This is a blog post, an article and a video clip on the "google effect" or "google amnesia", which relates to the effect of technology on our memory:
The google effect, blog post The google effect, article 2 + video
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Information in this post may be useful for the learning outcome "The effect of social factors on cognitive processes". I have just read the book "IBrain. Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind" and I will summarize some of its' key points here.
Because of the plasticity of the brain, our minds are being altered by the use of technology, such as computers and television. This may also be the case for other technologies, such as books and some researchers believe that tool use had a significant effect on the brain development of our ancestors. In summary, it can be said that computer may alter our attention span, our ability to multi-task, our self esteem, our intelligence, our memory, our aggression, our empathy and our social relationships. It can also lead to burn-out and addiction. Our intelligence may be improved by computer use. Small, Bookheimer and Moody conducted MRI scans on people conducting google search. It was a natural experiment where the researchers included those who were frequent internet users and those who did not use internet frequently. The researchers also included a control task where the participants were scanned while reading a book. The results showed that just after 5 hours the computer naive subjects had rewired the area of their brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It is an area related to working memory and our our ability making decisions and integrating complex information. As a matter of fact, the average IQ scores are rising constantly every year. This is know as the Flynn effect. Our stress levels and our attention span can be affected by too much computer use. Linda Stone has coined the term continuos partial attention to describe the computer behavior of keeping track on everything but having a hard time focusing on anything (because of constant messaging and e-mailing). Being in this continuosly stressful alert state may eventually create techno burn out. The constant flow of the information on internet can also create stress. My blog is actually an example of how I try to keep track of every new information I can find related to psychology, and it is quite stressful. Computers may also increase our ability to multi-task. Multi-tasking allows for computer uses to get instant gratification, but it may also distract them, put them out of focus, create stress and make them work inefficiently. It is even suggested that technology such as television, video and computers contribute to the risk of attention deficit disorders (such as ADHD), especially if a person is exposed to the technology in early childhood. It is important to emphasize, however, that this research is mainly correlational, and it may also be that individuals with ADHD-like symptoms are more attracted to technology (because of its instant gratifications) than other individuals. In general, our attention and memory seem to diminish just while we are using computers. A personal example is that I find it harder to concentrate while reading a pdf file on a screen that reading the actual book or print-out. One research study showed that participants were more likely to remember information that was typed into a computer if they were told that the information would not be saved (as in comparison in that it would be saved) This is called the google effect; because we rely so much on search engines nowadays we often don't make an effort to remember information. Internet use can also have an effect on our self image and self esteem. I now remember a study that has correlated internet and facebook use and self esteem. People who use internet a lot tend to have lower self esteem and vice versa. Interestingly enough, the amount of pictures of yourself that you have on facebook is positively correlated with your self esteem. It can be assumed that the effect of internet on your self esteem can alter your brain. Lupien and colleagues have found that your self esteem is related to the size of your hippocampus. The bigger your ego, the larger your hippocampus. One danger of excessive computer use may be a diminished ability to read emotions and social signals of others. There is limited research on this, but the main argument behind this claim is that adolescence is an important period for the brain to develop empathic abilities, and if teenagers spend their most of their time alone with a computer, they miss vital time to develop social skills. There is a fear that obsession with technology delays social and reasoning abilities and impairs capacity to delay gratification (because computer games and multi media give constant and instant gratification) Interestingly enough, a psychological disorder that relates to social problems, autism, is also related to technology use. The more an individual is exposed to technology, the more likely he is to suffer from autism. As in the ADHD case, however, it may just be that technology attracts autistic individuals. There are also many types of psychological disorders that come out technology use, such as addiction to gaming, gambling, social networking, and online shopping. There are also psychological diseases that can be spread online through peer pressure or mass hysteria. Other psychological phenomena related to internet are online suicide clubs or internet suicides (where the suicide kills himself in public via the internet). Morgellons' disease is a disorder where the person believes that he has been infected by parasites through internet use. It is most likely a type of delusional parasitosis, where the sufferer has a false belief that he is infected by parasites and can feel them crawling under his skin. This is an interesting article related to localization of function and the plasticity of the brain.
Girl loses half her brain in a car crash and gains an artistic ability This article explains what went wrong when the Air France 447 flight crashed in the mid-Atlantic two years ago. It seems that it was a combination of computer malfunction and the human error. However, the persistent mistake that were committed by one of the pilots, is hard to believe by experienced aviators. The pilot tried to lift the plane, despite initially flying on a high altitude and it leading to the plane slowing down its' speed - the warning signal for the stall was ignored. It is very likely that the extraordinary circumstances during which the pilots were flying (flying in a thunderstorm) stressed them so much that their judgment was clouded. This relates well to the Yerkes-Dodson law on performance (too much arousal diminishes performance).
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877 This is an interesting database related to schemas and the associative structure of our semantic memory:
http://www.eat.rl.ac.uk/ It is based on research on what people tend to associate first with certain words when asked to make a free association to a word. "A" for instance, people tend to associate with "B", "book" is often associated with "library" or "read", "pyramid" to "Egypt" or "triangle", and so on. This is interesting and may be used to discuss the effects of biological factors on memory. Research suggests that your diet can effect your cognitive functioning significantly at old age. The best type of diet is apparently the Mediterranean-like diet. The link has been established in numerous studies:
Ulsam study http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/09/mediterranean-diet-may-help-memory-cognition/11294.html http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20090209/mediterranean-diet-may-preserve-memory The Mediterranean diet includes a high intake of vegetables, fruit, legumes, cereals, fish, mild to moderate alcohol consumption, a low intake of poultry, dairy products, sugar and meat and use of non-saturated fats such as olive oil during cooking. The reason why the Mediterranean diet is so beneficial is because it has abundant sources of Omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce the chance of coronary heart disease and may prevent cancer. This is an odd relationship - if you have asymmetrical features, you are more likely to have good leadership skills. Asymmetry is related attraction, so maybe those who are not as attractive are motivated to develop other skills. Who knows?
http://news.discovery.com/human/do-asymmetrical-features-111021.html Here is a website where you can test the symmetry of your face (and indirectly your leaderships skills ;)) You'll need a front face picture of yourself. http://www.anaface.com/ Recently I read the upside of irrationality by the behavioral economist Dan Ariely which I think is a very interesting book. Here is a summary of the most interesting points that are made in the book:
1. The problem of big bonuses. Ariely suggest that over-paying a person for a job may not actually improve his performance, because it may cause too much pressure. This is in accordance with the Yerkes-Dodgson law, that too much body arousal will impair performance. This is particularly true for cognitive demanding tasks. Ariely, Gneezy, Loewenstein and Mazaar (2009) went to rural India to have participants perform tasks of varying mental difficulty. The participants were promised a bonus if they performed well. There were three conditions in this experiment. Those who were payed with low bonuses (their bonus was equal to one day of their regular pay), and medium bonuses (their bonus was equal to two weeks of work) did fairly similar, whereas those who were promised a high bonus (equal to two months of their regular pay) often choked under the pressure. 2. Meaningful work. If your work seem to have little meaning you will naturally become less motivated to work. It is even so that we may be biologically constituted to prefer to earn our food rather than to be given it. This behavior is called "contrafreeloading". Animal research shows that animals to a certain extent prefer to earn their food through some slightly cognitive challenging tasks rather than just to be given it. This may because even animals need intellectual stimulation. Ariely, Kamenica and Prelec (2008) payed participants to build lego constructions where the constructions where the construction was taken apart while the participants were building the new one. Compared to the control group, seeing your construction being immediately taken apart after building it reduced the motivation for participants to continue building. 3. The Ikea-effect. If we have made something ourselves, we have a tendency to like it or prefer it more than other things, especially if it was difficult to make. In one experiment, Ariely and colleagues had participants create origami figures and then had an auction. It turned out that participants were ready to pay more for their figure than control participants. 4. The not-invented here bias. People value an idea more if they feel that have come up with the idea themselves. In one of Ariely's studies, participants were eager to spend more money and time for an idea that they had come up with themselves rather than an equally functional idea that they had not come up with themselves. In another experiment, the researchers jumbled the words for a proposed solution so that the participants had to think a bit in order to figure out the solution. By doing so, they valued the idea more than participants that had been presented the idea in a meaningful order. 5. The human need for revenge. There seems to be a tendency in humans to take revenge, even while doing business. For instance, if you receive poor service, you are less likely to give tip. In one experiment by Ariely, participants in a cafe were asked to take part in an experiment but while the experimenter were explaining the procedure, his phone rang. The experimenter answered the phone, talked for some time and did not apologize to the participant. When the participant was given her pay, it so happened that she "accidently" had been given more than she was supposed to get. Even when asked to count the bills, participants were less likely to inform the researcher that they had been given too much money. However, if the experimenter had apologized for him talking on the phone, participants were more honest. 6. On adaptation. Even though that it seems that the famous "if you slowly heat the water for a frog it will boil"-experiment is a tall tale, humans and other organisms are very adaptive. This has for instance been shown in experiments on pain (those with past experiences of pain (such as injuries) have higher thresholds for pain. Some research also suggest that for painful experiences, it is better to get over them as quickly as possible, instead of prolonging them with interruptions or breaks. However, the opposite is true for positive experiences, as shown on experiments using massage . A pleasant experience will be more pleasant if it includes interruptions or breaks. 7. On attraction. Ariely and company looked at data from internet dating websites and speeddating and found that some of the stereotypes of men and women seem to be true. Men are more likely to initiate contact with women and the attribute they look for foremost is beauty. Another finding was that people tend to look for attributes they have themselves in others (if they are beautiful they tend to prefer someone who is beautiful, if they are intelligent they tend to prefer someone who is intelligent), another support for the similarity hypothesis of attraction. The research also suggested that experience from dating may have a person alter what they look for in another person. For instance, if they cannot get someone who is intelligent, they may think it is more important that the person is kind. In English there is a saying: "Birds of feather flock together". This seems true on attraction, and Ariely's research may also suggest how this process works. Or, as the author Beate Grimsrud said in a lecture that I once attended: "If I can't have the one I want I'll take the one who wants me". Another finding of Ariely's research is that online dating works better if people are allowed to have conversations (such as chat functions) instead of developing better attribute searches for what you are looking for. In short, it is better to create a online dating site that treat people as people instead of consumer goods. Dating in reality also went much better (people liked each other more) if they had first met each other online. 8. On altruism. Small, Loewenstein & Slovac (2003) conducted an experiment where participants were asked to donate money they had just earned. In one condition, the charity project was described in statistical terms. In the other condition, the participants were presented with a picture and information about a girl who needed help. As expected, participants were likely to give more money to the victim that they could recognize. This is called the identifiable victim effect, and it seems true what Stalin once said, that "A death of one person is a tragedy, one million is statistic". The inability to imagine people suffering in high numbers is a problem, because it makes us more likely to help people who are suffering in smaller numbers (such as individual catastrophes) but less likely to help people who are suffering in larger numbers (such as malaria and AIDS) Proximity and vividness (ability to imagine something) are factors that affect bystanderism. A third factor is the drop-in-the-bucket-effect. If the need is great, but our individual contribution is small, we may not see the point why we should donate money. Thinking rationally also seems to reduce levels of altruism. In a variation of the Small, Loewenstein and Slovac experiment (2005) participants were asked to either do solve math problems or to write down their feelings towards George Bush Jr. Participants were more likely to donate more money if they had activated their emotional processes compared to if they were thinking rationally. Here is a link to the original study. 9. The effect of emotion on decisions. We already know from research on emotion that it is difficult, if not impossible to stop our initial emotional reaction. After some time we are able to make more rational, appropriate decisions. However, emotions affect our decisions constantly. In one experiment on the ultimatum game, participants were primed to feel either angry or happy by watching video clips. They then played the ultimatum game, which is a test to see the "irrational" need of fairness in transactions. The ultimatum game works in the way that one participant suggests a split of an amount of money. If the other participant accepts the split they walk away with their money, but if he doesn't accept it no one gets the money. There is a tendency for us no to accept unfair splits, even though it is not rational to do so (because then we get no money at all). If participants were primed to be angry, they were less likely to accept unfair splits. However, if they were happy, they were more likely to do so. An interesting phenomena related to the effect of emotion on decisions is self-herding. Self-herding is the tendency to conform to earlier decisions that we have made. It is as we tell ourselves that we need to make a similar decision because we have made another decision before and want some consistency in our actions. Self-herding may also explain how we develop certain personalities or habits. |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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