More details emerge on the Marc Hauser case
The Chronicle of Higher Education has published this article, which sheds more light on the alleged misconduct committed by Harvard’s Marc Hauser.
It was one experiment in particular that led members of Mr. Hauser’s lab to become suspicious of his research and, in the end, to report their concerns about the professor to Harvard administrators…
Researchers watched videotapes of the experiments and “coded” the results, meaning that they wrote down how the monkeys reacted. As was common practice, two researchers independently coded the results so that their findings could later be compared to eliminate errors or bias.
According to the document that was provided to The Chronicle, the experiment in question was coded by Mr. Hauser and a research assistant in his laboratory. A second research assistant was asked by Mr. Hauser to analyze the results. When the second research assistant analyzed the first research assistant’s codes, he found that the monkeys didn’t seem to notice the change in pattern. In fact, they looked at the speaker more often when the pattern was the same. In other words, the experiment was a bust.
But Mr. Hauser’s coding showed something else entirely: He found that the monkeys did notice the change in pattern—and, according to his numbers, the results were statistically significant. If his coding was right, the experiment was a big success.
The second research assistant was bothered by the discrepancy. How could two researchers watching the same videotapes arrive at such different conclusions?
Harvard researcher Marc Hauser committed research misconduct in his studies of primate behavior, the university said Friday.
Earlier this month, the Boston Globe reported that Hauser… a noted researcher in the roots of animal cognition, had been placed on leave following accusations by his students that he had purposely fabricated data in his research. His work relied on observing responses by tamarin monkeys to stimuli such as changes in sound patterns, claiming they possessed thinking skills often viewed as unique to humans and apes.
American girls starting puberty earlier, leading experts to worry about their emotional and cognitive develpment
Puberty at age 7 or 8 isn’t so unusual these days. A new study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, shows that more American girls are maturing earlier and earlier. Typically, U.S. girls hit puberty around age 10 or 11.
Exactly what this shift means for girls isn’t clear yet — either on a group or individual level. But there are budding concerns. For instance, studies have linked an early start to menstruation with an elevated risk of breast cancer. And other research has shown that girls who go through puberty early tend to have lower self-esteem and a poor body image. They are also more likely to engage in risky behaviors which can result in unplanned pregnancies, experts say…
The study revealed a surprisingly large bump in the number of girls going through puberty between the ages of 7 and 8. For example, the researches found that 10 percent of 7-year-old white girls had some breast development as compared to 5 percent in a study published in 1997. Similarly, 23 percent of the 7-year-old black girls had started puberty as compared to 15 percent in the 1997 study.
College students transfer ineffective ‘paper-based’ study strategies to computer-based materials, study finds
Despite the prevalence of technology on campuses, a new study indicates that computers alone can’t keep students from falling into their same weak study habits from their ink-and-paper days.”Our study showed that achievement really takes off when students are prompted to use more powerful strategies when studying computer materials,” said the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Ken Kiewra, an expert in study methods and one of the authors of the study.
The research, published this week in The Journal of Educational Psychology, found that students tend to study on computers as they would with traditional texts: They mindlessly over-copy long passages verbatim, take incomplete or linear notes, build lengthy outlines that make it difficult to connect related information, and rely on memory drills like re-reading text or recopying notes.
Meanwhile, undergraduates in the study scored 29 to 63 percentage points higher on tests when they used study techniques like recording complete notes, creating comparative charts, building associations, and crafting practice questions on their screens.
The article, by Jairam & Kiewra, is available here from the Journal of Educational Psychology (free preview of abstract; subscription required to read paper).
Study finds pain from menstrual cramps alters women’s brains
Health Day (via USA Today) reports:
Menstrual cramps are often dismissed as a mere nuisance, but new research suggests the monthly misery may be altering women’s brains.Researchers in Taiwan used a type of brain scan known as optimized voxel-based morphometry to analyze the anatomy of the brains of 32 young women who reported experiencing moderate to severe menstrual cramps on a regular basis for several years, and 32 young women who did not experience much menstrual pain.
Even when they weren’t experiencing pain, women who had reported having bad cramps had abnormalities in their gray matter (a type of brain tissue), said study author Dr. Jen-Chuen Hsieh…
Those differences included abnormal decreases in volume in regions of the brain believed to be involved in pain processing, higher-level sensory processing and emotional regulation, as well as increases in regions involved in pain modulation and regulation of endocrine function.
Exactly how the changes in the brain could affect women’s experience of pain is unknown, researchers said.
Background music can impair memory formation, study suggests
Health Day (via USA Today) reports:
Studying for an exam while listening to music is not smart, because background music can impair your ability to perform memory tasks, new research has found.Study participants were asked to recall a list of eight consonants in the order they were presented…
The participants’ recall ability was poorest when listening to music, regardless of whether they liked or disliked it, and in changing-state conditions. The most accurate recall occurred when participants performed the task in steady-state environments…
The study has been published online here in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology (free access to abstract; subscription required to access article).
Computer scientists and biochemists harness brainpower – literally – to solve a longstanding molecular problem
What if the brainpower used playing video games could be channeled toward something more productive, such as helping scientists solve complex biological problems?
A team of biochemists and computer scientists from the University of Washington (U.W.) in Seattle now reports that they have successfully tapped into this human problem-solving potential. Their competitive online game “Foldit,” released in 2008, enlists the help of online puzzle-solvers to help crack one of science’s most intractable mysteries—how proteins fold into their complex three-dimensional forms. The “puzzles” gamers solve are 3-D representations of partially folded proteins, which players manipulate and reshape to achieve the greatest number of points. The scores are based on biochemical measures of how well the players’ final structure matches the way the protein appears in nature.
In search of a vaccine for stress
Chronic stress, it turns out, is an extremely dangerous condition…
While stress doesn’t cause any single disease — in fact, the causal link between stress and ulcers has been largely disproved — it makes most diseases significantly worse. The list of ailments connected to stress is staggeringly diverse and includes everything from the common cold and lower-back pain to Alzheimer’s disease, major depressive disorder, and heart attack. Stress hollows out our bones and atrophies our muscles. It triggers adult-onset diabetes and is a leading cause of male impotence. In fact, numerous studies of human longevity in developed countries have found that psychosocial factors such as stress are the single most important variable in determining the length of a life.
It’s not that genes and risk factors like smoking don’t matter. It’s that our levels of stress matter more.
Teens who spend far too much time on the Internet run the risk of developing depression, a new Australian study suggests.
Since the 1990s, uncontrolled or unreasonable Internet use has been identified as a problem with signs similar to other addictions, researchers say. Pathological Internet use has been linked with relationship problems, health problems, aggressive behavior and other psychiatric symptoms, they added.
“Parents should be vigilant about their children’s online behavior,” said lead researcher Lawrence T. Lam, from the School of Medicine, Sydney, and the University of Notre Dame Australia. “Should there be any concern about young people involving problematic Internet-use behavior, professional help should be sought immediately.”
This sort of behavior may be a manifestation of some underlying problems that are more insidious, Lam said.
“Given the results obtained from the study, even mentally healthy young people may succumb to depression after a long exposure of problematic use of the Internet. The mental health consequences of problematic Internet use for those who have already had a history of psychological or psychiatric problems would be more damaging,” he said.
The article is available from the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine here (free preview; subscription required to read full article).
The developing hippocampus plays an important role in episodic memory formation, study finds
Researchers as U. of California, Davis have published a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience that informs the development of children’s memory.
UC Davis’ press release reads in part:
A new study from UC Davis challenges conventional wisdom on the development of memory in children.
The prevailing view has been that changes in how memories are formed as children grow are driven by development of the prefrontal cortex, while the role of the hippocampus, a structure located in the middle of the brain and known to be important for forming and recalling memories, is fixed in early childhood, said Simona Ghetti, associate professor at the UC Davis Department of Psychology and the Center for Mind and Brain.
Instead, a new study by Ghetti and colleagues shows that between the ages of eight and 14, the function of the hippocampus continues to change. The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience.
“The development of prefrontal function is important, but we found that the hippocampus also continues to develop,” Ghetti said.
The study is available here (free preview of abstract; subscription required for full paper).
