Cognition and Sleep

Cognition

Psychology, the scientific study of the mind, like most disciplines contains many branches. An undergraduate student in psychology, while perhaps wishing to specialize in health psychology, must go through a panoply of introductory level courses: neuroscience, perception, child psychology, social psychology, abnormal psychology, learning and memory, cognition and so on.

Cognition relates to thought processes and mental schemas. Further, social cognition refers to how humans see, and think about, the social world. Social psychologists define social competence as the ability to positively interact with others, a crucial skill in teamwork, a quality many employers look for in potential candidates today.

But what about social cognition? How do humans perceive others' intentions, emotions and states of mind? One such process is called Theory of Mind (ToM) and has been widely documented as deficient in autistic individuals (Sally's hidden object test is often used to measure subjects' ability to "read others' minds"). Body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, vocabulary alongside content, and other social cues are likewise used in face-to-face interactions to detect deception and aid interpersonal communication in general.

Sleep

In the long run, humans need sleep in order to survive. Even a single night out partying without sleeping can cause significant impairment to one's cognitive function. Sleep is divided into non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM). NREM consists of N1, N2 and N3 stages. Circadian rhythms vary from person to person, but typically span the usual daylight schedule.

Sleep deprivation weakens memory, a function associated with the hyppocampus. Conversely, the amygdala represents responses to real and imagined threats, fear and anxiety, respectively; while the frontal lobe is the seat of executive function (impulse control, decision-making, inhibition, planning). Executive dysfunction is diagnosed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost). Illustration : Megan Jorgensen.

Beast

Beast

By Peter Benchley

By the time Darling rounded the point into Mangrove Bay, the blue of the sky was fast turning violet, and the departed sun had tinted the western clouds the color of salmon.

A single light bulb burned on the dock, and beneath it, moored to a piling, was a white twenty-five-foot outboard motorboat with the word Police stenciled on the side in foot-high blue letters.

“Christ,” Mike said, “he's reported us already.”

“I doubt it,” said Dorothy, “he's a fool, but he's not crazy.”

Two young policemen stood on the dock, one white, one black, both wearing uniform shirts, shorts and knee socks. They watched as Darling eased the boat against the dock, and they passed Mike the bow and stern lines.

Darling knew the policemen, had no problem with them – no more than he had with the marine police in general, whom he regarded as ill-trained, underequipped and overburdened. These two he had taken to sea with him on their days off, had helped them learn to read the reefs, had shown them shortcuts to the few deep-water channels in and out of Bermuda.

Still, he chose to remain on the flying bridge, sensing instinctively that altitude reinforced his authority.

He leaned on the railing and raised a finger and said, “Colin... Barnett...”

“Hey, Whip...” Colin, the white cop, said.

Barnett said, “Come aboard?”

“Come ahead,” said Darling. “What brings you fellas out of the night?”

“Hear you found a raft,” Barnett said.

“True enough.”

Bernett stepped aboard and pointed to the raft lying athwart the cockpit, “That it?”

“That's the one.”

Barnett shone a flashlight on the raft and leaned down to it. “Lord, it stinks!”

Colin stayed where he was and said hesitantly, “Whip... we gotta take it.”

Darling paused: “Why's that?” Somebody claim to have lost it?”

“No... not exactly.”

“Them it's mine, isn't it?... First law of salvage: finders keepers.:

“Well...” Colin seemed uneasy. He looked at his feet. “Not this time.”

“Dr. St. John,” Colin said. “He wants it.”

“Dr. St.John.” Now Darling knew he was bound to lose, and his temper was bound to win. “I see.”

Liam St.John was one of the few men in Bermuda whom Darling took the trouble to loathe. A second-generation Irish immigrant, he had gone away to school in Montana and graduated from some diploma mill that awarded him a doctorate. Exactly what the doctorate was in, nobody knew and he never said. All anybody knew for certain was that little Liam had left Bermuda pronouncing his name “Saint-John” and had returned pronouncing it (and insisting everyone else do, too) “SINjin.”

Armed with an alphabet appended to his name, St.John had rallied a few powerful friend of his parents and besieged the government, arguing that certain disciplines, such as maritime history and wildlife management, were being grossly mishandled by amateurs and should be turned over to certified, qualified experts – which meant him, since he was the only status-Bermudian with a doctorate in anything other than medicine. Never mind that his degree was in an unknown field, probably some thing utterly useless like Druid combs.

An island. Pic by Elena.

Famous Psychological Experiments

Famous Psychological Experiments

Stanley Milgram at Yale University conducted experiments on obedience to authority in the 1960s. Subjects were brought into a lab with a one-way mirror; they could see another person on the other side, whom had electronic devices attached to their body (this person was actually a paid actor). The subject was asked to teach words to the other person, and to (supposedly) give electric shocks of increasing magnitude if the “student” got it wrong. After a while, the “teacher” wanted to stop, but the experimenter insisted that science needed this study of vocabulary acquisition, and urged the participant to continue. Shockingly, most complied despite screams and the dangerous intensity and amounts of shocks.

In an attempt to salvage humanity’s reputation, some critics attributed the results to the Hawthorne effect, which can mean that people behave differently in laboratory situations because they are being watched and because they trust that the experimenters will not let anything truly bad happen. Alas, this is contradicted by Stanford University Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment, which had to be stopped earlier than planned due to cruelty ensuing from the newly bestowed power on those acting as guards in the simulation.

The conformity experiments carried out by Solomon Asch fail to give much credit to the human race either, at least as far as independent thinking is concerned. Asch had one participant placed with a group of other apparent subjects (who were all paid confederates), showed two lines of different lengths and asked which one was shorter. Most of the group chose the wrong answer, and although the difference was obvious, in most cases the unwilling lone wolf conformed to the general blatantly wrong opinion.

It's hard to feel that you are an object of a psychological experiment. Illustration by Elena.

Cognitive dissonance has to do with the fact that humans are uncomfortable when what they say and feel or believe is contradictory. How do they fix it? According to the 1959 experiment developed by Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith, they simply lye to themselves. In that study, a person was asked to perform a very boring task and to subsequently tell other participants that the task was exciting. After informing others, the responders were questioned on how they themselves found the task.

Depending on how the persons were compensated for disseminating the unintuitive piece of information, the replies varied. When individuals were paid a large sum in return, they described the task as tedious; when they received minimal remuneration, they said that they actually liked it. Apparently, the smaller the reward, the greater the need to convince oneself of the deception, through internalization, otherwise the mismatch would cause disagreeable cognitive dissonance.

B.F. Skinner is well known for his elucidation of behaviorism (perspective dealing with classical and operant conditioning and external, observable qualities) and creation of what became known as the “Skinner box”. The concept of magical or superstitious thinking was demonstrated by some of his pigeons in the following set-up.

The birds were in a cage that dispensed one grain of corn every 15 minutes. Naturally, this situation is very frustrating to hungry pigeons, who tried to find out what they were doing that was causing the corn distribution. After a period of time, the birds all exhibited strange behaviors, such as flapping wings ritualistically or dancing around, presumably because they figured that since it was exactly what they happened to be doing when one of the grains came along, by repeating the action they could thusly induce better food rationing.

Most bad behaviour comes from insecurity (Debra Winger, an American actress and producer). Illustration: Megan Jorgensen.

Push en 2019

Push en 2019

Le beau marcheur blanc

To Jump or not to Jump! This is the question!

The Master and Commander of the Universe.

The Cat that Changes our Universe.

Cat thinking about the trip to the Moon.

A gorgeous Light Cat. 

Push Reflecting.

Push the Wise Cat.

Dating and Relationships

Dating & Relationships

Few people dream of being alone all their lives, although there are some exceptions. For the rest of humanity, most humans want some form of human interaction, in the form of socializing, friendships and deeper connection,s but mostly, the human race, unlike Zirconians, seek LOVE…

But what is Love? L'Amour avec un grand A? (French quote about romance) Well… the response to such a philosophical question is far beyond the scope of the present short entry, and what we like to discuss today is just how most people go about romantic pursuits in modern times, or in the information era, replete with social media platforms and other novel forms of socialization…

Interestingly enough, the idea of romantic love is debated by some scholars. For instance, social psychologists point to the existence of courtly love during the Middle Ages as the predecessor of today's pretty much accepted concept of a mutual, intense, attachment, acceptance and affection between two human beings. According to this particular viewpoint, romantic love has largely been invented by the postcards and greeting cards industry, as well as jewellery manufacturers…

Along these lines, in the academic realm, scientists have been looking at affectionate displays from different perspectives. From neuroscientific accounts focusing on neural substrates (such as the amygdala for emotional memories, or oxytocin and vasopressin playing a role in bonding), social psychology studies show that men and women seem to look for diverse characteristics when choosing a life partner, while even the understanding of the feeling praised in countless songs, legends, movies and poems worldwide actually appears to be thought of differently in some cultures…

On a more practical note, where and how does one find someone to date (or to share one's life with!) and, most importantly, what does one do when the elusive other, the dreamlike alter ego, finally shows up? Individual opinions vary greatly on this matter! To illustrate, a huge proportion of people, believe that playing hard-to-get is the way to go. In other words, to secure the other's attention, one should present themselves as unavailable, ignore phone calls, emails and texts, take a long time to see the person, look busy all the time (even if simply pretending!), you get the drill… Alternatively, others deplore such mind games, and stress that relationships are mostly based on trust, mutual interests and communication, so manipulation, however mysterious and well intentioned, may have no place in romantic unions… What do you think? We do not give advice, we simply lay out the facts…

Two different Zirconians (elf-like Aliens) who, unlike customary on Zircon, are in love… Copyright © Megan Jorgensen.

Luckily, in today's day and age, numerous options exist to find that special someone. From dating sites such as PoF, eHarmony or Match, to social networking platforms not specifically intended for such use (some people find their perfect match on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace), to the old fashion way: through mutual friends or acquaintances, at social gatherings such as parties and other celebratory events, and by other means. However, obviously whether you meet your potential companion at Sunday mass at the community Church, or at the local bar is likely to impact the future of your relationship, if any.

Naturally, not everyone wants a relationship. Unlike in the past, when people could pretty much be burned at the stake for committing adultery, in modern times many alternative to marriage exist.

While one psychological theory includes three aspects in the definition of love (passion, commitment and intimacy), all three elements need not be present to meet one of the proposed definitions. Thus, the Twilight saga aside, hook-ups or friends with benefits, seem to be popular arrangements among some older teenagers. Likewise, polyamory, or dating several partners at the same time appears an attractive possibility to some teens, and of course, adults. Notwithstanding, monogamous marital bliss remains the goal for the majority of couples in most societies across the world.

On the political side, the question of equal love is a dividing social issue for many countries in the West. For instance, in the United States of America, voters may choose their candidate based on where said candidate stands on gay marriage. Nowadays, gay marriage is legal in many countries and homosexual unions are much more accepted than they were in the past. Also, at time of writing, the current Pope Francis has expressed the acceptance of the Catholic Church of homosexual orientation.