Letters Remain

  • Art and the Brain

    Jonah Lehrer, a neuroscientist and writer I’ve mentioned many times, has a wonderful article in Psychology Today that looks at the field of neuroaesthetics and how the brain interprets art.

    All the adjectives we use to describe art-vague words like “beauty” and “elegance”-should, in theory, have neural correlates. According to these scientists, there is nothing inherently mysterious about art. Its visual tricks can be decoded. Neuroaestheticians hope to reveal “the universal laws” of painting and sculpture, to find the underlying principles shared by every great work of visual art.

    In the article Lehrer proposes The 10 Great Principles of Great Art and in the accompanying interview he challenges the supposition that neuroaesthetics will “unweave the rainbow” of great art.

      Related: Dr Shock takes a brief look at the relationship between architecture and neuroscience.

      via Mind Hacks

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • The Ambiguity of Sex

      I’m not a big follower of athletics, but two news items have somehow made their way to my mental inbox from the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin: how ridiculously fast Usain Bolt is, and the controversy surrounding Caster Semenya.

      On the latter, Caster is currently undergoing gender verification tests and in the process has garnered a lot of press attention—attention that appears to come from people who are vastly uneducated on the issues being debated. The Nation looks at these issues and describes how sexuality is more ambiguous than you might think.

      Let’s leave aside that being male is not the be-all, end-all of athletic success. A country’s wealth, coaching facilities, nutrition and opportunity determine the creation of a world-class athlete far more than a Y chromosome or a penis ever could.

      […] Gender–that is, how we comport and conceive of ourselves–is a remarkably fluid social construction. Even our physical sex is far more ambiguous and fluid than is often imagined or taught. Medical science has long acknowledged the existence of millions of people whose bodies combine anatomical features that are conventionally associated with either men or women and/or have chromosomal variations from the XX or XY of women or men. Many of these “intersex” individuals, estimated at one birth in every 1,666 in the United States alone, are legally operated on by surgeons who force traditional norms of genitalia on newborn infants.

      There are a number of good articles written on this, one of which is this excerpt from Robert Peel’s Eve’s Rib (that discusses the case of María José Martínez Patiño), and the Wikipedia articles I’ve linked to above.

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Moral Psychology and Innate Lying/Honesty

      We have based our society on the assumption that deciding to lie or to tell the truth is within our conscious control. But […] this assumption may be flawed and […] honesty may instead be the result of controlling a desire to lie (a conscious process) or of not feeling the temptation to lie in the first place (an automatic process).

      An intriguing idea and one with far-reaching consequences, especially given that this is on what our entire judiciary system is based. Can someone fairly be punished for a genetic trait (innate lying)?

      So is the desire to lie (or, conversely, the desire to be honest) innate, and if so, what does this mean?

      What they found is that honesty is an automatic process-but only for some people. Comparing scans from tests with and without the opportunity to cheat, the scientists found that for honest subjects, deciding to be honest took no extra brain activity. But for others, the dishonest group, both deciding to lie and deciding to tell the truth required extra activity in the areas of the brain associated with critical thinking and self-control.

      One surprising finding from this study reveals the complexity [we] face in trying to dissect moral behavior: The decision to lie for personal gain turns out to be a strikingly unemotional choice. Some moral dilemmas Greene studies, like the trolley problem, trigger emotional processing centers in our brains. In his coin toss experiment, there was no sign at all that emotions factored into a subject’s decision to lie or to tell the truth. “Moral judgment is not a single thing,” Greene concludes, suggesting that although we often lump them together under the heading of “morality,” deciding what’s right or wrong and deciding to tell the truth or to tell a lie may, in some situations, be entirely disconnected processes.

      On a related note: the classic Good Samaritan study.

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Free: Interview with Chris Anderson

      Whether you’ve read it or not, you’re undoubtedly aware that Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail, has written a new book: Free.

      I haven’t read the book but can likely guess the premise—and given that the unabridged audiobook can be downloaded online I’ll no doubt be giving it a listen at some point in the near future (Anderson made Free available online at no cost in various formats for a limited time).

      Until that time, this interview about Free between Chris Anderson and Hugh MacLeod (of Gaping Void) will satiate my desire.

      I think there are two classes of people who are afraid or skeptical of Free: those who grew up before the web (ie, olds like me) and people whose industries are threatened by the web (ie, media people like me). Many in my generation or profession (mostly, I hope, those who haven’t read the book) assume that Free is something of a Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, my kids are also appalled that I wrote a book called FREE, but not because it’s wrong/scary, but because it’s so freaking obvious.

      Needless to say, they’re both wrong. Free is neither a mirage nor is it self-evident. Instead, it’s an essential, but complicated, component of a 21st century business model—not the only price, but often the best one.

      Some other choice quotes from the interview (best read in context):

      These are exciting days, and if ever these was a time to be overextended this is it.

      Easier: experimenting. Harder: predicting.

      Don’t wait to be given a job to do something cool. Follow your passions, create something every day, take chances and try to be the best in the world at something, no matter how tiny and trivial. Nothing impresses me more than initiative. And there has never been a better time to take it.

      On a more prosaic note, I think that leading people is perhaps the most important skill these days.

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Social Ignorance and Surrogacy

      A vibrant social life and close friendships are an important part of staying healthy, many recent studies have shown, but what is strange about this is why this is the case, considering that we’re surpisingly bad at judging the beliefs, opinions and values of our friends and partners.

      A growing body of experimental evidence suggests that, on the whole, we know significantly less about our friends, colleagues, and even spouses than we think we do. […] We’re often completely wrong about their likes and dislikes, their political beliefs, their tastes, their cherished values. We lowball the ethics of our co-workers; we overestimate how happy our husbands or wives are.

      […] While people do have some idea of the political beliefs of their friends, especially their close friends, they also made significant errors. The most common one is assuming their friends agreed with them on issues where they didn’t. Psychologists call this projection: in situations where there’s any ambiguity, people tend to simply project their feelings and thoughts onto others. The Friend Sense study found that this tendency was a stubborn one: its users incorrectly assumed their friends agreed with them even if they had regularly discussed political topics with them.

      The article goes on to say that those of us who are most connected—the social mavens—are the least accurate judges of our friends’ characters, but that this “selective blindness” may be at the core of why friendships are so nourishing.

      Simply believing we have lots of close friends brings the same benefits as actually having them. In other words, if someone’s ignorance of one of his “friends” extends so deeply that he’s not actually aware that the person doesn’t like him, he may be better off for it. Even befriending entirely fictional people seems to do some good – a paper published last year by researchers at the University of Buffalo and Miami University found that television characters actually function as “social surrogates” for viewers, and watching a favorite show can be an effective way to alleviate loneliness.

      And this social surrogacy with fictional characters goes deeper than you might think (via The Frontal Cortex):

      Loneliness motivates individuals to seek out relationships, even if those relationships are not real. In a series of experiments, […] participants were more likely to report watching a favorite TV show when they were feeling lonely and reported being less likely to feel lonely while watching. This preliminary evidence suggests that people spontaneously seek out social surrogates when real interactions are unavailable.

      […] Even though parasocial relationships may offer a quick and easy fix for unmet belonging needs, individuals within these relationships may not be spared the pain and anguish of relationship dissolution. [Examining] the responses of television viewers to the potential loss of their favorite television characters, [it was] found that viewers anticipated experiencing the same negative reactions to parasocial breakups as they experience when their real social relationships dissolve.

      The conclusion, it seems, is that what makes us happy and what makes friendships an important part of all-round health is not a deep knowledge of our friends’ characters, but the illusion of that knowledge… and possibly positive illusions:

      Even in a close and strong relationship like a marriage, a certain amount of blindness may help. While the idea remains controversial, some researchers argue for the value of so-called positive illusions, the rosy image that some people hold, despite the available evidence, about their romantic partners. The psychologist Sandra Murray at the University of Buffalo has found that couples that maintained positive illusions about each other tended to be happier than those that didn’t.

      Note: Mind Hacks provides one small caveat about the article: it’s the false consensus effect, not psychological projection.

      via Link Banana

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Sports Drinks and Dehydration

      More for the parents of athletic children, this article from The New York Times‘ Well blog still contains some useful all-round advice on hydration during exercise. In the comments the author also links to this urine colour test for dehydration.

      When [exercising children] were offered grape-flavored water, they voluntarily drank 44.5 percent more than when the water was unflavored. And when the drink included 6 percent carbohydrates and electrolytes — when, in other words, it was a sports drink — they eagerly downed 91 percent more than when offered water alone. Does this mean that parents […] should be stocking their refrigerators with [sports drinks]? The answer is a qualified ‘yes.’ […]

      But that ‘yes’ has clear and definable limits. “Sports drinks are only appropriate in the context of sports, and I mean serious sports,” emphasizes Nancy Clark, a registered dietician and sports nutritionist in Boston, who often works with young athletes. If, however, your 12-year-old or older athlete has begun competing at a more intense level, especially if he or she participates in multiple practices or competitions in a single day during the summer, “sports drinks are appropriate,” Clark says.

      So not you or I after our daily workout, basically. The article also contains this recipe for making your own sports drink:

      1/4 cup sugar
      1/4 teaspoon salt
      1/4 cup hot water
      1/4 cup orange juice
      2 tablespoons lemon juice
      3 1/2 cups cold water

      (Dissolve the sugar and salt in the hot water then add the remaining ingredients. Approx. 50 calories and 110 mg of sodium per 8 ounces.)

      via Lifehacker

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Publishing in Scientific Journals

      Not being a professional or published scientist, the workings of academic journals are foreign to me. As a semi-regular reader of them I really should at least understand the processes involved, and that’s where My Dominant Hemisphere‘s outline of the publihing process and list of 18 interesting journal facts comes in handy.

      Multiple surveys have shown that journals are more likely to publish ‘statistically significant‘ findings. This is an important thing to realize. For any scientific study with a Type 1 error rate of 5%, if the null hypothesis was true you would get a statistically significant result 5% of the time. Purely as a result of random chance. But it’s the 5% of studies that report such a ‘statistically significant’ result that are more likely to get published than the remaining 95% of studies that don’t.

      via Seed

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • Apple’s Strategy: The Good and Bad

      The four major issues with Apple’s current product line and strategy that are “stifling the industry, consumer choice and pricing”, according to Jason Calacanis:

      1. Destroying MP3 player innovation through anti-competitive practices.
      2. Monopolistic practices in telecommunications.
      3. Draconian App Store policies.
      4. Wanting to own almost every extension of the iPhone platform.

      It’s tough to disagree with these points (or Jason’s reasoning) but a typical response could be:

      The restrictions Apple places on its products are necessary to ensure the quality of the user experience, that Apple deserves to be paid for the innovations it has brought to the marketplace and the consumer freedom it has enabled to use things like the mobile internet, to make online music easy and fun to use etc.

      Both of the above articles are anti-Apple (or at least anti-Apple strategy) and I agree with them both—but my stance is definitely that of pro-Apple (a recent development since owning an iPhone, swiftly followed by a Hackintosh).

      The ROI I get with Apple products is positive despite these issues and as such I’m willing to pay a premium. This isn’t a financial ROI, but a time/enjoyment ROI. For an idea of what I mean, this short tirade against open source usability from an article looking at how to compete with open source software (via @zambonini) may help:

      At a salaried job making $80k plus benefits your time is worth around $55/hour. […] And thus it is with the majority of open source software:

      Open source software is free if your time is worth nothing.

      […] I’ve used mainstream image editors like Photoshop, Paint.NET and Gimp; some of my best friends are mainstream image editors. And when I saw Gimp I almost went blind. Children were weeping; fruit was bruising. The UI could kill small animals.

      Are there exceptions in the open source world? Absolutely.

      When an open source project gets enough talented people working on it, it can become a downright masterpiece.

      In UI and UX terms the majority of open source applications are behind or on par with PC-based software. These are then both behind Mac-only applications. There are exceptions, of course, but they’re exactly that—exceptions.

      Granted; there are unnecessary and debilitating restrictions on Apple products, and when these restrictions make product use cumbersome I’ll switch in a heartbeat. But it seems that these restrictions are part of a larger strategy: to build the best user experience.

      This, from a TechCrunch article looking at Apple’s strategy:

      “Our goal is not to build the most computers. It’s to build the best.”

      That was Apple COO Tim Cook two days ago during Apple’s quarterly earnings call. Sure, it may sound like spin from an executive who doesn’t have a better answer as to why Apple isn’t competing in the low-end of the market, and thus, gaining market share. But it’s not.

      You need look no further than numbers released today by NPD to understand Apple’s strategy. Its revenue share of the “premium” price market — that is, computers over $1,000 — is a staggering 91%.

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • On-Hold Music and Time Perception

      With the correct choice of music and by giving the perception of progress customers on-hold in a telephone queue underestimate the time they have been kept waiting and will stay on the line longer before hanging up.

      Newsweek summarises a number of research studies that have looked at the psychology behind telephone queues and on-hold music, noting the different reactions customers have when confronted with hold music, recorded apologies or estimated wait times.

      Though it hardly seems possible that the Muzak (the term is often used generically, but Muzak Holdings LLC is a real company) pumped into malls could actually influence shoppers, the truth is, alas, that it does. James Kellaris, a marketing professor at the University of Cincinnati, says that music can have an impact on a wide array of customers’ behaviors, changing their perception of time, conditioning them to associate a song with a brand, or limiting their ability to critically analyze a potential purchase due to musical distraction. “When shoppers are exposed to music in a store, sales resistance decreases,” he says via e-mail. Our brains have a finite bandwidth for taking in and processing information, and clogging that bandwidth with music is sometimes enough to prevent us from making rational purchasing decisions, or worrying about the time.

      The article also notes how we have the rather excellent Erik Satie to thank for the muzak phenomenon:

      [Satie] developed a very cynical attitude toward the listener. Satie was so obsessed with the idea that music could no longer communicate to the audience, he concluded that music in the 20th century was destined to be a vacuous, comfortable apparatus best used as a background for other activities, much like a favorite chair.

      via Mind Hacks

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      Lloyd Morgan

    • The Universality of Facial Expressions

      Or not.

      It’s not just happiness that’s perceived differently across cultures: facial expressions are too. Recent research questioning the assumption that face processing and facial expression recognition is invariant has found that Western Caucasians and East Asians differ in how they process facial expressions.

      It is a widely held belief that many basic visual processes are common to all humans, independent of culture. Face recognition is considered to be one such process, as this basic biological skill is necessary for effective social interactions. Any approach aiming to understand face perception must recognize, however, that only a small part of the visual information available on faces is actually used.

      Specifically, Western Caucasians use a triangular focus pattern taking in the majority of the facial features while East Asians concentrate in the centre of the face–particularly around the eyes. From a BBC interview with one of the study’s authors:

      “Interestingly, although the eye region is ambiguous, subjects tended to bias their judgements towards less socially-threatening emotions – surprise rather than fear, for example.

      “This perhaps highlights cultural differences when it comes to the social acceptability of emotions.”

      The BBC article also notes how this could be behind the differences between East and West emoticons (i.e. 🙂 vs. ^_^).

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      Lloyd Morgan