Need a Creative Boost? Find the Blue Room.

Trying to improve your performance at work or write that novel? Maybe it’s time to consider the color of your walls or your computer screen.

If a new study is any guide, the color red can make people’s work more accurate, and blue can make people more creative.

In the study, published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science, researchers at the University of British Columbia conducted tests with 600 people to determine whether cognitive performance varied when people saw red or blue. Participants performed tasks with words or images displayed against red, blue or neutral backgrounds on computer screens.

Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention to detail, like remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation. Blue groups did better on tests requiring imagination, like inventing creative uses for a brick or creating toys from shapes.

“If you’re talking about wanting enhanced memory for something like proofreading skills, then a red color should be used,” said Juliet Zhu, an assistant professor of marketing at the business school at the University of British Columbia, who conducted the study with Ravi Mehta, a doctoral student.

But for “a brainstorming session for a new product or coming up with a new solution to fight child obesity or teenage smoking,” Dr. Zhu said, “then you should get people into a blue room.”

The question of whether color can color performance or emotions has fascinated scientists, not to mention advertisers, sports teams and restaurateurs.

In a study on Olympic uniforms, anthropologists at Durham University in England found that evenly matched athletes in the 2004 Games who wore red in boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling defeated those wearing blue 60 percent of the time. The researchers suggested that red, for athletes as for animals, subconsciously symbolizes dominance.

Effects that were perhaps similarly primal were revealed in a 2008 study led by Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester. Men considered women shown in photographs with red backgrounds or wearing red shirts more attractive than women with other colors, although not necessarily more likeable or intelligent.

Then there was the cocktail party study, in which a group of interior designers, architects and corporate color scientists built model rooms decorated as bars in red, blue or yellow. They found that more people chose the yellow and red rooms, but that partygoers in the blue room stayed longer. Red and yellow guests were more social and active. And while red guests reported feeling hungrier and thirstier than others, yellow guests ate twice as much.

Experts say colors may affect cognitive performance because of the moods they engender.

“When you feel that the situation you are in is problematic,” said Norbert Schwarz, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, “you are more likely to pay attention to detail, which helps you with processing tasks but interferes with creative types of things.”

By contrast, Dr. Schwarz said, “people in a happy mood are more creative and less analytic.”

Many people link red to problematic things, like emergencies or X’s on failing tests, experts say. Such “associations to red — stop, fire, alarm, warning — can be activated without a person’s awareness, and then influence what they are thinking about or doing,” said John A. Bargh, a psychology professor at Yale University. “Blue seems a weaker effect than red, but blue skies, blue water are calm and positive, and so that effect makes sense too.”

Still, Dr. Schwarz cautioned, color effects may be unreliable or inconsequential. “In some contexts red is a dangerous thing, and in some contexts red is a nice thing,” he said. “If you’re walking across a frozen river, blue is a dangerous thing.”

Indeed, Dr. Elliot of the University of Rochester said blue’s positive emotional associations were considered less consistent than red’s negative ones.

It might also matter whether the color dominates someone’s view, as on a computer screen, or is only part of what is seen. Dr. Elliot said that in the Science study, brightness or intensity of color — not just the color itself — might have had an effect.

Some previous cognitive studies found no effect from color, although some used mostly pastels or less distinctive tasks. One found that students taking tests did better on blue paper than on red, but Dr. Schwarz said the study used depressing blue and upbeat red.

The Science study’s conclusion that red makes people more cautious and detail-oriented coincides with Dr. Elliot’s finding that people shown red test covers before I.Q. tests did worse than those shown green or neutral colors. And on a different test, people with red covers also chose easier questions. I.Q. tests require more problem-solving than Dr. Zhu’s memory and proofreading questions.

When Dr. Zhu’s subjects were asked what red or blue made them think of, most said that red represented caution, danger or mistakes, and that blue symbolized peace and openness. Subjects were quicker to unscramble anagrams of “avoidance related” words like “danger” when the anagrams were on red backgrounds, and quicker with anagrams of positive, “approach related” words like “adventure” when they were on blue backgrounds.

The study also tested responses to advertising, finding that advertisements listing product details or emphasizing “avoidance” actions like cavity prevention held greater appeal on red backgrounds, while ones using creative designs or emphasizing positive actions like “tooth whitening” held more appeal on blue.

When the participants were asked if they believed red or blue would improve performance, most said blue for both detail-oriented and creative tasks. Maybe, Dr. Zhu said, that is because more people prefer blue.

The study did not involve different cultures, like China, where red symbolizes prosperity and luck. And it said nothing about mixing red and blue to make purple.

MySpace Turns Over 90,000 Names of Registered Sex Offenders

MySpace provided two state attorneys general the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders it had banned from its site in response to a subpoena.

The figure is 40,000 more than the amount previously acknowledged by MySpace, according to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who along with Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina are among officials pressing social networking sites to adopt more stringent safety measures.

“Almost 100,000 convicted sex offenders mixing with children on MySpace — shown by our subpoena — is absolutely appalling and totally unacceptable,” Mr. Blumenthal said in a statement. “For every one of them, there may be hundreds of others using false names and ages.”

Last year, MySpace, owned by News Corporation, and Facebook.com agreed to set security standards after the Web sites were criticized for not doing enough to protect minors from sexual predators lurking on social networking sites.

Facebook, a privately held company based in Palo Alto, Calif., said the company was still working with Mr. Blumenthal to respond to a similar subpoena.

The disclosure renews the debate of whether social networking sites are a haven for sex offenders. “This is just the tip of the iceberg on MySpace,” said John A. Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, a company that supplies identity and age verification technologies for companies like the New York State Lottery, breweries and film studios. “These are just the convicted sex offenders” who used their real names.

MySpace’s disclosure follows a report by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a panel created by 49 attorneys general, that said the issue is overblown. It concluded the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, was far more serious than sexual solicitation of minors by adults online.

Mr. Phillips, who served as a member of that task force, has been critical of the report. Ernest Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the figure was “disturbing” but that there is no way to know how large the presence of online predators really is.

“We don’t know if that’s 80 percent of the population targeting kids on the Internet or 1 percent,” Mr. Allen said.

He commended MySpace for removing convicted sex offenders from its site. “This clearly reinforces the fact that there are a significant number of people who seek access to kids online,” Mr. Allen said.

Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said the company had spent the last two years purging problem members from its site.

“The reality is there are 700,000-plus sex offenders living in the streets of America,” Mr. Nigam said. “What we did was build cutting-edge technology to figure out where they might be living on the Internet and remove them from our site.”

MySpace reported that its community grows 10 percent year over year but has also reported a 36 percent drop in the number of registered sex offenders trying to create profiles.

John Cardillo, chief executive of Sentinel Tech Holding, the company that makes the software MySpace uses to find the sex offenders, said that Facebook had become a haven for convicted offenders blocked from creating accounts on MySpace. Mr. Cardillo, who has approached Facebook about using his technology, said he could find 8,000 offenders on Facebook.

Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said that Mr. Cardillo’s figures were inflated. He also said the company actively monitors its Web site and users for suspicious activities.

“When you search for people on Facebook, you don’t get much information — a name and a thumbnail,” Mr. Schnitt said.

Welcome to World History: 1500 to the Present

And welcome to the class blog! Be sure to check out the blog multiple times a week for articles and other postings to comment on for participation points! Also, check in for news postings to prep you for our weekly current events game. (I will also be posting information for my IB Psychology students who are testing in the subject this spring -- you can ignore those posts of course!)

Every Sunday night I will post the "Week Ahead". I will attempt to update it as plans change throughout the week, but let's be clear, what I post on the agenda in the classroom is the most up-to-date agenda, not this blog!

The Week Ahead
Monday (2/2)
Introduction: the Course
--You and I
--Syllabus: web site, blog, etc.
--Participation Grade
--Survival Game Activity
HW: Obtain a notebook for your class journal

Tuesday (2/3)
Introduction: geography
--Mapping the world Group, then Class discussions [G,C]
-What is History
--The importance of primary sources
HW: NONE

Wednesday (2/4)
The World at 1500
-1492 - Video Clip
--Lecture/Notes
---Journal Entry 1: "America"
HW: Columbus' Journal Reading & Questions [R&Q]

Thursday (2/5)
--Discuss Columbus reading
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
-Lecture/Notes
-Interview a Picture
HW: Equiano's Journey [R&Q]

Friday (2/6)
-Discuss HW/Equiano
Current Events!
HW: Reading from Textbook: TBA

UPDATE: Grades Will be POSTED Sunday NIGHT

Teen smoking could lead to adult depression: study

WASHINGTON, Jan 29, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Teenagers who smoke could be setting themselves up for depression later in life, according to a groundbreaking new Florida State University study.

Psychology Professor Carlos Bolanos and a team of researchers found that nicotine given to adolescent rats induced a depression- like state characterized by a lack of pleasure and heightened sensitivity to stress in their adult lives.

The findings, published online on Thursday in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, suggest that the same may be true for humans.

"This study is unique because it is the first one to show that nicotine exposure early in life can have long-term neurobiological consequences evidenced in mood disorders," Bolanos said. "In addition, the study indicates that even brief exposure to nicotine increases risk for mood disorders later in life."

The Florida State University researchers injected adolescent rats twice daily with either nicotine or saline for 15 days. After the treatment period ended, they subjected the rats to several experiments designed to find out how they would react to stressful situations as well as how they would respond to the offering of rewards.

They found that behavioral changes symptomatic of depression can emerge after one week of nicotine cessation and -- most surprising -- that even a single day of nicotine exposure during adolescence can have long-lasting effects.

"Some of the animals in our study were exposed to nicotine once and never saw the drug again," Bolanos said. "It was surprising to us to discover that a single day of nicotine exposure could potentially have such long-term negative consequences."

The rats that were exposed to nicotine engaged in behaviors symptomatic of depression and anxiety, including repetitive grooming, decreased consumption of rewards offered in the form of sugary drinks and becoming immobile in stressful situations instead of engaging in typical escape-like behaviors. The researchers were able to alleviate the rats' symptoms with antidepressant drugs or, ironically, more nicotine.

Interestingly, adult rodents that were exposed to the same nicotine regimen as the adolescents did not display depression- like traits. It is not known exactly how nicotine works on the brain and nervous system to induce these effects, but exposure has toxic effects in several brain regions and neurotransmitter systems at distinct periods of development, Bolanos said.

Because various neurotransmitter systems in the brain continue to develop throughout adolescence, the researchers theorize that nicotine may negatively influence these systems resulting in altered functionality later in life. The study's findings underscore the need for further research into how this process occurs.

Scientists have long known there is a connection between smoking and mood disorders, but they have not been able to say for sure that one causes the other because there are so many factors influencing human behavior. This study provides support for the idea that smoking can induce symptoms of depression, and paradoxically, can also be a way of managing those same symptoms and enhancing the risk for addiction.

"The message to young people of course is don't smoke and don't even try it," Bolanos said. "If they do smoke, they need to be aware of the potentially long-term effects that recreational or even occasional cigarette smoking can have on their systems."

Coffee May Be Linked to Better Mental Health

The New York Times

Drinking coffee may do more than keep you awake. A new study suggests a potential link to mental health later in life as well.

A team of Swedish and Danish researchers tracked coffee consumption among 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia and 48 Alzheimer's disease.

After controlling for numerous socio-economic and health factors, the scientists found that the people who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two or fewer cups . Those who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, but there were not enough people in that group to draw statistically significant conclusions.

Dr. Miia Kivipelto, an associate professor of neurology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, does not as yet advocate drinking coffee as a preventive health measure. "We have no evidence that for people who are not drinking coffee, taking up drinking will have a protective effect," she said.

Kivipelto and colleagues suggest some possibilities for why coffee might reduce the risk of dementia . Earlier studies linked coffee consumption with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, which has been associated with a greater risk of dementia. And coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the blood-stream, reducing vascular risk factors .

The new study appears this month in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Below is the coffee shop in Seattle I spent many hours at studying, doing homework, socializing, etc., etc.

The Final Update

Below is the final video for your review. I hope it is somewhat helpful.

As you have heard, you are allowed to use ONE page (one side) of handwritten notes. I have made this decision due to the fact that you are limited by time (less than 90 minutes) with a demanding essay.

I will be at school all day Friday so please feel free to drop by and hand in assignments or to just say hello! I wish you all the very best next semester. I hope your time in IB Psychology was enjoyable and that you feel that you got something out of it! Please e-mail me any suggestions for next year (and what not to change!). Every year I go back to the "lab" and redesign the course.

Sunday night the blog will shift to world history, BUT, there will be plenty of postings relevant to psychology AND those of you testing in psych should check it often!

Final Outline

A few notes for the final exam:

1. DO NOT go crazy with tons of memorized details. This is not the focus of the essay. I know you are feeling stressed because it seems like a lot. PLEASE, the intent of the final is for you to showcase what you have learned by focusing on two disorders. DO NOT spend a lot of time on details (such as listing every characteristic, or cause, or therapy, etc.)
2. I will post a sample outline via video tomorrow AM.
3. Below is a more general sample outline -- I altered what I did in the review session today. THIS IS NOT what the essay must be like for everyone.
4. Tie in c/g/e/m where possible

Outline:

P1: Introduction
--Define what is considered "abnormal" behavior
--Identify the disorders you will cover
--Theme/Thesis -- what these two disorders have in common

P2: Explain the theme/thesis
--Here you can also define both of the disorders

BE SURE TO CONNECT BACK TO YOUR THESIS AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE!

P3: Characteristics of disorder 1

P4: Explain two causes of disorder 1

P5: Analysis of causes - (diathesis-stress model might help here)

P6: Therapy

P7: Characteristics of disorder 2

P8: Two causes of disorder 2

P9: Analysis of causes - (diathesis-stress model might help here)

P10: Therapy

P11: Tie it all together

P12: Conclusions

Keeping Things in Perspective

Schizophrenia

Tomorrow is our final day together! I must say that this has been an incredibly wonderful semester for me. I have had so much fun. You all have been wonderful students and I truly consider myself very lucky to have been your teacher. PLEASE stop in and say hello!


Tomorrow's topic is schizophrenia (the above image is a drawing done by a person with schizophrenia). Like eating disorders, I will try and condense a great deal of information into one lecture! There will be a few video clips along with a demonstration. WARNING: the demonstration can be rather disturbing to some students.

Tomorrow I will also handout the final exam essay. You will have next Monday and Tuesday to review in class. You will turn in STAMPED outlines along with peer review comments.

Monday night I will post the FINAL EXAM video. It will be the last video of the class. The video will outline the final exam as well as review a few key concepts from the semester.

In Case You Missed Genie!

Go here to see the video on Genie online.

Do great in tomorrow's socratic seminar!

An Evolving View of Depression

In the world of therapy, Dr. Aaron T. Beck is a rock star.

Considered the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of psychological treatment that has swept the country in recent decades, he has been so famous for so long that some are surprised to find out that he is still, at 87, hard at work.

Beck has recently come out with a new, overarching theory of depression, the mood darkness that in any given year afflicts an estimated 5 percent of Americans (and probably a higher percentage this year).

More than a generation ago, Beck helped overturn the classical idea that depression was "anger turned inward," a form of self-punishment.

Instead, back then he put forth a cognitive model of depression - that it is a problem of negative bias and habits of thought. Any failure means "I am a loser." A rejection means "Nobody loves me."

Now, he has updated his cognitive model with the latest advances in brain science and genetics, and published it in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Beck, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, cautions that much of the research he cites is still preliminary. But he sketches out a coherent overview of converging psychology and biology that goes roughly like this:

Begin with genes. Beck and others used to speculate about a "blue gene." Researchers are now beginning to identify specific genes that could make the brain "hyperreactive to negative experiences," leading to depression, he writes.

For example, a gene that affects the brain chemical serotonin appears to influence how likely it is that a major stressful event will lead to depression. Studies suggest this serotonin gene is also linked to a tendency toward negative thinking.

How could a gene lead to negative thinking? Well, to continue the example, that serotonin gene appears to make the amygdala, an emotional center of the brain, hyperactive.

Studies have found that a hyperactive amygdala is linked to extra sensitivity to negative stimuli, such as unpleasant images or events.

People end up viewing the world negatively - noticing the weeds, not the flowers.

Other studies suggest a biological pathway to depression involving stress hormones that Beck summarizes this way: Stressful events trigger the hypersensitive amygdala to overact, producing a distorted negative reaction, which prompts excessive stress hormones, leading to depression.

There is also a "top-down" piece of the puzzle: brain scans have found that in depressed people, the prefrontal cortex, known as the seat of rational thought, tends to be underactive.

They are not getting the needed reality check that says "Things are not really so bad." That may help explain how therapy that encourages depressed people to "reappraise" things, to challenge their negative responses, can act to lift mood. Cognitive behavioral therapy aims to help patients by focusing on problems in their thinking and teaching them ways to improve it.

There's more. But it seemed the easiest way to sum it up was to ask Beck what he would say these days if a patient asked, "Why am I depressed?"

His answer: "I would say that there is an interplay of genetic, developmental, and stress factors, and the contribution of each of these factors varies from individual to individual. Some individuals, for example, are depressed only if there is overwhelming stress. Others are vulnerable because of their genetic make up and become depressed with minor stressors."

And how does that answer differ from, say, 20 years ago? Back then, he said, he would have emphasized only the psychological factors, and left the genetic and biological factors "up in the air."

He believes, he said, that even a patient who is biologically vulnerable to depression can be helped by effective therapy. For severely depressed patients, he recommends cognitive therapy in conjunction with medication.

Beck's model of depression has evolved admirably, but it does not make the problem of depression simpler, said Philip Levendusky, director of the psychology department at McLean Hospital in Belmont.

The model reflects the fact that depression is complex and has many dimensions, Levendusky said.

Brain science has made amazing advances in recent years, but it is still light years away from understanding mental illness. Beck's theory is a snapshot of the state of the science - it is, Levendusky said, "a quantum jump beyond where we were once upon a time, and probably three quantum jumps from where we'll ultimately be."

Still, Beck ends his August 2008 American Journal of Psychiatry article, which he said brought him a far greater response than anything else he had written, with optimism.

"I have reason to hope that future research will perhaps provide a new paradigm which for the first time can integrate findings from psychological and biological studies to build a new understanding of depression," he wrote.

And in the meanwhile, said Michael W. Otto, director of Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, depression can be treated even without a full understanding of its origins.

However it starts, he said, it has a life of its own. "It's a pattern that needs to be broken," he said, "and the evidence is that it can be broken."

--NYT

Cognitive Essay::::UPDATE

Grades are slowly coming in and should be complete by Saturday night (hopefully sooner!).

There will be a curve along with the adjustments made given the testing circumstances. So even if you see your grade on eSIS, please wait for the final curve to take effect!

Cheers!
Caro

Intervention: extra credit option

Below is an episode of Intervention on anorexia. Please view ALL parts below and post your analysis of her case here for EXTRA CREDIT! You have until Monday night for any comments to count as credit.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

Happy Friday!

It was great seeing everyone!
I will post the Intervention episode on anorexia Saturday.

Cheers!

Enjoy this classic 1980s song and video!

Friday: Eating Disorders

WARNING: Disturbing images are in the below video


PREVALENCE

• It is estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder – seven million women and one million men
• One in 200 American women suffers from anorexia
• Two to three in 100 American women suffers from bulimia
• Nearly half of all Americans personally know someone with an eating disorder (Note: One in five Americans suffers from mental illnesses.)
• An estimated 10 – 15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are males

MORTALITY RATES

• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness
• A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.
• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems

ADOLESCENTS

• Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among adolescents
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25
• 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight
• 80% of 13-year-olds have attempted to lose weight

RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES

• Rates of minorities with eating disorders are similar to those of white women
• 74% of American Indian girls reported dieting and purging with diet pills
• Essence magazine, in 1994, reported that 53.5% of their respondents, African-American females were at risk of an eating disorder
• Eating disorders are one of the most common psychological problems facing young women in Japan.

Statistics taken from the South Carolina Department of Mental Health

Change of Plans for Next Week: Genie Returns

Hello Everyone,

A few changes are here to the course plan for next week. The readings are the same but the class time will be rather different! SPREAD THE WORD!

FRIDAY: I will be handing out a new agenda for the rest of IB Psychology. I will also post the adjusted plan on mrcaro.com and link to it from the blog.

Click Here for the new plan! E-mail with questions!

Cognitive Essay Update

Due to the week missed to snow and my absence, the tests will be slightly pre-curved.

I will try and have all essays graded by mid to late next week.

I will post scores on eSIS as I grade them after I do the first set to allow for grading moderation (I like to grade them all and then go back and control for any unintended grading variance).

Psych News: Unique male sweat has sexual message: Rice experts find female brain reacts in study

Chicago Tribune - January 11, 2009

A woman may not consciously think of a man's sweat during intimate moments. But her brain appears to recognize the scent and the significance of the emotions it conveys right away.

That's the conclusion of a Rice University study that exposed 19 twentysomething women to various scents, including "normal" sweat from males as well as so-called "sexual" sweat -- more on this in a moment.

Although the research doesn't have immediate implications for male-female relationships -- don't put away the cologne just yet, fellas -- it does advance scientists' understanding of how humans communicate chemically.

Everyone pretty well understands how people communicate through talking and facial expressions. But elsewhere in the animal kingdom, chemicals such as pheromones are commonly used to communicate, be it to attract a mate or warn a competitor.

The question Rice psychologist Denise Chen and her colleagues set out to better understand is how people might communicate chemically and, more specifically, how the brain processes chemical signals from other humans.

The experiment they devised involved the collection of sweat from men who wore rayon/polyester pads under their armpits. For normal sweat, they watched 20-minute educational videos and, for sexual sweat, 20-minute erotic videos.

As it happens, humans have a variety of sweat glands. The sweat produced after a long day's work is different from that after a workout, which is different, in turn, from that produced by a roll in the hay.

Chen and her colleagues then devised settings in which female participants were exposed to different sweat "scents" while being monitored by brain-scanning, magnetic resonance imaging equipment. The women didn't know what they were smelling and couldn't differentiate among the various types of sweats.

But their brains could.

"The sexual sweat lit up different regions of their brains," Chen said.

She said the work suggests the brain can recognize an emotional component in sexual sweat, somehow differentiating it from normal sweat.

The research is part of an emerging scientific discipline that aims to determine whether human brains can process pheromones -- chemicals that trigger a natural behavioral response in animals of the same species.

"This is a very hot and controversial area of research," said Dr. Jay Gottfried, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University.

The Chen study, Gottfried said, adds to the scientific debate, because it used natural scents rather than synthetic ones.

The next step, he said, is to determine whether sweat scents trigger behavioral changes in woman, such as making them feel more or less attracted to a man.

The Killers cover a great Joy Division song. The video takes clips from the movie "Control":

Anxiety Disorders

This Week
The primary focus for this week is the class of anxiety disorders. As you make your way through the readings, be sure to take close notes of research mentioned. You should be done with all anxiety disorders by Thursday/Friday.

There are some questions regarding the case study part of the project. Here are some new instructions:

In a small group, each member should select ONE kind of anxiety disorder and make up a case study. For instance, say I was in your group, I might select PTSD. I then follow Appendix II and make up a person suffering with PTSD. I will report the case to the group. The group will then analyze the case for causes of the PTSD and best therapy.

Below are three interviews with people suffering from anxiety disorders. As you listen to the interviews, be sure to consider the characteristics of the disorder. Keep in mind that these are not actors/actresses.

Panic Disorder


OCD


PTSD


Eating Disorders
Friday I will be guest speaking on eating disorders. I will try and integrate a few video clips into the lecture.

Be sure to check eSIS throughout the week for frequent grade updates!

PLEASE e-mail me any questions or concerns you have!

IAs are DONE!

Friday!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Just a few notes:
1. I will be posting a video on anxiety disorders this weekend. I hope it helps you with the project! The video will have three interviews as well as some notes.
2. I am very close to finishing the IAs. Be sure to check eSIS by Sunday night. AND e-mail me to schedule a time to meet and walk through the IA for your testers!
3. Let me know if you have any questions about the project. Sorry for any confusion.

The Doves: there goes the fear

Updates 1/8

The follow is the information you need if you would like to apply for college credit from PCC. WARNING: if you do not want the grade to be transferred to your college, do not apply for the PCC credits. (So if you have a D in the class and do not want it to affect your college GPA, do not apply for the PCC credits.)
Teacher: Frank Caro

High School Title: IB Psychology

HS ID# 2774A

PCC Course: PSY 201

Credits: 4

PCC CRN: 18369

Prerequisite: Placement in WR 121
Don't worry about the back side of the form for my signature to override the pre-requisite, PCC made a note that I was out and they will override it on my behalf.
The form is DUE to Mrs. Watkins by the 23rd of January!

IA NEWS::::
IAs for those Testing in Psychology this Spring
--PLEASE e-mail me to schedule a time and day in February to go over your IA prior to sending it to IB. OR
--Upon my return on January 30th, 2009, PLEASE see me to schedule a meeting to go over your IA prior to IB grading. It is critical that we meet to go over any edits prior to submission. It makes a big difference in your IB score! OR
--I will be at THS next Friday to guest lecture on eating disorders. That would also be a good day to schedule a time in February for us to go over your IA!

NEWS

Hello Everyone!

I hope the cognitive exam went well! I have a few updates for you all:

For College Credit
1. Those students who would like to receive PCC credit for your articulated class this semester, need to complete the PCC Dual Credit Registration Form. -- this form will be handed out Thursday.
2. It is DUE on the 20th to Mrs. Watkins.

IAs
Monday: IA Grade Sheets will be returned. Please look it over and e-mail me with any questions. In general, the IA grades are looking great!

Dysfunctional Psychology
Check the blog for videos on abnormal behavior. This weekend I will post a video on anxiety disorders.

COGNITIVE ESSAY UPDATE

Questions 1 AND 4 are the potential questions

The Week Ahead (1/5 - 1/9)

Welcome Back!!!

Although I will be out of the class this month, I will be online! So please e-mail me or post questions!

Given some of the constraints we are under, we will be covering Dysfunctional Psychology instead of Developmental. Chapter Five in the Reader is on Developmental Psychology. Therefore, I have copied off for you a new Chapter Five: Abnormal Psychology! The sub, Mrs. Watkins, will distribute the sections of the chapter to you as you need them. DO NOT PANIC regarding the amount of reading. Here is why: you will have plenty of class time to work through it AND basically all month for homework.

Cognitive Essay Outline 4



Monday (1/5)
1. Turn in extra credit assignments: dream study AND movie analysis -- NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED
2. Review the Plan for January
3. Begin review for Cognitive Essay Exam (scheduled for Wednesday)
--You should develop DETAILED outlines for each of the essay questions.
--Each outline needs to have peer editing and signatures
--Redo the outlines given the feedback and repeat this processes through Tuesday.
HW: STUDY for Cognitive Exam
3pm: Review Session

Tuesday (1/6)
Same agenda as Monday
HW: Study for Cognitive Exam

Wednesday (1/7)
Turn in the following:
--ALL Dream JAS forms
--ALL outlines
Cognitive Exam
--I instructed the sub, Mrs. Watkins, to allow for five minutes of over time if you need it.
HW: Obtain "Chapter Five: Abnormal Psychology" from class. The following readings will be NOT from the Reader but from the packets!
Read pages 9-16 AND:
1. Defining Abnormal Behavior
2. A general history of how abnormal behavior was treated – consider cross cultural differences
3. WARNING: be sure to read page 18

Thursday (1/8)
1. STAMP HW
2. Understanding the complexity of classifying and defining abnormality is CRITICAL to understanding dysfunctional psychology.
3. Discuss:
--Discuss criteria for determining abnormality (page 6-9) AND Cultural bases for abnormal behavior.
--Discuss (in brief) the history of how societies have treated abnormal behavior
--Lastly, discuss “Critical Thinking” questions on page 18.
3. Video: Abnormal Psychology
HW: Read pages 69-76 (in same packet) and take notes on the classification system of assessment of abnormal behavior

Friday (1/9)
1. STAMP HW
2. Discuss Culture-Bound Syndromes – pages 73-74 AND Discuss evaluation of the DSM system – pages 74-76.
3. Cognitive approach to treating abnormality -- readings (ABC and Beck) and worksheet
4. Discuss project: Case Booklet
HW: Anxiety Disorders: begin project and complete work for panic disorder.

Cognitive Essay 2

Xavier

Hey Everyone! I am looking forward to meeting you all in January!

Cognitive Essay Review

Essay Question 1

Stay tuned for videos for essay options 2 and 4...

Happy New Year!!!

IA Grades Have Been DELAYED

Due to being in the hospital all last week, grading the IAs has been delayed. That said, serious grading will begin Thursday.

Stay tuned for important UPDATES for January....

X Has Arrived!

Xavier is here! He was born on Christmas Eve.
We have been in the hospital since then!

I will respond to all posted questions tomorrow morning.

Cognitive Essay and Happy Holidays!

I am sorry that you all have this essay hanging over your heads during the break. I am confident you will do outstanding! Again, let's get ready to make IB Psychology history.

DUE on January 5th, 2009
1. JAS for Aserinsky & Kleitman
2. JAS for Cartwright
3. JAS for Hobson
4. NOTES for Domhoff
5. EXTRA CREDIT DREAM STUDY - NO LATE SUBMISSIONS
6. EXTRA CREDIT VIDEO: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND - NO LATE SUBMISSIONS

Cognitive Psychology Essay Options for January 7th, 2009
See Page: 212
Essay Options: 1, 2, and 4

I will be posting, within the next two-three days, a review video or videos which will cover the three essays. But please feel free to contact me with any questions! The first two days back will be review days and I will be at THS at 3pm on the 5th to hold a review session for the exam on the 7th. I will also try and hold a more brief session on the 6th after school.

Stay tuned for those videos!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!
BE SAFE!

The below video is from Golfrapp. I saw them live two years ago. It was a great show!

Episode II: Activation-Synthesis and the Neurocognitive Theories of Dreams

Again, I apologize for the picture quality. I am using free software! Stay tuned for more critical updates Sunday night. Enjoy!

Dreams: Episode I: Freud

Hello Everyone!

Below I have posted the first of a series of videos (it is my lame attempt at making up for the lost snow days...I apologize in advance for the quality...I will get better at them I hope). For every video I post, feel free to participate by applying what you have read from the homework readings on dreams, posted lecture notes, and what you have seen in the video, and elsewhere, by posting comments. Such participation will be applied to your grade.

Linked below is the Extra Credit Assignment DUE January 5th, 2009!
CLICK HERE:::::EXTRA CREDIT DREAM RESEARCH OPTION
This extra credit assignment is a serious undertaking! Know that it is worth your while (20 points extra credit) but it is an effort for sure! Follow the instructions for how to recall a dream and contact me if you have any difficulties and/or questions.

Check the blog often for NEWS on the IA, Cognitive Psychology Essay, Dreams, and January's coming plans!

CLOSED: Friday Dec 19, 2008

Check back later today  for updates...Including tips for e-mailing me the IA. 

Sorry, I deleted the wrong post! Last night's was an historic dialog...

REPLAY: By Request:

NEWS from Dr. Unis

The below is relayed from Omar.

FROM THE WORDS OF MASTER DAVE UNIS HIMSELF! HE HASTH EMAILTH HISTH GOOD
TIDINGS TO ME BEHOLD THE WORD OF MASTER!!

"Hey, spread the word about this: If we don't have school tomorrow, you
guys can turn in your IAs to the Tigard Public Library's Children's Desk
and get priority grading status over those who turn them in tomorrow by
email. Turnitin.com is not working for Tigard High right now, so
we'll worryabout submitting those later. "The Massa of Disaster"

What is Beautiful is Good -- Reference page:

References

Dion, K. K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285-290.

Dion, K. K. (1972). Physical attractiveness and evaluations of children's transgressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24, 207-213.

Tigard-Tualatin Sch. Dist.: Closed (Effective tomorrow - Thu Dec 18th)

The Plan for the Break

Although the end is near, we must make the most of our time from afar! I suspect we will be apart these last few days prior to the break, thus I will lay out the plan for winter break and make hints for January.

First and foremost, many of you are concerned about the IA (and rightfully so). Allow me to get that out of the way first. You should e-mail your FULL IA in one main attachment (or in as few as possible) in Word (.doc or .docx). DO NOT SEND MICROSOFT WORKS FILES -- THEY WILL BE CONSIDERED LATE. Feel free to send me a test fire! PDF works as well. This is DUE by MIDNIGHT This Friday.

Your IA will be graded as usual save the Discussion section. Given that you most likely will not get these back in time, REVISE your Discussion the best you can. Please, stick closely to the rubric. Too many of you have ventured away from this for some reason. The further you venture, the worse the score. I will grade the Discussion with the understanding that you did not have my feedback. Be careful and do your best work here. It is worth 60 points. Please do not send me the entire thing to read again. If you have specific questions, simply send the section you have a question on. I am currently overwhelmed with requests for revisions. Sadly, I am unable to keep up with the demand. If you send me a single question with the text, I can respond very fast! That is good for you and me!

Regarding this Week's Readings
Wednesday (12/17)
Read pages: Freud and Dreams: 279 AND Read pages: 302: Unromancing The Dream - JAS

Thursday (12/18)
1. Review your Notes on Dreams
Read pages: 308: A New Neuocognitive Theory of Dreams - Take Notes on theory, applications, and analysis

Friday (12/19)
1. Dream Analysis: The Wolf Man page 319

Please use the blog as a classroom in that if you post questions, I can answer and others can learn from it!

EXTRA CREDIT DREAM RESEARCH OPTION
This extra credit assignment is a serious undertaking! Know that it is worth your while (20 points extra credit) but it is an effort for sure! Follow the instructions for how to recall a dream and contact me if you have any difficulties and/or questions.

Over the break, if you wish, view, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and write a 1-2 page response on how the neural network model of information processing would explain and evaluate the movie's premise.

January will be the final unit of IB Psychology: Dysfunctional Psychology. I will be designing the plan in the next few days. Although I will not be with you, I will be online and willing to help. I plan to make a few appearances in January to go over Eating Disorders and Schizophrenia. I will also be posting videos to the blog and the sub will play these files in class. So, be sure to check the blog often!

In short, e-mail me any questions and/or concerns!

Have a wonderful winter break! I will miss you all in January so keep me posted on how things are.

I leave you with a video...of course. This is one of THE BEST videos. It is all about dreams! So enjoy!

Tuesday from Home

1. PLEASE stay tuned and check the blog often for key updates
   
2. Check eSIS for grade updates 
   

Tuesday (12/16) -- from home
1. Read/Study Notes on Sleep and Dreams PDF OR
Notes on Sleep and Dreams - PowerPoint Version

2. Read/Study Introduction to Freud PDF OR
Introduction to Freud PowerPoint Version

HW: Read pages: 289: To Wish Upon Dream - JAS
If we are out past Tuesday, I will be posting PodCasts for Dream theory...stay tuned.

CLOSED

Tigard-Tualatin Sch. Dist.: Closed Tuesday December 16th. 12 month district office
employees and district office administrators report as safety allows. (Effective
tomorrow - Tue Dec 16th) UPDATE

Welcome to Freudian Psychology

Because we are missing a day of school (and maybe more), I have posted the lecture notes on Freud. (click the link to access the PDF file). WARNING: when we go over this in class, I will discussing much more information than what is here. So, review these notes and come prepared to ask questions AND write more notes down on this document during lecture. I have printed copies at school so no need to print your own.

Stay tuned for more UPDATES as new breaks on school status and our changing plans...

The Week Ahead

Enjoy the snow day everyone! Don't lose site of the IA however! It is still due Friday! Take Monday to work on your IA! No new homework is assigned for Monday night.

Tuesday (12/16)
1. Finish Notes on Sleep
2. Introduction to Freud
HW: Read pages: 289: To Wish Upon Dream - JAS

Wednesday (12/17)
1. Finish Freud and Freud on Dreams
2. Notes on Dreams
HW: Read pages: 302: Unromancing The Dream - JAS
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE IF WEATHER PERMITS

Thursday (12/18)
1. Notes on Dreams
HW: Read pages: 308: A New Neuocognitive Theory of Dreams - Take Notes on theory
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE IF WEATHER PERMITS

Friday (12/19)
1. Dream Analysis: The Wolf Man and Others
HW: EXTRA CREDIT DREAM RESEARCH OPTION

NO SCHOOL MONDAY

Tigard-Tualatin Sch. Dist.: All Tigard-Tualatin School District schools and
facilities closed Monday (Effective tomorrow - Mon Dec 15th)

WEATHER REPORT

CHECK BACK TONIGHT FOR UPDATES ON SCHOOL AND HOMEWORK...DEVELOPING...

Dreams: the Unknown Country

The Final Week Together: Dreams

BREAKING NEWS

Will be announced tomorrow

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE SHOWING NEXT WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

Happiness Is

You may think your attentive spouse, your loving children and your good friends are what make you happy. But something else may be going on: The people they're connected with are making you happy too.

So suggests a new study proposing that happiness is transmitted through social networks, almost like a germ is spread through personal contact. The research was published Thursday in BMJ, a British medical journal.

It's the latest in a growing body of work investigating how our social connections - neighbors, friends, family, co-workers, fellow congregants at church and other associates - affect us. The premise is that we live in a social environment that shapes what we do and how we think and feel.

"We've known for some time that social relationships are the best predictor of human happiness, and this paper shows that the effect is much more powerful than anyone realized," said Daniel Gilbert, author of "Stumbling on Happiness" and a professor of psychology at Harvard University.

Previous research by the authors, James Fowler of the University of California-San Diego, and Dr. Nicholas Christakis at Harvard, has concluded that social networks influence obesity and tobacco use by altering perceptions of acceptable weight and desirable behavior.

Now they've turned their attention to the emotional realm, exploring how social ties influence our moods and our sense of well-being. Their primary finding: People who are surrounded by happy people are more likely to be happy themselves. And it's not only people in our immediate circles who make a difference - it's the people surrounding the people we know.

Imagine several pebbles thrown into a pool of water that send ripples outward, said Fowler, an associate professor of political science. Each pebble represents a happy person and the waves the impact of that person's mood on others. This impact, his study found, extends through several degrees of separation, to the friends of a person's friends.

Some experts question whether the researchers' statistical methodology can support that conclusion. It's difficult to sort out cause and effect in this kind of research and the authors may not have done so with enough rigor, said Charles Manski, a Northwestern University economics professor who studies how inferences can be drawn from social interactions.

He asks, is it that one person's happiness makes another person happy, or could it be that another factor experienced by both people is affecting both?

Say two friends are watching a TV show together, and one laughs after the other does, Manski said. It may look like the first person's chuckle is the cause of the second, but the jokes on the TV show might inspire both reactions.

Christakis said his research factored out such mutual influences. The study asked the subjects - 4,739 participants in the famous Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts - to complete a survey including four questions relating to happiness three times between 1983 and 2003. They also provided information about social contacts, which allow researchers to map their connections.

The study found that happy people form clusters and the happiest people are those most centrally located in the clusters.

"If you imagine the fabric of humanity as a patchwork quilt, it turns out if you're happy or not depends on if you're in a happy or unhappy patch," Christakis said.

"We postulate that people who are in closer, more frequent contact with each other are more susceptible to catching each other's moods," Fowler said.

The researchers stress that personal factors such as jobs or marriages also affect happiness and that although happiness may fluctuate, people tend to return to a personal happiness "set point" over time. It is this relatively stable emotional condition they examined in the paper, not the fleeting moods people experience day to day.

Richard Suzman, director of the division of behavior and social research at the National Institute on Aging, said the line of research holds "enormous promise in helping us improve interventions aimed at helping people change behaviors and improving public health."

Such interventions may involve targeted programs designed to alter social networks that influence behavior. The institute on aging has provided funding for Fowler and Christakis' work.

An editorial accompanying the report in BMJ called its conclusions "intriguing" but advised caution. Framingham, a relatively small community, may prove unique in ways not yet understood, wrote Peter Sainsbury, director of population health in Sydney South West Area Health Service in Australia.

As for whether unhappiness is also spreadable, Fowler and Christakis plan to look at that topic in upcoming papers on loneliness, depression and social networks.

Scientists ask: Is technology rewiring our brains?

NEW YORK - What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists.

While violent video games have gotten a lot of public attention, some current concerns go well beyond that. Some scientists think the wired world may be changing the way we read, learn and interact with each other.

There are no firm answers yet. But Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA, argues that daily exposure to digital technologies such as the Internet and smart phones can alter how the brain works.

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.

So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.

Small says the effect is strongest in so-called digital natives - people in their teens and 20s who have been "digitally hard-wired since toddlerhood." He thinks it's important to help the digital natives improve their social skills and older people - digital immigrants - improve their technology skills.

At least one 19-year-old Internet enthusiast gives Small's idea a mixed review. John Rowe, who lives near Pasadena, Calif., spends six to 12 hours online a day. He flits from instant messaging his friends to games like Cyber Nations and Galaxies Ablaze to online forums for game players and disc jockeys.

Social skills? Rowe figures he and his buddies are doing just fine in that department, thank you. But he thinks Small may have a point about some other people he knows.

"If I didn't actively go out and try to spend time with friends, I wouldn't have the social skills that I do," said Rowe, who reckons he spends three or four nights a week out with his pals. "You can't just give up on having normal friends that you see on a day-to-day basis."

More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates warned about a different information revolution - the rise of the written word, which he considered a more superficial way of learning than the oral tradition. More recently, the arrival of television sparked concerns that it would make children more violent or passive and interfere with their education.

Small, who describes his modern-day concerns in a new book called "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind," acknowledges he doesn't have an open-and-shut case that digital technology is changing brain circuitry.

Still, his argument is "pretty interesting and certainly provocative," although difficult to prove, says brain scientist Tracey Shors of Rutgers University.

Others are skeptical. Robert Kurzban, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, said scientists still have a lot to learn about how a person's experiences affect the way the brain is wired to deal with social interaction.

Life in the age of Google may even change how we read.

Normally, as a child learns to read, the brain builds pathways that gradually allow for more sophisticated analysis and comprehension, says Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University, author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain."

She calls that analysis and comprehension "deep reading." But that takes time, even if it's just a fraction of a second, and today's wired world is all about speed, gathering a lot of superficial information fast.

Wolf asks what will happen as young children do more and more early reading online. Will their brains respond by short-circuiting parts of the normal reading pathways that lead to deeper reading but which also take more time? And will that harm their ability to reflect on what they've read?

Those questions deserve to be studied, Wolf says. She thinks kids will need instruction tailored to gaining reading comprehension in the digital world.

Some research suggests the brain actually benefits from Internet use.

A large study led by Mizuko Ito of the University of California, Irvine, recently concluded that by hanging out online with friends - sending instant messages, for example - teens learn valuable skills they'll need to use at work and socially in the digital age. That includes lessons about issues like online privacy and what's appropriate to post and communicate on the internet, Ito said.

Rowe, the 19-year-old, said he and his buddies often debate whether technology might actually be bad for you. That includes kicking around the argument that computer use makes people socially inept.

Of course, he added, "we spend a lot of time on the computer and still have totally normal and perfect social lives."

Body-swap illusion tricks mind in new study

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Shaking hands with yourself is an amusing out-of-body experience. The illusion of having your stomach slashed with a kitchen knife, not so much.

Both sensations, however, felt real to most participants in a Swedish science project exploring how people can be tricked into the false perception of owning another body.

In a study presented Tuesday, neuroscientists at Stockholm's renowned Karolinska Institute show how they got volunteers wearing virtual reality goggles to experience the illusion of swapping bodies with a mannequin and a real person.

"We were interested in a classical question that philosophers and psychologists have discussed for centuries: why we feel that the self is in our bodies," project leader Henrik Ehrsson said. "To study this scientifically we've used tricks, perceptual illusions."

It sounded intriguing enough for me to try it, though entering the laboratory on Monday, I was having second thoughts.

The first props I saw were two kitchen knives, three naked dummies and a prosthetic hand sticking out from behind a curtain.

"You have the right to say stop at anytime if you feel uncomfortable," said Ehrsson's colleague, Valeria Petkova, as she rubbed my left hand with electrolytic gel and attached electrodes to the middle and index fingers.

She assured me I was not in any danger. Still, a nervous tingle rushed through my body as she placed the headset over my eyes.

In the first experiment, the goggles were hooked up to CCTV cameras fitted to the head of a male mannequin, staring down at its feet. Through the headset I saw a grainy image of the dummy's plastic torso. I tilted my head down to create the sensation I was looking down at my own body.

At that point, it didn't feel very real. But when Petkova simultaneously brushed markers against my belly and that of the mannequin, the effect started setting in. As my brain processed the visual and tactile signals, I had a growing impression that the mannequin's body was my own.

That was good fun, until the gleaming blade of a bread knife entered my field of vision. Petkova slid it across the dummy's stomach, sending shivers down my spine and a pulse of anxiety through the electrodes. My heightened stress level was illustrated by a spike in a computer diagram shown to me after the experiment.

"Approximately 70-80 percent of the people experience the illusion very strongly," Petkova said.

Apparently, I was one of them.

The second experiment was more benign. This time my headset was connected to cameras mounted on a round hat that Petkova was wearing. We faced each other, extended our right arms and shook hands.

Now that was weird: I was supposed to have the sensation of shaking hands with myself. The illusion wasn't perfect as I couldn't quite recognize Petkova's grip as my own, even though that's what the goggles meant to make me believe.

Perhaps the session was too short. The actual study, in which 87 volunteers participated, consisted of repeated sessions that gradually provided more accurate data. The results were published in PLoS One, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.

The principle finding was that under certain conditions a person can perceive another body as his or her own, even if it is of an opposite gender or an artificial body.

"These findings are of fundamental importance because they identify the perceptual processes that make us feel that we own our entire body," the study said.

Ehrsson said the study built on a previous experiment known as the "rubber hand illusion" in which participants were manipulated to experience a rubber hand as their own.

Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, said the Karolinska study was a "step up" from other research on the subject.

"This goes beyond other recent studies, where you've taken ownership of rubber hands and rubber legs," said Spence, who was not involved with the study.

His only concern was whether there might be any lasting effect on participants.

"The questions is what happens if you did it much longer? If you were in there for days and weeks. Would it be like something out of Total Recall?" Spence said, referring to the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger science fiction movie about a virtual vacation that turns into a nightmare.

Ehrsson suggested the findings could be applied in research on body image disorders by exploring how people become satisfied or dissatisfied with their bodies. Another possible application could be developing more advanced versions of computer games such as Second Life, he said.

"It could lead to the next generation of virtual reality applications in games, where people have the full-blown experience of being the avatar," Ehrsson said.

Nap without guilt: It boosts sophisticated memory

WASHINGTON - Just in time for the holidays, some medical advice most people will like: Take a nap.

Interrupting sleep seriously disrupts memory-making, compelling new research suggests. But on the flip side, taking a nap may boost a sophisticated kind of memory that helps a person see the big picture and get creative.

"Not only do we need to remember to sleep, but most certainly we sleep to remember," is how Dr. William Fishbein, a cognitive neuroscientist at the City University of New York, put it at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last week.

Good sleep is a casualty of the busy modern world. Surveys suggest few adults attain the recommended seven to eight hours a night.

Way too little clearly is dangerous: Sleep deprivation causes not just car crashes but all sorts of other accidents. Over time, a chronic lack of sleep can erode the body in ways that leave us more vulnerable to heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses.

Perhaps more common than insomnia, however, is fragmented sleep, the easy awakening that comes with aging, or, worse, the sleep apnea that afflicts millions, who repeatedly quit breathing for 30 seconds or so throughout the night.

Indeed, scientists increasingly are focusing less on sleep duration and more on the quality of sleep, what is called sleep intensity, in studying how sleep helps the brain process memories so they stick. Particularly important is "slow-wave sleep," a period of very deep sleep that comes earlier than better-known REM sleep, or dreaming time.

Fishbein suspected a more active role for the slow-wave sleep that can emerge even in a short power nap. Maybe the brain keeps working during that time to solve problems and come up with new ideas. So he and graduate student Hiuyan Lau devised a simple test: documenting relational memory, where the brain puts together separately learned facts in new ways.

First, they taught 20 English-speaking college students lists of Chinese words spelled with two characters, such as sister, mother, maid. Then half the students took a nap, being monitored to be sure they did not move from slow-wave sleep into the REM stage.

Upon awakening, they took a multiple-choice test of Chinese words they never had seen before. The nappers did much better at automatically learning that the first of the two-pair characters in the words they had memorized earlier always meant the same thing - female, for example. So they also were more likely than non-nappers to choose that a new word containing that character meant "princess" and not "ape."

"The nap group has essentially teased out what's going on," Fishbein concludes.

These students took a 90-minute nap, quite a luxury for most adults. But even a 12-minute nap can boost some forms of memory, adds Dr. Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School.

Conversely, Wisconsin researchers briefly interrupted nighttime slow-wave sleep by playing a beep - just loudly enough to disturb sleep but not awaken - and found those people could not remember a task they had learned the day before as well as people whose slow-wave sleep was not disrupted.

That brings us back to fragmented sleep, whether from aging or apnea. It can suppress the birth of new brain cells in the hippocampus, where memory-making begins, enough to hinder learning weeks after sleep returns to normal, warns Dr. Dennis McGinty of the University of California, Los Angeles.

To prove a lasting effect, McGinty mimicked human sleep apnea in rats. He hooked them to brain monitors and made them sleep on a treadmill. Whenever the monitors detected 30 seconds of sleep, the treadmill briefly switched on. After 12 days of this sleep disturbance, McGinty let the rats sleep peacefully for as long as they wanted for the next two weeks.

The catch-up sleep did not help: Rested rats used room cues to quickly learn the escape hole in a maze. Those with fragmented sleep two weeks earlier could not, only randomly stumbling upon the escape.

None of the new work is enough, yet, to pinpoint the minimum sleep needed for optimal memory. What's needed may vary considerably from person to person.

"A short sleeper may have a very efficient deep sleep even if they sleep only four hours," notes Dr. Chiara Cirellia of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

But altogether, the findings do suggest some practical advice: Get apnea treated. Avoid what Harvard's Stickgold calls "sleep bulimia," super-late nights followed by sleep-in weekends. And don't feel guilty for napping.