Out of the mouths of primates, facial mechanics of human speech may have evolved (w/ Video)

The throat and facial movements that twist the air pushing through your vocal cords into words could be rooted in the well-meaning expressions primates exchange with each other, according to two recent studies based at Princeton University.

The researchers found that the oral-facial component of human speech mirrors the rhythm, development and internal dynamics of lip smacking, a friendly back-and-forth gesture performed by primates such as chimpanzees, baboons and macaques. The studies also show that the mechanics of primate lip smacking are distinct from those of chewing, similar to the separate mechanics of human speech and chewing.

These parallels suggest that in primates chewing and lip smacking — as with chewing and speech-related facial movement in humans — have separate neural controls, explained Asif Ghazanfar, an associate professor of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and a lead researcher for both studies. With further study, the neural pathway in primates from the brain to facial mechanics could help illuminate the neurological basis of speech disorders in humans, he said.

Ghazanfar and his colleagues first reported in the journal Developmental Science that lip smacking undergoes the same developmental trajectory from infancy to adulthood in rhesus macaques that speech-related mouth movement does in humans. Infant macaques smacked their lips slowly and with an inconsistent rhythm, similar to the documented pace of babbling in human infants. By adulthood, however, lip smacking has a distinct rhythm and a faster pace averaging 5 hertz, or cycles per second — the same as adult humans producing speech. Ghazanfar worked with lead author Ryan Morrill, who received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in 2010; Annika Paukner, a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health; and Pier Ferrari, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Parma in Italy.

Two recent studies based at Princeton University suggest that the oral-facial component of human speech evolved from lip smacking, a friendly back-and-forth gesture performed by primates. The studies show that the mechanics of primate lip smacking are distinct from those of chewing, similar to the separate mechanics of human speech and chewing. X-ray movies of adult rhesus macaques showed that lip smacking (left) results in a fast, loosely coordinated movement of internal structures such as the lips (green dot), tongue (red dot) and hyoid (blue dot) -- just as in human speech. Also similar to humans, chewing (right) produced a slow, tightly coordinated movement of these components in macaques. These parallels suggest that in primates chewing and lip smacking -- as with chewing and speech-related facial movement in humans -- have separate neural controls. With further study, the neural pathway in primates from the brain to facial mechanics could help illuminate the neurological basis of speech disorders in humans. Video courtesy of Asif Ghazanfar

In the second paper, published in the journal Current Biology, Ghazanfar and co-author W. Tecumseh Fitch, a professor of cognitive biology at the University of Vienna in Austria, used X-ray movies to film adult rhesus macaques as they smacked their lips or as they chewed food. The researchers observed that during lip smacking, internal structures such as the tongue and hyoid, which houses the larynx, move in pace with the lips with a rhythm of 5 hertz — again, just as in human speech. Also similar to humans, chewing produced a slow, tightly coordinated movement of these components in macaques, while lip smacking resulted in faster, loosely coordinated movement. Ghazanfar, as lead author, wrote the paper with Fitch, Princeton postdoctoral fellow Daniel Takahashi and Neil Mathur, who received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in 2011.

Ghazanfar explains the findings of both papers as follows:

"This research gives us insight into methods of exploring the neural basis of not only facial expression production but also its evolution and relationship to speech. Exploring the neural side of speech production and development can give us a handle on what can go wrong neurophysiologically in human communication disorders. We have few testable ideas about the neural mechanisms that go awry because there is very little work on the production side of communicative expressions.

"In our research, we found that primate lip smacking and the facial component of human speech have the same frequency range, developmental trajectory and involve a similar interplay of the lips, tongue and hyoid. So, if the neural controls for lip smacking are the same as for human speech, then further study of lip smacking in monkeys could reveal more about the brain mechanisms behind human speech.

"Lip smacking is performed by all Old World monkeys and apes, including chimpanzees, and is used in friendly, face-to-face interactions. They often take turns exchanging lip-smacking gestures. Because primate lip smacking has no vocal component, it might seem unrelated to speech, but human speech has two components: the source and the filter. The source component is when the respiratory system pushes air through a person's vocal cords to produce a sound. That sound travels up through the nasal and oral cavities and gets filtered by those cavities. We use our mouths, tongues and lips to actually change the shape of those cavities and, thus, those sounds. That filtering is a separate component with separate neural controls. Our work focuses on this filtering component.

"The connection of speech to lip smacking in primates stems from a theory put forth by [University of Texas-Austin Professor Emeritus of Psychology] Peter MacNeilage in 1998 [in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences] that human speech originates from primate facial expressions that were eventually paired with vocal sounds to produce a primitive form of babbling. He proposed that the rhythmicity of those ancestral expressions led to the rhythmicity our faces produce when we speak.

"There are various other theories regarding the evolution of human speech. One theory focuses on the source component and holds that speech evolved from monkey vocalizations, but monkeys don't learn to produce their vocalizations. Pretty much as soon as it is born, a monkey produces the sounds it will produce for the rest of its life; there's not that rich interaction between parent and offspring inherent in human speech. Another theory is that speech evolved when the neural circuits behind the complex manual gestures apes use to communicate shifted over to vocal output.

"We think that MacNeilage offered the only sufficiently clear and testable hypothesis, and we provide the first real empirical support for his theory. Ultimately, our work suggests that the roots of human speech do not lie entirely in primate vocalizations or manual gestures, but are closely related to primate facial expressions.

"We compared lip smacking in rhesus macaques with another oral-facial rhythm, that of chewing. In studies related to speech production and development, it is common to contrast oral-facial movements related to chewing and talking because both actions use the same anatomical structures.

"For the first study, we found in human speech-development literature that when children start to babble, their mouth movements are very slow and variable in rhythmicity. Infants produce these gestures at around 2.5 hertz; in adults, it's around 5 hertz with much less variability. On the other hand, chewing moments are consistently slow and relatively constant from birth to adulthood. That indicates different developmental trajectories, as well as neural controls, for speech and chewing.

"So, if lip smacks have anything to do with the evolution of speech, primates should have a similar developmental trajectory. For our study, we videotaped rhesus macaques of various ages producing lip smacks and used a computer algorithm to measure frame-by-frame the dynamics and rhythmicity of those lip movements. We compared those measurements with chewing movements. Incredibly, the pattern of lip-smack development in the rhesus macaques was identical to the pattern of speech development documented in humans. Moreover, chewing rhythms were basically the same for adult and juvenile primates just as in humans — about 2.5 hertz and without any developmental change. So, lip smacking in Old World monkeys, or at least rhesus macaques, has a similar developmental trajectory as human speech.

"For the second study, we used cineradiography, or X-ray movies, to observe the many internal structures that coordinate with the opening and closing of the mouth to produce speech. We filmed rhesus macaques as they produced lip-smacking expressions and gave them food to elicit chewing movements. When humans chew there's a very predictable relationship between the movements of the jaw, lips, tongue and the hyoid cartilage, which contains the vocal cords. In human speech, the relationship between all these structures is not reliable because of the different sounds involved in speaking. But in chewing the relationship and the ability to predict how the structures will move in relation to one another is very high.

"We saw the same dichotomy in the monkeys: chewing produced a highly stereotyped, functional relationship between the tongue, hyoid and mouth, while during lip smacking the relationship was much looser in those structures. That's another strong piece of evidence that this lip-smack gesture could have easily been co-opted for use in speech. It also suggests that whatever neural controls are involved in chewing don't seem to be equivalently involved in lip smacking and that there's some other type of neural control for lip smacking, which also is suggested when speech and chewing dynamics in humans are compared."

More information: The paper "Monkey Lipsmacking Develops Like the Human Speech Rhythm" was published online April 18 in Developmental Science. The article "Cineradiography of Monkey Lipsmacking Reveals Putative Precursors of Speech Dynamics" was published online May 31 inCurrent Biology. 

Provided by Princeton University

"Out of the mouths of primates, facial mechanics of human speech may have evolved (w/ Video)." June 20th, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-06-mouths-primates-facial-mechanics-human.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

What's your name again? Why it might not be your brain's ability but your lack of interest that causes a bad memory

(Medical Xpress) -- Most of us have experienced it. You are introduced to someone, only to forget his or her name within seconds. You rack your brain trying to remember, but can't seem to even come up with the first letter. Then you get frustrated and think, "Why is it so hard for me to remember names?"

You may think it's just how you were born, but that's not the case, according to Kansas State University's Richard Harris, professor of psychology. He says it's not necessarily your brain's ability that determines how well you can remember names, but rather your level of interest.

"Some people, perhaps those who are more socially aware, are just more interested in people, more interested in relationships," Harris said. "They would be more motivated to remember somebody's name."

This goes for people in professions like politics or teaching where knowing names is beneficial. But just because someone can't remember names doesn't mean they have a bad memory.

"Almost everybody has a very good memory for something," Harris said.

The key to a good memory is your level of interest, he said. The more interest you show in a topic, the more likely it will imprint itself on your brain. If it is a topic you enjoy, then it will not seem like you are using your memory.

For example, Harris said a few years ago some students were playing a geography game in his office. He started to join in naming countries and their capitals. Soon, the students were amazed by his knowledge, although Harris didn't understand why. Then it dawned on him that his vast knowledge of capitals didn't come from memorizing them from a map, but rather from his love of stamps and learning their whereabouts.

"I learned a lot of geographical knowledge without really studying," he said.

Harris said this also explains why some things seem so hard to remember -- they may be hard to understand or not of interest to some people, such as remembering names.

Harris said there are strategies for training your memory, including using a mnemonic device.

"If somebody's last name is Hefty and you notice they're left-handed, you could remember lefty Hefty," he said.

Another strategy is to use the person's name while you talk to them -- although the best strategy is simply to show more interest in the people you meet, he said.

Provided by Kansas State University

"What's your name again? Why it might not be your brain's ability but your lack of interest that causes a bad memory." June 20th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-brain-ability-lack-bad-memory.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Dengue killer found in humans

DUKE-NUS

Share on print The researchers identified a recombinant antibody that could attach itself strongly to a specific part of the dengue virus and inhibit it from attacking other cells. Image: flubydust/iStockphoto A team of research scientists here have uncovered a human antibody that can neutralize and kill the dengue virus within two hours. A way to reproduce this antibody in large quantities has also been identified, potentially opening the door to a cure for dengue infected patients. This discovery was made by a combined team from the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and the Defence Medical & Environmental Research Institute at DSO National Laboratories (DMERI@DSO) with funding from the Singapore National Research Foundation under its Singapore NRF Fellowship, National Medical Research Council and DR Tech. By studying a group of cell lines from recovered dengue-infected patients over a period of two years, the team identified a recombinant antibody that could attach itself strongly to a specific part of the dengue virus and inhibit it from attacking other cells. The antibody ventually destroys the virus and at a much faster speed compared to existing anti-dengue compounds. It has been proven to increase the survival in a mouse model infected with the dengue virus. The World Health Organization estimates there may be 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. With no approved vaccines or specific treatment available and with vector control as the only method for prevention, dengue continues to be a public health concern. To complicate matters, there are four dengue serotypes (DENV1 to DENV4), and infection with one dengue serotype means lifelong immunity to that type but only partial and temporary protection against the other three. Developing a vaccine against dengue has thus been challenging, made more so because of a global, urgent need for new treatment to manage this disease. This newly discovered antibody specifically treats DENV1, which accounts for up to 50% of the dengue cases in Singapore and other Association of Southeast Asian Nation countries. To ensure its effectiveness, the team tested this new antibody with DENV1 types from these countries – with equally promising results, said Associate Professor Paul Macary of the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology. He is the Principal Investigator who led the research team. “We knew the antibody exists based on the fact that most patients recover naturally from dengue infection, but the chances of finding it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. We are very encouraged by this breakthrough. This represents the best candidate therapy that currently exists for dengue and thus is likely to be the first step in treating dengue infected patients who currently have no specific medicine or antibiotic to take and may take days to fully recover.” Added Dr Brendon Hanson, Head, Bio-Defence Therapeutics Lab, DMERI@DSO, “Being a completely human antibody, it is likely to have no serious side effects and this makes not only this antibody, but the approach we took to isolate antibodies from recovered patients an attractive one.” Said Assistant Professor Lok Shee-Mei of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, “The journey in finding this antibody that effectively treats dengue virus serotype 1 virus infection has been very fulfilling. Now we will be on our next quest to find other antibodies that treat Dengue serotypes 2, 3 and 4 infection. We hope to combine these antibodies into one concoction in the near future to treat each serotype and improve patient outcomes.” Moving forward the team will be embarking on a clinical trial in the next 12 -16 months and expects a therapy to be available within the next 6 - 8 years. The team hopes to uncover antibodies for the other dengue types within the next two years. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

சித்தர்கள் என்பவர்கள் யார்?. அவர்கள்து நோக்கம் என்ன? நாமும் சித்தராக முடியுமா?

இது அவ்வப்பொழுது சிலருக்குத் தோன்றும் கேள்விகள் தான். ஆமாம், சித்தர்கள் என்பவர்கள் யார்? சித்தத்தை அடக்கியவர்கள் மட்டும் சித்தர்கள் இல்லை. இந்த உலக இயக்கத்தை, பிரபஞ்சத்தை, இறைஆற்றலை, உயிர் தத்துவத்தை, பிரபஞ்ச ரகசியத்தை என அனைத்தையும் ஆராய்ந்து அறிந்தவர்களே சித்தர்கள். சுருக்கமாகச் சொன்னால், இயற்கையோடு இயற்கையாக வாழ்ந்து, இயற்கையை முற்றிலும் அறிந்தவர்களே சித்தர்களாவர். 

மனிதன் முயன்றால், சித்தர் வழி நடந்தால் அவனும் சித்தனாகலாம் என்பதே உண்மை. ஏனெனில், சித்தர்களும் மனிதனாகத் தோன்றி இவ்வுலகில் வாழ்ந்தவர்களே. ஆனால், இக்கலிகாலத்தில், அது மிகக் கடினமான ஒன்றாகும். அந்த சித்தர்களை, குருவாக ஏற்று அவர் வழி நடப்பவர்களுக்குக் கூட அது ஓரளவு மட்டுமே சாத்தியம்.

அகத்தியர்

சித்தராவதற்கு முதற்படி தன்னையும், இந்த உலகையும், இயற்கையையும் பற்றி முழுமையாக அறிந்து கொள்வதாகும். இதைத் தான் திருமூலரும்…

தன்னை அறியத் தனக்கொரு கேடில்லை;

தன்னை அறியாமல் தானே கெடுகின்றான்;

தன்னை அறியும் அறிவை அறிந்தபின்

தன்னையே அர்ச்சிக்கத் தானி ருந்தானே!

என்கிறார். இது முழுமையாக உணர்ந்து கொள்ள வேண்டியதாகும்.

அகத்தியரும்..

மனமது செம்மையானால் மந்திரஞ் செபிக்க வேண்டா;

…………….

மனமது செம்மையானால் மந்திரஞ் செம்மையாமே!

என்கிறார்.

ஆக, முதலில் தன் மனதை அறிந்து, பின் தன்னை அறிந்து, பின் இறையை அறிந்து இறுதியில் சித்த நிலைக்கு உயரலாம் என்பது தெளிவு.

மிகக் கடினமான இந்த முறையைப் பின்பற்ற முடியாத நிலையில் வாழ்பவர்கள் என்ன செய்வது? வாழ்வில் ஏற்படும் துன்பங்களிலிருந்தும், துயரங்களிலிருந்தும் நம்மை எவ்வாறு காத்துக் கொள்வது? யார் உதவுவார்கள்? ஏனெனில், அவரவர் செய்த ஊழ்வினையை அவரவர்களே அனுபவிக்க வேண்டும் என்பது விதி. அதனை நிறைவேற்றத்தான் நவக்கிரகங்கள் செயல்படுகின்றன. சாந்தி, பரிகாரம் போன்றவை செய்தாலும், சில சமயங்களில் மனிதனின் கர்மவினை பலம் அதிகமாக இருக்குமானால், அவன் அவற்றை அனுபவித்தே ஆக வேண்டும் என்ற நிலைப்பாடு இருக்குமானால் அவ்வகைத் துன்பங்களிலிருந்து தப்பிப்பது எப்படி?. யார் உதவி செய்வார்கள்?

இது மாதிரி நேரத்தில் மனிதனுக்கு உதவி செய்வது சித்த புருஷர்கள் மட்டுமே!

சித்தர்களுக்கு மனிதனிடம் எதிர்பார்ப்பு என்று எதுவுமே இல்லை. அவர்கள் வலியுறுத்துவது உண்மை, நேர்மை, கருணை, அன்பு, தூய்மையான வாழ்க்கை மட்டுமே. மற்றவர்களுக்கு உதவும் நல்லஎண்ணம், நல்லசெயல், நல்ல சிந்தனையோடு செயல்படுபவர்களுக்கு சித்தரின் அருள் நிச்சயம் கிடைக்கும்.

வெறும் 18 பேர் மட்டுமல்ல; பல்லாயிரக்கணக்கான சித்தர்கள் உலகில் அருள்பாலித்துக் கொண்டிருக்கின்றனர். அவர்களை வெறும் தமிழர்கள், இந்துக்கள் என்ற குறுகிய வட்டத்துக்குள் அடைக்க நாம் முயலக் கூடாது. பூனைக்கண்ணர் எகிப்து/இங்கிலாந்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர் என்ற நம்பிக்கை உண்டு. போகர் சீனர் என்று சொல்லப்படுகிறது. யாக்கோபுச் சித்தர் அரேபியாவைச் சேர்ந்தவர் என்ற கருத்து நிலவுகிறது. ரோம ரிஷி ரோம் நகரைச் சேர்ந்தவர் என்றும் சொல்கிறார்கள். இப்படி நாடு, நகரம், மொழி, இனம் என அனைத்தையும் கடந்து தூய அற வாழ்வு வாழ்ந்தவர்கள், இன்னமும் சூட்சுமமாக வாழ்ந்து கொண்டிருப்பவர்கள் சித்தர்கள். அவர்கள் நம்முடைய தகுதிக்கேற்ப அவர்கள் உதவத் தயாராகக் காத்துக் கொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள். அவர்களின் அருள் கிடைக்க நாம் செய்ய வேண்டியது தூய்மையான வாழ்வு வாழ வேண்டியது மட்டுமே.

அவர்களின் கடைக்கண் பார்வைபட்டால், திருக்கரத்தால் ஆசிர்வதித்தால், மனிதனிடமிருந்து ஏதேனும் பொருளை வாங்கிக் கொண்டால், மனிதனின் கர்மவினையை அவர்கள் ஏற்றுக் கொண்டு, மாற்றுகிறார்கள் என்பது பொருள். அதன் பின் அம்மனிதனின் வாழ்க்கையே தலைகீழாக மாறிவிடும். ஆனால் ஒன்று. அத்தகைய சித்தர்களின் அருளைப் பெற மனிதனுக்கு முதலில் வேண்டியது நல்ல தகுதி. தகுதியற்றோருக்கும், நல்லெண்ணம் இல்லாதவர்களுக்கும் சித்தர்கள் உதவ மாட்டார்கள்.

சித்தர்களைத் தியானித்தால், அவர்களின் திருவருள் கிடைத்தால், அவர்கள் நமக்கு குருமுகமாக உபதேசித்தால்… கீழ்கண்ட சந்தேகங்களுக்குத் தெளிவான விடை கிடைக்கும். சராசரி மனிதனின் நிலையும், இறைநிலை நோக்கி உயரும்.

“ஆத்மா என்பது தான் என்ன? மனித உடலில் அதன் இருப்பிடம் யாது? மனிதன் ஏன் பிறந்து, இறந்து மீண்டும் பிறக்க வேண்டும்? ஒவ்வொரு மனிதனையும் அவனை அறியாமலே ஆட்டி வைக்கும் சக்தி எது? தியானம் என்பது என்ன? ஏன் அதனைச் செய்ய வேண்டும்? ஏழு உலகங்களுக்கும், மனித உடலின் ஏழு சக்கரங்களுக்கும் உள்ள தொடர்பு என்ன? கனவுகள், ஆவிகள், தேவதைகள் இவற்றிற்கெல்லாம் உள்ள தொடர்பு என்ன? மனிதன் எப்படித் தெய்வநிலைக்கு உயர்வது?… தூல உடல், சூக்கும உடல், காரண உடல், அவற்றின் பயணம்., கர்மவினையை வெல்வது எப்படி?.. “

- இது போன்ற சாதாரணமாக நம்மால் அறிந்து கொள்ள முடியாத கேள்விகளுக்கெல்லாம், விடைகளை சித்தர்கள் திருவருளால் உணரலாம்.

ஏனெனில், இந்த சித்தர்கள்… இறைவன் என்பவன் யார், அவனை அடையும் மார்க்கம் என்ன, பிறவித் துன்பத்திலிருந்து விடுபடுவது எப்படி, ப்ரம்மம் என்பது என்ன, இறப்பிற்குப் பின் மனிதன் என்னவாகின்றான், உலகிற்கு அடிப்படையாகவும், உயிர்களின் இயக்கத்திற்கு ஆதாரமாகவும் இருப்பது எது, உடல் தத்துவங்கள், உயிர்க் கூறுகள் அவற்றின் இரகசியங்கள், இறவாமல் இருக்க, உணவு உண்ணாமல் இருக்க என்ன வழி, இரசவாதம், காயகல்பம், முப்பூ, மூலிகை இரகசியங்கள், அஷ்டமாசித்திகள், யோகம், ஞானம், மந்திரம், தந்திரம், சோதிடம், தன்னறிவு, ஜீவன்முக்தி, பரவாழ்க்கை, தேவதைகள் என அனைத்தினையும் பல ஆண்டுகள் தவம் செய்து, பலபிறவிகள் எடுத்து, கூடுவிட்டுக் கூடு பாய்ந்து என பலவற்றை அனுபவப்பூர்வமாக ஆராய்ந்து பார்த்தவர்கள். உணர்ந்தவர்கள்.

சொல்லப்போனால், சித்தத்தை அடக்கி, தாங்களும் சிவமாய், இறையாய் வீற்றிருக்கும் அளவிற்கு சக்தி படைத்தவர்கள். நினைத்ததை, நினைத்தவாறு செய்யும் ஆற்றல் மிக்கவர்கள். இயற்கையை வென்றவர்கள்.

உண்மையாய், நேர்மையாய், சுயநலமின்றி வாழ்ந்து, உலகின் உயர்வுக்கும், நலனுக்குமே எப்போதும் சிந்திப்பவர்களுக்கு சித்தர்களின் அருள் தரிசனம் கிட்டும். ஆனால் அதற்கான கொடுப்பினை, நல்வினை நமக்கு இருக்க வேண்டும். ஆகவே நல்ல எண்ணங்களோடு வாழ்ந்து, நற்செயல்கள் செய்து நமது தகுதியை நாம் உயர்த்திக் கொள்ளுதல் மிக அவசியம்.

எனவே, சித்தர்கள் பாதத்தைச் சரணடைவோம். சீரும் சிறப்புமாய் வாழ்வோம்.

I want to know where love is: Research develops first brain map of love and desire

Thanks to modern science, we know that love lives in the brain, not in the heart. But where in the brain is it – and is it in the same place as sexual desire? A recent international study is the first to draw an exact map of these intimately linked feelings.

"No one has ever put these two together to see the patterns of activation," says Jim Pfaus, professor of psychology at Concordia University. "We didn't know what to expect – the two could have ended up being completely separate. It turns out that love and desire activate specific but related areas in the brain."

Along with colleagues in the USA and Switzerland, Pfaus analyzed the results from 20 separate studies that examined brain activity while subjects engaged in tasks such as viewing erotic pictures or looking at photographs of their significant others. By pooling this data, the scientists were able to form a complete map of love and desire in the brain.

They found that that two brain structures in particular, the insula and the striatum, are responsible for tracking the progression from sexual desire to love. The insula is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep within an area between the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe, while the striatum is located nearby, inside the forebrain.

Love and sexual desire activate different areas of the striatum. The area activated by sexual desire is usually activated by things that are inherently pleasurable, such as sex or food. The area activated by love is involved in the process of conditioning by which things paired with reward or pleasure are given inherent value That is, as feelings of sexual desire develop into love, they are processed in a different place in the striatum.

Somewhat surprisingly, this area of the striatum is also the part of the brain that associated with drug addiction. Pfaus explains there is good reason for this. "Love is actually a habit that is formed from sexual desire as desire is rewarded. It works the same way in the brain as when people become addicted to drugs."

While love may be a habit, it's not necessarily a bad one. Love activates different pathways in the brain that are involved in monogamy and in pair bonding. Some areas in the brain are actually less active when a person feels love than when they feel desire. "While sexual desire has a very specific goal, love is more abstract and complex, so it's less dependent on the physical presence someone else," says Pfaus.

According to Pfaus, cognitive neuroscience has given researchers a deep understanding of where intelligence and problem solving sit in the brain, but there is still a lot to discover when it comes to love. "I see this paper as a cornerstone," he says, "in what I hope will turn into more studies in human social neuroscience that can give us an idea of where love is in the brain."

Provided by Concordia University

"I want to know where love is: Research develops first brain map of love and desire." June 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-brain-desire.html

Comment:Assuming that sexual desire always precedes love is a purely male fantasy.  It is surprising that anyone takes this seriously at all.

Love can most certainly occur before and without sex.  This is, of course, why one can love just about anything, whether an object, activity, animal (e.g. as a pet) or person.

 

Further, parents typically love their children.  But the article assumes that sex and love are mutually dependant.  Thus the assumption must be that all parents are sexually attracted to their new born babies before love develops, a position which nobody in their right mind, even Freud, would support.

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

Mind games: Mental exercises are key to better brain function

Go ahead - do it: Grab a pencil. Right now. Write your name backward. And upside down. Awkward, right?

But if researchers and neurologists are correct, doing exercises like these just might buy you a bit more time with a healthy brain.

Some research suggests that certain types of mental exercises - whether they are memory games on your mobile device or jotting down letters backward - might help our gray matter maintain concentration, memory and visual and spatial skills over the years.

"There is some evidence of a use-it-or-lose-it phenomenon," says Dr. Michael Maddens, chief of medicine at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich.

Makers of computer brain games, in fact, are tapping into a market of consumers who have turned to home treadmills and gym memberships to maintain their bodies, and now worry that aging might take its toll on their mental muscle as well.

But tweaking every day routines can help.

Like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand. Or crossing your arms the opposite way you're used to, says Cheryl Deep, who leads "Brain Neurobics" sessions on behalf of the Wayne State Institute of Gerontology.

At a recent session in Novi, Mich., Deep encouraged several dozen senior citizens to flip the pictures in their homes upside-down. It might baffle houseguests, but the exercise crowbars the brain out of familiar grooves cut deep by years of mindless habit.

"Every time you walk past and look, your brain has to rotate that image," Deep says. "Brain neurobics is about getting us out of those ruts, those pathways, and shaking things up."

Participants were asked to call out the color of ink that flashed on a screen in front them. The challenge: The colors spelled out names of other colors. Blue ink spelled o-r-a-n-g-e, for example.

Several in the crowd at Waltonwood Senior Living hesitated - a few scrunching up faces in concentration. The first instinct is to say "orange."

In another exercise, participants had to try to name as many red foods as possible. Apple? Sure that's an easy one. It took a while, but the crowd eventually made its way to pomegranate and pimento.

Elissa and Hal Leider chuckled with friends as they tested their recall.

Hal Leider, 82, a retired carpenter, was diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's, and he tries to challenge himself mentally and physically - bowling and shooting pool and playing poker: "I think anything we can do might be helpful," says Elissa Leider, 74.

The idea of mental workouts marks a dramatic shift in how we understand the brain these days.

"We want to stretch and flex and push" the brain, says Moriah Thomason, assistant professor in Wayne State University School of Medicine's pediatrics department and in the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child and Family Development

Thomason also is a scientific adviser to www.Lumosity.com, one of the fastest-growing brain game websites.

"We used to think that what you're born with is what you have through life. But now we understand that the brain is a lot more plastic and flexible than we ever appreciated," she says.

Still, like the rest of your body, aging takes its toll, she says.

The protective covering of the neural cells - white matter - begins to shrink first. Neural and glial cells, often called the gray matter, begin to shrink as well, but more slowly. Neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers, decrease.

But challenging the brain stimulates neural pathways - those tentacles that look like tree branches in a cluster of brain cells. It boosts the brain's chemistry and connectivity, refueling the entire engine.

"Certain activities will lay more neural pathways that can be more readily re-engaged," Thomason says. "The hope is that there are ways to train and strengthen these pathways."

Maddens explains it this way: Consider the neurons of your brain like electrical wires and the white matter like the insulation. When the insulation breaks down over time, things can misfire.

In labs, those who engaged in mentally challenging games do, in fact, show improvement in cognitive functioning. They get faster at speed games and stronger in memory games, for example.

What's less clear is whether this improvement transfers to everyday tasks, like remembering where you parked the car or the name of your child's teacher, both Thomason and Maddens say.

But when it comes to the link between physical exercise and the brain, researchers and clinicians agree: physical exercise is good for the brain; it has also been linked to lower rates of chronic disease. Good nutrition is essential too.

Oxygen, itself, is essential, Deep said: "Your brain is an oxygen hog."

Diet, exercise and mental maneuvers all may boost brain health in ways science still doesn't understand. In the best cases, the right mix might stave off the effects of Alzheimer's and other age-related disease too, Maddens says.

All this is good news for an aging, stressed out, and too-busy society, he says.

Reading a book, engaging with friends or going out for a walk and paying attention to what's around you - that's not really about goofing off. Rather, it's critical time that stimulates neural pathways and boosts the odds of long-time brain health.

"It's talking to friends. It's getting out socially. It's engaging in life. The question is 'How do I force myself to learn?'" Thomason says.

The same might be true when it comes to mentally changing computer games.

Says Maddens: "Would I have patients playing computer games eight hours a day in hopes that they can delay Alzheimer's by two months? No. But you can enjoy (playing such games) and possibly get a benefit from it, too."

---

BRAIN BOOSTERS

Keeping your brain agile needn't take a lot of time, money or even a crossword puzzle. Here are some fun, quick challenges from local brain neurobics presenter Cheryl Deep:

Switch it up: Use your non-dominant hand to drive your computer mouse or brush your teeth. Slip your watch on the opposite wrist. Turn it upside down.

Refocus senses: Turn off the TV volume and follow the action by the visuals only, or keep the volume on and close your eyes to imagine what's going on.

Fine-tuning senses: As a passenger in a car on a familiar route, close your eyes and follow the route in your mind. Open your eyes periodically to see if you are right.

Turn the page: Read a book upside down.

Trash talk: Avoid the word "the" for a two-minute conversation challenge. Partners keep count of each other's "the's" while trying not to say any of their own.

Tips from researchers:

A few more tips for everyday living from researchers and clinicians:

Grab your sneakers and a friend: A good walk is not only aerobic exercise, chatting with friends - discussing a recent book, for example - can stimulate new ways of thinking.

Join the club: Visiting friends, volunteer work and other social connections may protect against cognitive decline over the long run.

Get your Zzzz's: Sleep deprivation blunts memory and executive functioning. A power nap - no more than 20 minutes - can help too.

Toss the tobacco, limit alcohol: Research has linked smoking to a quicker loss of memory as we age; likewise, drinks should be limited to one a day for women and two for men.

Play: Some research suggests that online games involving problem-solving, speed and memory might sharpen cognitive prowess. Try www.lumosity.com, www.happy-neuron.com or games at www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/brain-games.

Many web sites require subscriptions, but offer free trial periods.

(c)2012 Detroit Free Press 
Distributed by MCT Information Services

"Mind games: Mental exercises are key to better brain function." June 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-mind-games-mental-key-brain.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Acute severe pain is common in sexual assault survivors in the early post-assault period, but rarely treated

The results were published online in the Journal of Pain.

Despite the fact that the majority of women presenting to emergency departments for care after sexual assault experience severe pain, very few receive pain treatment.

These were the findings of a multi-site research study led by Samuel McLean, MD, MPH, director of the TRYUMPH Research Program in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.  The results were published online in the Journal of Pain on June 15, 2012.

“To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study of pain symptoms in the early aftermath of sexual assault,” said McLean.

A recent national survey found that 1 in 5 U.S. women experience sexual assault during their lifetime.  Women who receive medical care after sexual assault are often treated by Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) and emergency physicians. SANEs are nurses who have completed training in the delivery of care to sexual assault survivors, including both forensic evidence collection and medical treatment.

Researchers evaluated the severity and distribution of pain symptoms and the treatment of pain in 83 women who presented for care within 48 hours of being sexually assaulted.  These women sought care at one of 10 emergency departments/SANE programs located in diverse environments ranging from inner-city Baltimore to rural Appalachia.

Sixty four percent of women reported severe pain (pain rated as 7 or greater on a 0-10 numeric scale) at the time of initial evaluation and 52 percent reported severe pain one week later.  Among women reporting severe pain at the time of initial evaluation, only 13 percent received any pain medication.

Fifty three percent of women sexual assault survivors reported pain in four or more body regions at the time of initial evaluation and 59 percent reported pain in four or more body regions one week later.  Most often, areas with pain were not areas that were directly injured during the assault.  For example, one woman was vaginally raped with her six-week-old baby in her arms. She reported no physical trauma, and she stated that she offered no resistance due to concerns for her child's safety.  At the time of initial SANE evaluation, she reported pain in 7 extragenital regions, and her maximal pain intensity score was a 10 (0-10 numeric scale).  One week later, she reported continued pain in 3 areas and a continued pain score of 10.

“Information from our study, together with other emerging data from the pain research field, suggest that pain in the aftermath of stressful events such as sexual assault may not simply be an ancillary experience resulting from co-occurring physical trauma,” said McLean.  “Rather, like psychological symptoms, pain symptoms after sexual assault may be a neurobiological consequence of the stress experience itself.”

The research team recommended that pain evaluation and treatment should be part of the standard care of sexual assault survivors, not only to reduce immediate suffering but also because evidence suggests that the treatment of acute pain may improve long term outcomes.

Provided by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine

"Acute severe pain is common in sexual assault survivors in the early post-assault period, but rarely treated." June 20th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-acute-severe-pain-common-sexual.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Many mysteries unsolved in binge-eating disorder

Although cognitive-behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy, as well as the anticonvulsant topiramate, can help patients who binge eat, a magic bullet for the disorder remains elusive.

It is likely that binge-eating disorder (BED) will be included as a psychiatric diagnosis in DSM-5, Timothy Walsh, M.D., said at an April workshop on the topic at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

Walsh is a professor of pediatric psychopharmacology at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute and chair of the Feeding and Eating Disorders Work Group for DSM-5.

“One reason that I believe BED is going to make it into DSM-5 is because sufficient research has been conducted on it,” Walsh explained. As he told Psychiatric News earlier this year, “In the 20 years since publication of DSM-IV, there have been more than 1,000 papers published on BED” (Psychiatric News, January 6).

Nonetheless, many questions about the disorder press for answers, Walsh and other workshop speakers concurred.

For example, one gene, called FTO, which is expressed in the hypothalamus, has been linked with BED, Marian Tanofsky-Kraff, Ph.D., an associate professor of medical and clinical psychology at the Uniformed Services University, reported. But are other genes involved as well? Researchers don’t know.

While maltreatment, teasing, and bullying have been identified as BED risk factors, other childhood risk factors for BED also need to be identified, Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D., director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina, stressed.

Chevese Turner, founder and chief executive officer of the Binge Eating Disorder Association, related that when she was a little girl, her mother had anorexia nervosa and talked a lot about dieting. Both factors encouraged Turner to start binge eating, she believes, and she started doing so as early as at age 5. Yet BED is usually uncommon before adolescence, Tanofsky-Kraff said. Why is this? Researchers don’t have the answer.

A major criterion for BED is loss of control over eating. Yet how does the mechanism of loss of control in BED compare with that of the loss of control in alcoholism or drug abuse? Stephen Wonderlich, Ph.D., associate chair of clinical neuroscience at the University of North Dakota, asked. “And there is not yet enough research to determine whether binging in BED is the same or different from binging in bulimia nervosa,” Walsh noted. “We also need to determine the relationship of loss of control to amount consumed,” he added. “Our knowledge of how these pieces fit together isn’t as good as it could be.”

Although there is a strong cross-sectional relationship between BED and obesity, there have been few longitudinal studies to see whether BED causes excessive weight gain and obesity, Alison Field, Sc.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said.

Even if binge eating can lead to obesity, why don’t all binge eaters become obese? Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of Alabama, asked that question after she and her colleagues conducted a binge-eating study in rats that found that not all binging rats became obese.

The experts are also wondering how grazing and night eating fit into the BED picture. “I don’t think there is much data about grazing,” Walsh commented. “There has been some research about night eating, but the definition does not seem to be stable. This doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, but there is insufficient data to recognize them formally in DSM-5 as disorders.”

As for treatment for BED, better options are needed, workshop speakers pointed out. Specifically, ample research has demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy can counter binge eating and lead to long-term weight loss, reported Denise Wilfley, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at Washington University. Yet the amount of weight lost with these two therapies is modest, she said. And while there is one drug on the market that has shown good efficacy against BED—the anticonvulsant topiramate—it can have undesirable cognitive side effects, noted James Hudson, M.D., Sc.D., a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Walsh asked Hudson what he thought about using topiramate and the appetite suppressant phentermine together to treat BED. Hudson replied: if the combination is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for it, undoubtedly it will be widely used.

Source: American Psychiatric Association

"Many mysteries unsolved in binge-eating disorder." June 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-mysteries-unsolved-binge-eating-disorder.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

What Motivates Generosity? Researchers Study Muslims and Catholics

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — Many people have it in their hearts to be generous, but what motivates their actions?

Generosity is accepted and encouraged as a practice, but the reasons behind the behavior are not well understood. An interdisciplinary team of faculty working with Arizona State University's Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict are exploring what motivates people to be generous and how religion influences their actions.

The study is funded through a $363,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation/University of Notre Dame Science of Generosity Initiative. Aspects of generosity that researchers are examining through the initiative include how one person's kindness to others affects the recipient's kindness in the future and what the difference is between those who are giving and those who aren't.

"Generosity is an important part of human behavior that we don't know much about," said Carolyn Warner, ASU School of Politics and Global Studies professor and principal investigator for the ASU project. "It wouldn't hurt if there were more of it in the world."

Warner and her team are identifying generosity motivators in religions through a comparative study of Muslims and Catholics. Their aim is to discover aspects of religion that motivate people to give of their time, effort and financial resources, and how those motivators might be similar or different in two of the world's major religions.

"There have been studies about people who are religious that find that they tend to be more generous than people who aren't. There's a debate about that. We aren't trying to determine whether people who are religious are more or less generous," Warner said.

"What we want to know is what is it in the religious experience that might prompt generosity," she added.

ASU psychology professor Adam Cohen and Ramazan Kilinc, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska, joined Warner as co-principal investigators in the study that took them to Dublin, Milan, Paris and Istanbul.

"We traveled to these countries because of the focus on Catholicism and Islam," Warner said.

Researchers examined factors within each religion that might motivate generosity, such as a sense of duty to one's God, the love of Jesus or Mohammad, feelings of being blessed and the way each religion is organized. The work involved interviews, participating in religious group activities and conducting experiments.

"These kinds of studies are very important for understanding the varied role that religion plays in society," said Linell Cady, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. "So much attention is focused on conflict that attention is needed to understand those values and resources within religion that provide the building blocks for strong, vibrant communities."

The study's findings were extremely clear in some cases such as motivation to give. Muslims strongly feel that if they are blessed then they have an obligation to God to share with those less fortunate than themselves. They also feel that they are following in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammad by being charitable to others. Catholics don't see an obligation to God as a primary motivator to help others; instead, their love for Jesus motivates them to help others.

Commonalities were also apparent. Members of both religions were more likely to volunteer to help if the person asking for the donation was personally known to the member, such as an imam, priest or other person who is admired within the religious institution.

Another common thread exists within the positive experience of giving and actually connecting with people you are helping, such as working at a soup kitchen and sitting down to eat with someone who is down on their luck.

A third commonality was an extensive reliance on volunteers to help sustain the religious entity, such as the parish church or Islamic association. Researchers found that Catholicism is less hierarchical than commonly thought. Many religious functions are carried out by the laity, and they respond by helping. Muslims also felt a strong sense of responsibility to contribute to the daily functions of their religious associations.

"People are very giving," Warner said. "Community is very important for Muslims and Catholics, not in terms of peer pressure to behave in certain ways, but because they like being with other people. They find it gratifying to help others and to interact with those in need."

Another finding points to the crucial roles of religious organizations in connecting people who need help with government social-service organizations.

"They are the ones often making the connection and bringing that person to the state or city office to start getting help," Warner said. "They fill in the cracks, along with secular volunteer groups."

Challenges that the researchers needed to overcome during the study included gaining access to parishioners in the Catholic churches and organizing psychology experiments with Catholics and Muslims in Dublin and Istanbul, respectively.

"Catholics are more reticent to talk about money or the extent to which they are helping others. They are supposed to be modest about those things," Warner said. "The Islamic associations we worked with were open to our study because they welcomed the opportunity to help increase the understanding of Islam."

The experiments were conducted on site with people from the community. "We wanted to find out how the religions affect their believers in their own settings," Warner said.

Officials from both religions expressed interest in learning about the primary generosity motivators among their members.

"People are interested in finding out about their own religion," Warner said. "For many of the study participants, the experience of being generous is, in and of itself, profoundly religious."

Video:  https://vimeo.com/44263537 https://vimeo.com/44263770

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620143251.htm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Respect Matters More Than Money for Happiness in Life

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — New research suggests that overall happiness in life is more related to how much you are respected and admired by those around you, not to the status that comes from how much money you have stashed in your bank account.

Psychological scientist Cameron Anderson of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and his co-authors explore the relationship between different types of status and well-being in a new article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"We got interested in this idea because there is abundant evidence that higher socioeconomic status -- higher income or wealth, higher education -- does not boost subjective well-being (or happiness) much at all. Yet at the same time, many theories suggest that higher status should boost happiness," said Anderson.

So if higher socioeconomic status doesn't equate with a greater sense of well-being, then what does? Anderson and his colleagues hypothesized that higher sociometric status -- respect and admiration in your face-to-face groups, such as your friendship network, your neighborhood, or your athletic team -- might make a difference in your overall happiness. "Having high standing in your local ladder leads to receiving more respect, having more influence, and being more integrated into the group's social fabric," Anderson said.

Over a series of four studies, Anderson and his colleagues set out to test this hypothesis.

In the first study, they surveyed 80 college students who participated in 12 different campus groups, including sororities and ROTC. Each student's sociometric status was calculated through a combination of peer ratings, self-report, and the number of leadership positions the student had held in his or her group. The students also reported their total household income and answered questions related to their social well-being. After accounting for gender and ethnicity, the researchers found that sociometric status, but not socioeconomic status, predicted students' social well-being scores.

The researchers were able to replicate these findings in a second study that surveyed a larger and more diverse sample of participants and they found that the relationship between sociometric status and well-being could be explained, at least in part, by the sense of power and social acceptance that the students said they felt in their personal relationships. And in a third study, Anderson and his colleagues provided evidence that the relationship between sociometric status and well-being could actually be evoked and manipulated in an experimental setting.

In the fourth study, the researchers decided to bring the causal story into the real world. Following students in a MBA program, they found that changes in sociometric status from pre-graduation to post-graduation corresponded to changes in the MBA students' social well-being. And post-graduation sociometric status predicted social well-being more strongly than did post-graduation socioeconomic status.

"I was surprised at how fluid these effects were -- if someone's standing in their local ladder went up or down, so did their happiness, even over the course of 9 months," said Anderson.

Together, the four studies provide clear evidence for the relationship between sociometric status and well-being. But why does sociometric status seem to matter so much when socioeconomic status doesn't?

One possible explanation, which Anderson hopes to explore in future research, is that people adapt. "One of the reasons why money doesn't buy happiness is that people quickly adapt to the new level of income or wealth. Lottery winners, for example, are initially happy but then return to their original level of happiness quickly," said Anderson.

That kind of adaptation may simply not occur with local status. "It's possible that being respected, having influence, and being socially integrated just never gets old," Anderson said.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620133310.htm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Owning a home does not lead to happiness

(Phys.org) -- An Australian study led by the University of Adelaide has debunked the belief that owning a home is a recipe for happiness.

In a study involving more than 10,000 people over a six-year period, researchers found that while home owners are happier, wealthier and better educated than renters, home ownership in itself does not lead to improved mental health.

Lead researcher Dr Emma Baker from the Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning (CHURP) at the University of Adelaide says this simple finding is important.

"Many studies have established major differences between home owners and renters but our findings suggest that happier and healthier people are able to afford a mortgage," Dr Baker says.

"Renting in itself does not make people unhappy either, but higher proportions of unhappy people end up renting because of their circumstances.

"In a country like Australia, most people aspire to home ownership and our governments are constantly trying to find ways to help people realise this goal.

"However, owning a home is not the best outcome for everyone. Previous studies show that, in many cases, low income households with mortgages struggle financially and these people would actually be happier and healthier and less stressed if they rented.

"In Europe, renting is far more common and the socio-economic mix of tenants is more diverse than in Australia so there is less stigma attached to renting there. A professor or business person can be living next door to a student or shop worker, whereas that is not as common in Australia.

"Renting your home doesn't seem to affect your happiness, whereas owning a home that you can't afford clearly does. Findings such as these reinforce the need to aim for more than 'the Great Australian Dream'," Dr Baker says.

The findings have been published in the international journal Urban Studies.

Provided by University of Adelaide

"Owning a home does not lead to happiness." June 20th, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-06-home-happiness.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

'Tell me no lies': New human factors/ergonomics research on deception may improve Homeland Security

Recent world tragedies have led to an increased emphasis on the importance of deception training - especially at security checkpoints in airports, bus terminals, and train stations – that is designed to avert potential terrorist attacks. Past research on deception has identified the physiological and behavioral cues that can expose the individual liar, but most major terrorist acts involve two or more coconspirators. In their upcoming Human Factors article, "Social Indicators of Deception," authors James E. Driskell, Eduardo Salas, and Tripp Driskell took a unique approach to examining "deception at the social level—cues to deception that arise out of the interaction between two people conspiring to lie . . . based on a transactional memory theoretical approach."

To determine if the speech and behavior patterns between two suspects during an interrogative interview indicated whether or not they were telling the truth, the authors conducted a study in which an interviewer spoke to pairs of police officers and firefighters who were assigned either to describe a recent event in which they both took part (the truth) or to fabricate a story on the spot (deception). The results showed that truth-telling pairs exchanged glances, followed up on each other's comments, asked questions of each other, and used assent words ("yes," "agree") more often than did those in the deceptive pairs.

"Deception has been studied as an almost exclusively individual-level phenomenon," said Tripp Driskell. "You have a hard-nosed detective on one side of a desk and a suspect on the other. But there are many situations today, especially in security settings, in which the opportunity exists to question two or more suspects. The bottom line is that there are many occasions in which people conspire to lie or to deceive. In fact, many terrorist acts are carried out jointly by multiple participants or conspirators, and initial encounters with these suspects are likely to be in a group setting."

"We believe that the key to distinguishing truthful dyads from deceptive dyads is the concept of transactive memory," he continued. "Two people describe an event differently if they had actually performed that event together versus if they did not but are fabricating a story about an event that did not take place. When we are questioned about the event, we recall it also in a joint manner - you recall some information and I recall some information. This is not as evident when two people recall a story that is fabricated or that did not take place."

This first-of-its-kind study could lead to a closer examination of the interview tactics of military and law enforcement personnel, and perhaps even a change in interview training and protocol. The authors plan to investigate how the presence of a second interviewer changes the dynamic of the interview and whether this prompts any additional social cues between the suspects.

More information: http://hfs.sagepub … ull.pdf+html

Provided by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

"'Tell me no lies': New human factors/ergonomics research on deception may improve Homeland Security." June 20th, 2012.http://phys.org/news/2012-06-lies-human-factorsergonomics-deception-homeland.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

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