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What I've been Thinking About Lately

indre@ucla.edu — 2012-11-29T18:21:11-08:00

This says it all:
Compiled By: Online Colleges Guide With thanks to Michael Fernandez who directed me to this page.

What happens in Vegas...

indre@ucla.edu — 2012-02-14T12:09:30-08:00

Validating ‘love at first sight’, bonding prairie voles activate the brain pathways served by the hormone called oxytocin, which decreases stress and increases positive social behavior, on their first date. ...According to Bianca Acevedo, Lucy Brown, Helen Fisher and other colleagues at Rutgers, long-term love can be just as rewarding as the initial romantic hit of a successful first date. But in addition to activating the nucleus accumbens and other dopamine-rich regions, pictures of the object of one’s affection also stimulate those regions involved in long-term attachment, such as the globus pallidus, thalamus, and anterior cingulate cortex.

Here be Dragons

indre@ucla.edu — 2012-01-20T17:32:38-08:00

Being a skeptical person by nature, and a psychologist by training, my working hypothesis is that the signs appeal to the vast majority of people, because the traits associated with a given sign include virtues of personality that we all share, or revere, alongside their equally-universal vices. ... Most people prefer to live by their own rules and take solace in the notion that because they have to follow someone else’s rules to some extent (either at work, home or play), they are not as successful as they could be. ...Certainly, these predictions have as much to do with the society in which these girls are born as they have to do with the moon: as the authors point out, ‘in patriachal and Confusionist societies, women are expected to be subservient to men’.

The Best Invention of 2011

indre@ucla.edu — 2012-01-11T19:01:58-08:00

It’s been a while since my last blog post and I must confess that with each passing day, my standards for the quality of the next post have grown higher and higher. ...But lest you think that 2012 will never be able to top the Necomimi, allow me to reveal the Best Invention of 2012 So Far:The Baby Formula Banana Smoothie. ... In a blender, start with some ripe bananas, add the leftover orange juice from the New Years Day Mimosa brunch, mix in yogurt and honey and top it all off with a healthy serving of baby formula powder.

Shifting Gears: When your Brain needs to Pump the Clutch

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-12-06T06:55:41-08:00

By New Year’s eve, many of us feel a sense of accomplishment that comes with putting the year to bed; we’ve navigating the holiday parties and dinners, we’ve completed our gift-giving and philanthropy, we’ve finished the projects that had to be done before the turn of the year. ...But as the study authors point out, there remains the question of what comes first: are heavy multi-taskers simply more distractable by nature, and thus less able to focus on one thing at a time? ...My dear friend Karin Foerde, who is now a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University, ran a brilliant study while we were grad students together at UCLA demonstrating that multi-tasking interferes with our ability to remember the specifics of what we were doing: instead, multi-tasking favors habit learning, which is less flexible and harder to unlearn.

Money can't buy you Creativity, or can it?

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-11-18T14:03:56-08:00

And so I’ve been wondering, in those moments when the temptation to tweet, or check email, or book a weekend in Mexico shatters my concentration, how strong or pure my intrinsic motivation will prove to be and how the NaNoWriMo artificial deadline affects creativity. ...In a recent review simply titled Creativity, published in the Annual Review of Psychology, Teresa, along with Beth Hennessey at Wellesley College, sums up the latest research findings by suggesting that when people feel controlled by their situation, as is the case in many workplace environments, rewards for creativity undermine intrinsic motivation and paradoxically, suppress creative output. For example, if employees are asked to create posters and are told that the person who comes up with the best one will get a monetary bonus, research suggests that the final products will be less creative than if the bonus comes as a surprise, rather than an expectation.

Effortless Mastery

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-11-07T15:56:08-08:00

The idea that most Americans simply do not have time to master a domain must be false: what’s missing is effort, motivation and an understanding of how learning works. ...The other two factors outlined in the seminal paper on deliberate practice by Ericsson and colleagues are that the instructions for how to perform the task at hand be understandable and take into account the subject’s previous knowledge and that the subject receives feedback during practice that helps him/her adjust performance in the right direction. ...Since mastery of a skill in a field requires on average 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, those individuals who take pleasure in practicing or who can enjoy the process are much more likely to put in the requisite hours, and pay more attention to what they are doing.

Testing the Water in Lake Wobegon

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-11-01T15:00:02-07:00

In 1999, Justin Kruger and David Dunning from Cornell University published a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showing that in tasks ranging from humor to logical reasoning, the worst performers over-estimated their own abilities the most. ...In 2007, another study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that whether poor or skilled performers are the worst offenders in terms of comparing themselves with others depends largely on how easy or hard a task seems to be. ...Before you plunge into a ‘I’m just an insignificant speck in the universe’ depression, consider this: for some reason, our brains have evolved to make us more likely to remember the good times than the bad times, to pay attention to good news more than bad news, to see ourselves in a more positive light rather than to face the fact that there are many people who are more skilled or more beautiful or more powerful.

When Conviction Becomes Confabulation

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-10-21T10:13:15-07:00

Most people could incorporate whatever new information I was able to glean into their existing worldview but once in a while, I met someone who stuck to a certain belief regardless of the evidence for or against it. That sort of conviction is considered noble in many situations: we value loyalty in friends and employees, we admire religious fervor, we encourage determination in the pursuit of wildly ambitious dreams and we set instincts on a higher pedestal than data in many business decisions. ...Some evolutionary psychologists argue that our propensity for creating, telling and remembering stories emerged about the same time that the proliferation of our neocortex began to differentiate us from other primates, and that this metabolically-expensive leap in brain size was driven by the need to communicate with each other and navigate social relationships.

A World Without Meaning

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-10-10T18:11:41-07:00

I’ve approached this question using the rigorous methods of neuroscience: tracking where patients look when they are viewing pictures or art work or searching for a specific target in a large array, comparing the brain volumes of patients with healthy counterparts and patients with other diseases and correlating these volumes with specific behavior, timing how long it takes them to find a target and how accurately they can perform a difficult visual search task. It turns out that they are faster and more accurate than healthy controls in tasks like ‘Where’s Waldo?’, and the brain regions that correlate with performance on those tasks are the same regions involved in grapheme-color synaesthesia, a condition in which people ‘see’ letters and numbers in color. When a video like The Treasure Hunt puts the experience of aphasia into a simple and elegant poem, I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to experience the world through the lens of semantic dementia: when things lose their meaning, are they less distracting?

Five Lessons Opera Singers can learn from Moneyball

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-10-01T08:05:36-07:00

The truth is that what worked in the past might not work in the future and the best thing an aspiring athlete, musician, actor or entrepreneur can do is work hard to hone the necessary skills and be ready when opportunity knocks. ...Onstage, it’s often hard to resist the temptation to react to what your fellow actors or singers are going to do, rather than what they have just done, especially in opera, where much of the timing is dictated by the composer. ...If you make the starting pitcher work hard and never swing on the first pitch, chances are your team will be up against relievers sooner rather than later.

When Time Stands Still

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-09-20T17:16:42-07:00

Dressing for the weather is an art in this city, and I’m convinced that the eclectic fashion of our native hipsters is influenced in large part by the extreme fluctuations in temperature in the different neighborhoods of the city and at different times of the day. ...That last line has rattled around my mind all week: a simple rhyme that can be interpreted in so many ways, including as a strong desire to elongate the present moment into eternity and stop the unrelenting march of Time. ...David Eagleman, a 39-year old neuroscientist in Texas, who launched his human subjects off of a 50-meter high platform to test the notion that time slows down when we fear for our lives (a great New Yorker profile of him can be found here).

Remembering in Manhattan

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-09-11T07:21:32-07:00

This week, I’m in Manhattan preparing for a marathon concert as my way of supporting people who were affected by the attacks on 9/11. ...When we were shooting the episode of Miracle Detectives that deals with the story of 9/11, I came across this statement by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the World Trade Center: 'The World Trade Center should,' Yamasaki said, 'because of its importance, become a living representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men, and through this cooperation his ability to find greatness.' ...There are countless events today to choose from, but I chose to participate in Music After because my dear friend Danny Felsenfeld, a Brooklyn-based composer, along with his friend Eleonor Sandresky, are emphasizing the creative output triggered by 9/11.

Numb3rs

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-08-31T09:59:41-07:00

These messages took a variety of forms: some were caused by weather forces (such as a breeze), others took the shape of animals (butterflies and birds in particular), some in the appearance of previously-lost jewelry or coins and many included the seemingly inexplicable appearance of abstract symbols such as a loved one’s lucky number. ...C. asked for a sign from her son, she often interpreted the appearance of the number 19 as his response from the other side: she might see it on a receipt, or a road sign, or in any number of ways. ...The old adage that seeing is believing has been turned on its head by psychologists in recent years: yes, experiencing something yourself does make you more likely to believe in it, but your beliefs not only affect what you remember but also what you see and how you see it.

Interpretation: the Performer's Art

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-08-26T12:20:02-07:00

I did it mainly because it paid very well but there were two other reasons that justified this particular use of my time: 1) I wanted to experience the glamour of modeling in a big fashion event and 2) I’d never been to Vegas and seeing the city for the first time through the eyes of a working model was too poetic to resist. ... It’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity: I had this romantic notion that my first trip to Vegas should be as an entertainer rather than a spectator, much like my first trip to Paris had to be with a lover rather than by myself. ...Playing the role of a model in Vegas certainly has its perks: I was always greeted with smiles and courtesy, I never had to wait for a table at the fancy restaurants or stand in line to get into the clubs, and the trade show was within stumbling distance of my hotel room, which was equipped with every imaginable amenity.

The Power of the Puppy

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-08-18T14:41:28-07:00

Scientist that I am, I looked up the studies that were referenced in Dogs Decoded and learned that whereas non-human primates and domesticated dogs are very good at following a person’s gaze to get information about where a desirable object such as a treat might be, only dogs seem to recognize certain social signals such as pointing to, or tapping on a container on the first try. ...Questioning just how ingrained these social skills are in dogs, a group of scientists in Florida published evidence that under the right rearing conditions, wolves can outperform dogs who had limited human contact or were found in animal shelters on tests of picking up on human social cues. ...Paprika seems to have a mind of her own: all the gesturing in the world won’t get her off the wingback chair I just had re-upholstered unless there’s an awfully good chance that she will be compensated with the duck fat treats.

Using your brain with the future in mind

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-08-10T16:00:47-07:00

I can definitely relate: one of the hardest things about being either a scientist or an artist (or an entrepreneur, for that matter) is that you have to spend many, many hours breaking new ground and very often you feel as though you are running in place. ... ...And the type of game does matter: violent or aggressive games can lead to violent or aggressive behavior, while prosocial games can improve social interactions, just as playing tennis everyday leads to an improvement in tennis playing and a remapping of the sensory and motor cortices that are involved in manipulating the racket and predicting the trajectory of the ball.

The Creativity Instinct

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-08-04T13:43:02-07:00

I won’t go into detail defending this particular definition or knocking it down, for that matter, except to say that as we learn more and more about creative behaviors and the motivation behind creativity, defining it has become as easy as herding cats. ...Although accurate, the definition glosses over the very aspect of memory that piques the curiosity of most people who want to discuss the topic: the fact that we can search through a vast repository of information that we gathered over a lifetime and use it to our advantage. ...We flock towards the mysterious, towards things that we can’t seem to explain because curiosity leads to knowledge which leads to better decisions and, dare I say, the reproduction of those genes that underlie curiosity (for a paper on a potential curiosity gene, you can read about great tits, though not the kind you’re thinking of, unfortunately).

Opera and the Meaning of Life

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-07-28T08:34:36-07:00

Both genres are all-encompassing: the lights are low, the drama looms large, the music shuttles your emotions from one extreme to the next, and the goal is to sweep you away into a different world. it just so happens that period and foreign pieces are much more common in opera than in Hollywood. ...Recently, I came across an interesting notion: some psychologists believe that our search for meaning stems from our uniquely human awareness of our own mortality (though the jury is still out as to how unique this knowledge is to our fair species). ...And attending a live opera performance in general can foster a sense of connectedness not only with the other members of the audience and the musicians, but also with the great works of literature upon which the stories are based, and the historical eras represented onstage.

A Mind Split

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-07-21T14:26:55-07:00

Because I was pre-med and interested in becoming a psychiatrist myself, she organized opportunities for me to spend some time on the various wards of the hospital; the most memorable of which was my week on the acute psychotic episode ward, where patients who were experiencing psychotic symptoms for the first time were being diagnosed and treated. ...Many patients, after responding well to pharmacological treatments of their symptoms, know that their delusions and hallucinations are caused by disease rather than the outside world, and they can describe them with the insight that an actor has when describing what a character that she is playing experiences. ...Which reminds me, once again, of why the way in which our memory works is so fascinating: somehow, when functioning optimally, our minds ‘know’ or ‘learn’ to discriminate between details of our experiences, those that should be remembered and those that should be forgotten, so that we can make sense of the world and, with some accuracy, make predictions about the future.

Why You'll Always Make the Right Decision

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-07-13T17:28:10-07:00

For example, if you believe that LA traffic is predictable and easily navigated so long as you avoid the rush hour(s) and never hit the beach, you might find that the third time you find yourself in standstill traffic in the middle of the day on random Wednesdays, you’ll feel the need to revise your belief system as it pertains to traffic in the city of Angels. ...American social psychologist Leon Festinger is credited with developing the first comprehensive theory of cognitive dissonance but the observation that we change our beliefs in order to justify our decisions can be traced all the way back to Aesop, and his fable The Fox and the Grapes: Fox wants grapes but can’t reach them, so he decides the grapes must be sour. ...In the meantime, I will follow the advice of a dear friend, whose excellent decision-making has created a flourishing international career, a loving and rich family life and lots of laughs: 1) first, gather all the information you can get about the possible outcomes, 2) hold off making the decision until the last possible moment, 3) once you’ve made the decision, tell everyone about it so that you can’t back out of it and finally 4) stop thinking about what would have happened if you had picked the other alternative.

Dreams: Setting the Stage for Creativity

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-07-06T17:30:49-07:00

Creativity is a slippery process: first, you have to gather all the necessary information and skills, second, you try to combine what you know or can do in a new way, then you generally need to step away from the problem or task and let it simmer for a bit, and finally, the new idea or way of expressing yourself seems to ‘pop’ into your mind. ...She had her subjects take Mednick’s Remote Associates Test (RAT), a commonly used test of creativity, in which the goal is to figure out how three items are related (e.g. cookies, sixteen, heart - once you’ve had a chance to think about it, scroll down to see the answer below) and then she randomly assigned them to one of two conditions: full-on napping (measured by a polysomograph) or resting quietly while listening to instrumental music. ...Many professional classical musicians take a nap in the afternoon: napping helps their bodies recover from a long morning practice session and prepare for an evening concert but it’s also likely that their brains are consolidating the motor sequences that they have been learning while their conscious minds are at rest.

The Tao of Cat: the Future as a Function of the Past

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-06-29T13:31:54-07:00

Memory for episodes, in particular, fascinates me for two reasons: the first being that our autobiography, and to a large extent our identity, is made up of our memories of the past, and feels to us like a searchable database of our experience (more here) and the second being the extraordinary observation that patients who lose the ability to retain event memories are also unable to imagine the future (the case of K.C.described here). I’ve studied autobiographical memory for over a decade, from my very first published paper (found here) to the one that’s currently in the STUFF TO DO NOW folder on my desktop. ...Donna Addis is a sweet, intelligent and dynamic woman (now a professor in her own right at the University of Auckland) who conducted a seminal neuroimaging study demonstrating that the brain regions that support episodic memory (the medial temporal lobe, the core of which is the hippocampus, as well as areas of dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices) are also involved in imagining the future (paper available here).

There's still hope for sopranos: thanks to evolution

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-06-22T16:27:02-07:00

This week I’ve been having a lot of fun with the music that I’m working on because my voice teacher is out of town and I took her absence as an opportunity to remind myself why I continue to work on improving my vocal chops every day rather than simply maintaining my current level of performance. ...as my mother would say) neuroscientist in Washington state has studied and written about this phenomenon for decades, with an influential paper published in 1995 showing that, contrary to our intuition, we get the chills when we listen to ‘sad’ music, rather than music that makes us feel happy. ...He has since gone on to suggest that the experience of chills evoked by music is related to the distress that we feel when we are separated from someone we love and that this response has perhaps evolved to encourage mothers to respond to their crying babies.

Being a Scientist is like being a Yankees Fan

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-06-08T13:43:01-07:00

Why, might you ask, would I root for the Yankees since a) I live in California, b) I grew up in Canada, c) I’ve never lived in New York for more than a few months at a time and d) on the whole, I seem to be a reasonably nice person. ...In my defense, I point to the long history of great players who have donned the uniform, to the fact that the Yankees have won the World Series almost three times more often than their closest rival, that they play as a team, for the most part, rather than as individual stars, and that they pride themselves in their sportsmanship. Science is the force behind that vast majority of the great leaps that mankind has made, it is based on the collective efforts of many people rather than individuals, and the ultimate goal is to make the world a better place for all of us.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

indre@ucla.edu — 2011-06-02T14:55:59-07:00

It’s hard to resist the temptation to start a blog by welcoming the (hopefully) dozens of readers that have been patiently waiting for me to spew my personal thoughts in an easy-to-find corner of the internet. ...The purpose of this blog is to generate and nurture ideas that have been rattling around my brain and of course to steal any superior insights that they might cajole out of you, my lovely readers. ... But I suspect that they will largely focus on neuroscience, opera, critical thinking, empathy and all the places where those topics intersect (you’d be surprised).