Play Eyewire

One of my interests is the human brain.  I haven’t done any serious study of the brain, but if it is written in layman’s terms, I like to read studies about how our brain works.  This week, thanks to NPR, I found out how I can be a neuroscientist – well, sort of, just by playing a game, called Eyewire, developed by MIT.  The game doesn’t map the whole brain.  They have started with the retina.

Here is an image of one week’s retinal neuron mapping in the EyeWire Game:

Anyone can play the game. In it, you view a 3-D structure, in which you help map connections between retinal neurons.  It is called EyeWire, and the information is used for neuroscience research on how the retina functions in visual perception.  It also helps the Eyewire team, at MIT, develop computation technologies for mapping the connectome.

I have tried playing the game a few times.  They start you off with some practice structures, to teach you how it’s done.  There are also quite a few video tutorials that you can find on YouTube that explain how you can tell what clues to look for when mapping neurons.

Now that I have given it a try, I can attest to the fact that I am not and never will be a neuroscientist, but I am definitely going to play again.  I think I might watch a few of the tutorial videos, too.  I am assuming that I will get better will knowledge and practice.

Here is a video to explain why you should play Eyewire, and help MIT map the brain:

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© Robin Tjernagel
Real Life and Life Imagined
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Are You and Your Children Eating Pesticides?

Last week, I wrote about the Supreme Court case: Monsanto vs. Bowman, in which Monsanto claimed patent infringement by Bowman on its genetically modified (GMO) soy bean seeds. Genetically modified foods have their DNA changed and although they are supposedly safe, I believe the jury is still out on that one. GMO foods do not have to be labeled in the United States, although when polled, 95% of Americans say that these foods should carry a label. And produce is just the tip of the ice burg; salmon is now a genetically engineered food.

In any case, today I thought I would talk about the pesticides in our foods. Pesticides can permeate the skins of fruits and vegetables, so that even if you wash your food, it makes no difference. You will still ingest pesticides. Pesticides can be harmful to your health, but they are even more harmful to young, developing children.

What about meats? If a cow eats feed that was treated with pesticides, it becomes part of the animal’s flesh. When we eat that yummy burger or steak, we eat the pesticides that the cow ate. (Don’t even get me started on growth hormones and antibiotics.)

The point is, you should really learn about the foods you eat. Where do they come from? How are they grown? I know it isn’t possible to trace everything you eat back to its beginnings, when it was picked, how it was stored and then eventually transported to your store.

To be on the safe side, I eat organic foods as much as I possibly can. There are exceptions, and I will not refuse food that isn’t organic. However, I choose it, because it is a healthier choice. Nutritionally, it might not differ from other foods, but trust me, it is better for you and they usually taste better as well. Eat an organic strawberry or apple and you can taste the difference. And an organic chicken is so much more tender than any regular chicken you can buy.

In November of 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with an official policy statement concerning “Pesticide Exposure in Children”. In it, they warn of the harmful effects pesticides can have on children, including those that are still prenatal. The dangers range from cancers to cognitive function. Their statement includes exposure to pesticides that are environmental, but also those that are ingested. Below I have included a copy of the abstract, as well as a link to the policy statement – it isn’t too long and it is FREE.

Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics
ABSTRACT
This statement presents the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics on pesticides. Pesticides are a collective term for chemicals intended to kill unwanted insects, plants, molds, and rodents. Children encounter pesticides daily and have unique susceptibilities to their potential toxicity. Acute poisoning risks are clear, and understanding of chronic health implications from both acute and chronic exposure are emerging. Epidemiologic evidence demonstrates associations between early life exposure to pesticides and pediatric cancers, decreased cognitive function, and behavioral problems. Related animal toxicology studies provide supportive biological plausibility for these findings. Recognizing and reducing problematic exposures will require attention to current inadequacies in medical training, public health tracking, and regulatory action on pesticides. Ongoing research describing toxicologic vulnerabilities and exposure factors across the life span are needed to inform regulatory needs and appropriate interventions. Policies that promote integrated pest management, comprehensive pesticide labeling, and marketing practices that incorporate child health considerations will enhance safe use.

A Culture of Technological Distraction – You and Your Phone

“We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We expect more from technology and less from each other”.  –Sherry Turkle, MIT

Recently, I was checking out Matt Mullenweg’s (founder of Word Press) blog, when I found an essay that led me to Joe Kraus’s (a partner of Google Ventures) blog.  Both of them addressed the topic of how we are creating a culture of distraction through our love of technology.  Check out the links to read their articles.

Digital Intimacy?

What kind of a relationship do you have with your phone?  Is it always within arm’s reach?  Is your e-mail sent to your phone?  How many Internet searches do you do on your phone each day?  Do you use your phone for banking?  Do you get your news and weather on your phone?  Do you listen to music on your phone?  Do you play games on your phone?  Do you take photos with your phone?  How often do you text?  How many calls do you make and receive a day?  Do you use your phone to connect to social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging?

•   Do you use your phone while you are doing other things?
•   Do you use your phone while you are with other people?
•   Smartphones are called SMART for a reason.  But, sometimes I wonder if we are smart about the way we use them.

We have all seen people texting or talking on their phones, or we have seen photos or videos of them, while they are doing other tasks:  working, driving, walking, eating, conversing, shopping, etc.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen young parents engaged with their phone while their toddler or young child is being neglected.  Do you think that is too strong of a word?  I don’t.  At the expense of their children’s need for attention and protection, the phone draws these young parents to it like a magnet.  Children are only young once, and as any parent of older children can tell you, the time flies by quickly.  It saddens me to think what these parents are missing out on, and more importantly, what their children are missing.  The message to them is clear:  something is more important to Mommy or Daddy than I am.  And, while the finding is anecdotal, neglect due to smartphones is also leading to a rise in child injuries.[i]  Okay, I’ll get off of my soapbox and move on.  But first, you can check out this video from the Wall Street Journal:

Our Brains Cannot Multi-task – They Become Distracted

As I pointed out in an earlier post, “Distracted Driving and Your Brain,” we cannot multi-task.  Our brains can only do one thing at a time, so when we try to do two things at the same time, our brain actually quickly switches back and forth between the two, giving precedence to one of them.  Our brain becomes distracted.

As our brain becomes distracted, our attention span shortens.  We become less proficient, less effective, and less intelligent.  Our IQ drops 10 points and we are 40% less efficient. According to Joe Kraus, our phones are a distractor and “the more we train our brain to pay attention to this distractor, the more distracted we become…We’re radically over-developing the parts of quick thinking, distractible brain and letting the long-form-thinking, creative, contemplative, solitude-seeking, thought-consolidating pieces of our brain atrophy by not using them.”[ii]

Do You Need to Change the Relationship You Have With Your Phone?

I guess the question is whether or not we spend more time connected to our phone than with the real world, in real relationships.  Or, is the question whether or not the nature of how we connect with one another changing.  For some of us, the answer to both of these questions might be yes.

Our love relationship with our phones is affecting how parents interact with their children.  It affects most of what we do, from work to play.  We connect with our friends via our phones instead of face to face.  We even shop and work from our phones.  Are our phones improving our relationships or hurting them? 

Technology has changed the way we interact with the world and with each other.  It has changed the way we do things.  One might argue that our smartphones help us to be more connected to one another and that they help to keep us informed and current.  But, if our phones are a distractor, and as a result, our brains are changing; then, maybe it is time to reconsider our relationship with our phones and ask ourselves if we need to change.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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P.S.  I do not send my e-mail to my phone, or pull it out while in the company of others to answer calls or text.  And, I often miss calls or messages because my phone is not within arm’s reach.

Sources:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444772404577589683644202996.html
http://ma.tt/

 

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[i] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444772404577589683644202996.html
 

[ii] http://joekraus.com/were-creating-a-culture-of-distraction
 

Your Brain and Your Politics

Do you think that your political views are based on your values?  Do you affiliate yourself with a particular political party based on how closely their platform aligns with your values?  Not so fast.  There is a study (there is a study for just about everything) that claims your political leanings might have something to do with your brain.

I love studies of the brain.  So let’s look at what this one has to say about your brain and the way you vote.

First, what motivated the study?  Based on prior psychological reports connecting personality traits to political preferences – that conservatives are more sensitive to threat or anxiety in the face of uncertainty and that liberals are more open to new experiences – Ryota Kanai of the University College London and his team suspected that these personality differences would show up in the brain.

Structural Differences Found in the Brains of Conservatives and Liberals

Indeed, the brain study did find structural differences in the brains of conservatives and liberals.

People who tend to identify themselves as conservatives have larger amygdalas – the part of the brain that processes memory and emotional reactions.  It also process violations to personal space.  People with larger amygdalas tend to have larger and more complex social networks and the ability to make accurate social judgments about other person’s faces.  The bottom line is that the larger your amaygdala, the greater your ability to recognize a threat.

People who tend to identify themselves as liberals have larger anterior cingulate cortexes – the part of the brain related to autonomic functions, like blood pressure and heart rate, and rational cognitive functions, such as reward anticipation, decision-making, empathy, and emotion.  This part of the brain works on early learning and problem-solving.  Here, it seems the bottom line is that the larger your anterior cingulate cortex, the greater your ability for coping with conflicting information.

Does Your Brain Shape You or Do You Shape Your Brain?

So, it might be a question of what came first – as in the age-old question – the chicken or the egg?  Is your brain structure affecting your personality – or – is your personality shaping your brain structure?  This isn’t entirely clear.  It is possible that your brain structure is not set early in life, but is shaped and changed by your experiences. That means, your political preference might be shaped by your brain structure or it might be shaping your brain structure.

Personally, I have had shifting political views and preferences throughout my lifetime.  So, either my brain structure has been affecting my choices or it has been changing as a result of my experiences.  Either way, currently, I am not registered with either political party, and actually I prefer not to discuss politics online.  But, a brain study is always interesting to me.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110407121337.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagdyla

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cingulate_cortex

Photo in the Public Domain:  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Brain Exercise? How About a Walk!

My preferred form of exercise is walking.  It turns out that one of the many benefits of walking is that it is good for your brain.  A New York Times blog article cites a report written by author and journalist, Paula Span:

In a study published on Jan. 31 [2011] in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers randomly assigned 120 healthy but sedentary men and women (average age mid-60s) to one of two exercise groups. One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands.

After a year, brain scans showed that among the walkers, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent. Since such a decline is normal in older adults, “a 2 percent increase is fairly significant,” said the lead author, Kirk Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Both groups also improved on a test of spatial memory, but the walkers improved more.

What the study shows is that walking increased the size of the hippocampus, while other types of exercise did not.  While both groups of exerciser’s memories improved, the walkers improved more.

 

Is a Bigger Hippocampus Better?

One of the few areas of the brain that produces new neurons (a process known as neural genesis) that become functionally integrated with old neurons, is in the hippocampus.  These new neurons seem to be related to improvements in memory.  Walking benefits this process.  There were also new vascular structures, which mean increased blood flow.  This is more good news about walking and brain health.

Walking seems to increase the size of the hippocampus in a population of adults whose hippocampus is naturally aging.  Walking is helping to keep the hippocampus healthy.  That means it can potentially help reduce memory loss and the risk of dementia in old age.  Let’s take a closer look at the hippocampus as it relates to memory function.

The Hippocampus and New Memories

The hippocampus is a part of the brain important to forming, sorting and storing memories.  It is “critical to learning and remembering relationships that characterize spatial layouts, items in the particular context in which they have been experienced, and other associative sequential or logical relationships among experiences.”[1]  In other words, the hippocampus helps to connect related memories, such as the physical surrounds, the smells and sounds of a particular event; thereby, giving meaning to memories.

At approximately 55 to 60 years of age, the hippocampus starts to atrophy.  It is a natural part of aging.  How does this affect people?  If you are unable to form new memories, you get stuck in the past – in the old memories you have.  Not to mention, there is a relationship between the aging hippocampus and the risk of dementia.  It is also the first part of the brain affected in Alzheimer’s disease.

The Benefit of Walking and the Brain

Walking – of the aerobic sort, is beneficial to one’s overall health, but studies have shown that it also is good for your brain’s health.  In the study, people who walked versus other exercises, such as yoga and toning (still good exercises), showed a larger hippocampus and an improved memory.

The truth is that it is too early to know if walking can prevent memory loss, or lower someone’s risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s.  But, it is clear that walking positively affects the hippocampus, which is related to memory function in the brain.

The bottom line is that walking can help keep you in good physical health and possibly good brain health, as well.  This is good news, if like me, you are over 50 and you like to walk.  For the rest of you, it is never too late to start.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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[1] “Conscious awareness, memory, and the hippocampus,” by Howard Eichenbaum. Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 2, No. 9, September 1999, pp. 775-776.   http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/hippo.html

Additional Sources:   http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/taking-your-brain-for-a-walk/

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133498136/growing-a-bigger-brain-is-a-walk-in-the-park

 

 

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs – by Marc Lewis, Ph.D.

I arrived at the library a couple of weeks ago for the “Speculative Reading Group”, only to find the room already occupied.  With time on my hands, I began to look through the new arrivals – of books, that is.  I was in a library, after all.  As I looked through the non-fiction, this book caught my eye.  It is written by a neuroscientist, which means I am going to learn something about the brain and how it works.  Trust me, I was not disappointed.

As the title makes obvious, this is an autobiography.  Marc Lewis takes the reader from his first experimentation with drugs and alcohol as a lonely teenager to his eventual recovery after years of addiction.  The book is very well written, sometimes almost eloquent when Lewis recounts his drug experiences.  A great feature of the book is the index in the back, which makes this a useful reference book, as well as a good read.

From his first blush with drugs, Lewis started getting caught by the police.  This might deter some people from whatever behavior got them into trouble in the first place, but not Lewis.  After many encounters early on with law enforcement, he not only continues to experiment with drugs, he starts to steal drugs in order to deliver his next high, a quest he is almost constantly pursuing.  After trying just about every drug he can lay his hands on, he becomes addicted to opiates.  There are times that he does things that are so reckless, they are dangerous.  At those times, I wanted to shout at him through the pages of his book (even though I know this will have no effect on what happens).  His addiction ruins several relationships, and gets him kicked out of graduate school after he was arrested for theft.  At 30, he finally quit drugs altogether and continued his education.  He now studies how drugs affect the brain.

The brain science is the part of the book that is really interesting.  Marc Lewis explains brain chemistry in a very easy to understand manner.  You do not have to be a scientist to understand this part of the book.  It is extremely accessible to every reader.  What happens in the brain of a teenage boy who is hot for a teenage girl?  How does the brain react when it encounters a fearful situation?  And exactly how does alcohol, marijuana, LSD, amphetamines, opiates, etc. affect the brain’s neural chemistry and structure?  If this was the only part of the book Lewis had written, it would be worth reading.

An Excerpt from the Book

This excerpt will give you a little glimpse at both parts of the book; how Lewis feels when he is high and what happens to the brain as a result.  In it Lewis is high on LSD, a drug he used often at the beginning of his relationship with mind-altering substances.  To help counter its effects, friends give him some PCP, which he had never taken before.

Acid opens everything up, so that even the tiny details of perception mushroom, layer by layer, an elaborate mandala.  The world out there becomes a galaxy of sparkling connections because there are no serotonin filters modifying the stream of input.  And then along comes PCP,which closes everything down, shutting off the coordinated activity that holds the outside world together in our brains, dispersing its components in a senseless tangle.  So what happens to the signal-to-noise ratio when you turn down so much of the signal?  You get a lot of noise.  And today that noise is spiked with the unfiltered, flagrant intensity of serotonin depletion. …. While the profundity of acid resides in the beauty of the world, the profundity of PCP resides in the embellishment of the self: the emotional world and the god-like figures that occupy it.  This is as close to Freud’s id as one could hope to get.  But it’s an id that’s now ten stories high and neon lit. …. The gorgeous patterning of the carpet thickens, surges, and pulsates with an inner rhythm.  The PCP breaks the acid world into great flows of warm liquid, coalescing in pools of personal meaning.  There is a deafening roar in my head.  I can hardly sit up.  My thoughts fold in on themselves.  I can sense my mental muscles stiffen and atrophy.  But my emotional world extends outward, a sea of tidal feelings that connects me with everyone in this room.  I cannot believe how cozy I feel with Thomas.  How trusting in Ralph.  How sexual with Pumpkin.  Impulses to touch, to possess, to be possessed are taboos turned inside out.  Ralph is so beautiful.  Tom is so gentle.  They all love me.  They know me intimately.  And I love each one of them.  (p. 125-126)

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Published in the U.S. by Public Affairs, A member of the Perseus Books Group, 2011.
Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada, A division of Random House Canada Limited, 2011.

http://www.memoirsofanaddictedbrain.com/

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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Personality – The Five-Factor Model

Well, I am not sure why I ever gave up being a Psych major, because it seems I am just as interested in the subject as I used to be back in my former college days.  Of course, I also love majoring in English Literature (still working on that degree).  Looking back at some of my educational choices, I wish I had stuck with Psychology instead of taking Legal Studies (or maybe I should have studied Criminal Justice), not to mention a degree in Religion (long story).  Yes, I sometimes have difficulty making decisions.  I’m sure that has something to do with my personality, as well as something to do with my upbringing.

Are You Born A Blank Slate?

When I was a Psych major, there used to be a theory that proposed children are born a blank slate, just waiting to be written on; without any predisposition or vulnerabilities.  Basically, this theory purported that everything that happened to a person from birth was due to environmental factors.  This meant that we programmed girls to become feminine, to be emotional, to become nurturers, etc.  On the other hand, boys were programmed to be masculine, to suppress their emotions, to be physically tough, etc.  This extended to toys that boys and girls played with; for example, trucks versus dolls, respectively.  Boys and girls were taught what was acceptable for their gender and responded accordingly.

Personally, I don’t believe that is true.  I think certain things are true because of our gender.  Males and females have different physiology that just naturally makes us different from one another, at least in some respects.  Even so, we do share some things in common and one of those things is personality traits.  I believe we are born with a personality; possibly that we even inherit some of our personality from our parents in the same way we inherit physical traits.  I also believe that environmental factors influence and shape us.

There Are Many Personality Theories   

In the past, when talking about personality, I have referred to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).  If you know your personality type, it helps you to understand you – why you think and behave in particular ways and how you respond emotionally to the world around you.  MBTI testing is not free, so in the world of academia, other personality tests, theories and models are used.

When it comes to personality, it seems there are many different theories about how many types there are, ranging anywhere from three to one thousand.  However, there is one theory that asserts that there are five main personality types.  This is known as the five-factor model.  The personality types using this model include extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness/intellect.

When I first looked at this list, I wondered what happened to introversion.  In this model, that is part of the extraversion trait, which ranges from extreme extraversion to extreme introversion.  So, basically, each trait runs from one extreme to its opposite extreme.

The Five-Factor Model

Here is a brief description of each personality trait in the five-factor model:

1.  Extraversion is characterized by an outgoing and energetic personality.  These people have personalities that are excitable, sociable, talkative, assertive, and emotionally expressive.  At the opposite end of the range, we see people who tend to be more solitary and reserved, or introverted.

2.  Neuroticism is characterized by a sensitive and nervous personality.  These people are worriers, might be more likely to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability and sadness.  If we go to the opposite extreme in this range, we find secure and confident personalities.

3.  Agreeableness is characterized by a friendly and compassionate personality.  These people are trusting, altruistic, kind, and affectionate, along with other positive social behaviors.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, we find people who are cold and unkind.

4.  Conscientiousness is characterized by an efficient and organized personality; very detail-oriented.  These people have personalities that include high levels of thoughtfulness, have good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors.  Here, we find an opposite end of the range characterized by easy-going and careless personalities, sort of free-spirited.

5.  Openness is characterized by an inventive and curious personality.  These people have attributes such as imagination and insight, and they tend to have a broad range of interests.  The opposite extreme of this personality type is someone who is consistent and cautious.

None of the personality traits is considered to be negative, but really, who wants to be identified with the temperament “neurotic”.  Don’t we automatically have negative associations with the word?  All of these personality traits are considered to be universal and cut across cultures and even species.  Apparently, even the fruit fly can exhibit such characteristics.  When scientists are researching personality, do they really use fruit flies?  Yes.  In reality, they are studying behavior, and I think we’ll just leave it there for today.

Here is an illustration that helps to explain the five-factor model:

Here is a site where you can check out the Five-Factor Model Personality Test:

http://www.123test.com/personality-test/

Please feel free to share the results, if you take the test!

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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Our Brain and Our Love for the Scary and Gruesome

Last weekend, AMC ran a marathon of their program “The Walking Dead”; season one and season two.  I hadn’t ever watched it before, and really, I had no intention of watching it.  Graphic violence and gore just don’t appeal to me, so a show about a zombie infested apocalyptic world isn’t at the top of my list of programs I must see.  But I don’t always control the remote.  I missed some of the first episodes, but I saw a lot of season one and all of season two.  When the show comes on in October, I will watch it.

Besides watching flesh eating zombies, I also watch “Dexter”.  This is a show about a serial killer, who uses his urge to kill for the good of society, by killing bad people.  I also watch “True Blood”, a show with vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, witches, and fairies.  True blood is what vampires drink instead of preying on humans, although there is plenty of that in this show.

I am not new to scary stories.  As a child, I loved “Little Red Riding Hood” (wolf eats grandmother) and “Hansel and Gretel” (a witch who eats children).  I watched the original “Frankenstein”, “Dracula”, “War of the Worlds”, and a host of B-horror movies, everything from aliens to monsters, and I loved it.  The difference between then and now is a bit different.  Literature and movies are extremely graphic these days.  For the most part, audiences can’t seem to get enough.

Psychoanalytic Theories and Philosophy

So what is it about scary stories, television shows and movies that is so fascinating?  Why, even if we are disgusted by the horror, do we love things that terrify us?

In a N.Y. Times article by Jason Zinoman, he cites film critic Robin Wood’s essay “An Introduction to the American Horror Film”, which “introduced the now-familiar idea, rooted in psychoanalytic theory [Freud and Jung], that scary movies provide a valuable window onto what our society ‘represses or oppresses.’  The monster, he wrote, represents the marginalized, the sexually or politically subversive, the taboo:  the 1931 film ‘Frankenstein’ identified the creature with repressed homosexuality; the first zombie in the 1968 classic ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was a manifestation of family dysfunction.”  This theory that suggests horror allows us to tap into repressed feelings is seen as positive, because it allows the audience to deal with these feelings is a safe and cathartic way.  This psychoanalytic theory is not as popular as it once was, but it still persists.

Zinoman cites another perspective proposed by philosopher Noël Carroll, a critic of the psychoanalytic approach.  Carroll “published, ‘The Philosophy of Horror,’ in which he proposed that the pleasure of horror movies is due not to whatever psychic substratum the monster represents, but rather to the peculiar curiosity it inspires…The defining characteristic of the monster, Mr. Carrol argued, is that it’s hard to classify, categorically incomplete or contradictory, or just generally hard to understand…The horror is rooted in the unknown, but this strangeness also sparks curiosity and fascination.”

What about the graphic violence often portrayed in today’s television and film?  Honestly, I have read some Steven King that made me close the book, I found it so graphic.  When I watch any type of violence, I close my eyes.  I don’t want to see it.  However, some people do want to see it.  They even take pleasure in it.  It is sublimely frightening.  Some people just like to be scared out of their minds.

The Brain Connection – The Need for Excitement and Learned Responses

According to Stuart Fischoff, professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, the scare we crave is a safe one:  “We know that, in an hour or two, we’re going to walk out whole…We’re not going to have any holes in our head, and our hearts will still be in our bodies.”  I think Fischoff is onto something.  He states:  “If we have a relatively calm, uneventful lifestyle, we seek out something that’s going to be exciting for us, because our nervous system requires periodic revving, just like a good muscular engine…There are people who have a tremendous need for stimulation and excitement…Horror movies are one of the better ways to get really excited.”

Another thing that Fischoff points out is that horror may be more appealing to younger people because the older you are, the more scary real life can be (unemployment, divorce, foreclosure).  He says, “Older people have stimulation fatigue.  Life’s horrors scare them, or they don’t find them entertaining any more – or interesting.”

Clinical psychologist Glenn Walters of Kutztown University says:  “Control lost under the cover of darkness is rediscovered in the light of day; danger posed by things unknown is reduced by increased knowledge and predictability.”  Scary stories and scary movies usually have clearly defined good guys and bad guys; they have a relatively strict moral code; and they usually have a happy ending or a good outcome.  Walters says that these things can help young people learn to manage terror:  “By learning to suppress feelings and display mastery or cling to others in a dependent ploy for protection, a person learns to cope with another aspect of his or her environment, a skill that may be useful in dealing with more than just horror pictures.”

New York University neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has mapped out how the brain’s fear system works.  His research shows that fear is not merely a biological reaction (body); it is an emotional reaction (brain).  The brain’s amygdala and cortex allow us to interpret an environmental event and respond with an emotion, such as fear.  According to LeDoux, “If you have a good imagination, you can connect to your hardwired fears simply by thinking about a scary situation…once an emotion is aroused; it is so hard for us to turn it off.  If we like that sort of thing, it may account for why we’re so eager to turn it back on again.” 

Whether it is for the excitement or the distraction from an otherwise calm life, audiences continue to read scary stories and watch scary television and movies. There seems to be several benefits. First, if we have any repressed feelings, we might be able to deal with them in an acceptable way, under the guise of having fun. Second, we can experience the excitement of being afraid in a safe environment. Third, we learn how to respond to fear, although I really can’t imagine that the scary movie kind of fear compares to the real thing.

At the end of the day, no matter what the scary medium might be, I know I can shut a book or close my eyes. Ultimately, I control just how scared I want to be, because the last thing I want to dream about is some flesh eating zombie chasing me into the arms of a vampire.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/17gray.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/25/why-our-brains-love-horror-movies-fear-catharsis-a-sense-of-doom.html

http://www.livescience.com/7949-horror-movies-people-love.html

Photos:
The Walking Dead:  http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead/photos-season-2
Brain:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala

 

 

Introvert or Highly Sensitive? Looking into Personality.

Do you consider yourself an extravert or an introvert?  Apparently, this has become a hot topic lately thanks to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.   I don’t tend to read books in the self-help or psychology genre, but I am on the waiting list at my library.  Another book I have put on hold is, The Highly Sensitive Person: How To Thrive When The World Overwhelms You, by Elaine Aron.

The subject of personality is one that interests me.  I am both an introvert and I am highly sensitive (I have taken the online tests to prove it – see links below); both traits that I believe can be misunderstood.  The first thing to understand about both of these characteristics is that they have nothing to do with shyness (a fear of social judgment).  I am not shy.  I think that might be the biggest misunderstanding there is.  They also have nothing to do with one’s emotional stability.  So what are they, and are they related?

Cain simply defines introversion as the way you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation.  Aron defines being highly sensitive as an awareness of subtleties in one’s surroundings, and being more easily overwhelmed when in a highly stimulating environment.  At first glance, they do seem to have some common ground, because both have to do with the way we respond to the world around us, given these definitions.

Upon reading up on these two subjects via these two authors, I found that Aron believes Cain has really written about highly sensitive social introverts, and did a good job of it.  However, Aron says that about 30% of highly sensitive people are extraverts.  I’m not certain, but I got the impression that Aron thinks Cain was writing more about being highly sensitive than about introversion, per se.

The concepts of extraversion and introversion were made popular by Carl Jung, who defined introversion as being oriented toward one’s inner life and extraversion as being oriented toward one’s external life.  The difference has to do with what stimulates our brains and what energizes us.  For example, some of us would rather sit in a quiet room and read; others would rather be out there socializing with a group of people.

You probably already know if you are an introvert or an extravert.  Maybe you already know if you are highly sensitive.  Are you interested in taking a couple of tests to see if you are a highly sensitive person; or an introvert versus extravert?  Follow these links.  It isn’t scientific!

Highly Sensitive:  http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm

Introvert or extravert:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quiet-the-power-introverts/201103/quiz-are-you-introvert-or-extrovert-and-why-it-matters

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I will review the books after I get a chance to read them.  In the meantime, I am going to do a little brain research.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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The Hair Part Theory and Chirality

The hair part theory is not new, but I was unfamiliar with it until recently.  A rerun episode of Radiolab was playing on National Public Radio, as I was driving home from getting some car maintenance done.  It was three weeks ago, which was moving week; a very pesky time for a leak in the coolant reservoir tank.  But, riding in the car is a good time for listening to the radio, and my favorite radio is good storytelling.  I always love a good story, and this one on chirality and the hair part theory was entertaining.

Chirality

Before we get to the hair part theory, let’s get a very basic understanding about chirality, which has to do with “handedness” and reflection.  Have you ever looked in the mirror?  What happens when you hold your left hand up to the mirror?  It looks like a right hand.  It is the opposite image or shape.  Move your index finger in a clockwise direction.  In the mirror, it looks like it is moving in a counter-clockwise direction.  The mirror reflects back the identical but opposite image.

Chirality as it pertains to molecules.  There are molecules that have an identical makeup, but they have a different shape or a mirror image.  An example of this is R-carvone.  Right-handed R-carvone is the flavor of spearmint, while its mirror image S-carvone is the flavor of caraway.  Maybe I should have included actual images of the R and S- carvone molecules, but I thought these images of Alice Through the Looking Glass were a good example, not to mention fun.

When it comes to chirality and biology, all proteins are left-handed, which means that on a molecular level, all people and all life on Earth is left-handed.  (This has nothing to do with whether you are right or left-handed.)

A tragic example of chirality is Thalidomide, which was used in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s to help relieve morning sickness in pregnant women.  The left-handed version of the molecule worked as a sedative, and it was safe for pregnant women to take.  The right-handed version of the molecule caused fetal deformation.  Not understanding chirality, the testing was done with the left-handed version of the molecule, but when the drug was manufactured, both versions of the molecule were used.

The Hair Part Theory

So what does chirality have to do with hair parting?  It has to do with mirror images and our perception or bias based on “handedness”.  Might we prefer left-handed hair parts based on our biology?  Yes, it might affect our perception.

The hair part theory states:  “A left hair part draws unconscious attention to the left side of the brain, which controls activities traditionally associated with masculinity. A right hair part draws unconscious attention to the right side of the brain, which controls activities traditionally associated with femininity.”  According to the theory, it applies more to men than to women; because men tend to part their hair the same way their entire lives, while women change their hair styles.

Two decades ago, at age 19, John Walter was looking at some photos of himself, and he thought he looked odd.  Later, he looked in the mirror and thought he looked just fine.  You could say John had an epiphany at that moment.  He realized that the photographs were what other people saw when they looked at him, but what he saw in the mirror was his chiral image.

John had always worn his hair part on the right side.  He was a geeky college kid, with few friends.  It was the beginning of summer and he was starting a job with a Con Ed paint crew.  After his realization about the difference between the actual image he projected versus his mirror image, John immediately changed the part in his hair to the left side.  You might say he experienced instant popularity.  He fit in well at work, and he started hanging around with a group of cool kids who had rejected him in high school.  According to John, he “combined [his] new image with a new attitude that matched.  What was so amazing was that it was effortless.”  By summer’s end, John had 150 new friends.  Just from changing his hair part?  It does sound a little ridiculous, but John believed in his hair part theory.

A few years ago, to help prove John’s theory, his sister, Catherine, who holds a degree in anthropology, started to study the hair parts of famous people.  She studied pictures of elected officials, from presidents and vice presidents, senators and congressman, to governors.  Based on that, she was able to conclude that only 7 percent of presidents had a definite right part; only 16 percent of male governors had a definite right part; only 13 percent of male senators and 16.4 percent of male congressmen had definite right parts.  Of the other famous people Catherine studied, she found that of the 268 men listed as best actors, only 32 had a definite right part.

But what about men who parted their hair on the right?  Some of them are famous for all of the wrong reasons:  Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones, and Marshall Applewhite (leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult).  Others who have parted their hair on the right that are famous, but less notorious include:  Edgar Allen Poe, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, and Ronald Reagan.

Might John’s theory be correct?  Just take a look at Clark Kent and Superman.

 

Perception is Everything

Based on her study, Catherine determined that John’s Hair Part Theory was right.  According to John and Catherine Walter, here are the characteristics associated with left and right hair parts:

Men with left part:  Natural for men, usually works well for them.   Perceived as popular, successful, strong, and traditional.  Can be out of touch with their feminine side. Examples: John Wayne, Tom Brokaw, John F. Kennedy.

Women with left part:  Usually OK, especially for women who want to make it in business or politics.  Perceived as intelligent, in charge, reliable.  Can sometimes be perceived as too “masculine”, and/or can create difficulties with fulfilling traditionally feminine roles.  Examples: Hillary Clinton [who has changed her hair part], Margaret Thatcher, Christine Todd Whitman.

Men with right part: Usually unnatural for men.  Can create an uncomfortable image; can cause social shunning, sometimes leading to unusual or eccentric behavior.  Perceived as atypical, open radical.  Can work okay if the man is very confident, attractive, or striving to be respected in a nontraditional male role. Examples: Al Gore, Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan

Women with right part: Natural for women. Usually it works okay.  Perceived as very feminine, gentle, caring. Can cause problems of not being taken seriously. Examples: Martha Stewart, Jane Pauley, Geraldine Ferraro.

No part, center part or bald:  Natural for men and women.  Perceived as balanced, trustworthy and wise.  Can lack flair associated with other types.[1]

What do I do with this information?

In 1979, John used his theory to try and help President Jimmy Carter, in the same way that an 11-year-old girl had once helped Abraham Lincoln by suggesting he grow a beard.  John wrote President Carter a letter, and a short time later, the president changed his hair part from the right to the left.  John has no actual proof that his letter was the reason, but he is fairly confident he was instrumental.  It did not get President Carter reelected.

John has also developed a mirror that reflects a person’s true image.  It is called the True-Mirror and it is non-reversing. (See link below for the website.)

That is some of what John did with his hair part theory.  But what does it mean for me?  Should I change my hair part to portray a particular image?  Do I want to be considered more feminine and caring?  Do I want to be taken seriously?  Does my hair really play an important role in how I am perceived?

When I was a teenager, I used to wear a middle-part (it was the fashion), but I have long since started wearing my part on the left.  I made that choice because of a cowlick.  Once a hair stylist did give me a right part, which I changed as soon as I got home.  It looked wrong, was hard to control, and I have never tried it again.  I am definitely a left-parter!  How does the hair part theory hold up for me personally?  In organizations, I am often asked to fill leadership positions.  I have been the only woman invited to participate on all-male committees.  Hmm…Here I thought it had something to do with my abilities, but apparently, I can thank my left-sided hair part.

Honestly, I don’t want to put too much stock in the hair part theory.  I think it is fun, and maybe changing your hair part might make you feel better about yourself.  But, when it comes to how we perceive other people, I have to question this theory.  No matter what conclusions we might jump to based on first impressions, how long can a hair part influence what we think about a person?  I really hate to think that we, the American people, have been electing presidents for the past two hundred years, because we liked them based on the way they parted their hair. Also, although there aren’t any scientific studies to back this, only observation and anecdotal evidence, most men (if not women) part their hair on the left. It only makes sense that more famous men have left hair parts.

Now, I really want to go grab some photo albums and get on Facebook, so that I can start looking at hair parts of people I know.

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© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
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