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Material Submitted October 1, 2009
Scientists Can Read Your Brain
Researchers using fMRI brain scans have been figuring out how to determine what it is you are experiencing at the moment—they are learning to “read” your mind.
In one experiment, conducted at the University of Paris, and reported in the journal Current Biology, human participants looked at patterns of dots or at numerals, while researchers examined the brain scans for correlated activity. When participants looked at patterns of dots, the researchers could identify correlated patterns of activity that they could later use to determine how many dots the person was observing. When participants looked at numerals, the investigators could determine no correlated brain activity. They speculated that the response to the abstraction of a numeral is more complex than the brain response to a pattern of dots.
In another experiment, conducted at the University of California at Berkeley, and reported in the journal Neuron, researchers had human participants look at photographs of everyday scenes. The investigators attempted to correlate the shape of the object with observed brain activity. They also attempted to correlate the category of object (such as “building,” or “people”) with observed brain activity. Once having made these correlations, they showed participants photographs of other objects and were successful in their attempts to determine, on the basis of the brain activity, what was the nature of the object being viewed.
By Charles Q. Choi
By carefully analyzing brain activity, scientists can tell what number a person has just seen, research now reveals.
They can similarly tell how many dots a person was presented with.
Past investigations had uncovered brain cells in monkeys that were linked with numbers. Although scientists had found brain regions linked with numerical tasks in humans — the frontal and parietal lobes, to be exact — until now patterns of brain activity linked with specific numbers had proven elusive.
Scientists had 10 volunteers watch either numerals or dots on a screen while a part of their brain known as the intraparietal cortex was scanned — it's a region of the parietal lobe especially linked with numbers. They next rigorously analyzed brain activity to decipher which patterns might be linked with the numbers the volunteers had observed.
When it came to small numbers of dots, the researchers found that brain activity patterns changed gradually in a way that reflected the ordered nature of the numbers. For example, one might be able to conclude that the pattern for six is between that for five and seven.
In the case of the numerals, the researchers could not detect this same gradual change. This suggests their methods simply might not be sensitive enough to detect this progression yet, or that these symbols are, in fact, coded as more precise, discrete entities in the brain.
"Activation patterns for numbers of dots seem to be stronger — are more easily discriminated — than those for digits, suggesting that maybe still more neurons encode specifically numbers of objects — the evolutionary older representation — than abstract symbolic numbers," said researcher Evelyn Eger at the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France.
Given that numbers "are in principle infinite, it is very unlikely that the brain can have, or we can detect, a signature for each number," Eger noted. "There is some hint in our data that smaller numbers have a clearer signature, which may be related to their frequency of occurrence in daily life, but further work would be needed to say something more definite about this and about how the brain deals with larger numbers."
The methods employed in this research could ultimately help unlock how the brain makes sophisticated calculations and how the brain changes as people learn math, the researchers said.
"We are only beginning to access the most basic building blocks that symbolic math probably relies on," Eger said. "We still have no clear idea of how these number representations interact and are combined in mathematical operations, but the fact that we can resolve them in humans gives hope that at some point we can come up with paradigms that let us address this.”
The scientists detailed their findings online September 24 in the journal
Current Biology.
Weblink: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33022311/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind.
Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.
Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers.
"It's what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device," said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.
The research, led by Gallant and Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Thomas Naselaris, builds on earlier work in which they used neural patterns to identify pictures from within a limited set of options.
The current approach, described this week in Neuron, uses a more complete view of the brain's visual centers. Its results are closer to reconstruction than identification, which Gallant likened to "the magician's card trick where you pick a card from a deck, and he guesses which card you picked. The magician knows all the cards you could have seen."
In the latest study, "the card could be a photograph of anything in the universe. The magician has to figure it out without ever seeing it," said Gallant.
To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.
As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as "buildings" or "small groups of people."
Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers' program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.
Frank Tong, a Vanderbilt University neuroscientist who studies how thoughts are manifested in the brain, said the Neuron study wasn't quite a pure, draw-from-scratch reconstruction. But it was impressive nonetheless, especially for the detail it gathered from measurements that are still extremely coarse.
The researchers' fMRI readings bundled the output of millions of neurons into single output blocks. "At the finer level, there is a ton of information. We just don't have a way to tap into that without opening the skull and accessing it directly," said Tong.
Gallant hopes to develop methods of interpreting other types of brain activity measurement, such as optical laser scans or EEG readings.
He mentioned medical communication devices as a possible application, and computer programs for which visual thinking makes sense -- CAD-CAM or Photoshop, straight from the brain.
Such applications are decades away, but "you could use algorithms like this to decode other things than vision," said Gallant. "In theory, you could analyze internal speech. You could have someone talk to themselves, and have it come out in a machine."
Weblink: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/brain.scans.wired/index.html
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Sleep Protects You from Cold Virus
Many folks take plenty of Vitamin C and Echinacea to ward off the common cold, but getting plenty of sleep is a better preventative.
In a recent experiment, conducted at Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers monitored the sleep habits of healthy adults for two weeks. Afterwards, each participant received a nasal injection of a rhinos cold virus, and were then observed for five days to detect symptoms of their catching the cold.
The results were quite conclusive. Those who slept for seven hours or less were three times more likely to catch the cold than those who slept for an average of eight hours or more. Those who slept “less effectively” (meaning a smaller percentage of time in bed actually being asleep) were five times more likely to catch the cold than those who were asleep at least ninety percent of the time they were in bed.
The researchers noted that no other variable other than sleep habits could explain these results. They stand as solid evidence for the role of sleep in health maintenance and illness prevention.
Web sources:
THE FACTS As cold season approaches, many Americans stock up on their vitamin C and echinacea. But heeding the age-old advice about catching up on sleep might be more important.
Studies have demonstrated that poor sleep and susceptibility to colds go hand in hand, and scientists think it could be a reflection of the role sleep plays in maintaining the body’s defenses.
In a recent study for The Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists followed 153 men and women for two weeks, keeping track of their quality and duration of sleep. Then, during a five-day period, they quarantined the subjects and exposed them to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of fewer than seven hours a night, it turned out, were three times as likely to get sick as those who averaged at least eight hours.
Sleep and immunity, it seems, are tightly linked. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce greater levels of disease-fighting white blood cells — but not red blood cells, even though both are produced in bone marrow and stem from the same precursor. And researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have shown that species that sleep more have greater resistance against pathogens.
“Species that have evolved longer sleep durations,” the Planck scientists wrote, “appear to be able to increase investment in their immune systems and be better protected.”
THE BOTTOM LINE Research suggests that poor sleep can increase susceptibility to colds.
Weblink: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/health/22real.html?_r=2&em
Sleep Habits and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
Sheldon Cohen, PhD; William J. Doyle, PhD; Cuneyt M. Alper, MD; Denise Janicki-Deverts, PhD; Ronald B. Turner, MD
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(1):62-67.
Background Sleep quality is thought to be an important predictor of immunity and, in turn, susceptibility to the common cold. This article examines whether sleep duration and efficiency in the weeks preceding viral exposure are associated with cold susceptibility.
Methods A total of 153 healthy men and women (age range, 21-55 years) volunteered to participate in the study. For 14 consecutive days, they reported their sleep duration and sleep efficiency (percentage of time in bed actually asleep) for the previous night and whether they felt rested. Average scores for each sleep variable were calculated over the 14-day baseline. Subsequently, participants were quarantined, administered nasal drops containing a rhinovirus, and monitored for the development of a clinical cold (infection in the presence of objective signs of illness) on the day before and for 5 days after exposure.
Results There was a graded association with average sleep duration: participants with less than 7 hours of sleep were 2.94 times (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.18-7.30) more likely to develop a cold than those with 8 hours or more of sleep. The association with sleep efficiency was also graded: participants with less than 92% efficiency were 5.50 times (95% CI, 2.08-14.48) more likely to develop a cold than those with 98% or more efficiency. These relationships could not be explained by differences in prechallenge virus-specific antibody titers, demographics, season of the year, body mass, socioeconomic status, psychological variables, or health practices. The percentage of days feeling rested was not associated with colds.
Conclusion Poorer sleep efficiency and shorter sleep duration in the weeks preceding exposure to a rhinovirus were associated with lower resistance to illness.
Author Affiliations: Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Drs Cohen and Janicki-Deverts); Department
of Otolaryngology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine (Drs Doyle and Alper); and Department of
Pediatrics, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville (Dr
Turner).
Weblink: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/1/62
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Farmers’ Markets Becoming Popular
Edgar Cayce recommended that we have our own gardens, or at least eat locally grown food because of its greater vitality. Although prompted by other motivations, Americans are falling in love with local farmers’ markets.
The number of such markets have increased dramatically, according to the U.S. In July, 2009, almost five thousand new farmers’ markets were opened. Department of Agriculture, as reported in USA Today. The government attributes this increase to a concern for food safety and for the environment, and an interest in community.
Web source:
Interest blooms in farmers markets
By Chris Joyner, USA TODAY
More neighborhood farmers markets, where consumers can buy fruit and vegetables from local producers, are cropping up across the USA.
Over the past decade, farmers markets have increased 71%, U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show. In July, the department reported that nearly 4,900 markets operate nationwide, up about 5% from the end of last year.
Factors driving the surge include a growing desire by consumers to know more about food sources, concern over the environment and an increased sense of community, agriculture experts, farmers and customers say.
"It's perfect for us," Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan says. "We want to find ways to help people live healthier lifestyles and eat more fruits and vegetables, and increase the economic prosperity for farmers."
Farmers markets got a high-profile boost this month when first lady Michelle Obama gave a speech at the opening of a market in Washington. Obama has made locally grown produce part of her push to get Americans to eat healthier by planting her own garden at the White House.
Lauren Carey, manager of the Peachtree Road Farmers Market in Atlanta, says it has grown exponentially since it opened in 2007. "We've had phenomenal response," she says.
Many states report similar growth:
•Massachusetts. The number of markets rose from 160 last year to 199 now, a one-year record, says Kate Plourd, spokeswoman for state Department of Agricultural Resources.
•Illinois. The state has about 280 markets "and that's growing," says Delayne Reeves, a marketing representative with the Illinois Department of Agriculture. "We'll probably be close to 300 by next year," Reeves says.
•Utah. Farmers markets jumped from 20 last year to 41 today, says Larry Lewis, spokesman for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
•California. Dan Best of the California Federation of Certified Farmers' Markets says certified markets in the state have soared from 429 in 2004 to 645 today. Most of that growth came in the past three years.
Merrigan said the income from markets is "a pretty significant factor" for small farmers who are the primary vendors, although USDA statistics show that half of market vendors nationally bring in less than $500 a month.
Scares over food safety and worries about how trucking produce long distances adds to global warming have helped spur interest, Reeves says. She adds that the down economy has made people "more home-centered."
Tony Wood of Sweet Magnolia Farm in Byram, Miss., markets his vegetables at the state-sponsored market in Jackson. "Everything we bring, we sell," he says.
Joyner reports for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
Web link: http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2009-09-28-1Amarkets28_ST_U.htm?csp=34
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More Americans Claim “No Religion”
Between 1990 and today, the number of Americans who claim to have “no religion” has doubled to more than thirty four million people. According to researchers at Trinity College who conducted the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, fifteen per cent of adult Americans now make that claim, with males more likely (nineteen per cent) than women (twelve per cent). Among younger folks, aged 18-29, twenty two percent make this claim.
What does it mean to claim no religion? In concrete terms, it means, according to a report in USA Today, that although these fifteen per cent don’t identify themselves with any organized religion, even more folks, fully twenty five per cent of the population, do not engage in any of the activities associated with organized religion, such as church attendance, baptisms, bar mitzvahs weddings, or funerals.
Web Source:
People claiming to have no religion grows to 15% of American population
Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion, says Barry Kosmin, co-researcher for the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).
"These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all," Kosmin says
A closer look at the "Nones" — people who said None" when asked their religious identity — shows that this group (now 15% of Americans, up from 8% in 1990) opts out of traditional religious rites of passage...
When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.
The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.
Web link: http://exchristian.net/2/2009/03/people-claiming-to-have-no-religion.html
'Nones' now 15% of population
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion, says Barry Kosmin, co-researcher for the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).
"These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all," Kosmin says.
A closer look at the "Nones" — people who said "None" when asked their religious identity — shows that this group (now 15% of Americans, up from 8% in 1990) opts out of traditional religious rites of passage:
•40% say they had no childhood religious initiation ceremony such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony.
•55% of those who are married had no religious ceremony.
•66% say they do not expect to have a religious funeral.
"Your parents may decide for you on baptism and your spouse has a say in your wedding, but when people talk about dying, they speak for themselves," says Kosmin.
He expects the number of Nones to continue to grow as each generation begets more.
Arpad Toth, of Keene, N.H., who is active in the Humanist Association of New Hampshire/Vermont, says he never taught his three children anything more than the "fantasy of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny."
As far as Toth knows, none of his children, his six grandchildren or four great-grandchildren, scattered from Utah to Rhode Island, has ever gone to church.
Diane and Stefan Mueller of Austin, who left behind their childhood religions many years ago, had no clergy at their Hawaii wedding. When they had a baby two years ago, "We discussed baptism, but we would only have done it for his mother and my father, so we decided no," she says.
Web link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-aris-survey-nones_N.htm
"Nones" now largely mirror Mainstream America
HARTFORD, Conn. - The 34 million American adults who don't identify with any particular religious group reflect the general population in terms of marital status, educational attainment, racial and ethnic makeup, and income, according to a new study by Trinity College researchers, American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population.
Report Highlights (click for full report)
Web link: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/
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One in Four Americans Believe in Reincarnation
Ask anyone if they believe they’ve lived before in a past life and chances are one in four that the answer will be yes, according to a recent Harris poll conducted with over two thousand adults and reported in Newsweek. While eighty per cent revealed that they believe in God, the results indicated that more people believe in the devil, hell and angels than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Web source:
Nearly 25% of Americans Believe They Were Once another Person
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – December 10, 2008 – That very large majorities of the American public believe in God, miracles, the survival of the soul after death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin birth will come as no great surprise. What may be more surprising is that substantial minorities believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches, astrology, and the belief that they themselves were once other people. Overall, more people believe in the devil, hell and angels than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.
These are some of the results of The Harris Poll®, a new nationwide survey of 2,126 U.S. adults surveyed online between November 10 and 17, 2008 by Harris Interactive®.
Some of the interesting findings in this new Harris Poll include:
Differences between Catholics and Protestants
There are no significant differences between the large percentages of Catholics and Protestants who believe in God, miracles, heaven and hell, that Jesus is the Son of God, angels, the resurrection of Jesus, the survival of the soul after death, the Virgin birth and the devil.
However, Catholics are more likely than Protestants to believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (by 52% to 32%), ghosts (by 57% to 41%), UFOs (by 43% to 31%), and astrology (by 40% to 28%). Protestants are slightly more likely than Catholics to believe in creationism (by 54% to 46%).
Which Religious Texts Are the "Word of God"
Slender majorities of all adults believe that all or most of the Old Testament (55%) and the New Testament (54%) are the "Word of God." However, only about a third of all adults (37% and 36%) believe that all of these texts are the word of God.
Interestingly, only 26% of all adults believe that the Torah is the word of God, even though it is the same as the first five books of the Old Testament. Presumably many people do not know this.
Religiosity and Religious Practice
Less than a quarter of Americans describe themselves are "very religious." However, a large majority (68%) describe themselves as either very (23%) or somewhat (45%) religious.
A quarter (27%) of adult Americans claim that they attend church once a week or more often, compared with 36% who say they attend less than once a year or never (18% each).
A Note on the Methodology Used and How It Affects the Results
Other research has shown that when replying to a question administered impersonally by a computer, people are less likely to say they believe in God, or attend Church services when they really don’t. It is generally believed that surveys conducted by live interviewers tend to exaggerate the numbers of people who report the socially desirable, or less embarrassing, behavior, and that the replies given to an online survey such as this, are more honest and therefore more accurate.
TABLE 1
WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE IN
"We would like to ask you about various things some people believe it. Please indicate for each one if you believe in it, or not."
Base: All adults
|
|
Believe In |
Don’t Believe In |
Not Sure |
|
% |
% |
% |
|
| God |
80 |
10 |
9 |
| Miracles |
75 |
14 |
12 |
| Heaven |
73 |
14 |
13 |
| Jesus is God or the Son of God |
71 |
17 |
12 |
| Angels |
71 |
17 |
12 |
| The resurrection of Jesus Christ |
70 |
18 |
13 |
| Survival of the soul after death |
68 |
15 |
17 |
| Hell |
62 |
24 |
13 |
| The Virgin birth |
61 |
24 |
15 |
| The devil |
59 |
27 |
14 |
| Darwin’s theory of evolution |
47 |
32 |
22 |
| Ghosts |
44 |
39 |
17 |
| Creationism |
40 |
31 |
29 |
| UFOs |
36 |
39 |
25 |
| Witches |
31 |
54 |
14 |
| Astrology |
31 |
51 |
18 |
| Reincarnation – that you were once another person |
24 |
53 |
23 |
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% because of rounding
TABLE 2
WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE IN – BY RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE AND RELIGION
"Next, we would like to ask you about various things some people believe in. Please indicate for each one if you believe in it, or not."
Summary of "Believe In"
Base: All adults
|
|
Total |
Attend Religious Services |
Religion |
|||||
|
At Least Weekly |
Monthly |
At Least Once a Year |
Less Than Once a Year |
Never |
Catholic |
Protestant |
||
|
|
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
| God |
80 |
98 |
94 |
86 |
77 |
38 |
93 |
95 |
| Miracles |
75 |
94 |
93 |
73 |
71 |
39 |
88 |
86 |
| Heaven |
73 |
96 |
88 |
77 |
65 |
30 |
89 |
90 |
| Jesus is God or the Son of God |
71 |
98 |
83 |
75 |
66 |
24 |
91 |
91 |
| Angels |
71 |
96 |
79 |
72 |
66 |
34 |
85 |
87 |
| The resurrection of Jesus Christ |
70 |
97 |
85 |
73 |
60 |
24 |
88 |
91 |
| Survival of the soul after death |
68 |
88 |
77 |
69 |
63 |
40 |
83 |
79 |
| Hell |
62 |
90 |
74 |
60 |
51 |
26 |
78 |
79 |
| The Virgin birth |
61 |
89 |
83 |
58 |
47 |
20 |
78 |
81 |
| The devil |
59 |
88 |
69 |
55 |
54 |
24 |
74 |
77 |
| Darwin’s theory of evolution |
47 |
27 |
42 |
56 |
52 |
67 |
52 |
32 |
| Ghosts |
44 |
38 |
45 |
46 |
56 |
39 |
57 |
41 |
| Creationism |
40 |
64 |
46 |
35 |
32 |
13 |
46 |
54 |
| UFOs |
36 |
26 |
39 |
31 |
50 |
44 |
43 |
31 |
| Witches |
31 |
34 |
29 |
26 |
40 |
27 |
34 |
31 |
| Astrology |
31 |
28 |
32 |
31 |
39 |
27 |
40 |
28 |
| Reincarnation – that you were once another person |
24 |
18 |
25 |
23 |
33 |
25 |
26 |
21 |
TABLE 3
WHICH BOOKS REPRESENT THE WORD OF GOD
"To what extent do you believe that the following represents the word of God?"
Base: All adults
|
|
|
All Is Word of God |
Most Is Word of God |
Some Is Word of God |
None Is Word of God |
Not Sure |
SUMMARY |
|
|
All/Most Is Word of God |
Some/None Is Word of God |
|||||||
| The Old Testament (texts used in the Christian religion) |
% |
37 |
18 |
15 |
14 |
16 |
55 |
29 |
| The New Testament (texts used in the Christian religion) |
% |
36 |
18 |
15 |
15 |
16 |
54 |
29 |
| The Torah (the texts used in the Jewish religion) |
% |
14 |
13 |
18 |
19 |
36 |
26 |
37 |
| The Koran (texts used by Muslims) |
% |
5 |
4 |
18 |
36 |
36 |
9 |
55 |
| The Book of Mormon (texts used by Mormons) |
% |
5 |
4 |
18 |
38 |
35 |
10 |
55 |
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% because of rounding
TABLE 4
HOW OFTEN ATTEND RELIGIOUS SERVICES
"Do you attend religious services . . .?"
Base: All adults
|
|
Total |
|
|
2007 |
2008 |
|
|
% |
% |
|
| Never |
17 |
18 |
| Less often than once a year |
20 |
18 |
| At least once a year |
24 |
25 |
| Once or twice a month |
10 |
11 |
| Every week or more often |
25 |
27 |
| Not sure |
3 |
2 |
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% because of rounding
TABLE 5
HOW RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE
"Would you describe yourself as . . .?"
Base: All adults
|
|
Total |
|
|
2007 |
2008 |
|
|
% |
% |
|
| Very religious |
21 |
23 |
| Somewhat religious |
49 |
45 |
| Not very religious |
19 |
17 |
| Not at all religious |
12 |
15 |
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% because of rounding
Methodology
This Harris Poll® was conducted online within the United States between November 10 and 17, 2008 among 2,126 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.
All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.
Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
Web link: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=982
See also: http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155
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Music Improves Intellect
Ever since the discovery of the “Mozart effect,” researchers have been exploring how to test the idea that listening to music can make you smarter. Now there’s evidence, according to a research study conducted at the University of Toronto involving 144 six-year old children.
As described in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers randomly assigned these children to one of four activities for a full year: keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. The children received IQ tests before and after. The results indicated that those children receiving music lessons increased their IQ scores significantly more than did the children in the other two groups. Those receiving drama lessons did, however, improve in adaptive social relations, whereas those receiving music lessons showed in improvement in that area.
Web source:
The idea that studying music improves the intellect is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto.
The study, led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups in order to test the effect of music lessons over other art lessons requiring similar skill sets and nothing at all. The activities were provided for one year.
The participating children were given IQ tests before and after the lessons. The results of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre- to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement. Children in the drama group also exhibited improvements pre- to post-test, but in the area of adaptive social behavior, an area that did not change among children who received music lessons.
###
This study is published in the August issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society. View a PDF (78k) of the full article.
E. Glenn Schellenberg is currently with the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. He can be reached via e-mail at g.schellenberg@utoronto.ca.
Web link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-08/aps-fse081904.php
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Attune Your Heart to Earth
web source:
|
The Global Coherence Initiative is a science-based initiative uniting
millions of people in heart-focused care and intention, to shift global
consciousness from instability and discord to balance, cooperation and
enduring peace.
Together we will:
This project has been initiated because millions of people sense that this
is an extraordinary time; that a paradigm shift of human consciousness is
now under way; that we are at the crossroads of change and must move toward
the healing of ourselves and our planet. Many people are feeling a strong
desire to help change our present and future conditions and are looking for
ways to use their heart, spirit-aligned wisdom and care to make a meaningful
difference.
Heart Coherence
Many people recognize that their meditations, prayers, affirmations and
intentions can and do affect the world. Researchers suggest that these
activities can have even more transformative and lasting impact by adding
heart coherence to the process. Heart coherence is a distinct mode of
synchronized psycho-physical functioning associated with sustained positive
emotion. It is a state of energetic alignment and cooperation between heart,
mind, body and spirit. In coherence, energy is accumulated, not wasted,
leaving you more energy to manifest intention and harmonious outcomes.
Earth MonitoringThe Global Coherence Initiative will include an important scientific measurement component. Advanced sensing technology, now being developed at the Institute of HeartMath, will allow us to observe changes in the earth’s magnetic field and test the hypothesis that the earth’s field is affected by mass human emotion, positive or negative. The Global Coherence Monitoring System (GCMS) will consist of approximately 12 sensors strategically located around the world. This system will enable a new level of scientific inquiry into the relationship between the earth’s magnetic field, collective human emotions and behaviors, and planetary changes.
The GCMS will allow us to test the hypotheses that:
Our long-term goal is to correlate the following: coherence-level data collected from the GCI community with changes in the earth’s magnetic field, along with changes in various social, environmental and health outcomes.
The Global Coherence Initiative is perhaps the greatest experiment in the history of the world. —Jack Canfield, Co-Creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® Series, Co-author of The Success Principles™, and founder of the Transformational Leadership Council.
Community BuildingThis Web site will be the focal point for the GCI community. Here members will receive updates, instruction, audio and video communications and downloadable Webinars. To connect with others about GCI try GCI Facebook, GCI Gaia, GCI Twitter or GCI YouTube. We invite you to explore the other sections of the site to learn more about how you can participate, resources for increasing heart coherence, and our supporters, Advisory Board and Collaborations.
What You Can Do Now
You can start now by becoming a
member and learning how to increase your heart coherence and
tracking your progress. While the monitoring system continues to be
developed and the GCI community and activities continue to grow, the world
needs your
participation. You can play an important part in building this
community.
Global Coherence Initiative Summary:
Connects—people
globally who are committed to making a difference by contributing coherent
heart energy to planetary needs
Earth is our responsibility, now is the time. |
Web link: http://www.glcoherence.org/about-us/about.html
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The Blind can Read Your Face
Humans have an inborn instinct to mimic the facial expressions of others, as a gesture of empathy. Recent research with partially blind persons has demonstrated that this process occurs even in the absence of any visual cues concerning the facial expression of the other person.
In this study, conducted at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and reported in Gaea Times, researchers tested two patients who were cortically blind on one side of their visual field. They examined these participants’ responses to a photo of either a happy face or a fearful one, and compared the responses when the photo was shown to the sighted or the blind side. The researchers placed tiny monitors on the participants’ faces to detect micro-movements indicating the attempt to mimic the facial expression shown. They also asked the participants to verbally identify the nature of the facial expression.
The results indicated that the participants could correctly identify the facial expression only when the photo was shown to the sighted side. However, the participants’ facial micro-movements evidenced mimicry regardless of whether the photo was shown to the sighted or blind side. In fact, the mimicry occurred more rapidly when the photo was shown to the blind side.
The researchers interpreted the results in terms of the theory of emotional contagion. They hypothesize that there must be some lower brain function that can detect the emotional state of another without the use of sight.
web source:
LONDON - A study by an international team of researchers has shown that partially blind people can “unconsciously” sense the facial expressions of others.
Led by Marco Tamietto and Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, the study involved two patients from the United Kingdom who have the very rare condition known as partial cortical blindness.
Their eyes are intact but they have damage to the visual cortex on one side of their brain, which means that they cannot process information from the visual field on the opposite side of their nose.
However, during the study, the researchers observed that the patients were able to sense, and respond to, emotions expressed by people in pictures presented to their blind sides.
The scientists say that their findings show that our spontaneous tendency to synchronize our facial expressions with those of other people in face-to-face situations - known as emotional contagion - occurs even if we cannot consciously see them.
“This is interesting evidence that we can recognize the emotions of others without needing to be visually aware of them,” Nature magazine quoted neuroscientist Christian Keysers, an expert in the neurophysiology of emotion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study, as saying.
During the study, the patients were shown random mixtures of images of people looking happy or fearful, each for two seconds, in rapid succession.
The researchers presented the pictures on the side of their visual field that they could see, then on the side they could not consciously see.
The patients were asked to press a button after each picture to indicate the emotion they had recognized, or guessed at.
Special electrodes were attached to the patients’ faces, which allowed the researchers to measure subtle contractions - of which we are usually unaware - of the tiny muscles involved in expressing emotion.
The researchers observed that the patients twitched their smiling-specific zygomaticus major muscle when presented with happy pictures, and the frowning-specific corrugator supercilii muscle when presented with fearful pictures.
According to them, the response was the same whether the pictures were presented on the side they could see or the side they could not see.
However, says Tamietto, the response was faster when the pictures were presented to the blind side - perhaps because there was no conscious emotional evaluation to delay things.
“The subjects were not simply imitating the expression of others, because their faces responded whether the emotion was conveyed to them via facial expression or body language. They could sense emotion through an unconscious mechanism, and resonate with it,” he says.
Analysing the results, Tamietto say that it seems that emotional contagion can be implemented via evolutionarily ancient neural structures, and does not necessarily require the involvement of higher brain regions, visual awareness or the mirror neurons that are active when we recognize the physical actions of others.
Keysers, however, insists that there is need for further studies to determine whether the subcortical and higher cortical pathways for recognizing emotions operate in parallel.
Emotion recognition could use several types of available information, he says.
