Being Human

Discover Magazine has an excellent Carl Zimmer article on glial cells. They make up the majority of the brain's volume but they get relatively little attention from the neuroscience community who would rather focus on the seemingly more lively neurons.

There's a traditional format for these stories, that says that we used to think that glial cells were just 'scaffolding' for the brain that gave protected padding for the neurons, but now we are on the verge of a breakthrough in understanding what they do.

Here's one from New Scientist in 1994, and a pdf of another from Scientific American in 2004.

One difficulty has been integrating the action of glial cells into the popular cognitive model of the brain that suggests that it works as an information processing device.

While there have been various discoveries about the biological function of glia, this is the first article I've read which gives a clear idea of how one type of glial cell, the astrocyte, might be involved in information processing.

For some brain scientists, these discoveries are puzzle pieces that are slowly fitting together into an exciting new picture of the brain. Piece one: Astrocytes can sense incoming signals. Piece two: They can respond with calcium waves. Piece three: They can produce outputs—neurotransmitters and perhaps even calcium waves that spread to other astrocytes. In other words, they have at least some of the requirements for processing information the way neurons do. Alfonso Araque, a neuroscientist at the Cajal Institute in Spain, and his colleagues make a case for a fourth piece. They find that two different stimulus signals can produce two different patterns of calcium waves (that is, two different responses) in an astrocyte. When they gave astrocytes both signals at once, the waves they produced in the cells was not just the sum of the two patterns. Instead, the astrocytes produced an entirely new pattern in response. That’s what neurons—and computers, for that matter—do.

If astrocytes really do process information, that would be a major addition to the brain’s computing power. After all, there are many more astrocytes in the brain than there are neurons. Perhaps, some scientists have speculated, astrocytes carry out their own computing. Instead of the digital code of voltage spikes that neurons use, astrocytes may act more like an analog network, encoding information in slowly rising and falling waves of calcium. In his new book, The Root of Thought, neuroscientist Andrew Koob suggests that conversations among astrocytes may be responsible for “our creative and imaginative existence as human beings.”

Obviously this is based on the idea that we need to fit new biological findings into the computational model, rather than fitting our model of the mind into the biology, but that's a whole different battle.

Link to Discover article 'The Dark Matter of the Human Brain'.

There's a neat study in the August edition of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology on how alcohol can make us feel fully committed to goals we know we have no chance of achieving.

Alcohol breeds empty goal commitments

J Abnorm Psychol. 2009 Aug;118(3):623-33.

Sevincer AT, Oettingen G.

According to alcohol-myopia theory (C. M. Steele & R. A. Josephs, 1990), alcohol leads individuals to disproportionally focus on the most salient aspects of a situation and to ignore peripheral information. The authors hypothesized that alcohol leads individuals to strongly commit to their goals without considering information about the probability of goal attainment. In Study 1, participants named their most important interpersonal goal, indicated their expectations of successfully attaining it, and then consumed either alcohol or a placebo. In contrast to participants who consumed a placebo, intoxicated participants felt strongly committed to their goals despite low expectations of attaining them. In Study 2, goal-directed actions were measured over time. Once sober again, intoxicated participants with low expectations did not follow up on their strong commitments. Apparently, when prospects are bleak, alcohol produces empty goal commitments, as commitments are not based on individuals' expectations of attaining their goals and do not foster goal striving over time.

Link to PubMed entry for study.

The Wellcome Trust is putting its archive of medical films online which includes some fascinating footage of some 1933 neurosurgery to remove a tumour from the frontal lobe.

The film says the tumour is a tuberculoma. While we typically link tumours to cancer, the name also refers to other types of abnormal growths.

In this case, it's an abnormal growth caused when tuberculosis (TB) reaches the brain and leads to an infected mass that can have a similar effect - damaging the cortex by taking up space where the brain should be.

Because TB can be treated effectively with antibiotics, tuberculomas are now very rare in the West, but they are still unfortunately quite common in parts of the developing world where access to medical care is limited.

The Wellcome archive footage is from a time where TB was much more common and shows how surgeons of the days would have removed the mass and how the patient is left after recovery.

Link to Wellcome archive footage of 1933 brain surgery.

Today's Nature has a fantastic article about how psychoactive drugs are being developed into a new generation of chemical weapons design to have specific psychological effects on the enemy.

This has long been part of military research (see the famous and unintentionally hilarious footage of British troops being given LSD presumably from the 1950s) but the effects of the mind altering weapons have generally been thought to be too unpredictable and largely restricted to the lab.

However, the Nature article argues that as our knowledge increases and specific biochemical pathways in the body are discovered, chemical and biological weapons are likely to be deployed that target highly selective biological mechanisms to incapacitate and disable.

Some researchers are actively facilitating the development of new chemical weapons. For example, a research group from Pennsylvania State University in University Park has identified several drug classes as potential non-lethal agents or 'calmatives', including benzodiazepines and alpha2-adrenoreceptor agonists, as well as individual drugs such as diazepam and dexmedetomidine...

Those who support the development of incapacitating agents often argue that using them in conflict situations stops people being killed. Historical evidence suggests otherwise. At the Nord-Ost [Moscow theatre] siege, for instance, terrorists exposed to the fentanyl mixture were shot dead rather than arrested. Likewise, in Vietnam, the US military used vast quantities of CS gas — a 'non-lethal' riot-control agent — to increase the effectiveness of conventional weapons by flushing the Viet Cong out of their hiding places.

The piece notes that the current international laws on chemical and biological weapons do not address this form of armament which are typically marketed under the 'non-lethal weaponry' banner.

From past experience, including the fact that the fentanyl-based 'incapacitating' gas seemed to have killed the majority of people during the Moscow theatre siege, it is likely that they will be used in anything but a non-lethal manner.

Link to Nature 'Biologists napping while work militarized'.

There's a curious historical snippet in the latest edition of Neurology about how the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot designed a shaking chair for patients with Parkinson's disease after they reported sleeping better after a train or carriage ride.

The most obvious symptom of Parkinson's disease is tremor and name first given to the condition, by James Parkinson in his famous essay, was the 'shaking palsy'.

While Charcot's 19th century contemporaries had tried 'vibration therapy' here and there, he was the first to systematically apply it to patients with Parkinson's and found it helped with stiffness, discomfort and poor sleep.

Later Gilles de la Tourette, a one-time student of Charcot, developed the treatment into a type of electrical vibrating hat to specifically apply a 600 rpm treatment 'directly' to the brain.

The treatment was seemingly forgotten for many years but recently it has been revived and studies have found modest benefits for vibration therapy in Parkinson's disease.

Link to paper.
Link to PubMed entry for same.

The Guardian's Improbable Research column covers a clever study on the incredible memory of waiters in Buenos Aires who can take orders from a large table of customers without writing anything down.

Instead of coming up with some abstract computerised lab task, the researchers tested their drink ordering skills and then swapped places to test how they were remembering all the orders.

Eight customers sat at a table, and ordered drinks. When the waiter brought the beverages, the scientists tallied up how many were served to the people who had ordered them, and how many delivered to someone else. All the waiters performed admirably.

The customers later ordered more drinks, then switched seats before the waiter returned. This produced dreary results. The scientists tried this on nine waiters, only one of whom consistently delivered drinks to the right people.

Interviewed afterwards, waiters said they generally paid attention to customers' locations, faces and clothing. They also disclosed a tiny trick of the trade. They "did not pay attention to any customer after taking a table's order, as if they were protecting the memory formation in the path from the table to the bartender or kitchen."

Link to Improbable Research column on the study.
pdf of scientific paper.
Link to PubMed entry for same.

Edition the 74th of the Encephalon psychology and neuroscience writing carnival has just hit the net, this time hosted by Neuronarrative with a Monty Python twist.

A couple of my favourites include one from Neurospeculation on a clever clapping test for hemispatial neglect that originated from class of high school students and another from Sharp Brains on preparing society for the cognitive age.

There's a lot more where that came from, and a couple of Monty Python sketches thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

Link to Encephalon 74.

I've just found this wonderful short paper on emotional peaks and 'chills down the spine' in response to music. I didn't realise the area had been investigated and apparently there is a small literature on these most sublime of experiences.

The paper is brief, accessible and is available online as a pdf but the abstract gives a great summary:

Chills as an indicator of individual emotional peaks

Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2009 Jul;1169:351-4.

Grewe O, Kopiez R, Altenmüller E.

Chills (goose bumps) have been repeatedly associated with positive emotional peaks. Chills seem to be related to distinct musical structures and the reward system in the brain. A new approach that uses chills as indicators of individual emotional peaks is discussed. Chill reactions of 95 participants in response to seven music pieces were recorded. Subjective intensity as well as physiological arousal (skin conductance response, heart rate) revealed peaks during chill episodes. This review suggests that chills are a reliable indicator of individual emotional peaks, combining reports of subjective feelings with physiological arousal.

Right, where's that Miley Cyrus CD.

pdf of scientific paper.
Link to PubMed entry for same.

There is probably no more hostile environment to mental health treatment than the military. Recently, a new treatment method has been widely adopted by the UK Armed Forces and, perhaps for the first time in history, officers are requesting it in droves.

In major wars since the 20th century more fighters have been lost to psychiatric casualties than bodily injuries but psychiatrists and psychologists are still mistrusted by the corps.

It was explained to me rather tactfully that "soldiers are not necessarily the most psychologically minded of individuals" and it is likely a combination of the macho culture and conditioning to deal with discomfort by sheer grit that casts mental strain as weakness in the military.

This has made both mental health problems and their treatment a source of significant stigma in one of the professions most likely to cause trauma and breakdown in its employees.

Trauma Risk Management or TRiM was first developed by the Royal Marines, one of the UK's most hardened battle corps, and trains key members to recognise signs of mental strain in their comrades and provides support at the level of the unit.

It's a wonderfully conceived approach as it takes advantage of the esprit de corps, the intense group bond that forms between fellow soldiers, but which also makes them wary of accepting help from 'outsiders'.

But it also avoids the practice of sending in outsiders to provide 'debriefings' after traumatic incidents which have been found, in many cases, to make the trauma worse.

A recent paper [pdf] published in Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps outlines the TRiM approach. Non-medical mid-level soldiers are trained to assess their colleagues after a potentially traumatic event and look for risk factors for poor-coping, provide information on which psychological reactions to expect, give informal support and know when to refer to specialist medical staff.

More widely the approach aims to change attitudes to mental distress by making it both an acceptable topic and another form of operational training.

And it is clear that there is a currently a need for a different approach, particularly it seems, in the US military.

A recent review of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers deployed to Iraq found that, seemingly uniquely, US soldiers show increased levels of the disorder one year after returning from the war zone. This is exactly the opposite pattern to that which is typically seen in other soldiers and civilians.

Science writer David Dobbs has received a lot of flak for suggesting that the system that provides mental health treatment to US veterans is unintentionally encouraging long-term disability but the figures suggest he may be right.

TRiM could be an effective counter-measure to mental illness in the military and it is certainly popular. It is also being adopted widely in the civilian emergency services, but it remains under-researched.

The recent paper on TRiM notes that a trial is currently being run by the UK Ministry of Defence and preliminary results suggest cautious optimism although we still await the first published study its effectiveness when deployed on the ground.

In light of the lack of evidence, it's perhaps a little worrying that TRiM is being increasingly flashed around as a PR-friendly talisman of good practice whenever the military's mental health credentials are questioned and it has also now become the basis of a minor training industry.

Nevertheless, the simple fact that it has been accepted and requested by the armed forces themselves is a significant advance for military psychiatry.

pdf of 'Trauma risk management (TRiM) in the UK Armed Forces'

One of the mysteries of the human brain concerns why the surface is wrinkled into 'ridges' and 'trenches'. We covered some of the theories a couple of weeks ago but a new study in the Journal of Biomechanics suggests a completely different take - the rippled surface protects against the effects of head injury.

The research team created a 3D computer model of the brain taken from an MRI brain scan (top) and then generated a second model (bottom) but with the sulci (the 'trenches') smoothed out.

They then took each model and simulated a few smacks upside the head from different directions. As well as 'striking' the head head on, the researchers also simulated blows causing 'rotation'.

This is where the brain moves as if it is pivoting around a point. For example, if you look straight on and loll your head from side to side, your brain is following the path of a 'coronal rotation'. These sorts of blows are known to be a particular cause of tears in the white matter, your brain's 'cabling'.

It turns out that a brain with sulci on the surface suffers significantly less strain when the head is struck. And this isn't just for areas near the surface.

The sulci also had a protective effect almost everywhere, including deep brain structures like the brain stem and the corpus callosum.

So it seems that having a wrinkly brain may be a good protective measure for when your head has to bounce off a hard surface.

Link to paper 'Can sulci protect the brain from traumatic injury?'
Link to PubMed entry for same.

Newsweek has an interesting article about the science behind the infuriating muzak that plays while you're on hold in a telephone queue.

The article made me realise what probably should have been obvious, that telephone queuing systems are a multi-million dollar industry and psychologists have been employed to research the best way to stop you hanging up.

When of the most interesting bit is where the article touches on the use of music to alter customers' perception of passing time.

Kellaris says that while musical distraction often causes time to feel like it's passing more quickly, particularly dull, or overly familiar, music can actually make the wait feel longer. Familiar music may act as a sort of "Zip file," says Kellaris, referring to the common format computers use to compress large volumes of data into a smaller package.

"If you hear an excerpt of a familiar piece of music, it might cue recall of the entire piece." Kellaris also cautions that numerous factors, including mindset and setting—and in one of his studies, even gender—determine the effect that background music has on us. "Time on hold seemed shortest for women exposed to alternative rock and for men exposed to classical music," he says.

And there are apparently a number of studies which have tested exactly this, including two intriguing ones I found after my interest was sparked.

The article also notes that a major factor in keeping people in a queue is the perception that they are progressing by giving customers' feedback on their position on time to destination.

Link to Newsweek article 'On Hold And In Hell'.

Slate magazine has an article on "how the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting" which has become remarkably popular but buys into the dopamine myth and misapplies it to the nebulous concept of 'information'.

The piece is, on the surface, quite appealing because it seems to give a more sophisticated account of the dopamine = pleasure myth of old, suggesting instead that dopamine really equals seeking and it's the system that motivates us to search out rewards.

There is a some truth in this, as one of the several theories of the dopamine system is that it works as a reward prediction system, based on evidence that dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmentum fire when a neutral event (like a beep) comes shortly before a reward (like food) but disappears when the beep keeps happening without any food arriving.

This theory is not without its problems by the way, and it shouldn't be assumed that this is really how it is.

The article rambles on a bit about the distinction between pleasure and seeking, experiments on dopamine and motivation, and then falls off a cliff:

Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling? Thank dopamine....

Panksepp says a way to drive animals into a frenzy is to give them only tiny bits of food: This simultaneously stimulating and unsatisfying tease sends the seeking system into hyperactivity.

Berridge says the "ding" announcing a new e-mail or the vibration that signals the arrival of a text message serves as a reward cue for us. And when we respond, we get a little piece of news (Twitter, anyone?), making us want more.

So we've gone from the neurobiology of dopamine in rats rewarded by food pellets to the "ding" of an email arriving. Science!

The crucial issue is the question of what counts as a reward. In almost all of these articles, it is assumed that Google and Twitter work as rewards because they are 'information'.

But as far as the brain is concerned, 'information' encompasses all input from the senses. When you look a tree searching for unusual patterns in the bark, you are getting information and rewards. We could just as easily rewrite the article as "how the brain hard-wires us to love forests, trees, and curious patterns in the bark".

You could, of course, and the article would be equally as (in)valid scientifically, but you'd never get it in the media because there's currently a market for faux science internet scare stories but not hand-wringing over the addictive potential of trees.

But apart from these cultural issues, the article confuses primary (or natural) rewards and secondary (or learnt) rewards. Primary rewards are things like food, sex and escape from pain. They're acquired from evolution, essential for our survival and universal. Secondary rewards are things like money, praise and well... anything else and that's because we have to learn secondary rewards.

There's nothing innately rewarding about a crumpled bit of coloured paper but we've learnt to link money to our innate primary rewards.

In contrast, the article makes a leap between mostly animal studies that have looked at the neurobiology of primary reward prediction and misapplies it to digital technology as if receiving 'information' is equivalent to a rat receiving a food pellet when it's hungry.

But the concept of 'information' is orders of magnitude more abstract because there is nothing innately rewarding about a sensation. It depends on how we interpret the sensation or, in information terms, its content.

For example, the article implies that 'novel' and 'unpredictable' digital information is rewarding but if this is the case, why do we dislike spam so much? The explanation lies in why that information is meaningful and this goes way beyond misapplied ideas about the dopamine reward system.

We are not motivated to seek any information, otherwise I'd never take my eyes off the sky. The meaning and relevance is key.

In other words, if you want to explain compulsive behaviour you need to explain how the behaviour has become rewarding and this could be as varied and different as human nature itself.

The 'dopamine reward system' explanation is one of the most widely abused and misapplied scientific theories in the popular press. Be wary when anyone can't explain why it is relevant.

Link to Slate article 'Seeking'.

I've just come across a brilliant 1966 sketch about a psychiatrist from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's classic comedy series Not Only... But Also.

Peter Cook plays a psychiatrist who takes his reasonable acceptance of his patient's behaviour to the extreme with Dudley Moore as his comic foil.

It's actually a parody of a technique in psychotherapy called "unconditional positive regard" in which the therapist accepts the person's behaviour, experiences and emotions, good or bad, without judging the person's core value as a human being.

This was originally developed by psychologist Carl Rogers as part of a humanistic or person-centred approach to psychotherapy.

While few therapists would consider themselves purely Rogerian in their approach nowadays, his general assumptions are now widely used in all forms of psychological treatment. Probably as a result he has been voted the most influential psychotherapist twice over the last 50 years.

Apparently he's been so influential that he even influenced Pete and Dud's comedy.

By the way, I picked up the link from the Twitter stream of @mariapage, a Greek student who consistently posts interesting and eye-opening psychology links. Thanks!

UPDATE: I've discovered this wasn't the only psychiatrist sketch Pete and Dud did. There's footage of another brilliant parody available here. In this one, Peter Cook makes looks of banal pseudo-Freudian observations about the state of Dudley Moore's relationship with his wife. There's also a great piss-take of behavioural therapy.

Link to The Psychiatrist sketch from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Why do ethicists steal more books than other people? ABC Radio National's Philosopher's Zone talks to Eric Schwitzgebel about his brilliant philosophical research project.

The New York Times has an article on delusions of identity after brain injury. Doesn't say very much except they exist but an interesting topic nonetheless.

Listen to Ben Goldacre doing a fantastic job of countering Susan Greenfield's scaremongering over internet addiction on ABC Radio National's The Science Show.

To wit: Susan 'digital brain damage / attention span armageddon / generation ADHD' Greenfield take note. Newsweek reports that teen novels are more popular than ever.

Reuters reports on the University of Pennsylvania's Neuroscience Boot Camp.

Chocolate consumption increases in people Parkinson’s disease, according to research covered by Dr Shock.

BBC News covers researching finding that people with more symmetrical faces are less likely to suffer mental decline in old age. See an earlier Mind Hacks piece for more on links between face structure and brain function

Dieting could lead to a positive test for cannabis reports New Scientist, but only if you've been previously smoking cannabis.

The British Medical Journal has a meta-analysis of 372 (wow) double blind antidepressant RCTs finding that they slightly increase suicide risk in younger people. Furious Seasons has great coverage as always.

Radiotherapy for brain cancer has long-term cognitive effects, reports BBC News.

Bad Science has some excellent coverage of a study on how beliefs flow through science literature.

Would have covered this ourselves if it'd not been picked up by the big boys. If you've not read it already, the BPS Research Digest has an excellent piece on how time perception is linked to anger.

Scientific American has an interview with Judith Rich Harris, the influential psychologist who argues that parents have a minimal influence on children's social development in comparison to their peers.

Facebook reinforces jealousy in jealousy-prone people according to a study covered by PsychCentral.

Optimistic women live for longer, according to BBC News who seem to have raised their game this week.

3 Quarks Daily has a first hand account of sleep paralysis. Some slightly shaky neuroscience but well worth a read.

Anthropologist Richard Wrangham mongers his 'the invention of cooking as the cause of hominid brain expansion' theory on Edge.

Dr Petra discusses the American Psychological Association's recent statement on the futility of 'gay conversion therapy'.

A project to map every brain connection in five years time has been announced by the American National Institute of Health. An overview and commentary by Neurophilosophy's Mo Costandi are published in Seed Magazine which brings it down to earth a little.

The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience has an interesting paper on a neurocomputational model for cocaine addiction (thanks Will!). Only runs in the toilets apparently.

Studying babies can tell us about some of the most challenging philosophical questions according to an article in Salon.

Cognitive Daily finds a wonderful study on how adaptation to distorted faces doesn't transfer between male and female faces suggesting they may be processed differently.

Congenitally blind people distinguish between living and nonliving things in the ">same visual brain areas as sighted people, according to a new study covered by Science News.

The Psychiatric Times has a response by the DSM-V critics accused by the American Psychiatric Association of being motivated by wanting to sell more of their books on the earlier version. It's the debate that keeps on giving.

A study on the neural cartography of the clitoris is covered (if that's the right word) by The Neurocritic.

ABC Radio National's Ockham's Razor has a short but thoroughly fascinating programme on how human pre-history and cultural change can be uncovered through the study of languages. It's an eye-opening insight into how patterns in our language are relics of our past and how they can be a window into the interplay of societies.

The presenter is linguist Claire Bowern who does most of her research in the field. Bowern particularly studies the languages of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and how they've interacted with each other and with English.

She gives the example of various 'loan words', such as koala or kangaroo, used in English but adopted from native speakers.

Loan words like this show us that there were enough contacts between Aboriginal people and settlers for the settlers to learn the names of local animals in those languages, rather than making up their own names. However, the loans are mostly confined to plants, animals and environment terms, and this tells us something about the depth and type of contact between the two groups. The European settlers did not adopt Aboriginal kinship terminology, for example, or other cultural terms.

We might compare this to the English wholesale adoption of French legal terms like judge, jury and trial, following the Norman Conquest. Many of the loans of Aboriginal words in English come from the Sydney region; it's therefore reasonable to assume that this was the place that European settlers first came into contact with animals like koalas and dingos.

It really is like archaeology for language as she often has to uncover quirks of languages that are spoken only in remote places and then builds of picture from feint traces left by past generations.

Link to Ockham's Razor on 'Language and prehistory'.

The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on how bad we are at judging our friends' beliefs, opinions and values but why we tend to assume they match with our own.

The article covers various examples of this effect, but it mentions a finding from a shortly to be published study finding that the most socially connected people are typically the least accurate at judging their friends' attitudes:

A similar effect arises when people are asked questions about right and wrong rather than politics. Recent research by Francis Flynn, a psychology professor at Stanford, and Scott Wiltermuth, a doctoral student there, looked at people in tight-knit workplace and graduate-school settings.

The researchers found that people assumed, often unquestioningly, that their responses to a series of ethical dilemmas were shared by the majority of their close colleagues. In reality they often were not. More strikingly, it was the more socially connected among the test subjects who were more likely to be wrong.

The article has a bit of a quirk, however, by supposedly explaining "Psychologists call this projection: in situations where there’s any ambiguity, people tend to simply project their feelings and thoughts onto others".

Except, they don't. The effect discussed by the article, where we over-estimate the extent to which people share our own mindset, is called the false consensus effect.

Projection is a unverified psychological defence mechanism where people supposedly misperceive psychological states in other people that, in reality, they have themselves but unconsciously want to hide from their conscious mind.

This was a concept originally developed by Sigmund Freud and systematised, along with a range of other 'defences mechanisms', by Anna Freud in her landmark book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence.

However, as with the majority of defences proposed in psychoanalysis, the basic process has been experimentally verified but the defence aspect (it's the unconscious hiding the unthinkable from us) has not.

Link to Globe article 'What you don’t know about your friends'.

ABC Radio National's excellent All in the Mind has just broadcast a two part programme on robots, morality and the edges of human well-being from the bedroom to the battlefield.

The first programme focuses mainly on domestic robots while the second tackles military AI systems, which, as we discussed recently, are so common as to be almost standard in many combat situations.

One of the most interesting points is raised during a discussion with AI researcher Noel Sharkey on the use of robots as 'digital companions' for children

While most media panics focus on the effect of technology on cognitive functions (memory, attention, reasoning and so on), history and even current research have shown us that technology has a minimal effect on the development of our cognition.

Nevertheless, we know that emotional development is considerably more sensitive to childhood experience and differences tend to have clearer longer-term effects into adulthood.

This is pertinent because, apparently, child minding robots are already in development:

Natasha Mitchell: And you have to ask what sort of attachment, or what sort of a relationship might a child form with their robotic supervisor over a long period of time?

Noel Sharkey: Yes, this is the worry. If you leave them with them for a very short time it's very motivating for them, inspire them and get them into engineering or science, they'll ask questions about it. But if you start leaving them with them for longer and longer periods and there are signs of this already, actually, you'll find the child will have to form an attachment with them. We're talking now about very young children, say pre-speech, little toddlers to about four years old, three years old.

There is currently no research in this area, but it's not an angle I'd heard of before and raises the important but largely ignored point about our emotional reactions to technology.

Link to Part 1 of AITM on machine morality.
Link to Part 2 on military machine morality.

For several years 'internet addiction' has been promoted by the Chinese government as a serious mental illness affecting large numbers of young people, but in recent months it has started to pull back, seemingly due to the growth of a widespread, poorly regulated and abusive system of internet addiction 'treatment' centres.

Firstly, let me say that most of my sources on this issue are from China Daily, a state-run news service, but whether this reflects the reality or not, it is clear that the Chinese authorities are becoming worried about how the problem is being dealt with.

For example, the Chinese authorities recently shut down an unlicensed internet 'boot camp' style clinic and arrested 13 employees after a 15-year-old boy was beaten to death by camp counsellors for apparently running too slowly.

This follows news that the Chinese Ministry of Health has recently banned electroshock therapy for 'internet addiction'. The same state media source reported that in Linyi Psychiatric Hospital alone, 3,000 young people had been 'treated' in this way. Both Chinese and Western media report that electroshock was also used as a punishment (note that some reports portray it as mild electrical current while others specifically describe it as electroconvulsive therapy).

The clinics seems to be a mixture of private clinics, of which 400 or so are estimated to exist, and government run clinics of an indeterminate number.

The approach of one of the most prestigious state-run clinics is described in this article:

Co-founded by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China and Beijing Military Region General Hospital in 2004, Tao's clinic in the suburbs of Beijing has treated nearly 5,000 Internet-addicted youths and says 75 percent have been cured.

At the clinic, young addicts receive "comprehensive therapy" including medication, psychological counseling and low-intensity military training. They also take interactive courses with their parents to learn communication skills.

Tao also uses psychotropic drugs to treat patients suffering from mental illnesses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression.

This clinic seems to be the only one to have admitted Western journalists and it has been featured in TV and radio news reports, which, at times, make for quite disturbing viewing.

The recent admission of abuses in 'internet addiction' treatment centres is a significant change in tack as previous reports have typically discussed the internet in rather alarming terms, variously claiming that it has caused schizophrenia, led to drug addiction, resulted in job loss and the like. State media claims that about 10% of young net users are addicts.

Reading all the stories on 'internet addiction' in China, both from Chinese and Western media, I was struck by how it consistently reflected the idea that the popularity of the 'treatment' is being driven by parents' anxieties about their children not conforming to the social pressures of family and academic achievement.

This is remarkably similar to what seems to drive the concept in the Western world and while our stereotype can often be that 'internet addiction' is simply a tool of Chinese state repression of free speech, it is worth bearing in mind that it may be closer to home than we like to believe.

Link to TV news report on 'internet addiction' in China.
Link to China Daily on shut down of illegal clinics.

The New York Times has a profile of the two psychologists who developed the US 'war on terror' interrogations that were widely condemned as torture.

The piece makes an interesting update to the 2007 Vanity Fair article that first fingered Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, and has compiled additional information about the pair from interviews with ex-colleagues.

For the C.I.A., as well as for the gray-goateed Dr. Mitchell, 58, and the trim, dark-haired Dr. Jessen, 60, the change in administrations has been neck-snapping. For years, President George W. Bush declared the interrogation program lawful and praised it for stopping attacks. Mr. Obama, by contrast, asserted that its brutality rallied recruits for Al Qaeda; called one of the methods, waterboarding, torture; and, in his first visit to the C.I.A., suggested that the interrogation program was among the agency’s “mistakes.”

The psychologists’ subsequent fall from official grace has been as swift as their rise in 2002. Today the offices of Mitchell Jessen and Associates, the lucrative business they operated from a handsome century-old building in downtown Spokane, Wash., sit empty, its C.I.A. contracts abruptly terminated last spring.

The piece notes that a decision in imminent on whether a criminal enquiry will be launched into the use of harsh interrogation techniques. If so, all psychologists involved in the programme, not just Jessen and Mitchell, are likely to be the focus of some uncomfortable scrutiny.

Given the somewhat odd behaviour and heal dragging by the American Psychological Association during the saga that eventually led them to an outright ban on participation, one wonders whether any high level contact between the US military and the APA will come to light.

Link to NYT piece 'Interrogation Inc.' (via BoingBoing).
Link to Vanity Fair piece on psychologists and interrogation.

The New York Times has an interesting piece about the work of anthropologist Ann Dunham Soetoro, most famous for being the mother of President Barack Obama.

The article is by Yale anthropologist Michael Dove who knew and worked with Obama's mother before she died in 1995.

Dr. Soetoro’s most sustained academic effort was her 1,043-page dissertation, “Peasant Blacksmithing in Indonesia: Surviving Against All Odds,” completed in 1992 and based on 14 years of research. This was a classic, in-depth, on-the-ground anthropological study of a 1,200-year-old industry. Her principal field site was a cluster of hamlets, containing several hundred households, on an arid limestone plateau on Java’s south coast. There, village metalworkers produced dozens of different iron blades and tools for use in farming, carpentry and daily life...

There is a final lesson from her work that is worth remembering: No nation — even if it is our bitterest enemy — is incomprehensible. Anthropology shows that people who seem very different from us behave according to systems of logic, and that these systems can be grasped if we approach them with the sort of patience and respect that Dr. Soetoro practiced in her work.

Link to NYT piece 'Dreams From His Mother'.