A community for those who are interested in the mind, brain, language and artificial intelligence.
Want to know more? Take a look at our reading list here. If you have any suggestions for further inclusions, post them here.
For men working on tasks requiring high levels of concentration, listening to rock music — as opposed to classical music or the sounds of an operating room — appears to hinder concentration and may lead to more mistakes, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Music. Music and/or noise was found to have no effect on women’s performance, though they generally performed better than men at the game involved in the study.
According to the researchers, music is reportedly played up to 72 percent of the time in operating rooms during surgery. However, experts are divided on whether it has a beneficial effect. Some research, for example, has suggested that Jamaican music and Hip-Hop increases operating speed and surgical instrument manipulation. However, in another study, one in four anesthetists — who are responsible for keeping patients sedated — said music reduced their vigilance.
For the new study, the researchers asked 352 volunteers at the Imperial Festival — an annual celebration of the science that takes place at Imperial College — to play the classic childhood game Operation. This game involves removing various objects from a pretend patient — Cavity Sam — whose nose flashes and buzzes if your tweezers touch the metal sides of the body.
As they concentrated on the task, participants wore headphones that played one of three tracks — Andante from Sonata for Two Pianos by Mozart, Thunderstruck by AC/DC, or the sound of an operating room.
The researchers kept track of the participants’ mistakes and timed how long it took them to remove three body parts.
Overall, men who listened to AC/DC were slower and made more mistakes, compared to men who listened to Mozart or the sound of an operating room. In fact, the song Thunderstruck was tied to around 36 mistakes on average, compared to 28 mistakes while listening to the Sonata and operating room noises. It took volunteers around one minute to complete the task.
Generally, women took longer to remove the body parts but made fewer mistakes. Significantly, women did not appear to be distracted at all by the rock music, and none of the three tracks made any difference to performance or speed.
While it is unclear why rock music affected men more than women, the researchers suggest that perhaps men are more susceptible to auditory stress — a state triggered by loud or discordant music.
The scientists also asked people about their musical tastes, and found that Mozart only reduced the number of mistakes people made if they reported high levels of appreciation for the Sonata they listened to.
The researchers, from the Centre for Performance Science, a collaboration between Imperial and the Royal College of Music, say the study is part of wider research into how music affects performance.
“Although this study is clearly tongue-in-cheek, and was all performed in our spare time, it is part of our wider research into the effect of music on performance — particularly in a medical setting such as an operating theatre [room],” said Dr. Daisy Fancourt, lead author of the research from the Centre for Performance Science.
Their findings are published in the Medical Journal of Australia, where it won a top prize for quirky — yet scientifically rigorous — research.
The team also investigates how music can affect performance in other fields.
“One of our areas of research is how we can boost performance in many different settings — from rowing in the Olympics, to a musical performance or delivering an important speech. This study suggests that for men who are operating or playing a board game, rock music may be a bad idea,” said Fancourt, who is also a research fellow at the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial.
Source: Imperial College London
It is that time of year. I am just about to check out of the office for the festive season. Before I do so though…. Yes, you guessed it…. More party selfies…. And a quirky video clip to share with you all….. Wednesday night was the hypnosis gang Christmas party here in Bournemouth. Every year […]
The post Sing With Me: “Christmas Time…. Hypno Gang and Wine….” Plus Our Mannequin Challenge Video! appeared first on Adam Eason.
“I try to live in a little bit of my own joy and not let people steal it or take it.” – Hoda Kotb
The holidays are supposed to be about peace and love. Then why does it create so much pain, suffering and disappointment?
No one can live up to the fantasy of what the holidays are supposed to be. Instead most of us are trying our best to cope with the narcissistic, manipulative and insensitive family we have.
The only way we can enjoy the holidays is to let go of expectations. While grief accompanies acceptance, so does freedom. Not basing your joy on anyone else is truly the best gift you can get.
If you’re struggling with letting go of old habits, grudges and intense emotions, read our top posts to end 2016. It will help you start the new year off right.
VALIDATION: The Relational Skill that Softens Defenses
(Mindful Mastery) – The more you try to help a loved one, the more defensive he or she gets. Here’s why what you say could be exacerbating their painful feelings, not diminishing it.
The Hell of Perpetual Happiness
(Narcissism Meets Normalcy) – When is happiness a bad thing? When you live with or around people who require it at all times.
5 Things You Need To Stop Doing–Starting Now–to Move On
(Knotted) – Want happiness and healing in 2017? They key is knowing how to move forward. If you’re stuck, this will help you let go of unhealthy behavior so you can move toward a healthier, happier life.
Advice for Coping with Guilt Trips
(The Recovery Expert) – Do you feel selfish, uncaring and thoughtless? A master manipulator may be the cause.
New Year Exercises: Five Quick Tips and Activities to Help Your Clients Start the Year off Right!
(Psychoeducation in Psychotherapy) – Looking for fresh and creative ways to motivate your clients toward positive change? Read this list.
The idea that thinking is done only in the head is a convenient illusion that doesn’t reflect how problems are solved in reality, according to two cognitive psychology experts from Kingston University London. In a new study, the researchers demonstrate how our decision making is heavily influenced by our environment — and that using tools or objects when problem solving can spark new ways of finding solutions and increase productivity.
“When you write or draw, the action itself makes you think differently,”said Professor Gaëlle Vallée-Tourangeau, a professor of organizational behavior. “In cognitive psychology you are trained to see the mind as a computer, but we’ve found that people don’t think that way in the real world. If you give them something to interact with they think in a different way.”
For the study, the researchers invited 50 participants to attempt to solve the following problem: Put 17 animals in four pens in such a way that there are an odd number of animals in each one.
The participants were split into two groups — the first group was able to build physical models with their hands, while the second group was given an electronic tablet and stylus to sketch out an answer. The researchers found that the model-building participants were much more likely to find the solution — which required designing an overlapping pen configuration — than those with the tablet.
“We showed with this study that for some types of problem — regardless of an individual’s cognitive ability — being able to physical[ly] interact with tools gave people a fighting chance of solving it,” said Professor Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau, a professor of psychology.
“By contrast, a pen and paper-type method almost guaranteed they wouldn’t be able to. It demonstrates how interacting with the world can really benefit people’s performance.”
The research team has also been working on a new study exploring how math anxiety — a debilitating emotional reaction to mental arithmetic that can cause people to avoid even simple tasks like splitting a restaurant bill — could potentially be managed through interactivity.
The study, which was published in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, involved asking people to speak a word repeatedly while doing long sums at the same time. It found that the mathematical ability of those asked to do the sums in their heads was more affected than those given number tokens that they could move with their hands.
However, the really interesting finding was how a person’s math anxiety affected the results.
“We found that for those adding the sums in their head, their maths anxiety score predicted the magnitude of errors made while speaking a word repeatedly,” said Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau. “If they’re really maths anxious, the impact will be huge. But in a high interactivity context — when they were moving number tokens — they behaved as if they were not anxious about numbers.”
He went on to explain that some people with math anxiety cope by completely avoiding math altogether, which only worsens the problem. “That’s what makes these findings really interesting,” he said. “Trying to understand why the fear factor is eliminated or controlled to a manageable level when using your hands rather than just your head is the question we’re trying to get to the bottom of now.”
As well as potentially being of benefit when it comes to teaching, re-examining old ideas of how we think could have numerous practical applications.
“If you look at recruitment, for example, a lot of assessment centres use classical intelligence tests when interviewing candidates,” added Gaëlle Vallée-Tourangeau. “But depending on the type of work they are recruiting for, they may be missing out on the best people for the job.”
“In business and management, all the models are using the old metaphor of decision making as information processing, which is something I think we need to overcome. We need to redefine how thinking occurs.”
The study is published in the journal Acta Psychologica.
Source: Kingston University London
