Category: Psychology

How teachers discourage girls from studying math, without realising it.

Teachers unconsciously put girls off math and science by marking down their work in comparison to boys, a new study finds.

Israeli research has revealed that teachers of 11-year-olds graded a math test lower, on average, for girls than for boys.

But, when the same test was graded anonymously by other teachers, the girls had actually performed better than the boys.

The same effect wasn’t seen in science or in any other subjects, although girls were less likely to take advanced science classes later on.

Teachers are likely underestimating the math abilities of girls and marking them down as a result.

Dr. Edith Sand, one of the study’s authors, said this unconscious effect clearly had implications for their futures:

“It isn’t an issue of discrimination but of unconscious discouragement.

This discouragement, however, has implications.

The track to computer science and engineering fields, which report some of the highest salaries, tapers off in elementary school.”

The study tracked students until they finished high school to test the ramifications.

Dr Sand explained:

“When the same students reached junior high and high school, we examined their performances in matriculation exams (‘Bagrut’ in Hebrew).

The boys who had been encouraged when they were younger performed significantly better than their female counterparts, though the latter had objectively scored higher at a younger age.”

Girls were also significantly less likely to take part in advanced math and science classes later on.

Dr Sand said:

“If teachers take into account these effects, it could lead to a reduction of the gender gap in achievement, especially in science and math.

It is clear how important encouragement is for both boys and girls in all their subjects.

Teachers play a critical role in lowering and raising the confidence levels of their students, which has serious implications for their futures.”

The study is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Math problems image from Shutterstock

Adults can still grow new brain cells — neurogenesis — but what are they for?

For a long time scientists believed that neurogenesis was impossible: adults had all the brain cells they were ever going to have.

Now we know that’s not true.

In fact, we continue to grow new brain cells into adulthood.

The race is on to find out what these brain cells are for and how we can grow more of them.

A new review of the scientific literature, published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, argues that the growth of new cells aids adaptation to the environment (Opendak & Gould, 2015).

The authors focus on new cells growing in the hippocampus, an area of the brain linked to memory and learning.

Maya Opendak, who co-authored the study, said:

“New neurons may serve as a means to fine-tune the hippocampus to the predicted environment.

In particular, seeking out rewarding experiences or avoiding stressful experiences may help each individual optimize his or her own brain.”

Grow new brain cells

Rewarding experiences, like exercise and mating, have been shown to grow new brain cells in mice.

By the same token, stressful experiences, like shock, sleep deprivation and defeat, have all been shown to reduce neurogenesis.

Through neurogenesis, the authors believe, stress may help the brain adapt to its environment.

More brain cells have been linked to better cognitive performance and may lead to reductions in anxiety — a cue to explore the environment.

With fewer neurons in the hippocampus, though, both learning and memory are worse.

This may lead to more anxiety  — a cue to focus on safety and avoid too much exploration.

Professor Elizabeth Gould, the study’s co-author, said:

“Because the past is often the best predictor of the future, a stress-modeled brain may facilitate adaptive responses to life in a stressful environment, whereas a reward-modeled brain may do the same but for life in a low-stress, high-reward environment.”

Too much stress, though, could lead to a chronic breakdown in neurogenesis and possibly some of the pathological conditions seen in humans, like depression.

Ms Opendak said:

“Such a scenario could represent processes that are engaged under pathological conditions and may be somewhat akin to what humans experience when exposed to repeated traumatic stress.”

Nerve cell image from Shutterstock

The gender that gets most upset about sexual and emotional infidelity.

Amongst heterosexuals, men are almost twice as likely to be upset by sexual infidelity as women, a new study finds.

Heterosexual women, meanwhile, are much more likely to be upset by emotional infidelity.

The results come from a poll of nearly 64,000 Americans, the largest ever of its type, which is published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior (Frederick & Fales, 2014).

Unlike heterosexuals, the gay and bisexual men and women in the study did not differ in levels of jealousy.

Dr. David Frederick, the study’s lead author, said:

“Heterosexual men really stand out from all other groups: they were the only ones who were much more likely to be most upset by sexual infidelity rather than emotional infidelity.

The attitudes of gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women have been historically understudied and under theorized in psychology, particularly in regards to tests of evolutionary perspectives.”

People in the study were asked to imagine:

• their partner falling in love with someone else, but not having sex with them,
• or, their partner having sex with someone else, but not falling in love with them.

The results showed that 54% of heterosexual men would be more upset by sexual than emotional infidelity.

The corresponding figure for women was 35%.

Women were much more likely than men to be upset by emotional infidelity (65% of women versus 46% of men).

The authors speculate that this difference may come about because men are taught by society that their sexual powers are what makes them a man.

On the other hand, women are socialised to think of their emotions and relations as being paramount.

Dr. Frederick continued:

“The responses of men and women to the threat of infidelity range from intense pangs of jealousy to elaborate displays of attention to woo their partner back.

Jealousy can also trigger harmful and violent behavior, so it is important to understand what are the most potent triggers of jealousy.”

Image credit: William Shannon

How smartphones are affecting the electrical activity in the brain.

Using smartphones profoundly changes the way the thumb and brain work together, a new study finds.

The electrical activity in a smartphone user’s brain spikes when their fingertips are touched, in comparison to an old-school phone user, the researchers found.

And the more people use their smartphones, the greater the spike in activity across the cortex.

Dr. Arko Ghosh, who led the study, said:

“I was really surprised by the scale of the changes introduced by the use of smartphones.

I was also struck by how much of the inter-individual variations in the fingertip-associated brain signals could be simply explained by evaluating the smartphone logs.”

The study was inspired by how many people are now using their thumbs and fingers in radically new ways to operate their smartphones.

Given that the brain can reorganise itself in response to new behaviours — known as neuroplasticity — the researchers wanted to see how smartphone use is affecting the brain.

Dr. Ghosh continued:

“I think first we must appreciate how common personal digital devices are and how densely people use them.

What this means for us neuroscientists is that the digital history we carry in our pockets has an enormous amount of information on how we use our fingertips (and more).”

The results of the study, published in the journal Current Biology, showed that smartphone use over the previous ten days predicted electrical activity associated with the thumb and forefingers (Ghosh et al., 2014).

The study’s authors conclude:

“Remarkably, the thumb tip was sensitive to the day-to-day fluctuations in phone use: the shorter the time elapsed from an episode of intense phone use, the larger the cortical potential associated with it.

Our results suggest that repetitive movements on the smooth touchscreen reshaped sensory processing from the hand and that the thumb representation was updated daily depending on its use.

We propose that cortical sensory processing in the contemporary brain is continuously shaped by the use of personal digital technology.”

Image credit: CAFNR

Above: Professor Barry Van Veen wearing an electrode net that measures brain activity.

Neural circuits that activate when we daydream run in the opposite direction to how we process reality, a new study finds.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Liege in Belgium have tracked the electrical activity in the brains of people either watching a video or imagining watching a video (Dentico et al., 2014).

The findings could lead to new ways of understanding what happens in our brains when we sleep and dream.

The scientists also hope the results will reveal insights into how short-term memory works.

Professor Barry Van Veen, who led the study, said:

“A really important problem in brain research is understanding how different parts of the brain are functionally connected.

What areas are interacting?

What is the direction of communication?

We know that the brain does not function as a set of independent areas, but as a network of specialized areas that collaborate.”

The study used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the electrical activity in different regions of the brain while people were watching the video or imagining it.

When people watched the video, the electrical activity moved from the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, where visual information is processed forwards into the parietal lobe, where higher order processing takes place.

The reverse was seen when people were asked to generate visual imagery.

Professor Barry Van Veen said:

“There seems to be a lot in our brains and animal brains that is directional, that neural signals move in a particular direction, then stop, and start somewhere else.

I think this is really a new theme that had not been explored.”

Image credit: Nick Berard

New analysis of brain waves reveals consciousness in patients who appeared to be vegetative.

Scientist have used a new test on patients in a persistent vegetative state to show some have active brain networks that could support consciousness.

People with severe brain injuries — resulting from, say, car crashes or heart attacks — can appear to be unaware of the world around them, despite looking as though they are awake.

Patients in this state can look around the room, but do not react to anything said to them and none of their movements seem purposeful.

Nevertheless, the new test suggests some of these patients may have enough brain activity to support consciousness.

The researchers also asked some patients to try and imagine playing tennis, while an fMRI scanner was used to try and locate activity in the motor cortex.

In the image above, the middle person is imagining playing tennis, despite being in a persistent vegetative state.

In comparison, the right hand person is a healthy adult and the left-hand person is also in a persistent vegetative state, but showing little brain activity.

Dr Srivas Chennu, the study’s first author, said:

“Understanding how consciousness arises from the interactions between networks of brain regions is an elusive but fascinating scientific question.

But for patients diagnosed as vegetative and minimally conscious, and their families, this is far more than just an academic question — it takes on a very real significance.”

In the study, the brain activity of 32 patients who had been diagnosed as vegetative and minimally conscious was analysed (Chennu et al., 2014).

These patients were compared to a group of healthy adults.

The study used EEG (measuring the electrical activity of the brain) along with complex mathematics to examine networks of brain activity.

While many patients showed little activity, some had well-preserved networks in their brains that were similar to healthy adults.

Dr Tristan Bekinschtein, another of the study’s authors, said:

“Although there are limitations to how predictive our test would be used in isolation, combined with other tests it could help in the clinical assessment of patients.

If a patient’s ‘awareness’ networks are intact, then we know that they are likely to be aware of what is going on around them.

But unfortunately, they also suggest that vegetative patients with severely impaired networks at rest are unlikely to show any signs of consciousness.”

Image credit: Srivas Chennu

What people see, feel and experience, in the minutes after cardiac arrest and before they are brought back to life.

The largest ever study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has found that 40% of people have some ‘awareness’, even after they are considered clinically dead.

Fifteen hospitals in the US, UK and Australia took part in the four-year study.

Over 2,000 people were included in the research, all of whom had suffered cardiac arrest (Parnia et al., 2014).

Of those people, 330 survived and were asked afterwards what they had experienced.

Amongst the survivors, 140 said they had some kind of awareness or experience while they were before they were brought back to life.

One woman reported being aware of the medical staff, and described hearing the medical equipment around her beeping.

Another man recalled leaving his body and watching from a distance as medical staff worked on his body.

While many did not have very specific details about what happened after their hearts stopped, one-fifth reported a feeling of peacefulness.

One-third noticed that time seemed to either speed up or slow down in this period.

Others talked about the sensation of being dragged through water, or of seeing a bright flash.

Around 13% had an out-of-body experience which included a heightening of the senses.

The researchers believe one person showed evidence of conscious awareness three minutes after their heart had stopped beating.

This is hard to explain because typically the brain stops functioning around 20-30 seconds after cardiac arrest.

Dr Sam Parnia, who led the study, said at its inception:

“Contrary to popular perception, death is not a specific moment.

It is a process that begins when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working and the brain ceases functioning – a medical condition termed cardiac arrest, which from a biological viewpoint is synonymous with clinical death.

During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of death are present.

There then follows a period of time, which may last from a few seconds to an hour or more, in which emergency medical efforts may succeed in restarting the heart and reversing the dying process.

What people experience during this period of cardiac arrest provides a unique window of understanding into what we are all likely to experience during the dying process.”

Image credit: Hasibul Haque Sakib

The benefits were particularly strong for those who were stressed.

Taking group walks in nature is associated with better mental well-being and lower stress and depression, a new large-scale study finds.

The study is one of the first to show that simply walking in nature doesn’t just benefit the body, but also the mind.

Sara Warber, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We hear people say they feel better after a walk or going outside but there haven’t been many studies of this large size to support the conclusion that these behaviors actually improve your mental health and well-being.”

The study evaluated a British program called ‘Walking for Health’ and it involved nearly 2,000 participants (Marselle et al., 2014).

Two matched groups of people were compared: some who took part in the group nature walks, and others who did not.

Over a three-month period, taking part in the group nature walks was associated with less depression, lower perceived stress and higher mood and mental wellbeing.

Those who seemed to see the most benefit were those who had been through a recent stressful life event, such as divorce, bereavement or a serious illness.

Warber continued:

“Walking is an inexpensive, low risk and accessible form of exercise and it turns out that combined with nature and group settings, it may be a very powerful, under-utilized stress buster.

Our findings suggest that something as simple as joining an outdoor walking group may not only improve someone’s daily positive emotions but may also contribute a non-pharmacological approach to serious conditions like depression.”

Walking in nature seems to be one of the keys to getting the most mental benefit; urban environments do not provide the same boost.

Much modern research is starting to pick up on the importance of the natural environment for our mental health.

For example, the Japanese are big fans of walking in the forest to promote their mental health.

The practice is called shinrin-yoku, which literally means ‘forest bathing’.

One study conducted by Japanese researchers has found that the practice is particularly useful for those suffering acute stress (Morita et al., 2006).

Their study of 498 people found that shinrin-yoku reduced hostility and depression as well as increasing people’s liveliness compared to comparable control groups.

• Read on: 10 Remarkable Ways Nature Can Heal Your Mind

Image credit: www.GlynLowe.com

Study finds intriguing link between decision-making and this subtle signal.

People’s decisions — good or bad — can be predicted by how big their pupils are moments before they even make the decision, a new study finds.

The research, published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, examined the size of people’s pupils (the central dark section of the eye) before they were given a decision-making task (Murphy et al., 2014).

Twenty-six participants looked at a cloud of dots and had to decide in which direction they were moving.

This was designed to mimic the types of perceptual decisions we make in everyday life.

They found that the larger the pupil was before the task, the worse the person subsequently performed.

This is because pupil size is a measure of a person’s arousal: the more aroused they are feeling, the wider their pupils are and the worse they perform on the test.

As with many things in life, the ideal level of arousal for most tasks is somewhere in the middle: when people’s arousal levels are low they are bored and when they are too high, they can’t concentrate.

Some people seem to be permanently too aroused: the researchers found that certain people whose pupils were the largest overall were the least consistent in the decisions they made.

Dr. Peter Murphy, who led the research, said:

“We are constantly required to make decisions about the world we live in.

In this study, we show that how precise and reliable a person is in making a straightforward decision about motion can be predicted by simply measuring their pupil size.

This finding suggests that the reliability with which an individual will make an upcoming decision is at least partly determined by pupil-linked ‘arousal’ or alertness, and furthermore, can potentially be deciphered on the fly.”

You may well ask whether we can actually notice these kinds of subtle changes in other people’s pupil size.

Well, studies show we do actually pick up on these sorts of subtle changes and process them unconsciously, like other aspects of body language.

And now you know, you’ll be peering all the more intently at the size of other people’s pupils!

• More on dilated pupils and the messages they are sending.

Image credit: Nick Kenrick

Adolescent behaviour can seem very weird to adults — this basic mental process helps explain why.

The minds of teenagers are much more sensitive to rewards than adults, and this may explain why their behaviour seems so extreme to adults.

The conclusions come from a new study, published in the journal Psychological Science (Roper et al., 2014).

It reveals that teenagers find it hard to adjust their behaviour when situations change.

Dr. Jatin Vaidya, who led the study, said:

“The rewards have a strong, perceptional draw and are more enticing to the teenager.

Even when a behavior is no longer in a teenager’s best interest to continue, they will because the effect of the reward is still there and lasts much longer in adolescents than in adults.”

It’s well-known that, as a group, teenagers generally make poor, impulsive, risky decisions, which most adults immediately know are wrong (of course, there’s no point telling them!).

Psychologists have generally believed that this is down to under-development in the brain’s ‘self-control centres’: the frontal lobes.

The new research, though, suggests that it stems from a more fundamental process: the way rewards are processed in the brain.

In the study, both adolescents and adults carried out a simple computer task which involved spotting targets on the computer screen in return for small monetary rewards.

Hidden in the symbols was a sequence that people learned wholly unconsciously, which enabled them to increase their winnings.

But, when that pattern changed, and participants were told they had a new target, it was the adolescents who couldn’t adapt.

Professor Shaun Vecera, who co-authored the study, explained:

“Even though you’ve told them, ‘You have a new target,’ the adolescents can’t get rid of the association they learned before.

It’s as if that association is much more potent for the adolescent than for the adult.

The fact that the reward is gone doesn’t matter.

They will act as if the reward is still there.”

The researchers think this may explain some common teenage behaviours.

For example, sometimes they continue to make inappropriate jokes in class long after their friends have stopped laughing.

It may even help explain teenage obsessions with texting and video games which can seem out of all proportion to the rewards they are receiving.

Vaidya warned that the disproportionate attention teenagers pay to rewards may make them particularly vulnerable to the allure of modern technology:

 “I’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed access to technology.

But they need help in regulating their attention so they can develop those impulse-control skills.”

Image credit: chiaralily