Here Be Treasures

Are You Talking To The Right Ear?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | psychology | No Comments

For years I’ve been a little obsessed with the mono nature of phone calls. Hearing someone talk in just one ear is a completely different experience than talking via speakerphone or through headphones. I’ve always felt that using a single ear means that the information is processed initially by that side, and this means that you’re either talking to someone’s creative or logical side. I guess you could say that the feeling you have that they are only half-listening to you is true.

This BBC report expands on the nature of right ear vs left ear conversations.

Arguing on the internet is like…

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | psychology | No Comments

Watching this video about people protesting David Letterman’s inappropriate joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter reminded me that the people who are most compelled to comment on blogs and argue moot points on YouTube are usually the ones that are extremists in real life.

The Science of Cute

Monday, May 4th, 2009 | psychology | No Comments

This video on YouTube succinctly explains the scientific theory about what triggers the ‘awwwwww’ factor in humans.
(via moreintelligentlife)

Three Vanity Fair Articles

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 | politics, psychology | No Comments

Vanity Fair have three well written recent articles on their site dealing with suicide, plastic surgery and George Bush that are worth reading:

Cluster Suicides in Wales

Melanie Gives Three Plastic Surgeons Free Rein to Suggest Bodily Enhancements

Informal Dinners at the White House

Real Dolls

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

There are sex toys, and ‘companion’ toys. Real Dolls are the latter, and cost upwards of $6,000. If you wonder who would spend that sort of money on a doll, check out this video, ‘Guys and Dolls’ on Google Video, a BBC production. An uncomfortable alternate word for the a Real Doll is ‘alternate partner’.

Choice quote from the documentary (from a guy who still lives with his parents):

I think the thing my father finds really difficult about my relationship with Shishan [the doll's name], is the fact that she’s not alive, that she’s not a human being. He sees it as unnatural and strange… as a result Shishan spends 99.9% of her time in my room.

Although the documentary portrays the whole scenario as creepy, there is a film, ‘Lars and The Real Girl‘ which is a touching and provoking film.

Hurry Down Sunshine, by Michael Greenberg

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

The New York Review of Books is a great resource. They engage professional authors, many of whom are leading lights in their chosen field, to review books, making for some deep and encompassing reviews.

What caught me from the latest issue (published bi-monthly) was a review by Oliver Sacks of “Hurry Down Sunshine” by Michael Greenberg. (Sachs is the doctor behind “Awakenings“, the fictionalised drama starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, and a prolific author on the subject of mental-health.)

“Hurry Down Sunshine” is Greenberg’s account of the breakdown and subsequent treatment of his daughter Sally who, during her 15th-year, suffers a manic attack.

On July 5, 1996, my daughter was struck mad.

What makes this book different is Greenberg’s position as father, and his account of her treatment. A lot of books on mood disorders were written during the ‘electroshock’ therapy days, when patients were simply doped-up and shocked until they were limp enough to be released. Sacks’ review draws on other novelised accounts of mania and his own vast experience as a mental-health doctor, and is sensitive and heartfelt.

The Problem of the Psychopath in Society

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

John Seabrook writes a fantastic article in The New Yorker on the work of Dr. Kent Kiehl, who researches the “suffering-soul”, aka the psychopath. It’s in-depth, intelligent and thought-provoking.

Choice quotes:

Kiehl is frustrated by the lack of respect shown to psychopathy by the mental-health establishment. “Think about it,” he told me. “Crime is a trillion-dollar-a-year problem. The average psychopath will be convicted of four violent crimes by the age of forty. And yet hardly anyone is funding research into the science. Schizophrenia, which causes much less crime, has a hundred times more research money devoted to it.”

The term “moral insanity” became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, and was widely used in the U.S. and in England to describe incorrigible criminals. The word “psychopath” (literally, “suffering soul”) was coined in Germany in the eighteen-eighties.

Cleckley emphasized his subjects’ deceptive, predatory nature, writing that the psychopath is capable of “concealing behind a perfect mimicry of normal emotion, fine intelligence, and social responsibility a grossly disabled and irresponsible personality.” This mimicry allows psychopaths to function, and even thrive, in normal society. Indeed, as Cleckley also argued, the individualistic, winner-take-all aspect of American culture nurtures psychopathy. (My emphasis).

The Abstinence Pledge & Sexual Chaos

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

The New Yorker investigates the sociological phenomena of the abstinence-pledge in the US amongst teenagers. It’s a fascinating read and it explodes some of the assumptions one would make regarding abstinence…

Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost. With such a fragile formula, it’s hard to imagine how educators can ever get it right: once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

Being Rational—Ignoring Your Gut Instinct

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

Esquire reporter A. J. Jacobs goes on a quest to live rationally and oust all the irrational, biased and bigoted thinking patterns he’s collected during his life. It’s an amusing and revealing read.

This has got to be the most wonderful brain quirk around. It’s built-in biological karma. You trash-talk someone, it boomerangs back on you. You say kind things, you become a hero. So calling a book “ingenious” actually makes people think I’m ingenious. Being a blurb whore is good business.

Left-Brain vs Right-Brain Animation

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | psychology | No Comments

Australia’s Herald Sun has a very interesting animation. The dancer appears to move clockwise then you’re using more of the right-hemisphere of your brain than the left, and vice-versa.

Can change the direction she rotates at will…?