Herbalism, Homeopathy, homoeopathy, Medicine, Pharmaceutical drug, Pharmacy, Placebo, Science and Society

Facilitated Communication Case Fails to Deliver Darcy Cowan Feb 16

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The indefatigable Dr. Novella has been keeping track of the Facilitated Communication case of Rom Houben and via his blog I have learned that further investigation into the case has failed to deliver the goods.

As a refresher, late in November last year the news broke of a man who had been misdiagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS, an essentially hopeless prognosis) being given a new lease on life thanks to modern diagnostic techniques and a practice known as Facilitated Communication (FC). While the mainstream media initially reported this news without a hint of scepticism (despite FC’s chequered past) it didn’t take long for doubts to be made known (for previous posts by myself and fellow Sciblogger Alison see here and here).

Dr. Steven Laureys, the neurologist whose work had thrust Rom into the limelight, only performed a few simple tests to convince himself of the communication method’s legitimacy. To his credit once the full force of the criticism was evident Dr. Laureys determined to return the question of FC’s validity with regard to Rom and conducted tests with the appropriate controls and protocols. These test subsequently showed that Rom was not the one communicating after all.

As detailed in an article by Spiegel Online:

Laureys has now carried out those tests, and his results hold that it wasn’t Houben doing the writing after all. The tests determined that he doesn’t have enough strength and muscle control in his right arm to operate the keyboard. In her effort to help the patient express himself, it would seem that the speech therapist had unwittingly assumed control. This kind of self-deception happens all the time when this method — known as “facilitated communication” — is used. (As a result, the things that Houben was attributed as saying to SPIEGEL for an article printed in November 2009 were also not authentic.)

In the more recent test, Houben was shown or told a series of 15 objects and words, without a speech therapist being present. Afterward, he was supposed to type the correct word — but he didn’t succeed a single time.

Those of us that were aware of FC’s history may not have been be surprised at this result but that does not mean we are not also saddened. I for one would have been happy to lose my cynical opinion of FC in order to keep the eloquent man who spoke movingly of having “Dreamed [him]self away” and his relief at being recognised as conscious; “I will never forget the day they discovered me, the day of my second birth.“. Speaking of which, what pray tell, has happened to the alleged speech therapist Linda Wouters who, it is now evident, was the true originator of the words gushingly attributed to Mr Houben by his family and the media? (And would have been behind the planned book ostensibly written by Rom.) Even if such deception was inadvertent (ie she truly believed that the words came from Rom) this surely casts deep doubt on her professional abilities, and possibly, integrity.

It must be a crushing blow to Mr Houben’s familiy to realise that they must start all over again in their attempts to communicate with Rom, remember that the speech therapist had been working with him for three years. Three years wasted. I hope his family can find the strength to carry on and the fortitude to be cautious about further improvements in the face of this disappointment.

[UPDATE: 19-02-10. Dr. Novella participated in a radio story about the case yesterday, the audio of which can be found Here. Interestingly Dr. Laureys was also interviewed and admitted that the facilitator may have been in the room during the first tests thus completely invalidating the results and subsequent tests were thwarted by "Rom" responding with answers like "you don't trust me" and "I don't want to do the test". A second facilitator had to be brought in in order for the final testing to be done. To my mind this makes the likelihood of Linda Wouters being an innocent participant here much less and that of conscious fraud much more.]

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Filed under: Hoaxes, Psychological, Questionable Techniques, Sciblogs, Science, skepticism, Warped Science Tagged: Add new tag, Facilitated communication, FC, Health and Medicine, persistent vegetative state, Rom Houben, Science, Steven Laureys

Extinction Vortex of DOOM Darcy Cowan Feb 10

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How is it that I’ve never heard this cool phrase before? Well not so cool for the species it applies to but still, someone was having a good brain day when that one was coined. The idea of an extinction vortex has been around for almost 25 years but I’m only just hearing about it now (maybe I was asleep, I mean uh sick, that day in biology class). As the name hints an extinction vortex describes factors affecting declining species that make extinction for that species almost inevitable.

An overview of the structure of DNA.
Image via Wikipedia

The paper that brought this phenomenon to my attention is eye-catching named “Trapped in the extinction vortex? Strong genetic effects in a declining vertebrate population“, published by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The paper looks at the genetic factors influencing the decline of an endangered shorebird the southern dunlin, specifically the effect of reduction of variation in the species due to inbreeding.

The most significant thing about this paper for lay readers is that the primary contributing factors pushing endangered species toward extinction need to be understood in order to put appropriate counter strategies into place. In this case the effects of inbreeding, likely due to reduced population size, have weakened the species and made it more difficult to produce healthy offspring. Protection of the nests and increasing the available habitat for the species did not significantly  impact the species’ steady decline. This implies that conservation minded programs should be aware that once a species is in decline multiple strategies, including reproductive approaches, may be required to halt the decline and bring the species back to a stable population.

With currently over six thousand threatened species recognised this would seem to be an important lesson to learn. If conservation efforts are to succeed then at risk populations must be fully evaluated to determine the approach that has the best chance. As noted by the study authors, genetic damage may be hardest to see (via casual observation) when the effects are most severe: when the damage is such that embryos perish before viable individuals can be born.

I can’t sum up better than the study authors themselves so I’ll let their own words wrap things up:

“We have shown that a declining population of a long-lived, endangered vertebrate suffers from substantial negative genetic effects. Our results highlight that ignoring genetics may underestimate the extinction risk of natural populations and thus lead to inappropriate conservation measures”

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Filed under: Sciblogs, Science Tagged: Biology, Endangered species, Environment, Environment and Ecology, Population, Population size, Review, Science, Species, Sweden, University of Gothenburg

What is the Harm of Alternative Medicine? Darcy Cowan Jan 26

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Yesterday fellow Sciblogger Grant posted about homeopathic medications in pharmacies and questioned the legitimacy of reputable organisations selling such patent snake oil. The comments to this entry reveal one of the most frustrating aspects of speaking out against unscientific medicine and can be summarised thusly: “I’m far too sophisticated to be taken in by this stuff myself but other people seem to like it and if it doesn’t work then what’s the harm?”.

This attitude is ever present and comes from a reasonable starting point i.e. everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it’s not my job to save them from themselves. I can totally get behind that, usually. When it comes to ineffective medications of the alternative variety however this impulse though understandable is misguided and I’d like to put down a few reasons why I think so, some are speculative but I think the possibility of harm is great enough that they deserve to be considered.

For a start there may well be direct harm caused by using alternative remedies. As there is little to no regulation of these medications then no proof of safety or efficacy is required for sale. Witness the Zicam debacle last year regarding a “homeopathic” cold medication.

Further more the possibility for indirect harm (as multiply alluded to by Grant) may be significant. In case your imagination is not up to the task I will outline a few ways this may be the case. For instance the underlying principles of something like homeopathy are no only unscientific they are in direct contradiction of the last 200 years of scientific understanding. If they are used as the basis of reasoning about health then the results can be more dire than someone getting a bad nights sleep (in the case of the homeopathic sleep aid Grant used as an example).

Use of these therapies for minor ailments by the “worried and wonky well” may increase the possibility they they will be used for more serious health issues where the results could be deadly.

Look no further than the position statement of the WHO regarding the use of homeopathy in the treatment of Malaria and AIDs (among other things). The consequences of such thinking could be incalculable in terms of human suffering and spread of disease. But what’s the harm, right?

Additionally it is one thing for adults to make an informed choice for themselves based on available evidence filter through their particular world view but what about when this choice id forced on their children? The recent case of parents being found guilty of manslaughter over giving homeopathic remedies to their sick daughter is a terrible reminder that sometimes it is innocent children that pay the price for people’s gullibility. But, you know, what’s the harm?

When ostensibly professional medical providers such as pharmacists sell demonstrably irrational treatments they lend credibility to them that the average person uses to base decisions on. I mean the wouldn’t sell it if it didn’t work, right?

So while I understand the commitment to individual autonomy and freedom of choice that leads to the “What’s the Harm?” question, I fail to see how this means that fraudulent therapies must be let off the hook simply because there is a demand for them.

This has been a more vitriolic post than I normally write but what’s the point of a blog if you can’t vent once in a while?

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Posted in Alternative medicine, Medicine, Questionable Techniques, Sciblogs, Science, skepticism Tagged: alternative, health, Health and Medicine, Homeopathy, Medicine, Practitioners and Clinics, Science and Society, Scientific method

Smoking Bans and the Effect of Health Warnings Darcy Cowan Jan 21

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In the world today there is an increasing focus on the negative aspects of smoking and a concerted attempt to reduce the presence of smoking in society. Given the harmful effects of this addiction on not only the active smoker but those around them this seems like a prudent move. Two of the approaches with the goal of minimising public exposure to cigarette smoke are the banning of smoking in businesses and public places and the addition of more strenuous warning labels on the cigarettes themselves.

Both of these tactics have been used in New Zealand with varying levels of acceptance (and success). Smoking bans draw the criticism that individual freedoms are being curtailed. This may be a legitimate point but conceptually it is no different than government enforcement of wearing seatbelts while driving on public roads. The aim is to reduce the risk of harm to the public. The real question in each case is whether the intervention is effective in it’s goals.

Addressing this question two studies last year looked at each of these methods, the first I will look at is a meta-analysis (with the concomitant problems those have, that’s another story) of the effect of smoking bans on the hospital admissions of acute myocardial infarction (that’s a heart attack to you and me). The analysis found that smoking bans were associated with an average reduction of heart attacks by 17%.

For each year a ban was in place it was accompanied by a reduction of the incidence rate ratio (the number of new cases per unit of population eg 10 cases per 100,000 people) of 26%. This indicates that the longer a ban is in force the fewer people who will be affected by heart attacks. Looks like an effective strategy to me, 17% is nothing to be sneezed at when it is individual lives you are considering. Depending on individual risk factors the chance of death in the 30 days after a heart attack can be up to 16%.

An editorial discussing these findings in more depth (in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the journal this study was published in) can be found Here and is a good read.

The second study focused on the how well explicit (i.e. emphasising death) cigarette pack warnings encouraged smokers to quit. Specifically it looked at smokers for whom the act of smoking formed part of the basis for their self-esteem. Subjects undertook a questionnaire that evaluated whether smoking was tied to their self esteem using statements like ‘‘Smoking allows me to feel valued by others,” and ‘‘Smoking allows me to feel worthy.” (as well as negative versions). The subjects rated how much they agreed with the statements and this was used to determine the smoking-based self esteem for each subject.

Participants were then shown pictures of cigarette packs that either had mortality related warnings (e.g. ‘‘Smoking leads to deadly lung cancer.”) or more moral or self esteem related warnings (e.g. ‘‘Smoking brings you and the people around you severe damage” and ‘‘Smoking makes you unattractive”). After a delay to allow the warnings to be filtered out of conscious awareness the subjects were asked a further series of questions to assess the effect of the warnings (e.g. ‘‘Do you intend to smoke more or less in the future?” ‘‘Do you intend to quit smoking in the future?”).

Subjects for whom smoking formed part of the basis for their self esteem actually increased their likelihood of smoking in response to warnings emphasising mortality. For these people it was the self image warnings that were most effective. Unfortunately is seems that the opposite is true for individuals that do not consider smoking to be an important factor of their self esteem so a one size fits all approach would probably not be effective. The study authors suggest that specific populations could have warnings tailored to be most effective depending on the relevance smoking has to the group identity (e.g. “young smokers who want to impress their peers.”).

This result may be applicable to other areas where minimising harm is the goal, such as drink driving campaigns.

In summary, despite any reservations regarding the form that inducements to stop smoking take it seems that the benefits are indeed worth the attempt. Also, as I often point out, the real world is more nuanced and complicated than we would generally like it to be, more effort may be required to identify sub-groups that respond most to different strategies but this also looks to be worth trying.

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Posted in Medicine, Psychological, Sciblogs, Science Tagged: American College of Cardiology, Cigarette, health, Health and Medicine, Lung cancer, Myocardial infarction, New Zealand, Review, Science, Science and Society, smoking, Smoking ban, Tobacco smoking

I Trust You More if I Think You Think I’m Attractive. Darcy Cowan Jan 13

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As always things aren’t as simple as headlines suggest and the headlines of science based blogs are no exception. Of course people don’t actually go around assessing how attractive other people think they are and modifying their behaviour accordingly. These psychological biases and effects go on below conscious awareness but the point is that they do happen. Previous studies have shown that humans will tend to treat attractive people better and trust them more than unattractive people. Recent research has looked at whether this increase in trust can work both ways, that people will be behave more trustingly the more attractive they are.

While not immediately obvious it would make sense for this to be the case, consider that trust is a sort of social contract and we have an implicit understanding of the levels of trust individuals in our lives deserve. If greater trust is afforded to one segment of the population based on a scalable factor such as attractiveness then a reciprocal increase in trust based on this would tend to develop in order for this social contract not to break down. In addition to attractiveness people have also shown to act more altruistically and trustingly towards others when they know they are being observed. This also makes sense, we seem to have a high sensitivity to how we are perceived by others and for good reason, how we are perceived affects how we are treated.

In this study subjects participated in an economic trust game, in this game the first player is given an amount of money, this player can then choose to give a second player a proportion of this money (an act of trust), the second player then has the amount he or she received multiplied by a factor (say three) and can then choose how much money to give back to the first player. Each player then keeps the money they have left in their pool at the end. In this way the amount of trust shown by the first player can influence the amount of money they receive back, a highly trusting person may give a large proportion of their money with the expectation of receiving an even larger amount back.

Participants in this game tend to give more money if they know they are being watched, or even if there are simply pictures of eyes visible to them (tapping into the social aspect of our behaviour). In this variation the participants were told that they were visible to the other player and their behaviour was then matched with how attractive they were, as determined by a panel of raters looking at photographs of the participants. The subjects’ estimation of their own attractiveness was also gathered and showed a positive correlation with the external rating (ie if a participant considered themselves attractive then other people were likely to as well).

The findings showed that in general the more attractive the participant was the more trusting their behaviour, if they thought the other player could see them. How the results were correlated also supports the contention at the start of this post, that this is not a conscious process. The researchers found that if they controlled for the external evaluation of attractiveness then the estimation of self attractiveness did not seem to correlate well with increased trust. The implication here is that this is a learned behaviour based on how they were treated by others in the past.

This is not to say that good looking people are always deserving of trust but it’s nice to know that, at least in this one instance, trusting behaviour can beget more trusting behaviour down the line. I find that a very optimistic result.

Posted in Psychological, Sciblogs, Science Tagged: attractiveness, Review, Science, Science and Society, social behaviour, Trust

Hands, Eyes and Uses for Bricks Darcy Cowan Dec 28

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Are you Right, Left or mix-handed? Haven’t heard of mix-handedness? Current thinking in neurology and psychology seems to be leaning towards describing handedness as a function of the degree of preference for one hand or the other. For some tasks you may use your right hand, others your left, it is the amount or preference you show that will determine what handedness you are. Not sure now? This page has a simple test that aims to determine hand preference by asking about simple tasks and which hand you prefer to use.

The test involves thinking about tasks (such as writing and drawing) and deciding which hand you prefer to use.Each answer is given a score for each hand your handedness is then given a score using the formula: (Right – Left) / (Right + Left). A pure Left hander will score -1.0, conversely +1.0 indicates pure right handedness, intermediate scores show mix handedness with a preference one way or the other. One thing to note here though, a score of 0 does not necessarily indicate ambidexterity.

This approach may indicate how well the two hemispheres of your brain communicate with strong handedness correlating with less communication and mix handedness with more. So how well are your hemispheres getting along?

This concept of communication between hemispheres is also being implicated in more abstract capabilities such as creativity. A recent study (very well summarised Here and Scientific American’s 60 Second Science podcast) looked at whether creativity can be increased in individuals who performed an exercise designed to increase cross-hemisphere communication. The exercise involved having the study participants move their eyes back and forth horizontally for 30 seconds. This activity likely increases the amount of hemisphere cross talk due to the fact that for each eye the right side of the visual field is processed on the right side of the brain and the left field on the left, this is represented diagrammatically Here (this can lead to a fascinating pathology called Hemispatial Neglect where a patient acts as if the left side of the world simply does not exist, not relevant here but too interesting not to include).

So moving your eyes back and forth means that each side must communicate a little more while forming a coherent whole for the visual field. This extra communication may then carry over to other tasks, that was the hypothesis. The measuring of creativity would seem to be a tough call, in this case participants were asked to come up with as many different uses for mundane objects (like bricks) as they could, participants were regarded as more creative when they came up with more categories of use and uses not thought of by other participants (originality).

The study found that the exercise did have an effect but that the strength of the effect was determined by strong handed or mix handedness. Strong handers had a creativity boost for 6-9 minutes (depending on the type of creativity, originality or more categories of use). If you are a mix hander then there is no benefit from the exercise, but don’t be worried, you are more creative than the strong handers in the first place. The increase of the strong handers performance really only seems to bring them up to the mix handers level.

Perhaps then, if you favour one hand much more than the other and you need a quick increase in creativity, you could do worse than this simple eye exercise. For once science has come up with an easy answer.

Posted in Psychological, Sciblogs, Science Tagged: brain science, Creativity, Research, Review, Science

Persistent Vegetative States and the Problem with Facilitated Communication Darcy Cowan Nov 25

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If you read the print version of the NZ Herald today you would have seen featured on the front page a miraculous case of a man [Rom Houben] recovering from a persistent vegetative state and communicating with the world through a touch screen with the help of a carer. The topic of persistent vegetative state (PVS) is an interesting one and has received increasing attention in recent years. It would seem that this man was incorrectly diagnosed after an accident as being in a PVS while at the time of the accident it is more likely that he was in a minimally conscious state (MCS). A fine distinction sometimes and an excellent summary of the differences between the two diagnoses and the difficultly of accurately deciding between them can be found at the Science Based Medicine site.

Essentially a PVS is defined as the patient exhibiting no signs of consciousness, as with everything, whether you find something is dependent on how hard you look, simply opening a couple of drawers and glancing in the cupboard may not turn it up. In determining a case of PVS a more thorough search will reveal fewer legitimate cases as you may find extremely subtle signs of intermittent consciousness that will then flip the designation to a MCS. This process is also dependent on the sensitivity of the equipment used to perform the examination, the sophisticated scanning technology we have today simply did not exist 20 years ago. This equipment is the equivalent of rummaging around in the back of the couch and looking behind the fridge.

That this man was unfortunately diagnosed incorrectly is not in dispute, we have made significant advances in brain imaging technology that allows us to determine activity quite well. The issue here is the man’s ability to communicate so coherently and poetically. After so long without mental stimulation it seems bordering on the fantastic that this could be the case. When watching the video of the touch screen being used to bring this man’s thoughts to the world it seems very close to a practice known as Facilitated Communication, (this is actually confirmed in the TimesOnline article) this consists of a facilitator supporting the arm or hand of a subject ostensibly to allow them to then choose letters and words themselves which otherwise they would not have the strength or the focus to do.

The difficulty here is that this technique is very susceptible to the unconscious influence of the facilitator. In this way it can seem as though it is the patient communicating when in reality it is the thoughts of the facilitator that we are hearing. It is difficult to say for sure in this case, the video is ambiguous as to how much control the patient has over his movements so it is possible that we are indeed being exposed the inner world of a man with a very unique perspective but from the evidence shown it is equally plausible that the facilitator is the true originator of these words.

I would be interested in if any simple tests to determine the true origin of this material have been carried out, some of the suggestions I have seen elsewhere include swapping the facilitator for someone who does not speak the patient’s language, asking the patient questions that presumably only he would know, or asking the facilitator to leave the room while the patient is shown an object or told specific information and then seeing if this can be reliably produced after the facilitator returns. Any of these would help determine whether this man is truely communicating.

The print version of the Herald is mostly credulous in it’s coverage of this story but it appears that enough scepticism has filtered through the journalistic world that the online version has incorporated some of it. Better late than never.

[EDIT: The incomparable Dr Novella of the SGU and SBM has posted his take on this news item, as I hoped he would. Get the thoughts of a neurologist. Also had to add a link to this video from Dr.N's site that shows the patient typing with his eyes closed, simply not possible. Added Patient's name]

Posted in Psychological, Sciblogs, Science, skepticism Tagged: consciousness, Facilitated communication, Health and Medicine, MCS, Medicine, minimally conscious state, persistent vegetative state, PVS, Rom Houben, Science and Society

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