theiconoclast.info

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=face+recognition&aq=0&oq=face+rec&aqi=g4&start=0

Consider the following:

·         People asked to describe a face after seeing it are worse at recognizing that same face later

·         People that are asked to describe the taste of a wine after drinking it are worse at recognizing that same wine later

 In psychology, this effect is known as verbal overshadowing, and it has been demonstrated in study after study. Basically, recognizing faces and tastes are nonverbal tasks. For some reason, trying to use words to accomplish a nonverbal task will make people worse at that task later. Scientists do not yet fully understand this process.

Source:

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

http://phantom-limb.org/images/Phantom2.jpg

A phantom limb is just what it sounds like: a limb that is not really there, but appears to be. Some amputees, and even some people who were born without limbs, have the uncanny, and often unpleasant experience of feeling like their missing limb (usually arm or leg) is still there. I’m not in the mood to write paragraphs, so here are the interesting facts about phantom limbs, in bullet form. I’ve always preferred reading bullets to paragraphs anyway…

·         Roughly ninety percent of amputees will experience the phantom limb phenomenon at some point after the amputation, though in most people the feeling goes away over time.

·         Unfortunately, in approximately 95% of cases, the phantom limb is painful. This is a huge problem, as how can doctors go about treating a patient that’s experiencing pain in a body part that does not exist? Until recently, there was no way, until recent methods using neuorplasticity (check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_box ) have shown some success.

·         “Phantom limb” can also occur in internal organs. There have been cases where people that have had their bladder removed suffer the feeling of a chronic and painful need to urinate.

·         Phantom limbs sometimes feel like dead weight, while other times they can have lives of their own. Patients have reported feeling their phantom arm gesticulating, waving, and reaching for a ringing telephone.

·         Phantom limbs have a tendency to literally “shorten” over time. For instance, the patient may start out with a normal size phantom arm, only to have it begin to shrink to lengths as small as six inches.

·         People born without limbs can also experience the phantom limb phenomenon.

·         Phantom limbs can itch. In one case, a patient found he could scratch his itchy phantom arm by scratching a specific spot on his cheek. This is likely because the sensory maps in the brain that correspond to the face are close to those that correspond to the arm.

·         Researchers are just beginning to understand the cause of the phantom limb phenomenon, and there is still much debate. For the current theories, check out the sources below:

Sources:

·         http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web2/tchen.html

·         http://psy.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/39/4/384

·         http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119520633/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb

·         The Brain That Changes Itself Norman Doldge M.D.

A few weeks ago, I met a girl who informed me that, if I want an interesting experience and have some free time, I should deprive myself of sleep and see how I feel. She told me that, if you haven’t slept for 72 hours, you are classified as legally insane. Furthermore, she said she tried it and kept a journal of her experiences. Obviously, I hang out with interesting people.

Never the less, I took her world for it. I wanted to try this, and write about my experience here. But my parents wouldn’t let me. So I decided to do the next best thing. Research it and see if I could find a sleep deprivation report to post here.

First of all, it turns out that there is no objective law that states “Anyone who has not slept for 72 hours is considered legally insane.” This is an urban myth. However, sleep deprivation has many affects on the body, and may be a possible reason for insanity if argued in court. Instead of listing and describing the affects of sleep deprivation, here is a journal of someone who deprived themselves of sleep for five days:

It is

1:00 PM, Saturday, March 27.

I haven’t slept in 5 hours.

I’m feeling normal right now. I slept ~8 hours last night.

———————- It is

2:00 PM, Sunday, March 28.

I haven’t slept in 29 hours.

Right now I’m feeling drowsy. I’ve been drinking a cup of coffee every now and then, and it’s working well. Through the night, I kept myself occupied as best as I could with movies and computer games. Staying awake wasn’t a challenge. I have no change in mood at the moment, although I am starting to feel slightly sluggish. I’m not quite as enthusiastic as I usually am about day to day activities. Overall, nobody I associate myself with has been able to tell I’m lacking sleep.

———————-

It is

5:00 PM, Monday, March 29.

I haven’t slept in 56 hours.

Right now I’m starting to get extremely apathetic towards everyday things. My performance in day-to-day dealings and events is extremely uninvolved. I’m starting to get slightly irritable and impatient with people who make mistakes/act stupid around me. Staying up is increasingly difficult. I find that if I do anything aside from quickly blinking, I nod off to sleep. This has happened 5-6 times, but I’ve snapped out of it. Caffeine is becoming a major factor in staying awake. I can’t perform complex literary/mathematical functions without many careless errors. Through the night I no longer watched TV - I was in danger of falling asleep. I must keep myself involved… busy to stay awake. My eyes are becoming slightly red, and slightly pained. This pain can only be relieved by closing them, which I simply cannot do. My reflexes are beginning to slowly dwindle.

It took me a while to correct grammatical and spelling errors in this update. There may still be some, but I don’t have the patience to fix them.

———————-

it is

8 pm, wed march 30′

i haven slept in 83 hrs

i can barely keep my eyelids open. i have to fight so hard not to just lose it and fall asleep. will power is is starting to become i bigger part of staying awake. ive abandoned any sort of activivty to requires intense attention because i just get frustrated- i lash out at people that get in my way and i find myself to be really irritable whn i can muster up enough energy and will power to yell at someone. caffeine is constantly coming into my body, and ive taken severla nodoze tablets. im not going to try anything illegal like meth because i decided this should be fairy level stated when awake this is really fucking difficult. i feel extremely apathetic to all sorts of things right now and generally dont give a shit. my eyes are extremely sore right now, and very red on top. at hour 70-72 somewhere i developed a dull headache that has been grwing in tension. i feel terrible and am close to mentally giving up and sleepng

-phlab,

———00000000

it is 6pm wednesd mar 31

havent slept in 105 hrs

my eyes are burnng horribly an seem to be bloodshot. as far as reaction time goes, its almost nonexistant. i had friend throw something at me, and didnt even bother flinching. needless to say it hurt, but felt duller and insignificant to if i was rested. nothing but incoherent thoughts ar ronning through my head, i cant concentrate on a thing. when i do talk i ramble nmeedlesly, mumbling notbhing but jibberish. my sense of taste is dwindlng, althoy i think i may just be imagining it. i try to keep myself busy drinkng coffee and other diuretics to keep myslf busy and pissin so i cant sleep with full bladder. as im writin this, im in danger of sleeping because this chasir is padded. i must stay in unconfortable positions endlessly to stay awake. my muscles are aching and sore all over my body from not gvng them a break. asi attemtp to watch tv, im tryng to listen and comprehend but its extremely unclearand i dont understand dont understand. i think i may be hearing things, auditory hallucinations, but im gambling thats its simply a placebo effect because thats what im expecting. i cnst explain myself right now ,this is so full of errors but i cannot allot my concrentration tow fixing thm,. if these auditory hallucinations continue and i can confirm that theyy rre actully hapnign, im stang up 6 dyas. hah. i doubt that somehow. i just want o sleep, its all i can hthink about. im feeling delirious-

with l ove

phlab

—————————————————

its 3pm, thurs. april 1

i haven not slept in 126 hrs

my mental aptitude is completely shot. words that come out of my mout are completely random ; nonsensicle. i have found a good way of keepng myself awake and active is wlaking around the neighbordhood. the fresh air, sun, and public environment somehow tells me brain it is not appropriate to fall asleep in the outdoor public setting, which somehow is relieving some of the severe urges to sleep. in addition to complete mental exauhstion, i am physically deprived. i cannot eat a thing, only takng in liquids. my appetite is completely gone, i havent eaten in 14-16 hours or so. time is beginning to drag, an percetion of it is slightly more difficult. my entire body is sore and the pain in my eyes is at a peak as im writing. the headache has gradually increased and is making is difficult to to stay much mawake more. in additon, i am developing a slight stomach ache that is more of a nuisance than anything. when all physical ailments are combined with complete mental emptyness this makes for an awful experience. i am certiain i am hearing audioty hallcunations - i hear a cat mewo despite thatfact thast i own no cats. i also hear a weird series of bleeps in different tones - i cannot find the sourceo f them. i snap in and out of an almost trancelike state wher i look at a random object an space out. ifeel delirious, a frien came over to check on me asi told him to, and he thought it was funny that my statements were halfbaked nonsensical jibberish. i no longer simply walk - it is more of a staggerlike lurchin g. my balance is also off. out of the corner of my eyes i believe im seeing visual disturbances an interruptions. no hallucinations - i imagin thos come muhc later - just ripples an slight distortions in my periphial. it may not even be a true hallucination, just delerium. i am so fatigued tha if sonmeone offered me to sprint around a track once for 100 grand, i most likely couldnt. when i fill my head with thoughts of going to sleep and curling up in bed under a blanket, i get a dumb smuile on my face. for all i know, it could be my brain releasing positive chemicals of some sort to will me into sleepng. i hope what i’m saying is makng sense. i have little attention span and my short term memory seems to to be weakened so i wrote thi update over about half an hour. i hav reached my goal an will stay up slightly longer to futrher explor auditory hallulcinations and see if the visuals increas. if not, im going to go to bed. i have a grin on my gesicht jsyt thinking about it,.

thansk for readng. it will be interesntg to go over this log when ii ma fully rested an analy it a little after sleepngm.for the record the only stimulant usedd was caffeine, wich i stope usng 12 hrs ago becauee the comedown was killin g me./

goodnight. dropping into bed will be GOOD FEELNGI..

Phlab-

Source: http://www.modrs2.info/en/fringe/fringe_science/effectsofsleep173704.html

The Iconoclast: Get Smarter

If you are lucky enough to be a member of my audience, chances are that you are all ready pretty smart. But then again, who wouldn’t want to be smarter if they could? Typing “become smarter” into Google produces over 12,700,000 results (in a handy 0.22 seconds). Regrettably however, many of the things these websites will tell you to do are either obvious (like getting a good night’s sleep and eating breakfast), mundane (teaching you how to study), or not backed up by even the smallest amount of science (taking a herb called ginkgo biloba). But fortunately, scientists may have discovered (a year or so ago) a way to actually make one legitimately smarter…

Go to  http://www.soakyourhead.com/ . They explain the research better than I’m willing to take the time to. But in summary, this is a link to a computer game (yes, a computer game) that has been shown in preliminary studies to boost IQ if played regularly. I used to play this game a lot (last summer), and although I don’t know if it produced any IQ improvement, I do know that I improved substantially at the game. Enjoy…

Brad Rybinski

I did a lot this Memorial Day weekend. One of the best things I did was go to a party with the people I work with in my lab. It was fun and interesting. But more importantly, I ran into a perfect example of evolutionary psychology…

Evolutionary psychology is branch of psychology that attempts to explain behaviors and psychological traits as adaptations that have been selected over millions of years of human evolution. It has valid criticisms, but is becoming more and more accepted in the scientific community and is an extremely useful tool for explaining people’s subconscious motivations for their actions. In other words, evolutionary psychology provides explanations not for why people do what they do, but why they want to do what they do. Anyway back to the lab party…

When I first got there, the host was graciously offering everyone drinks. After jokingly requesting (and subsequently being denied) a beer, I said I was fine and not thirsty. And I legitimately wasn’t thirsty. However, the host then asked me two more times if I wanted to have something to drink, and I eventually accepted. This persistence didn’t bother me, but I began to wonder: Why did he keep asking? And then I remembered something I read a long time ago…

Evolutionary psychology has the perfect explanation for this phenomenon. When people share food and drink, it is a form of social bonding. It works in the following manner: When people eat a large meal together, their body functions slow down as they digest the food. Consequently, this makes them less alert. Anyone who is at a social gathering, and not eating and drinking while others are, is thus subconsciously seen as wishing to remain tense and on-guard, and thus they are perceived as suspicious. Source: The Origins of Virtue Matt Ridley

As a direct result of this, evolutionary psychology suggests that hosts will want to “make their guests comfortable” by making sure they consume food and drink. And consciously, this is a very kind and polite motive. However, this pleasant conscious motive, evolutionary psychology says, only really exists because the human mind has been molded by millions of years of natural selection for the more strategic reasons above… Thoughts?

Source: http://www.bestbalidriver.com/pics/monkey_food.jpg

Brad Rybinski

Sit down. Take a look at your fingers. Look at them like you have never looked at them before.

Now, if you are a male, chances are that your ring finger is longer than your index finger. However, if you are a female, the chances are that your fingers are approximately the same length, or your index finger may even be longer than your ring finger. Why?

The length of the ring finger is determined by the amount of testosterone one is exposed to while inside their mother’s womb; the more testosterone, the longer the resulting ring finger. Since men are exposed to much more testosterone in the womb than women (the default sex for the human species is female, so testosterone is used to masculinize the brain and body), most men have longer ring fingers.

And this is not just a trivial biological curiosity. Ring finger length has proven in various scientific studies to be an excellent predictor of numerous traits in men. Men with uncommonly long ring fingers have a greater risk of autism, stammering, dyslexia, and immune system problems. Men with uncommonly short ring fingers are at a greater risk of heart disease and infertility.

Also, various studies have shown that a large percentage of homosexual people have a finger length characteristic of the opposite sex; gay men have ring fingers shorter than the index finger and lesbians have ring fingers longer than it. Perhaps it all has to do with testosterone’s effect on the brain during pregnancy. But at this point that is really just speculation.

So, as always, science is cooler than superstition. While fortune tellers can only make up the meaning of the lines on the palm, scientists actually know the meaning of the finger lengths. Science wins again. Thoughts?

Brad Rybinski