Clever Canines Commute to Get Food

I know the new syllabus doesn't have much on behaviorism, but for those of you who are familiar with the now archaic perspective I have some news that actually makes behaviorism interesting.

There are dogs in Moscow that take the underground from the suburbs into the city to beg and search for food. They leave in the morning and return at night. The dogs apparently work together to make sure they get off at the right tube stop. Sometimes they fall asleep and get off at the wrong stop - just like humans.

The dogs have even developed methods to manipulatively steal food from people. For example, they sneak up behind an ignorant shawarma eater, bark loudly to startle the human so they drop their food, and enjoy their tasty snack. That is pretty damn clever and shows that dogs do have the ability to solve novel problems.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2372125.ece

Morality is Innate, Kinda

At least while we're young, we have a preference for kindness and goodness.  In Paul Bloom's study he had infants watch several puppet shows.  One performance showed a puppet helping a puppet in need while another show had a puppet being a nuisance to the puppet in need.  After the shows, the infants are presented with a choice: grab and play with the helpful puppet or the unhelpful puppet.  Does this mean that infants are innately good or just that they prefer toys that are helpful rather than annoying?  Maybe annoyance avoidance is innate ;).

You can check out this short video showing the actual experiment.  The experiment is genius even if the conclusions are questionable.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827821.900-morality-infant-origins-of-human-kindness.html 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all 

Group Work and Intelligence

Who likes group work?  Teachers usually force it upon us.  Ever wondered what factors affect group performance?  Here is one answer: not intelligence according to research published in the prestigious journal Science. The researchers discovered that the social sensitivity of individuals in the group was more important than the intelligence of its members.  In short, empathy is probably a vital component of effective group optimization.  So try and be in groups with people who display empathy, better yet tell your teachers about the study so everybody can (try to) enjoy group work.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=groups-with-good-social-skills-outp-10-09-30

GTA Causes Reckless Driving

A team of Belgian researchers conducted a study involving a questionnaire and video game usage.  They found that adolescents who played a lot of games like GTA had more reckless attitudes towards driving - though did not display any nonchalance for drunk-driving.  In the team's defense, they did wait 2 years prior to the participants getting driver licenses.  Still, one must wonder that if 'reckless attitudes to both speeding and risky driving were significantly linked with having played driving games at the age of 16 and 17' how many of these actually lead to accidents?  Does the team plan on controlling for confounding variables such as personality type and tendency for risk-taking?

As with most preliminary studies, this one should be taken with a grain of salt.  Perhaps a virtual reality game that does not have music that puts you in the mood to run over pedestrians - which deducts points if you do commit vehicular homicide - after playing some GTA would be a good start.  This could be integrated with a personality questionnaire and statistics for the number of accidents or even near accidents that participants experience.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19399-computer-games-may-be-spawning-reckless-drivers.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news>

Seductive Male Dance Moves

Ever wondered why some men get all the ladies in dance clubs while others struggle to attract any attention.  Recent research using participants viewing dancing avatars reveals that a dynamic dance repertoire is considered more magnetic than a repetitive dance routine.

What's wrong with this study?  The avatars are faceless with, at best, a poor representation of the male body type.  A huge confounding variable is the attractiveness of the dancer which is not considered because faces are not even included in the study.  How muscular, broad-shouldered and symmetrical the faces and bodies of actual humans are remain absent making the study of little importance in the real world. At best the study can conclude that that digital beings find avatars more attractive when their dance moves vary.  This does not, however, diminish the pioneering quality of this study.  Further research into actual male attractiveness and his dance moves is necessary to further explain the effect of male dancing style on pick-ups in the club.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/08/psychologists-killer-dance-moves-men

Exam Tips

I found a great resource that explains the psyche of examiners.  I'm not sure which education type they were created for but they apply to all examination types.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/2009/09/29/exam-techniques-guidance-notes/

Nearly One Million Children in US Misdiagnosed with ADHD

Back in the day, kids with ADHD were labeled as the hyper kids - the ones with tons of energy on the playground.  Nowadays of course, they have a 'disorder'.  This study found that almost 1 million children are potentially misdiagnosed because they are the youngest and most immature in the kindergarten class. This suggests a serious flaw in classification criteria like the DSM-IV which could have adverse consequences for victims of misdiagnosis.

Kids at a young age are interpreting the world, trying to make sense of it and developing their schemas so it is natural for them to want to take in as much of their environmental stimuli as possible - thus concentrating less time on one specific task or stimulus.  ADHD drugs are stimulants which if taken in spite of a misdiagnosis will have developmental effects on the neurology of the child's brain - and not necessarily a positive one, more likely is a negative rewiring of the child's brain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817103342.htm