Guest Lecture

Hey guys!

Sorry for not telling you about this sooner, it slipped my mind, but I was one of the lucky attendees of the Susan Fiske lecture. I've read about her work in both this class as well as my Neurohumanities course and I think her work, along with Dr. Harris, is quite intriguing and offers a perspective on social interactions that I haven't really thought about.

In this lecture, Dr. Fiske talks about the classifications of in-groups/out-groups, which can be divided into four categories. These categories are as follows:

• pride (in-group)
• envy (out-group)
• disgust (out-group)
• pity (out-group)

She surveyed the research she was involved in, and gave everyone a great idea of how this classification works. There were some interesting perspectives given, and what I found truly amazing is how the mPFC may not even react to people classified in the disgust out-group category. It was mentioned however that the slightest though about something as trivial as what they had for breakfast, can activate the mPFC despite the way we initially think about them. This collective four group system was named the Stereotypic Content Model (SCM), which divides people into these groups based on the parameters of, "warmth," and "competence. 

The whole concept makes a lot of sense and I would be interested in seeing how this manifests itself in children, who aren't as quick to stereotype as adults are. You should definitely look into their research though, it is really interesting!

My Experience with fMRI

Hey all!

In the midst of studying for finals I almost forgot to tell you about my experience with an fMRI study! I participated in the Duke Neurogenetics study run by Dr. Ahmad Hariri's lab, which is an ambitious study with regard to the amount of participants they wish to run. I think they menitoned it was something like 600...that's 600 fMRIs! That must cost at least $6000.00, not counting the $120 dollars they pay participants once they have completed the study. So anyway, let me tell you a bit about the study.

This study took place over three sessions. The first session was an intensive psych/IQ test, in which we were asked to perform memory tasks and psych evals and whatnot. This continued into the second session which consisted of a 2-3 hour survey, asking more questions about mental health and all that jazz. THe third and final session consisted of an fMRI, and man was that interesting!

So I probably shouldn't say what the paradigm was, but what I can say is that the preliminary set up of the fMRI took way longer than the actual trials. I must've spent 30 minutes lying down in a tight space, tucked in quite nicely with a blanket , and listening to the soothing sound of jackhammer like banging (if it wasn't for the ear buds, I probably would be deaf). Even though I was quite restricted in movement, I was able to complete the task, which consisted of pushing buttons in response to on screen cues. I think the hardest part of the study, in addition to trying to stay awake, was trying not to move, as I am one to fidget a lot, it's hard to stay in one place for a long period of time. But despite that, the people at Hariri lab were great, and even helped me give a saliva sample through the presentation of delicious food a la world wide web.

Overall it was a pleasant experience and I recommend it to all of you!

And That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles...

Hey all!

I just want to say that watching everyone's presentation has been a lot of fun. I've been exposed to movies I've never even heard of before and I must admit, my interest is piqued. Working on this project would not have been nearly as fun without my partners Jen and Anthony. I like to think of us as the three musketeers, three quirky individuals who complement each other extremely well. We presented on Eagle Eye, Tron: Legacy and Stealth. I have watched all of these movies at one point and hope that you enjoyed these clips as much as I have! We each worked on our movie independently (mine was Eagle Eye) and then met to assemble the presentation. It took a bit of practice to nail down the timing, but once we got it down we were able to have fun with it. I think we met all of the requirements and were able to make it entertaining as well. This project was a great conclusion to the class and really got us thinking about AI in ways we never have before.

Thanks for a great semester everyone!

Best,

Chris

My Favorite Philosopher

Philosophy, though very interesting and thought provoking, is not something I find myself wanting to learn more about. I don't find their arguments about existence and reality particularly reasonable, but I do believe it has important implications for reasoning and knowledge. If I had to choose a favorite philosopher, I would have to go with Plato, I too am of Greek heritage. Plato's well-roundedness as a philosopher is astounding; he made important contributions to not only logic and thought but science and math as well. I have not read through the whole dialogue, but I read excerpts of Plato's "Apology" and it was really powerful because the trial of Socrates was overall such a tragic event. I'd be curious to learn more about his contributions to math and science. 

Prioner's Dilemma

Hey Y'all!

Hope you head a great Halloween! Too bad it was on a wednesday as that falls right during the time of midterms; in that case I wish you the best of luck! Today I'm going to talk a bit about the Prisoners Dilemma, an economic game I find particularly interesting because the conflict it presents always brings out my indecisive side.

 Prisoners Dilemma really gets at the crux of game theory and what I find truly intriguing about it is how human beings will be hesitant to cooperate with each other due to self interest and a lack of trust in the other person, regardless of how the cooperation may benefit them. Inherent in the design is the fact that betrayal of the other "prisoner" yields a better reward (in this case a lesser sentence) than cooperation does, however contrary to what one would think, people tend to show a bias towards cooperation.

If you want some information as to how this is set up just click on this link!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

Thanks and Best of Luck!

Chris

Violating the Norms

Hi y'all!

It's been a while, hope everyone enjoyed their fall breaks! I've been good, just chugging on through classes and the usual routine, but I took some time this week to break from that routine, and I went boldly where most men usually don't go...not actually, but I did violate a social norm! So after studying the still face paradigm and how it affects babies, I thought, "hey, why not give this a try on people my own age!" Humans rely on social cues to adapt to various situations, and so i was curious to see what would happen when you take those social cues away.

In order to do this, I kept a straight face for as long as possible during my interactions with friends. This included:

• no smiling
• no nodding
• blank stares
• subtle hints of apathy with body language

and what I found out went a little something like this...I would first engage the person normally, so as to get a conversation going, then, as soon as they started explaining something to me or telling me a story I became stonewall Jackson, not a single emotion showed on my face, no response was given. Before the switch to still-face, the other person was speaking normally, but then all of a sudden, realized that I was not giving any reaction to the, "cool," things they had to say. This manifested itself in the following ways:

• slowed speech
• lowering of eyebrows
• looks of confusion 
• jittery movements
• loss of eye contact
• early termination of interaction

This was pretty constant across everyone I did this too. When we stop reacting to people, and they lose those social cues, people tend to be at a loss. The cool thing is though, after going still face, once I reverted back to normal, the conversation was able to continue as it normally had before the switch. I did get cursed at by some of my closer friends, but that is the cost of science! 

Anyway, hope all of you are well and have a great week!

Best,

Chris :)

What's Up With These Emotions?

Fellow Neuro Peeps,

Hope everyone is hanging in there! Midterm week is insane, I AM REALLY ANGRY! lol jk not really, just frustrated, but the reason I used anger is because I will be talking about emotion today! So what really is emotion? My answer is, who knows! When I was younger I believed that emotions came from the heart where thinking and logic came from the brain, hence the sayings, " I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART!" or ," IF I THINK ANY HARDER MY BRAIN WILL EXPLODE!". Well, I now know that emotions don't come from the heart, but I also believe emotion isn't tied to the neocortex or higher level processing. It's hard to find a satisfactory definition of emotion, part of me wants to say that emotions are pure, raw feelings that come from within (but that sort of sounds like something our favorite purple dinosaur would say). Ancient Greece would argue that emotions are the result of some foolish woman by the name of Pandora who opened a nice big box of emotion...thanks Pandora! But all jokes aside, emotions are something that have been around as long as humans have. To me, emotions are impulses that are second nature to humans, hardwired into the lower cortical regions of our brain, leading us to make snap second decisions and judgements before trying to think things through. Emotions are like the reflexes of the brain! Emotions are like m&m's, there are many different varities and colors within that variety, representative of different degrees of each different emotion. I love m&m's and I love Emotions! i'm just that kind of guy!

Tell me what ya think, leave a tone!