The significance of certain objects is so deeply anchored in our psyche that we rely on them even when their intended function is out of context. A bike helmet suggests safety even when the wearer is just sitting on a bike. In an experiment, participants were asked to play a risk game on the computer, with or without wearing a helmet. The experimenters observed the participants’ eye movements and used EEG to pinpoint the corresponding effects in the brain. Half of the participants were wearing a bike helmet, which had no bearing upon the game. The result was an exciting discovery. Cognitive control (the neuronal mechanism of weighing up alternatives) was less pronounced in helmet-wearers in the experiment. “Therefore, we conclude that the helmet clearly has an impact on decision-making in the risk game,” explains Dr Barbara Schmidt, head of the study. The safety factor that bikers associate with the helmet has an automatic cognitive effect measurable in the brain. Wearing a bike helmet can also be interpreted as a suggestion in hypnosis.
SNEAK PEEK
1. Of the same smell
“Birds of a feather flock together” but there is an olfactory parallel to the proverb. The sense of smell is central to mate choice in some birds. One study shows a clear preference for same-species whole-body odours. Who found that birds of the same smell tend to gel?
1. Amber Rice with Alex Van Huynh (Lehigh University)
2. For longer lives
Education could be a more substantial contributor to longevity than medical care. But policymakers seldom act on this fact because researchers haven’t demonstrated the value of education for longer, healthier lives in terms of dollars and cents. Who lamented the situation?
2. Patrick Krueger (University of Colorado Denver)
3. When all teeth gone
When a tooth is gone, it’s gone. You can’t get it back but it can get back to you! Memory and walking speed decline more rapidly (by about 10%) in adults who have lost all of their teeth than in those who still have some of their own teeth. Who found this unexpected link?
3. Dr Georgios Tsakos (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health).
4. Reading, listening
People process semantic (meaning-related) information similarly whether they are listening to or reading the same materials; the same cognitive and emotional parts of the brain are likely to be stimulated in both. This is shown by a brain map in a study. Who led the study?
4. Fatma Deniz (Gallant Lab at UC Berkeley)
5. A shared circuitry
Heavy drinking and high-fat junk food cravings, two of the most common chronic disorders, go hand in hand — being behaviourally linked. Who hypothesised that binge intake of palatable diets (high in fat) and binge alcohol intake may utilise the same neuro-circuitry.
5. Anatomist Caitlin Coker (Penn State College of Medicine)
6. Money, not plaques!
Companies often reward creative employees with a plaque or a party to recognise their achievement. This typical of social recognition may lead to social conformity. If you give monetary rewards to people, they will creatively “blow the doors off the competition”. Who said it?
6. Ravi Mehta (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
7. Framing an issue
Media coverage of climate differs from one country to the next. While richer countries tend to frame climate change coverage as a political issue, poorer countries more often frame it as an international issue that the world at large needs to address. Who figured it out?
7. Hong Vu (University of Kansas)
8. Early puberty kills
People have been entering puberty earlier and earlier over the past 150 years. Who warned that tiny amounts of small molecules in our bodies, produced by microbes or taken up as a result of social interactions, could affect “the timing of puberty and pace of our decline”?
8. Frank Schroede (Boyce Thompson Institute)
9. Don’t recall them!
There are some incriminating memories (of a crime or a bad deed) that we’d rather not recall. We can successfully inhibit some of them by reducing their impact on automatic behaviours. This will result in brain activity similar to that seen in innocent people. Who noted it?
9. Xiaoqing Hu (University of Texas at Austin)
QUIZ No. 917
1. Being fired is stressful but so is bringing a baby home for the first time. Who said that?
– Lisa Damour
– Roy Glenwood Spurling
– Hermann Schloffer
1. Lisa Damour
2. When mosquitoes bite us, their spit glands work as a bottleneck for malaria parasites?
– Deborah Andrew
– Julius Wagner-Jauregg
– Robert Wartenberg
2. Deborah Andrew
3. Talking of football, who warned that “It’s not just the concussions. It’s everyday hits, too”?
– Brad Mahon
– William Bosworth Castle
– Quentin Gibson
3. Brad Mahon
4. Who described several neurological diseases before they were medically classified?
– Charles Dickens
– Robert Louis Stevenson
– William Clark Russell
4. Charles Dickens
5. Who wrote a song mentioning all the chemical elements up to Number 102, nobelium?
– Eileen McGann
– Kate & Anna McGarrigle
– Thomas Andrew Lehrer
5. Thomas Andrew Lehrer