Como se forma a memória (via thiagolyra)
Why do people dance? (The Guardian) »
The office party is in full swing, you’ve knocked back a few glasses of bubbly and edged on to the sticky dancefloor where Fred from accounts is looking strangely attractive as he struts out some wild moves. Nearby, Ian from IT is boogieing like nobody’s watching. What makes them so confident while your feet are shyly shifting from side to side? According to Dr Peter Lovatt, principal lecturer in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, it’s to do with age, gender and genetic makeup.
Lovatt – who is known around campus as Dr Dance – has just completed a major piece of research into dance, analysing 13,700 people’s responses to an online video of him, a former professional dancer, strutting his stuff. Lovatt demonstrated various dance movements, then asked respondents to rate them. He also asked people to imagine they were dancing at a wedding or disco, and say how good they were compared with the average dancer.
The research was part of his investigation into “dance confidence” (DC) – the factor that makes the difference between you sitting glued to the bar seat and actually going for a boogie – and how it changes with age and gender. “First things first if deep down you think you’re a better dancer than most, you’re not alone,” Lovatt laughs. “The average DC level was significantly higher than expected, meaning most people thought they were better dancers than the average person of their own age and gender.”
The findings also show a significant difference between how women and men develop DC. The highest level was recorded in girls under 16. “At this stage, dancing is for fun. They do it on their own, with friends or in formal dance classes, and do so to enjoy it,” explains Lovatt. But once girls pass their 16th birthday, there is a big drop. “Teenagers are likely to start dancing publicly in front of members of the opposite sex, and as dance starts to play a part in the sexual selection process for the first time, that may contribute to a significant reduction in dance confidence.”
From then until 35, however, women’s DC levels increase steadily. “They are likely to be moving through the mate-selection and reproduction cycle, so they will be more confident in the behaviours which form part of this process, like recreational dancing,” says Lovatt. But that pattern reverses after 55. “From then on, DC drops steadily and significantly. That’s not surprising if perceptions of dance ability are related to fertility-based courtship displays, because this is a post-menopausal life stage.”
Brain scan reveals who will keep their promises
New-found patterns in brain activity can reveal whether someone intends to keep their word.
The finding raises the possibility of using brain scans to determine the true intentions of criminals who are up for early release on parole, according to Thomas Baumgartner of the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Phineas Gage
Picture Credits: Google
Don’t you think the Phineas Gage’s case study (ideographic research) was awfully interesting? In the 19th century, while Phineas Gage was working at the rail road, there was an explosion, which sent an iron rod through his head. After a short series of shocks, he just got up and brought himself to the hospital. Seriously, in all that pain? I would’ve rather died. Anyway, physically, he recovered; mentally, his behaviour and personality took a turn - he became temperamental and irresponsible; he couldn’t hold a job down for long. The connection between his frontal lobe and the rest of his brain was damaged and his personality changed for ever. Eventually, he moved to South America and passed away there.
The Brain, an iMindMap (via charmainezoe)
Bob Sutton: Testosterone Levels, Top Dogs, and Collective Group Confidence »
My favorite behavioral science website, BPS Research Digest, posted a summary of an amazingly weird and rather troubling psychological experiment. The upshot is that people —- both men and women —- vary in testosterone levels and (no surprise), when people with high testosterone levels aren’t in leadership positions, “they can find it stressful and uncomfortable when denied the status that they crave.” A bit more surprising is that the reverse is true as well, that “people low in testosterone find it uncomfortable to be placed in positions of authority.” The main finding from the research is that when groups suffer from “mismatch” between status and testosterone levels (where those with high testosterone levels are placed at the bottom of the pecking order, and those with low levels are placed at the top), the group has less confidence in its abilities get things done. I quote from the BPS summary:
Michael Zyphur and colleagues assigned 92 groups of between 4 and 7 undergrads to an on-going task that involved meeting twice a week for 12 weeks, and included creating a professional management-training video. Six weeks into the project the researches measured the participants’ testosterone levels via saliva samples. They also asked all members in each group to vote on each others’ status. Then six weeks after that, at the end of the project, the researchers measured each group’s collective efficacy by summing members’ confidence in their group’s ability to succeed.
The key finding was that groups made up of members whose status was out of synch with their testosterone level tended to have the lowest collective efficacy. The researchers think that testosterone-status mismatch within a group probably has a detrimental effect on that group’s collective confidence. However, another possibility, which they acknowledge, is that a lack of group confidence leads to a mismatch between testosterone levels and status among group members.
The implication is fairly horrifying —- perhaps companies will start using testosterone levels to make decisions about whether or not to put people in leadership positions. Even if it is “evidence-based” (although these results are preliminary), the thought makes me a bit sick.
Here is the reference:
Zyphur, M., Narayanan, J., Koh, G., & Koh, D. (2009). Testosterone–status mismatch lowers collective efficacy in groups: Evidence from a slope-as-predictor multilevel structural equation model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110 (2), 70-79.
I actually posted about this article before, but liked what Sutton says and how he wrote about it, so voila!
Sapolsky is one of the most amazing, influential, relate-able scientists out there right now. His work crosses disciplinary boundaries by combining neuroscience, psychology, biology, animal behavior and more. His obvious dedication and passion for his work is amazing and he’s truly made some amazing discoveries about the physiological effects of stress on animals, including humans.
A lot of Sapolsky’s lectures can be found on YouTube and he is featured in a documentary often on public television channels called “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” and his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is an incredible example of an academic work written for non-experts (but that I’d guess experts still enjoy).
I actually just saw this video because of this post from Channel N -
Stanford’s Sapolsky On Depression in U.S.
“Basically, depression is like the worst disease you can get.” This renowned neuroscientist has convincing arguments to back up his opening statement. See also: an excellent lecture on the neurodegenerative effects of stress.
*Note: Sadly Tumblr is only sometimes working with this brief video clip, so here’s the link to it, just in case.
Pink Brain, Blue Brain
Mythbusting sex differences in the brain: author/neuroscientist Lise Eliot discusses her book.
