Brain stimulation

We are making advances in non-invasive electronic brain stimulation that continue to amaze me.  It is nothing like what happened to Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  The one I want to talk about today has some unique issues involved that really peak my interest and warrant some deep thoughts.  Good blogging all around.

The advance is called Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS).  Sounds scary, but it is really not.  Basically you hook up some really low power electrodes (1 milli-amp) to the surface of your head as close as possible to the area of your brain you want to stimulate and turn them on for about 20 minutes.  The idea is to prime the neurons really close to activation, so that just a little real brain activity, even a small amount that would normally fly under the radar, becomes enough to fire the neurons.  By keeping the electrodes on for 20 minutes (as opposed to the seconds that they normally are active), your brain is primed to release certain neurotransmitters for months.  So essentially, whatever area is stimulated is primed and ready for action for months.  Depending on where you locate the electrodes, this can increase your capacity for sensorimotor skills, vision, mathematical ability, language ability, working memory capacity, creativity, and perhaps others.  No physical side effects have been found yet (yet being the key word). 

The less ethically questionable application of this is to treat cognitive deficiencies.  When someone has a deficiency, for some reason no one seems to mind trying to “fix” them.  But if we do this to healthy people to give them “super powers,”  we instinctively feel that this is unfair.  It just allows the rich to get richer. 

But TDCS may be different.  It is cheap, portable, and there are instructions on the Internet where you can buy some components at Radio Shack and build one yourself.  So discrimination is not as big a deal.

Except that most amateurs doing it themselves would probably do it wrong.  They could apply the electrodes to the wrong area.  They could apply it for the wrong amount of time.  They could use it on children and cause uneven cognitive development (we have no idea what this would do).  They could apply it to memory or attention and increase their learning of a bunch of crap they hear on talk radio.  The FDA won’t approve it, but they don’t have to if you can make one yourself. 

This brings up two major questions.  Should you go out and make one and use it on yourself?  How clear and easy would the instructions have to be for you to take the risk?  Second, are there ethical concerns that we need to address?  And if so, what do we do about it?  Ban TDCS until more research is in?  What kind of penalty would you suggest?  These are tough calls.  I would be very tempted to self-experiment if I thought I could do it right.  But I guess I would have to accept any unexpected negative consequences if I experienced any.  Buyer Beware never meant so much.

UAV pilots and cognitive dissonance

There was an interesting comparison I recently read about that at first seems counter-intuitive but actually matches some of the advanced psychology I have been reading about over the past year or two. 

So now that I have you curious (I hope) – the finding is that UAV pilots who work in Arizona, fly drones remotely on Afghanistan missions, but work regular 9am-5pm shifts and get to go home to their families, are much more susceptible to PTSD than either drone pilots who fly the missions from Afghanistan bases or even pilots who have to fly the missions themselves. 

I think it is counter-intuitive to the non-expert (and me at first) because you would think that having a normal life outside of work, having dinner with the family, weekends mowing the lawn, time with the spouse, would reduce the stress of the UAV missions whereas going back to the barracks, hanging out with other soldiers, and thinking about nothing but the war all day would not.

But it is counterintuitive because of the concept of cognitive dissonance.  Soldiers who are in Afghanistan get themselves into a 24/7 mindset that they are at war.  It makes it easier to fly kill missions (with UAVs or personally) when you get to talk it out with fellow soldiers who just got back from doing the same thing.  They can dissociate themselves from the brutality of their jobs.  It's like a dream world.

But when you live at home, you have to switch back and forth twice a day between the two worlds. 
“How was your day honey?” becomes a really tough question to answer when you bombed a Taliban safe house killing everyone inside.  How can you possible help your daughter with her homework and go to a PTA meeting when you get home from work?  This is definitely an example of cognitive dissonance.  It is this constant dissonance that compounds the PTSD, not the UAV missions themselves.

Thoughts?

How social media will (should affect) conversation and the future of communication

A few very salient example of companies/people doing really foolish things illustrate how the world has changed in light of social media.

1.  McDonalds created a Twitter hashtag that was supposed to be used for customers to share great stories about McDonalds experiences.  But their customers used it to post negative stories.  And since McDonalds doesn't control Twitter, there was nothing they could do about it.  Clearly, they didn't think through the idea very clearly.

2.  The Susan Komen Foundation's Board decided to create a new rule that they would not fund any organization that was under Congressional investigation.  This could have been an innocent sensible idea or it could be have been a backdoor excuse to stop funding Planned Parenthood which spends 3% of its budget on abortion (and Komen gets money from some conservative pro-life groups).  Whichever reason, they didn't predict how fast the pro-choice side of the story (and conspiracy theory) would sweep through the social media and force them to embarrassingly reverse their decision.  the Chair of the Board is on the hotseat and may lose her job.

3.  Mitt Romney made the comment that the very poor have a safety net and the very rich can fend for themselves, so it is the 90% of the public in the middle that need the most attention.  If this were how he said it, he probably would be OK.  It is true that the very poor have a safety net.  If there are holes in the safety net, he would work to fix those (he said this in the same speech).  The vast middle class has problems that need more attention because they are really screwed up.  But he said the words "I don't care about the poor" . . . . It doesn't matter what he said in the rest of the speech.  Today, any partial phrase can be cut and pasted out of a speech and spread faster than a wildfire.  He really got a roasting for this, even though taken as a whole his speech was correct, moderate, and sensible.  Gingrich made fun of him, Obama made fun of him, Jon Stewart made fun of him.  Etc Etc Etc. 

Why am I posting this in my HF blog?  Because we have no privacy any more.  Just look at Facebook and Google's new privacy policies.  We really have to change the way we approach everything we say, even when we think it is a private exchange with a trusted friend.  There was a story in the newspaper about a guy whose ex-girlfriends posted that he cheated on them in Cheaters.com and this turned out to be the first search result on Google when you search for his name.  He was a lawyer and used the web to market to clients.  If they Googled him, Cheaters.com would be the first thing they found.  He couldn't sue for libel or slander because the facts were true.  He is screwed. 

So, if you read Zittrain's book "The Future of the Internet" (or any of his essays), you will know that the Internet can move all the way towards being protected, and we would have no more Twitter-led Arab Springs.  It could go all the other way and be a total Wild West free for all.  Or we can be smart and find a new direction.  I recommend his book specifically for this message.  We are getting it all over the news this week too.

Money and Self Esteem

A new study out of Taiwan has some interesting findings.  What they did was get people to feel shame in the present by remembering and thinking about an event from their past where they felt shame.  Then they had them (and a control group not feeling shame) make various decisions regarding money.  What they found was the people feeling shame valued money more and were less generous with it.  Essentially, they used money to restore the self-esteem that was lost through the feeling of shame.  It is too bad that money has become an easy crutch to restore self-esteem.  It suggests that people who have low self-esteem in general will be less generous, more selfish, and maybe even more likely to steal (yeah, I am making a little bit of a jump here, but it based on related studies I have read).

Science is never 100%

The new twist in Mass Lt Gov Murray's car crash is very relevant to forensic investigations of all kinds, especially in human factors.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here is a basic recap.  He was driving down the highway late at night and crashed into a tree.  He claimed that he was going about the speed limit and the car slipped on some black ice.  He had no problem releasing the black box recorder (like the ones in planes) that was in his government owned car.  When the data was analyzed, they found he had accelerated to 100 mph just before hitting the tree.  They concluded that he must have fallen asleep at the wheel.

From a human factors point of view, this makes sense.  If you are nodding off and don't realize it, then suddenly wake up as the car hits the grass, it would seem like you had slipped on ice.  It is also possible that slumping forward would cause your weight to push harder on the pedal and accelerate.  So his story made sense.  There were no alcohol or drugs in his system and the forensic science fit the story. 

The Lt Gov was convinced and admitted the possibility that he could have fallen asleep, although he didn't remember it.  The media was convinced too.  Case closed.

Then today, they reported a new analysis on the black box data suggesting he really did slip on ice.  He was going 75 (not the speed limit) just prior to the acceleration.  He acknowledges that is possible.  So now the case is not closed but confused.

All science makes conclusions based on less than 100% certainty.  The standard can be 95% for many things, or 99.999% if its life threatening or mission critical.  But nothing is ever 100%.  So it is not surprising that this new conclusion could arise from a more detailed analysis of the data.

But people outside of science are led to believe (by the media and our high school science books) that science is always 100% sure of everything.  The media was sure he had fallen asleep at the wheel. The driver was convinced by the black box analysis, even though he didn't remember falling asleep.  The public bought it too.  100%.

In one sense, it is good that the public thinks in absolutes.  When scientists generally accept a theory at the appropriate level of confidence, it is better to design public policy as if it was 100%.  When the public thinks there is uncertainty in the science, even .01%, they can engage our remarkable ability at willful blindness to clutch onto a more comforting conclusion (my religion hasn't been lying all these years, there is no such thing as evolution).  It is actually better that the media usually report science as if it were 100%.  Imagine if we weren't totally convinced about gravity.  Or if we still believed in the chance the earth was flat. 

But when a theory turns out to be wrong, all of science immediately becomes suspect in the public's mind.  Wait - you have been lying to us all these years?  Anti-depressants don't work any better than a placebo?  Mammograms are not beneficial to 40-something women with no family history of breast cancer?  So I guess I don't have to give up my Hummer because global warming could be false too.  Maybe smoking doesn't increase the risk of lung cancer.

political views are hard to change

As usual, I read journal articles in groups.  Here is a similar paper (ungated) from Dartmouth that looked at why our political views resist evidence to the contrary.  Once we get an idea in our head, we don’t like to change our minds.  This research, and the work he reviews, finds that this is even stronger with opinions that are strongly held, important to our self-image, or important to our world view.  

His study looks at issues including the Iraq surge, Obama’s job plan, and global warming.   If you were against the war, you were less likely to give any positive credit to the surge (and if you were for the war, you gave less credit to evidence of other explanations).  If you didn’t like Obama, you wouldn’t give positive credit to his plan for creating jobs (and if you liked Obama, you wouldn't give credit to alternative explanations).   If you don’t want there to be global warming, you don’t give credit to evidence for it (and if you believe in it, you don't give credit to contradicting evidence). He cites previous work that found similar effects with abortion, the death penalty, and others.

There are many reasons for this.  We are more likely to focus on evidence that supports our opinion (conservatives watch Fox, liberals watch MSNBC).  We also counterargue against information we don’t agree with (how many times have you yelled against a talking head on TV?), but gladly accept information that we do agree with. 

This study looked at two possible interventions to even out the score.  One thing they tried was to deal with the challenge to our self-image if we turn out to be wrong.  He had participants engage in some task them made them focus on their own good qualities.  In that state, they were less biased against a totally unrelated political view. 

The second intervention was intended to prevent counterarguing.  They looked at graphic, visual ways of presenting evidence with a basic meaning that jumps out at you from the design.  But it doesn’t give you any specific facts, so you can’t argue against them.  In this condition, people were more receptive and believing of information that contradicts their political opinions, even the important ones.

So next time you are in a political argument, start out by giving your opponent a self-affirmation.  “Look, you are one of smartest people I know so I am sure you will understand these new scientific findings.” 

Then, don’t hedge what you say by doing a “on one hand . . . and on the other hand . . . “  The person will just listen to the hand they agree with.  Stick with just the best, hardest, least questionable evidence that you have.

Unrealistic optimism

There was a fascinating paper in a recent issue of Nature Neuroscience that investigates why unrealistic optimism is so pervasive.  We all think our teams can win, we are above average drivers, this lottery ticket will be the one.  The same is true with important judgments like whether we will pass the test, get the job, or have enough money to retire.  Over the past decades, many possible reasons for this optimism have been suggested:

• Perhaps because we like good news, we pay more attention to it. 
• Perhaps because we like good news, we think about it more and therefore process it more deeply.
• Perhaps good things happen more often, so we are more familiar with them. 
• Perhaps good news is more exciting, so it increases brain activity during memory storage.

As you probably can guess from the name of the journal, these researchers hooked their participants up to fMRI machines to scan their brains and find out what causes the optimism.  They statistically controlled for all of the other possible solutions so they could be sure.  And here is what they found.

Positive information is processed in several parts of the brain, primarily the frontal cortex and the left inferior prefrontal gyrus.  Negative information only activates the left inferior prefrontal gyrus.  So what happens is that when you see positive information, your mental model gets stronger based on the activation of several brain areas, but when you see an equal amount of negative evidence, your model changes based on just one area so it changes less.  It’s like that old Lil Rascals episode with Alfalfa and Darla where Alfalfa is dividing up the candy.  One for you, one for me.  Two for you, One-two for me.  Three for you, One-two-three for me . . .

This is dangerous because optimism decreases the chance that we will take steps to protect ourselves.  We don’t always wear our seatbelt, we don’t always save enough for a rainy day, we don’t go to the doctor because “it’s probably nothing.”  Optimistic people have less stress and live longer.  But only as long as we don’t kill ourselves first.  So it is important to understand what to do about this. 

When you get information that supports your pre-existing ideas, take it with a grain of salt.  And if you get contradictory information, try to take it more seriously.  This is the opposite of what comes naturally, but could make your life much better.

Pragmatic subjectivism

Interesting On Point last night (rebroadcast from last month plus a few text essays from James).  The subject was the philosophy of William James, and his religious philosophy in particular.  I have read a lot of his more psychological writings, but not his philosophic work.  I was multi-tasking during the show, so I didn’t really hear a lot of it, but I really liked the basic gist that I got from the discussion.

He kind of mixes his ontology and epistemology.  There is no such thing as a noun or adjective truth/true.  It is a verb.  Truth is a process not a thing, and it involves two components – subjective experience and pragmatism. 

Subjective experience means that anything can be true for me if I experience it to be true.  The example they used is that if I see a goddess in a tree, then that goddess exists for me.  If you don’t see her, then she doesn’t exist for you.  This isn’t my own epistemology, but I like it because it has a strong libertarian quality to it.  I have no reason to feel insecure about my beliefs based on whether others agree with me or not.  So why pressure anyone to believe it also?  In fact, if no one else believes in my goddess, then I get her all to myself.  It is kind of the opposite of the atheist arguments of Christopher Hitchens. He rejects religion because it can’t be proven and it is improbable on its face.  But the opposite is true of the radical subjective experience.  It is both proven and obvious that our beliefs can have a huge impact on our lives. 

But he also adds on the requirement of pragmatism.  He was a utilitarian.  The belief is only true if it has a positive result on society.  So if something you think you believe has a net negative impact, then you must have misunderstood it and it’s time to go back to the drawing board.  This way, you can't just believe that theft is good and all of a sudden it is.  Otherwise, psychopaths would rule the world.

And then the last thing they discussed is his belief in an objective reality.  What James said was that it was only when everyone believed something to be true did it become objectively true.  And because truth was a process, it truly did “become” true.  It wasn’t true before that. 

A caller made a really interesting point that because he was more of a psychologist than a philosopher (or at least his philosophy emanated from his psychology) he wasn’t describing any ontology, but rather he was saying that this is how our minds work.  So if our brains are wired so that a majority of people believe something, then it doesn’t really matter if it is objectively true, you are not going to convince the world of something they don’t want to believe.  I wish this weren’t the case, but my own cognitive behavioral research tells me that it has a large ring of truth to it.  That is why we have so much obesity, climate change denial, conspiracy theories, flat earth societies, predictions of the apocalypse, etc.  Our brains are pretty much wired to believe what we prefer to believe.  James puts some interesting philosophical meat behind this finding.