Body Posture affecting memory recall

First Mixing Memory wrote about it; and now Dave at Cognitive Daily was enchanted with this study that shows that if one assumes a body posture during memory retrieval, which is the same as the body posture at the time of memory formation, then the recall is better. I do like this study, and I think it is important, but am hardly surprised or overwhelmed by the results.

To explain the study in a nutshell (you are encouraged to read about the study at Mixing Memory or Cognitive Daily), the authors found that juts like some smells, sights or sounds can trigger associated memories, so too can the body posture. Now, to m this doesn't come a s a surprise because I have always been fascinated by the three other senses that are normally ignored by those who claim we have juts five senses: sight, sound, touch (includes all somato-sensory senses like pain , temperature etc), smell and taste. The three other senses that are normally ignored are Vestibular sense (or the sense of balance), kinesthetic sense (or the sense of self movement) and the proprioception sense (the sense of body position and posture).

Evidently if memory encoding uses some sort of sensory inputs to encode a particular memory, it is clear that memories would be assorted with all of the sense modalities and a trigger in any of them that is strong enough, can trigger that memory recall.

One can test this for the other sense too - the vestibular and kinesthetic - and one would find that one can recall memories better if the same vestibular or kinesthetic conditions are invoked. Experimentally one can have people dance, put them in merry-go-rounds, put them atop an elephant, let them drive, let them go up and down in the lift and ask for congruent or incongruent memory recall. I wont be surprised if the same effects are observed with the kinesthetic sense too. Maybe one of you can make this your thesis and tell me the results, so I can blog about it later!

Tags: memory, senses

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Get onboard The Tech Link Train

I was tagged on the Tech Link Train by Alvaro at the SharpBrains blog- many thanks! This is a "link train" of science and technology blogs, so lets get straight down to business.

If you are "tagged":

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content string. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra linkback.
2. Copy the list of originals below completely and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.
3. Take the additions from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.
4. Add no more than 5 new technology, science, or consumer electronics blogs to the list in the “My Additions” section.

My additions:

Mind Hacks

The Thinking Meat Project

BrainEthics

Cognitive Daily

Mixing Memory

The originals:
Intelligence Theories and Tests
The Mouse Trap
Brain-based Business
Future-making Serious Games
The Thinking Blog
SharpBrains Brain Fitness
Developing Intelligence
Brain Hammer
SCLin's Neuroscience blog
Pure Pedantry
The Corpus Callosum
Madam Fathom
Memoirs of a Postgrad
Peripersonal Space
The Phineas Gage Fan Club
Neurophilosophy
Healthoma
Neural Gourmet
bio::blogs
Dr.Katte’s Blog
Brain Blogger
DigitalPhocus
Alpesh Nakar
OneTipADay
The How To Geek
The TechZone
Mega TechNews
Tech Buzz
Techzi
Connected Internet
John Chow dot Com
Ted Leung on the Air
Geek is a chic
you’ve been HACKED
IDIOT TOYS
JMH Techtronics
Web Services
UtterlyGeek
Tech It Like A Man!
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
techboyardee
The Tech Inspector
Smart Machines
Kuiper Cliff
businessbytesgenesmolecules
MindBlog

Tags: blogs

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Encephalon #19 is online now!

Encephalon #19 is now online at the Peripersonal Space. This time it is themed around the misperceived dichotomy between reason and emotion and is served with a handsome and generous dressing of quotes. Rush over and fulfill your appetite.

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Brave Heart: does will power reside in heart?

I have written earlier regarding the Heart Rate Variability, that is primarily caused by the Autonomous Nervous System (the opposite effects of PNS and SNS), and how a flexible HRV is related to better response to stress and reduced anxiety in face of external stressors. While looking at the evidence and linkages between HRV and emotional regulation, I had also speculated in it that a lower baseline or resting HRV may be reflective of depression and low regulation/motivation; while a high resting or baseline HRV reflective of Mania and high regulation/ motivation.

A recent study has looked into the issue of whether cognitive self -regulation (will power / motivation) is also associated with HRV. The study reported that higher baseline HRV was associated with more will-power and ability to resist temptation. Also, as they had surmised that will-power is a limited resource and hence the ability to resist temptation must exhaust the will- power ability, hence if the subjects showed higher HRV during the resisting temptation phase, then they would have exhausted their will-power reserves and would not persist in subsequent demanding tasks and this is exactly what they found.

The study consisted of measuring HRV, while the subjects were given a choice of eating cookies/candies or carrots. those who chose carrots over candies (thus exhibiting more will-power to resist the temptation of candies) also showed higher HRV.

In the second experiment, after the subjects chose candy or carrot , and hence supposedly exhausted their limited will-power cognitive reserves, they were asked to do a tough anagram exercise. Those who had chosen carrots were more likely to give up the task earlier. Yet those with higher baseline HRV showed high motivation and will -power regardless of whether they chose candies or not.

This I believe is a good corroborator of Higher resting HRV to be related to better self-regulation and mania , while lower baseline HRV to be related with depression and poor self-regulation. So maybe our hearts do tell us a lot about ourselves, our abilities to resist temptations and our will -powers.

Tags: cognition, emotion

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Welcome Boing Boing readers!

It seems I have been Boing Boinged! Thanks to Mark for linking to one of the posts, there has been a dramatic increase in viewership. Welcome abroad the Boing Boing readers and I hope that while you are here you would like to check the other popular articles on the left sidebar to get a falavor of The Mouse Trap. Dont forget to subscribe or visit later if you find some artciles to your taste!

Tags: blogs, personal

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Tick, Tick, Tock: The Mouse without the Clock

In a study that could have potentially far-reaching effects for the Bipolar research and treatment, Dr Colleen and her group have reported on a mouse model of bipolar disorder.

The association between circadian rhythms and bipolarity is well established and a bipolar episode is characterized with disruptions in daily sleeping, eating rhythms etc. Till now the biological basis of this was not clear.

In this study, mice with Clock gene knocked out were tested on a number of measures of bipolairty and it was found that these mice lacking the Clock gene, which is essential for proper circadian rhythms, suffered from human manic like symptoms. Moreover treating these bipolar mice with lithium resulted in the subsiding of symptoms.

The study included putting the mutant mice through a series of tests, during which they displayed hyperactivity, decreased sleep, decreased anxiety levels, a greater willingness to engage in "risky" activities, lower levels of depression-like behavior and increased sensitivity to the rewarding effects of substances such as cocaine and sugar.

"These behaviors correlate with the sense of euphoria and mania that bipolar patients experience," said Dr. McClung. "In addition, there is a very high co-morbidity between drug usage and bipolar disorder, especially when patients are in the manic state."

During the study, lithium was given to the mutant mice. Lithium, a mood-stabilizing medication, is most commonly used in humans to treat bipolar patients. Once treated with the drug on a regular basis, the majority of the study's mice reverted back to normal behavioral patterns, as do humans.

The clock gene is expressed widely in the human brain, but the focus till now was only on the area called suprachiasmatic nucleus. In this study the area of brain associated with reward learning, VTA/ Striatum etc was studied and expressing the clock gene there in KO mice resulted in subsiding of symptoms.

The researchers also injected a functional Clock gene protein – basically giving the mice their Clock gene back – into a specific region of the brain that controls reward functions and where dopamine cells are located. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with the "pleasure system" of the brain and is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex and the use of certain drugs. This also resulted in the mice going back to normal behaviors.

This is an exciting news as it makes a mice model for Bipolairty readily available and would help in clinical testing of new anti psychotics and mood stabilizers.

Tags: bipolar, sleep

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Creatures of Circumstances

There is an intriguing article at BPS Research Digest regarding a study which has reported on a "Chameleon man". No this is not a super hero like spider man or super man, but a 65 yr old AD, who after a stroke has acquired a capacity to assume any social role that his circumstances and situations demand.

According to the report, when in presence of doctors and in a hospital setting , he would assume the role of a doctor, with ad hoc explanations about how he came to become a doctor.

When with doctors, AD assumes the role of a doctor; when with psychologists he says he is a psychologist; at the solicitors he claims to be a solicitor. AD doesn't just make these claims, he actually plays the roles and provides plausible stories for how he came to be in these roles.

To investigate further, Giovannina Conchiglia and colleagues used actors to contrive different scenarios. At a bar, an actor asked AD for a cocktail, prompting him to immediately fulfil the role of bar-tender, claiming that he was on a two-week trial hoping to gain a permanent position. Taken to the hospital kitchen for 40 minutes, AD quickly assumed the role of head chef, and claimed responsibility for preparing special menus for diabetic patients. He maintains these roles until the situation changes. However, he didn't adopt the role of laundry worker at the hospital laundry, perhaps because it was too far out of keeping with his real-life career as a politician.

It is surmised that this is due to loss of dis inhibition. Ad also suffers from Anterograde Amnesia - which means he cannot form new long term memories after the date of the stroke- though his previous memories remain intact.

Now, this case is very interesting, because it throws light on the power of situation and about social role-playing. We have already discussed the personality versus situation debates earlier and this adds more fuel to the fire. If it is true, that to some extent, we are all prone to assuming social roles when present in the appropriate social context; then it seems reasonable that for those of us, who have some defects in this disinhibition, they would be more prone to succumb to the powers of the situation. An extreme case would be the extremely hypnotizable subject who assumes the social role playing very easily, on gentle nudging by the hypnotists. The hypnotist may somehow temporarily shut of this disinhibition circuit, and thus make the subject assume socila roles, as it seems assuming appropriate social rules is inbuilt.

To me this seems very fascinating, and if anyone can provide more details on this case study, or some related literature regarding social role assuming when in appropriate contexts, then I would be very grateful. Till then , it is a sobering though that not only in broader contexts, but even in day-to-day contexts we are all creatures of circumstances.

Tags: personality, situation

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The origins of Morality

There is a decent article in NYT that explores the work of Dr. Frans De Waal and his assertion that the root of human morality is grounded in the sociality exhibited by the primates. His contention is that animals (esp Apes and Monkeys) show emotions and empathy; as well as for the evolution of co-operative behavior many other factors underlying Morality- like reciprocity and peace-making evolved and these in turn set up the stage for the evolution of Human morality.

Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, Dr. de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands.

Macaques and chimpanzees have a sense of social order and rules of expected behavior, mostly to do with the hierarchical natures of their societies, in which each member knows its own place. Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment. Other primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. They remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them. Capuchin monkeys show their displeasure if given a smaller reward than a partner receives for performing the same task, like a piece of cucumber instead of a grape.

These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality

While it is still contentious as to what extent Morality is inbuilt (genetic and one of the human universals) versus it develops under the influence of society and is culturally determined; the actual case, like everything else, may lie in between in terms of a developmentally unfolding of inherent potentiality and with various nuances as per the culture of flowering. Here Kohlberg's developmental framework would seem relevant- but that framework is too much Kantian in the sense that it emphasizes, and is based on, rational reasoning. The reality may however be as more Humean and as per De Waal and Hauser, whereby most moral decisions are more intuitively guided, with post-hoc reasoning following the initial emotional decision.

But biologists like Dr. de Waal believe reason is generally brought to bear only after a moral decision has been reached. They argue that morality evolved at a time when people lived in small foraging societies and often had to make instant life-or-death decisions, with no time for conscious evaluation of moral choices. The reasoning came afterward as a post hoc justification. “Human behavior derives above all from fast, automated, emotional judgments, and only secondarily from slower conscious processes,” Dr. de Waal writes.

I, of course am most sympathetic to the developmental framework and hope that someone would take up Kholberg's framework and incorporate emotions and emotional intelligence in it.

Tags: moral sense, evolution

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