myths about the brain are hampering learning

October 16th, 2014

Myths about the brain are common among teachers worldwide and are hampering teaching, according to new research published today [15 October].

Teachers in the UK, Holland, Turkey, Greece and China were presented with seven 'neuromyths' and asked whether they believe them to be true.

A quarter or more of teachers in the UK and Turkey believe a student's brain would shrink if they drank less than six to eight glasses of water a day, while around half or more of those surveyed believe a student's brain is only 10 per cent active.

Over 70 per cent of teachers in all countries wrongly believe a student is either left-brained or right-brained, peaking at 91 per cent in the UK.

And almost all teachers (over 90 per cent in each country) feel that teaching to a student's preferred learning style - auditory, kinaesthetic or visual - is helpful, despite no convincing evidence to support this approach.

The new research from the University of Bristol, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, calls for better communication between neuroscientists and educators.
The report blames wishfulness, anxiety and a bias towards simple explanations as typical factors that distort neuroscientific fact into neuromyth.

Such factors also appear to be hampering recent efforts of neuroscientists to communicate the true meaning of their work to educators.

The report highlights several areas where new findings from neuroscience are becoming misinterpreted by mainstream education.

More information: "Neuroscience and education: myths and messages." Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2014) DOI: 10.1038/nrn3817
Provided by University of Bristol

I've found that one to be a bit misleading. (I wonder if that's why you placed under "mainstream watch"?)

It's not really "mind-control" as we neurohackers are familiar with (as in "epigenetics"). In fact, anything could trigger it and there would probably be much better signals to connect to particular genes if they would help solve something (which is another caveat). For the same reasons that we doubt research on "normal ""healthy"" people" I would doubt we could take, for example, a depressed brain to upregulate genes to cure depression when that brain thinks something programmed to trigger it. not really a good example as this would very probably work.. but the point is, why not just simply click a button?! =)

With that said however, it is a cool gadget nevertheless =) but expect all sorts of hype ever more from now on, as everyone and their mothers connect all kinds of freaking light switches to a eeg (not a typo, tho I bet someone will make a chicken put eggs "with their minds! woohooo") and "do something new"  with their minds.. LOL (and then probably publish something for the sole reason of appearing on the mainstream watch thread lol)

There will even be a competition of, among other even more exciting stuff, mind controlled race cars (currently virtual tho, but i envision this will change soon enough into demolition derbies) in just a couple years! (Also in Zurich! another meta-coincidence!)

Maybe this should go into the open source watch thread by the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbag6aE7TM
http://vimeo.com/105739988

Not long after that we'll get to cyborg volley ball:-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3opQOaRXBWE

Best,
A2A.

Hi dude,
Nice article; focused, well written, clear and simple.
Some extras from the archives, on 'noise' in processing:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-05-noise-brain.html
"How noise changes the way the brain gets information." May 5th, 2015.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-04-d … brain.html
"Study deciphers the noise in the human brain." April 9th, 2015

www.physorg.com/news192881674.html
"Discarded data may be gateway to new brain insights." May 12th, 2010.

enjoy,
AR

Hi dudes,
Recently we mentioned this fun alternative to the TE news for those trying to wean themselves off  the newspaper/TV habit:
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/

However, Private eye mostly features stories from one particular area; not very entertaining for those living elsewhere. Here is an alternative for folks further west:
http://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver

Very funny indeed. You still get all the TE 'news', and it's still funny even if you're not interested in the news.

Best,
AR

Love the clip  :  )  It wasn't long enough! More of this welcome  :  )

Meanwhile, remember our prediction that educational institutions won't be able to keep up with the pace of scientific discovery? Read on...

UK Psychology education 'normalizing' the Fundamental Attribution Error prompts protest from scientists
(Open letter)
"As two university lecturers, we are concerned about the new psychology A-Level, which has been taught to teenagers since September 2015. Our concern is that the new syllabus is narrow and out of step with much psychological research and practice. This is worrying because for many students, A-Level psychology will be their only formal encounter with the subject.
We are also concerned that the government’s reforms have been influenced by “nudge theory” – the science of influencing people’s behaviour – from behavioural economists and cognitive scientists. This has resulted in the curriculum focusing on “problems” within individuals, rather than taking into account the influence of society on people’s actions and behaviour.

This explicitly goes against the current move within the British Psychological Society (BPS) to take into account the psychological effects of structural disadvantage and poverty.

We wanted to take a look at the content of the new A-Level, so we set ourselves a challenge: to try and answer exam questions from the A-Level sample papers for psychology created by AQA, the largest exam board. (Edexcel and OCR also offer psychology A-Level qualifications.) Below is one example question.
Our answers ticked few of the right boxes according to the sample mark schemes (unless the examiners were feeling generous). But we did attempt to do something else: to ask critical questions of the exam itself, and to think about the implications of asking students to answer these sorts of questions.
Pens at the ready, and phones confiscated, the exam begins …

The question
(Specimen 7182/3, Paper 3. Section D: Aggression or Forensic Psychology or Addiction.)
Read the item and then answer the question that follows.
News correspondents in inner cities have remarked upon how young males frequently carry weapons and engage in threatening behaviour.
Using your knowledge of evolutionary explanations of aggression, account for these high levels of aggression in young males.
(This is a two-hour paper with 96 possible marks, and this question is worth four marks.)

Our suggested answer
This is the way we would answer it:
Our knowledge of evolutionary explanations of aggression lead us to contest them being used as an explanatory factor in why young males in inner cities may carry weapons. Evolutionary explanations are problematic for many reasons: findings from animal studies cannot always be easily applied to humans; evolutionary explanations that emphasise mating behaviour tend to assume heterosexualism; they are hard to test; they have been used to justify and naturalise social hierarchies; and have been criticised for being ideological.

Examples abound of the incredibly problematic use of evolutionary theory within psychology, such as to “explain” rape as a form of mate choice; to justify colonialism; and as an underlying factor in eugenics.

It’s important to ask questions about why and in what contexts evolutionary explanations are used to “account” for particular phenomena, particularly by those in power, such as the government. Attempting to explain the anger of young urban men through evolution, or genetics, allows us to overlook social, economic and political factors that may provide the context for young men carrying weapons.

A recent report into the psychological impact of austerity provides evidence of direct links between cuts to public services and poor mental health, through mechanisms such as humiliation and shame, fear and distrust, insecurity, and powerlessness. These are not only all factors that may link to young men feeling the need to carry weapons but may also play a part in the racial discrimination and institutional racism within policing.

For example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that police stop and search disproportionate numbers of black and Asian young men in England and Wales. Perhaps young men are angry because of the poverty and racism that they are experiencing? This includes the racism and Islamophobia that lies within the current anti-radicalisation Prevent Agenda, and that makes us see certain racialised groups as suspicious. If so, then evolutionary explanations don’t go far to help reduce these oppressions and inequalities, and if anything historically have deepened them.

The marks
The sample mark scheme on the AQA website sets out the framework for marking the question as follows:
Male aggression derives from need to acquire/defend resources such as mates or territory (in the city) and/or to establish status (in groups of peers or between gangs); male aggression derives from sexual jealousy of other males who may have sex with or steal their mates.
Our view is that this mark scheme leaves no space for the kind of critical thinking that we offered above. Although a generous marker may give us marks for touching on (and then critiquing) “mating behaviour”, the lack of attention that the mark scheme pays to the problematic use of evolutionary theory highlights how uncritically psychology is being taught at A-Level. It’s likely that our answer would have scored a low mark because we discuss aggression as embedded within social and political contexts, and not as an individual trait linked to territory and sex.

Thinking critically
In doing this exercise, we are in no way criticising individual teachers who teach this curriculum – some of whom may share our concerns. Nor are we glorifying the undergraduate subject of psychology in comparison, which can also be outdated. Rather we hope to start a conversation between students, A-Level teachers, and university teachers, lecturers and professors that could change the very terms by which we understand what psychology means, is, and does.

The question on aggression we have chosen is not an isolated case, and is one of many others that would provoke similar issues, for example one which asks students about the highly controversial new “mental illness” of hoarding disorder, and another which asks students to diagnose different types of attachment disorder based on one sentence descriptions of children’s behaviour.

The daily reality of many psychologists is not one that involves debating the evolutionary origins of aggression. Instead it often involves working with people and communities who are marginalised and experiencing poverty. As many psychologists are increasingly arguing, psychology should not be there to “treat” the symptoms of poverty. And so teaching A-Level psychology students to look inside individuals for society’s ills seems misguided.

Source: https://theconversation.com/why-the-a-l … date-48853

WARNING – Re: Oculus Rift

If you value your privacy, do not buy!

From: Private Eye #1416; 15 April 2016

“We're all having to get used to being tracked by advertisers wherever we go both online and offline, thanks to smartphones, cookies and the like. But it's reassuring to know this will extend into the realm of virtual reality when we're all hiding behind our VR headsets.

Details from the technical specifications of the new Oculus Rift virtual reality gear, owned by notorious friend of privacy Facebook, reveal that the kit will be able to collect information about users and what they use the technology for and look at what's on their hard drive, as well as collect audio from its built in microphone, whether the system is on or off.

The purpose? From the device's own “privacy” policy: “To market to you. We use the information we collect to send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you on and off our services. We also use this information to measure how users respond to our marketing efforts.” Welcome to the wonderful virtual future!”

[...and how long will it be before Facebook, Twitter et al are using the same software? Or are we too late to prophecy that one...? -ed]

LooooooooooLz [1]

Let me ask you, fellow defenders of the secrets of Castle Grayskull: When reality finally gets more.. directly.. programmable[2], who's gonna claim the roles of Masters of the Universe beside the 1st man?[3]

Think about it.. [4]

  o
<[+]>
A2A

[1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant- … s-program/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwIpQ1Hzr84
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yeA7a0uS3A
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2yyAHccL6g

It never rains but it pours...

A bug in the software used by researchers to interpret fMRI data could invalidate fifteen years worth of neuroscientific research, a paper claims.

Three of the most popular pieces of software for fMRI – SPM, FSL and AFNI – were all found to have false positive rates of up to 70 per cent. These findings could invalidate "up to 40,000 papers", researchers claim.

fMRI measures blood flow inside the brain and, by proxy, brain activity. It assumes cerebral blood flow is coupled or correlated with neural activity, and has been used to explore how the human brain responds to robots, how memory and imagination interact how the brain looks when someone has an idea and more.


"Though fMRI is 25 years old, surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data," said Anders Eklund.
The team used resting-state fMRI data from 500 people, split into 25 groups, and measured this data against each other to generate 3 million comparisons.

This resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls was downloaded from the 1,000 Functional Connectomes Project. The authors said resting-state data "should not contain systematic changes in brain activity", but their previous work showed this assumption can have a large impact on the degree of false positives.
And this, the team say, "may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results".
"It is not feasible to redo 40,000 fMRI studies, and lamentable archiving and data-sharing practices mean most could not be reanalysed either," the team said. "Considering it is now possible to evaluate common statistical methods using real fMRI data, the fMRI community should, in our opinion, focus on validation of existing methods.
"It is important to stress we have focused on inferences corrected for multiple comparisons in each analysis, yet some 40 per cent of a sample of 241 recent fMRI papers did not report correcting [these] comparisons, meaning many group results in the fMRI literature suffer even worse false-positive  rates than found here.”

Source: Wired
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/fmri-bug … ns-results

The study has been published in PNAS, extract below: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/27/1602413113

Cluster failure: Why fMRI inferences for spatial extent have inflated false-positive rates
Anders Eklund, Thomas E. Nichols and Hans Knutsson
 
Significance
Functional MRI (fMRI) is 25 years old, yet surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls to conduct 3 million task group analyses. Using this null data with different experimental designs, we estimate the incidence of significant results. In theory, we should find 5% false positives (for a significance threshold of 5%), but instead we found that the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of some 40,000 fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results.

Abstract [Open Access Paper]
The most widely used task functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses use parametric statistical methods that depend on a variety of assumptions. In this work, we use real resting-state data and a total of 3 million random task group analyses to compute empirical familywise error rates for the fMRI software packages SPM, FSL, and AFNI, as well as a nonparametric permutation method. For a nominal familywise error rate of 5%, the parametric statistical methods are shown to be conservative for voxelwise inference and invalid for clusterwise inference. Our results suggest that the principal cause of the invalid cluster inferences is spatial autocorrelation functions that do not follow the assumed Gaussian shape. By comparison, the nonparametric permutation test is found to produce nominal results for voxelwise as well as clusterwise inference. These findings speak to the need of validating the statistical methods being used in the field of neuroimaging.
 
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/ … 13113.full