Comments for Psychology In Action

Comment on Revisit: fMRI and the “lit up” brain by Natalie

Natalie — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:52:35 +0000

I just discovered that Neuroskeptic revised the post that I reviewed here. The updated version can be found at:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/04/25/does-brain-scanning-show-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

This version does not have the troubling language I bring up here, and its a very interesting article.

Comment on fMRI: “The Wonder Machine”? Common Questions and Misconceptions about fMRI Research by Revisit: fMRI and the “lit up” brain » Psychology In Action

Revisit: fMRI and the “lit up” brain » Psychology In Action — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:16:25 +0000

[...] wrote a post a few months ago about some common misconceptions about functional magnetic resonance imaging [...]

Comment on Hauntingly Accurate Portrayals of Severe Mental Illness at a Theater Near You by Recent Film Provides Insight into the Terror and Complexity of Prodromal Schizophrenia » Psychology In Action

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 04:49:34 +0000

[...] http://www.psychologyinaction.org/2011/12/12/hauntingly-accurate-portrayals-of-severe-mental-illness… [...]

Comment on Read My Mind! Can new science technology really translate my brain activity into words? by ariel

ariel — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:47:05 +0000

Great points Jeff – I agree with you that there are enormous logistical hurdles that would need to be overcome before any of the research in the study could actually be implemented in the way the authors hope. And similarly, that things always end up being more complicated than initially presented. Electrophysiological measures are also not my area of expertise, so I can’t speak directly to that, but I wonder how similar the patterns of activation for speech recognition are across subjects. Depending on the level of overlap, perhaps the participants would not need to speak the words themselves for the computer training. Or, if a large enough sample of people speaking the same words could be assembled and compiled into a general template, perhaps that could be used instead. But again, I can only speculate. Anyway, thanks for pointing out Jesse’s work – since I found the overall idea of this study to be fascinating, I look forward to reading more about
Jesse’s related findings/thoughts!

Comment on Read My Mind! Can new science technology really translate my brain activity into words? by Jeffrey K. Bye

Jeffrey K. Bye — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:22:31 +0000

Great post, Ariel! Very interesting topic.

From my brief skimming of the article (and my own minimal knowledge about these things), I think it’s an important caveat that from a machine learning perspective (and given the amount of variation between subjects’ brains), the classifier estimates coefficients for each participant separately. As these algorithms get better (and more importantly, the neuroimaging/neural recording technologies improve), it might be that we can extrapolate somewhat beyond individual participants, but I have no idea.

Also, the study as presented is simply measuring neural activity in the auditory cortex when the participant is presented with auditory stimuli (recorded speech). Given these constraints, if we want to apply these techniques to helping patients with neurological damage inhibiting speech, there are more than a few hurdles. Simply put, if we used the same approach for speech production as they did for speech comprehension, the classifier would need to be trained on the patient him/herself. I’m not at all saying this would be impossible, because conceivably we could supply them with a bunch of words for them to attempt to speak, and assuming they follow these instructions correctly, we could train the classifiers accordingly.

This is something I know very little about… what do you think? Also, you might want to look into the similar current research on reproducing visual imagery from fMRI (again in a very limited, subject-specific manner) and Jesse Rissman’s work on detecting memory recognition from brain scans. In particular, I believe he’s pretty skeptical of the attempts of those using proprietary methods (i.e., corporate secrets) to tell if someone remembers something (such as a crime scene). I tend to think (again, naïvely) these things are more complicated than most researchers believe, which is why I love Jesse’s honest skepticism.

Comment on Changing How We Look at Mental Illness and Changing Lives by ariel

ariel — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:31:55 +0000

Great post Rachel – I think this is a really important issue. Mental health stigma unfortunately persists across almost all domains, irrespective of age or diagnosis. As you briefly alluded to above, the consequences of mental health stigma is gaining awareness in my own field of schizophrenia research. A recent article (see below) highlighted that stigma impedes schizophrenia treatment, namely that on average, there appears to be a nine-year gap between the onset of schizophrenia symptoms and the start of treatment. This is extremely problematic given the severity and debilitating nature of schizophrenia, which makes it imperative to implement intervention as early as possible. As the article discusses, the best first course of action in our current society is to increase the general public’s awareness of the disorder through education. This is turn will hopefully fuel research efforts aimed at better understanding the etiology of schizophrenia, which can then influence treatment methods and perhaps even prevention tools in the long run.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophrenia/the-stigma-of-schizophrenia.aspx?xid=aol_eh-emo_2_20120312_&aolcat=HLT&icid=maing-grid7|hp-desktop|dl13|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D144272

Comment on Teens and drugs: Drug use statistics and a different approach to prevention by Social Issues « tvhs14980

Social Issues « tvhs14980 — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:15:07 +0000

[...] http://www.psychologyinaction.org/2011/01/20/teens-and-drugs-drug-use-statistics-and-a-different-app… [...]

Comment on Can Botox impair your ability to empathize with others? by MHBLabs » Subtle Surgery

MHBLabs » Subtle Surgery — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:18:10 +0000

[...] Seeing Billy Crystal’s frozen face at the Oscar’s was not a good look for plastic surgery. Nor is the fact that botox may impair empathy. [...]

Comment on Quick Tips for Becoming Poll-Literate by richard

richard — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:23:22 +0000

Great overview!

Comment on Changing How We Look at Mental Illness and Changing Lives by Alexandra

Alexandra — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:13:53 +0000

Thanks for the post Rachel! like that you provided us readers with ways to help improve the problem. Would also be great to provide some links to advocacy groups or other related articles. So we could read more about this important issue!