Psychological Dimorphisms

You may know of some dimorphisms that separate a guy’s brain from a gal’s brain. For example if you were to ask a woman to name off different random words starting with the letter ‘b’ as fast as she can for 15 seconds; she’ll likely name more words than a guy doing the same task.

Example: Bat, ball, bison, bill, bitten, bite, bedazzle, bun, bribe… (I came up with this in 15 seconds)

Guys, we’re better at spacial recognition, meaning we can mentally turn objects around in our head better and more accurately than women.

Is there a pattern here guys? No, there is not. This pic has nothing to do with patterns.

It’s obvious that men think differently than women, so let’s make fun of those differences like we did when we were in 2nd grade.

Okay, here I think the indecision nuclei needs to be much bigger as well as the shopping, need for commitment, and jealousy areas. The sense of direction neuron needs to be the size of one actual neuron…much smaller. There also needs to be a tease nuclei in there somewhere. Though I think it’s just in their DNA to do that. A rather large talking lobe and a gossip nuclei situated within to that talking lobe, needs addition as well. Those two should be next to the telephone skills area. An olfactory sense for expensive and shiny things should be included and made very large. A molecule for reasonability should be added…yes, one molecule (best viewed under a microscope)

I would pay good $$$ to have something like this.

Guys, I haven’t forgotten about us.

Notice guys, in this illustration we have not one, but two areas for sex. It’s no surprise but I would have expected one extremely large region, but two is interesting. I wonder if the two different shapes for sex mean two different things? A sense of sexual adventure and overall libido perhaps? I think ball sports should cover much more area and the crotch scanning area should needs to include breasts, thighs, and butt scanning. Though I do think that may have originally been crotch scratching…I guess you could add that one in there too. There needs to be a sleep area (pretty large), a beer area, a sports stats region, and a hemisphere devoted to the names, faces, and bodies of those stunning hot girls we encounter through life. Though most of the names probably won’t be remembered and will be substituted by the phrase, “That one girl” or “That one chick”

I could go on…

Cognitive Interference

I still know what’s going on in the Euros, I’m just taking a minor break from the world of football to discuss the Stroop Test. What is it? The instructions are very, very easy. First, you’re given a set of color words in colors such as: BLUE, RED, ORANGE, PURPLE, GREEN, YELLOW etc.  You are to read them off as fast as you can, but the deal is, you must NAME THE COLOR, NOT THE WORD!  So when you see BLUE, you say blue. After completing the first task, you move on to the second.  You are then again, given words in colors and are to NAME THE COLOR the word is in, NOT THE WORD itself! All as fast as you can as if you’re trying to equal your first trial.  The list of words look something like this for trial two: RED, PURPLE, YELLOW, BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE, etc.  This time, when you see RED, you say purple. Easy enough right?  Try it!

I’m sure you may have started the second test off fairly quick, but then slowed down stumbling and giggling/snickering at yourself in confusion wondering, “why is this so hard?” Well, why is it so hard to do the second test?  One word, interference*. This simple task takes advantage of our ability to read words and not the colors.  That’s why when you see the word ‘YELLOW’ in orange font, your brain’s first reaction is to read what the word says, and that is of course yellow.  The ‘trick’ is blocking the syntactic aspect, and focusing on the superficial.  It’s not so easy though.  There’s a lot of interference going on in your head while doing this task.  The more similar categories you are presented with, the more interference you’ll have, thus the slower reaction times you have (i.e. trouble). The more unique categories you are presented with, you’ll have less interference, thus quicker reaction times. So, if the words are in a color but have nothing to do with category of colors, interference will sharply diminish. For example, name the colors now: DOG, HAT, KITE, BELT, STAR, WATER it’s much easier isn’t it? With associated words and colors like BIRD, or ROSE, I don’t believe there would be a sharper decline in reaction times because there’s still some interference. You are still seeing a word and must ignore it and name the color.

The Stroop Test is a great way to show what cognitive interference is, but many of us may experience this on a monthly, weekly, or even a daily basis and not think about it. Interference happens with me when I’m on the Mac computer for a while, then switch back to the PC. I find myself using two fingers on the mousepad to quickly scroll down a web page on the PC, looking for the command button on the PC and finding it nowhere, pressing F9 to show all windows (which is a Mac-thing) on a PC waiting for the same result, or pressing F12 on the PC to show the calendar. All of it failing miserably when attempted on the PC.

There are two main types of interference. My experience with trying to use Mac commands on a PC is known as Retroactive Interference, where my attempts to use new knowledge (i.e. Mac commands) overshadows my knowledge of PC commands while using a PC. Proactive Interference happens when prior knowledge of a similar thing, such as PC knowledge, interfere with learning something similarly new. A better example (probably a better explanation) of proactive interference is the Brown-Peterson & Peterson Paradigm.

Interference – is similar to an override of the brain’s processes where two concepts in working memory–or short term memory–that are similar (such as color) get in the way of each other and prevent speedy recall of the correct name. The “override” being the syntax preventing the correct recall of the color appearance. Interference is also a way to explain how we forget some things.

Tumors Linked to a Town’s Drinking Water?

This was a story featured on a local news channel on 19 May.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the story on television because I had to work, but I did read it.  The only reason why I read it, is because I wanted to know the story behind the brain image they show with the tumor.  First, the actual news story is about a small town called Cameron that is located about 52 miles northeast of Kansas City.  In recent months they’ve had reported cases of people having brain tumors.  In that town with a population of around 6,500; twelve actually have brain tumors and those twelve cases have been diagnosed just within the past seven months.  All the people who have these brain tumors have one thing in common, and that is they’ve all drank the town water.  Headaches were the main symptoms the people (some even as young as 8 years old) have experienced before being diagnosed.  Some people there are understandingly concerned.

“Dying. That’s my greatest concern, and how many other people are walking around and have it and don’t even know it… In this town, and there are a dozen in six months, something doesn’t add up,”  (Helms)

“She said she was sorry to have to tell me, but he had a mass that they didn’t know what it was,” Jessica Hammer said. “They weren’t able to remove the tumor. They did what they call a limited surgery, which was just draining the tumor. I wonder all the time if there was something I could have done.” (KMBC)

“You take the first victim, you take the second victim and you look at each other and you say, ‘Whoa! What do we have in common?’” said Erickson. “Then you add the third one and the fourth one. I’m sure if I was one of the diagnosed, I would not think it was coincidence. Thank God.” (KMBC)

A state representative (Jim Guest) is going to do an investigation of this own to see what exactly if anything is the cause.  The CDC has looked into possible contamination of the local reservoir by a nearby hog farm, or even pesticides that may have contaminated the water.  This sounds serious, and it obviously is for those affected.  The news website’s picture was the most interesting thing to me and caught my eye.  It shows a large white abnormality in the medial (toward the center) area of the brain.  I’ve been racking my own brain and rummaging through my neuroscience book to figure out just exactly where it may be.  From what I have gathered, this particular brain tumor seems to be located above just the corpus callosum* on either the left or right side of the cortex located in the structure called the Cingulate Cortex.  

 

- The uncolored area resting below the violet (cingulate sulcus), excluding the circular area and areas below that, is the corpus callosum.  The cingulate sulcus is the cingulate cortex.  Both are part of the limbic system of the brain.

I don’t know if the picture from the site is at all related to the incidents in Cameron, or if it’s just a random image picture to show what a tumor in the brain looks like.  Nevertheless it piqued my interest of what this person may be going through with that thing in their head.

 From what I know (I am an amateur/undergrad), the image of whoever that may be, may have a problem with emotions such as controlling or expressing fear and irritability, and feelings of depression (if the tumor is where I think it is).  They may also be apathetic during an emotional or highly traumatic event in their life. Such as witnessing a horrible accident, feelings for the person(s) involved may be at a minimum.  However, they would still be able to walk, run, talk, play sports, complete physics equations, or read a long novel with no real problems.  ”Damage to the anterior (front) area of the Cingulate Cortex can also cause big (much more noticeable than normal) problems doing the Stroop Task.” (Oxford Journals)

Back to the story.  Well, I think it lacks some significance for me to believe that this is a big problem.  Perhaps I’m just “city folk” or whatever and don’t understand.  The reporter only interviewed those who were affected in some way, confirming with what the reporter wanted to believe and report.  I did not see any statements from people who drank the town water and were fine.  Additionally, twelve out of 6,500 is approximately 0.0018% of the total population who supposedly drink the same water and are fine or are not speaking out.  Twelve cases of diagnosed brain tumors in less than a year in a town that size may be odd, but there is not a strong link of the town’s drinking water causing these brain tumors.

Weak story.

*-Corpus Callosum: A bundle of axons located in the middle of the brain that connect the two communicating halves of the brain. (my neuroscience book).