All posts by Tom Marcinko

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Science and storytelling

story-corpsWhy do people love stories, anyway? Scientific American reviews recent research and speculation, rounding up ideas — stories, really — from psychology, neurology, anthropology, and evolutionary theory. A taste:

In support for the idea that stories act as practice for real life are imaging studies that reveal similar brain ac­tivity during viewings of real people and animated cha­racters. In 2007 [Raymond A. Mar, assistant professor of psychology at York University in Toronto] conducted a study using Waking Life, a 2001 film in which live footage of actors was traced so that the characters appear to be animated drawings. Mar used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan volunteers’ brains as they watched matching footage of the real actors and the corresponding animated characters. During the real footage, brain activity spiked strongly in the superior temporal sulcus and the temporoparietal junction, areas associated with processing biological motion. The same areas lit up to a lesser extent for the animated footage. “This difference in brain activation could be how we distinguish between fantasy and reality,” Mar says.

[Story Corps van: photo by Omar Omar]

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The Body Politic

sakharovWe had a lively (but civil!) discussion about the psychology of political choices last week.  So how about physiology?  Science published a report suggesting that people who respond most strongly to disturbing images seem to have political views that most people would call conservative.  The test used gadgets to measure skin moisture and blink intensity. Pictures included a big spider on a face and a guy covered with blood.

Yes, I’m skeptical too.  The subjects were Nebraskans, residents of one of the more conservative of these United States in terms of voting. And if you showed this arachnophobic left-leaning blogger some of those disturbing images he’d cry like — well, like a Wall Street banker, this week.

Meanwhile, in another poli-sci story: When vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s email was easily hacked and screen-shots pasted all over the internets, she and her supporters immediately called for a repeal of the Patriot Act and warrantless surveillance, because now they know what it feels like to have their privacy invaded without warning and for no good reason.  Civil liberties enjoyed a resurgence in the U.S., and …

Sorry.  Dreaming on the job.

And just to confirm that, as The Posies sing, everybody is a frakking liar (video):

The world’s largest particle collider malfunctioned within hours of its launch to great fanfare, but its operator didn’t report the problem for a week.

[Bust of Dr. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov: photo by dbking]

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More political science: Misinformation keeps on working

2 Comments

misinformedA body of studies promises to explain a lot. In politics, people are willing to believe misinformation that reinforces their beliefs. And correcting misinformation sometimes seems to reinforce it.  Examples exist from both major U.S. parties, so let’s pick on the Democrats for a change:

[Yale poli-scientist John] Bullock found a similar effect when it came to misinformation about abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Volunteers were shown a Newsweek report that suggested a Koran had been flushed down a toilet, followed by a retraction by the magazine. Where 56 percent of Democrats had disapproved of detainee treatment before they were misinformed about the Koran incident, 78 percent disapproved afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval dropped back only to 68 percent — showing that misinformation continued to affect the attitudes of Democrats even after they knew the information was false.

[story tip: dday; image: Glutnix]

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United States of Mind: Is geography personality?

agree

A new study says personality traits vary by region in the U.S (pdf). Here’s the map for niceness. Minnesota’s score does not surprise me (assuming there’s anything to this at all, of course). The study also maps openness, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness (and it’s surprising to see my adopted state of Arizona scoring so high there). Color maps next time, please, professors. Actual marketing people need these.

[Tip: Andrew Sullivan; image: Rentfrow et al.]

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Dreaming about Sarah Palin

palinWe live in such a media-saturated age it’s rather surprising that we don’t have shared dreams more often. Because it’s Friday afternoon where I am, here’s a link to a Slate.com’s Your Dreams (and Nightmares) About Sarah Palin: She hands you a $20 bill. She marries you. She tells you to kill all the animals in the zoo. She’s your barista.

It’s a highly nonscientific (a-scientific?) survey of dreams readers have had since — Sweet Gene Vincent, was it only a week ago?  (Disclaimer: I have not had a dream about Sarah Palin.) My favorite from the Slate article (hardly the most Freudian of the batch, either):

“In my dream, I was with a group of people watching the election results on television. However, pundits weren’t announcing the results. Both candidates and their VP picks were sitting on two couches in a room full of journalists/pundits. McCain and Palin were on one couch, and Obama was on his couch with his VP pick, but it wasn’t Joe Biden, it was a woman in an emerald-green ball gown. In a way she resembled Doris Kearns Goodwin. What stood out to me is how insignificant McCain appeared. All attention, a spotlight even, was on Palin. It was like McCain was a sad old man on a park bench, and Palin was just soaking up all of the energy in the room. She seemed to be a magnet for all of the energy in the room—a bit like a Dementor from Harry Potter. Obama and his Doris Kearns Goodwin look-alike VP were also relatively insignificant, but not as much as McCain. Obama smiled graciously the entire time. At some point, Tim Russert‘s disembodied head appeared through a doorway in the room where I was, and I started to cry. Tim didn’t say anything, he just floated there observing the group. One of the journalists/pundits in the room was overheard whispering, ‘It’s McCain!’ It wasn’t an official announcement, but he let it slip, and it was true—McCain won the election.

“But McCain just sat there not moving. Palin stood up and started queen-waving. Obama got up to shake her hand—graciously—and Doris Kearns Goodwin sat on her couch, as I was sitting on my dream-couch, crying.”

[Sarah Palin in Kuwait by asecondhandconjecture]