Transcript File

Total recall: The man who can remember every day of his life in detail
For most of us, it's tricky enough to remember what we were doing this time last week, let alone on some random day years ago. But for a blind 20-year-old
man referred to by researchers as HK, every day of his life since the age of about eleven is recorded in his memory in detail. HK has a rare condition known as
hyperthymesia and his is only the second case ever documented in the scientific literature (the first, a woman known as AJ, was reported in 2006; pdf).
Brandon Ally and his team have completed comprehensive tests with HK and they've scanned his brain and compared its structure with 30 age-matched
controls. They found that HK has normal intelligence, that he performs normally on standard desktop tests of short and long-term recall, and that he has
normal verbal learning skills. It's specifically his autobiographical memory that's phenomenal.
The researchers assessed HK's autobiographical memory by choosing four dates from each year of his life since his first memory (that was from 1993 when he
was aged three and half), making 80 dates in total. For each of these dates, they gathered at least three facts from HK's family, medical records and the
historical records for his neighbourhood in Nashville. HK was then interviewed about each of these 80 dates - for example, he was asked "Can you tell me
what happened during your day on January 2nd, 2001". His answers, often detailed, were transcribed and fact-checked.
HK's recollection of days from his life between the ages of 9 and 12 grew dramatically more accurate and detailed, reaching nearly 90 per cent accuracy for
memories at age 11, rising to near perfect accuracy thereafter. For some dates, HK was quizzed again at a second session - the consistency of his answers was
100 per cent.
What's it like to have hyperthymesia? HK told the researchers that his autobiographical memories are rich in sensory and emotional details and feel just as
vivid regardless of whether they're from years ago or from yesterday. Ninety per cent of the time he experiences these memories in the first-person,
compared with rates of approximately 66 per cent in the general population. HK said autobiographical memories frequently enter his consciousness, triggered
by news, smells, sounds and emotions. Most days he wakes up thinking about what he's done on that day in previous years. Bad memories come to mind just
as often as positive ones, but he is able to choose to focus more on the positive.
In terms of brain structure, overall HK's brain was smaller than average (likely related to his having been born prematurely at 27 weeks). By contrast, his right
amygdala was larger, by about 20 per cent, than in the controls. He also has enhanced functional connectivity between his right amygdala and hippocampus
and in other regions. The amygdala is a small subcortical structure and part of the limbic system, which is involved in emotional processing. The researchers
think that HK's enlarged amygdala and its enhanced connectivity lends a deeper personal salience to his experiences than is normal, thus making them more
memorable.
Ally and his team acknowledged that "unique case studies such as HK are not easily translated or generalisable to the normal population", and so should be
interpreted with caution. That said, they argued their results provide further evidence for the role of the amygdala in autobiographical memory. "Further,
perhaps the present findings can help guide future regions of brain stimulation in memory-disordered populations, with the goal of improving memory
function," they speculated. "Indeed, brain stimulation to deep, subcortical memory-related structures has shown very early promise in patients with
Alzheimer's Disease."
Gardner, R. A. & Gardner, B. T. (1969)
Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee
Background
There have been many attempts at teaching chimps to use language. However, some of the earlier attempts were destined to failure as these studies (e.g. Kellogg and Kellogg 1933) were
attempting to teach chimps to speak and their vocal apparatus is unsuitable for making speech sounds.
Gardner and Gardner attempted to teach a chimp to use a non-spoken form of language using American Sign Language as used by many deaf people in the USA.
It is important firstly to make the distinction between language and communication as much of the debate about whether non-humans can use language or not centres on these definitions of
communication and language.
Communication is the process of transmitting information from one individual or group to another individual or group. Animals can certainly communicate with each other. The debate is
about whether they can use something similar to human language to do this.
Language is a small number of signals (sounds, letters, gestures) that by themselves are meaningless, but which can be organised into meaningful combinations and using certain rules to make
an infinite number of messages.
Aim
The aim of the study was to demonstrate that a chimpanzee does have the capability to use human language.
Procedure/Method
The study is a report of the first phase of a training project (Project Washoe) involving an infant female chimp called Washoe. It is a kind of case study whereby detailed records were kept of
Washoe's progress over an extended period of time (32 months). Unlike most case studies there was no problem the subject had for which she was receiving help; instead this was a deliberate
attempt to change the subject's behaviour in a particular way in order to test a hypothesis. The independent variable can be thought of as the training programme and the dependent variable
Washoe's actual use of signs.
The Gardners decided to use a chimp as a subject for a number of reasons.
The chimpanzee is intelligent, sociable and capable of strong attachments to human beings. Although they did recognise that the great strength of the chimpanzee could cause serious
difficulties.
Although earlier studies had failed at attempting to teach chimps to vocalise like humans, the Gardners recognised that chimps easily develop hand gestures.
The Gardners decided to use American Sign Language (ASL) for a number of reasons. They, of course, recognised the manual dexterity of the chimpanzee but also chose ASL because of its
structural equivalence to spoken language. They thought it was also useful because ASL is widely used among deaf people in North America. This would allow the Gardners to make
comparisons with deaf children.
The Gardners decided they wanted as young a chimp as was possible in case there was a critical early stage at which such behaviour had to be acquired. Because newborn laboratory chimps
are very scarce it was decided to obtain a wild caught infant.
When Washoe (who was named after Washoe county, the home of the University of Nevada) arrived at the laboratory in June 1966 she was estimated to be between 8 and 14 months. Because
Washoe was very young when she arrived, she had only a rudimentary hand-eye control, was only beginning to crawl and slept a great deal. Therefore little progress could be made for the first
few months.The Gardners ensured that Washoe had lots of human companions who all had to master ASL. The environment was designed to provide maximum stimulation with as few
restrictions as possible. Washoe was taught mainly using imitation and operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is simply reinforcing behaviour which is desired. The Gardners found that
Washoe would learn some signs by observing and imitating, but often had to "mould" her hands into the right shapes when they were teaching her new signs. Behaviour was rewarded by
praising her and tickling.
However, if she was pressurised too much to give a correct sign she would run away, have a tantrum or even bite the tutor. (and I thought teaching at a sixth form college was tough)
Results/Findings
An interesting feature of human language is the babbling stage when babies make many meaningless sounds of the language. Although, not surprising, during the early stage of the project
Washoe did not babble she did make many sign like gestures without any meaning. The Gardners called this ‘manual babbling’.
Records were kept about the amount of signing behaviour and number of signs used.
A sign was recorded if it was reported by three different observers, as having occurred in an appropriate context and spontaneously (i.e. with no prompting other than a question such as "what
is it?" or "what do you want?"). A reported frequency of at least one appropriate and spontaneous occurrence each day over a period of 15 consecutive days was taken as the criterion of
acquisition.
By the end of 22 months of the programme at least 30 signs met this strict criterion. Washoe was also demonstrating displacement - that is referring to things that were not present. She could
also spontaneously combine two signs e.g. "gimme tickle".
Anderson, Hess. (2015)
The Effects of Social Media and the Psychosis of the Brain
Background
Since the rise of Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instragram and linked in admission to psychiatric hosipital has increased
exponentally particularlly in the field of antisocial personality disorder (or psychopathy).
Drs Hess and Anderson from the University of Boston‘s Institute of Behavior Studies and Psychology (IBSP) noticed the correlation between
Social Media users and the number of young adults ages 18-25 that were admitted to the IBSP for antisocial and devient behavior over the
course of 10 years and decided to do an indepth controled experement to determine if social media increased deviant behavior in late teens/
early adults.
Aim
The aim of the study was to demonstrate that Social Media such as facebook and twitter contributes significantlly to the development of
antisocial personality disorder (psychopath)
Procedure/Method
The study is a conclusive report of the experiment involving twenty late teens (17-19 at the beginning of the Experiment) with no diagnosable
criteria for antisocial personality disorder (acording to the TTDA assessment) and their social media usage over the course of twenty months. The
experiment had found that a sample of students (selected because they were infrequent users of social networking sites) who were asked to
increase their usage of Facebook and twitter for the study over a twenty month period, scored higher on a scale designed to measure Antisocial
Personality Disorder/Psychopathy at the end of the study than their baseline score taken at the start of the study.
Twitter and Facebook were used as the social media due to the age of the sites and the amount of data and studies previously conducted on the
social media giants. The study’s participants logged the time spent on the two social media sites on specialized computers whose recordings
could be sent straight to the researchers.
By the end of the study four participants were hospitalized for deviant behavior and twelve others had their TTDA assessment scores raise
significantly
Results/Findings
The conclusion implied that violent crime will be on the increase as use of such sites continues to be popular. Two of the participants in this
study
Darley and Latané thought of a social psychology experiment that will let them see through an event similar to what
took place during the murder of Kitty. First, they recruited university students and told them that they will be
participating in a discussion about personal problems. Each participant will be talking to other participants of
varying number in a discussion group but each of the participants has separate rooms. This conversation will take
place over microphones and speakers just so the participants will not be able to physically see the other
participants that they are talking to. The topic upon which the conversations will revolve is their college lives.
Each participant will be given two minutes to speak during their turn. All the microphones of other participants will
be turned off. The subject is unaware that all the voices that he will hear are all pre-recorded voices. The number of
voices that the subject will be 'talking to' depends on the treatment condition that he is in. There are five treatment
conditions. First is a solo, one-on-one conversation and the last is a group of six participants (1 subject and 5 prerecorded voices).
One of the pre-recorded voices is that of an epileptic student who is having seizures. The voice will first confess to
the group that he is prone to seizures and it could be life-threatening during its first turn. During its second turn, the
seizure will start.
"I'm... I'm having a fit... I... I think I'm... help me... I... I can't... Oh my God... err... if someone can just help me out
here... I... I... can't breathe p-p-properly... I'm feeling... I'm going to d-d-die if…"
The real subject can only hear the event and he cannot see the actual participant who is having the seizures.
The actual response that the experimenters will be measuring during this event is the time it will take for the
subject to stand up, leave the room, look for the experimenters and ask for help.
Only 31% of the subjects tried to seek for help. This means that most of the subjects didn't bother to look for the
experimenters to help the suffering participant. Most of them were obviously anxious but the reaction was not
there.
However, the significant finding of this experiment lies on the results of the first treatment condition. In a one-onone conversation, 85% of the subjects actually asked for help. This means that if the subjects think that they are the
only one who knows about the incident, there is a higher probability that they will ask for help. On the contrary, the
bigger groups displayed fewer reactions to the incident.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2012 May;141(2):206-10. doi: 10.1037/a0024875.
Epub 2011 Jul 18.
Are numbers gendered?
Wilkie JE1, Bodenhausen GV.
Author information
Abstract
We examined the possibility that nonsocial, highly generic concepts
are gendered. Specifically, we investigated the gender connotations of
Arabic numerals. Across several experiments, we show that the
number 1 and other odd numbers are associated with masculinity,
whereas the number 2 and other even numbers are associated with
femininity, in ways that influence judgments of stimuli arbitrarily
paired with numerical cues; specifically, babies' faces and foreign
names were more likely to be judged as "male" when paired with odd
versus even numbers. The power of logically irrelevant numerical
stimuli to connote masculinity or femininity reflects the pervasiveness
of gender as a social scaffolding for generating understandings of
abstract concepts.