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What the top college students do better than their peers

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What the top college students do better than their peers

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Every class has students who excel and those who don't. The reasons behind academic performance are myriad, but when Douglas Barton and his team at Elevate Education set out to study and benchmark the most effective practices used by top students in Australia, the U.K., South Africa and the U.S. they found three common practices. The company has used its findings to coach students on the most effective study strategies.

Barton says 50 - 90 percent of students say IQ has the biggest impact on their ability to get good grades. Barton says his team found 13 other variables more important than IQ to predict academic achievement including things like self-discipline and self-motivation. So his first piece of advice to students is to stop worrying about IQ.

The other reason students often give for not succeeding at the level they want is that they aren't working hard enough. Barton quibbles with that assessment, saying it's not just about working hard, but rather about working hard in the right ways. Few of the top students don't work hard, but many students who work just as hard as the top students don't perform well. The reason is that they are working hard at the wrong things. Poor study skills zealously applied won't lead to better results, but are likely to lead to disengagement.

One of biggest differences between top students and everyone else was that when they study, they take practice tests. Only 11 percent of students do this, but they perform better because they are studying in a way that goes beyond memorizing material. On the flip side, most students report studying by making notes, re-reading notes, writing out notes or cramming. All these ways of studying emphasize rote memory.

Lastly, Barton says when the best students make studying schedules for themselves they first include things they like to do on their schedule and then work study time in after. This method naturally ensures that students are doing things they like to do every day in addition to studying, so they don't burn out. These balanced schedules are easier follow. In contrast, most students cram their schedules full of study times, intent on doing better, but quickly abandon the plan when they're unhappy with how little free time they have.

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Three Things Top Performing Students Know That Their Peers Miss | KQED

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Every class has students who excel and those who don't. The reasons behind academic performance are myriad, but when Douglas Barton and his team at Elevate Education set out to study and benchmark the most effective practices used by top students in Australia, the U.K., South Africa and the U.S.

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Phineas Gage: What happens when a rod goes through your frontal cortex?

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Jack and Beverly Wilgus, collectors of vintage photographs, no longer recall how they came by the 19th-century daguerreotype of a disfigured yet still-handsome man. It was at least 30 years ago. The photograph offered no clues as to where or precisely when it had been taken, who the man was or why he was holding a tapered rod. But the Wilguses speculated that the rod might be a harpoon, and the man's closed eye and scarred brow the result of an encounter with a whale.

So over the years, as the picture rested in a display case in the couple's Baltimore home, they thought of the man in the daguerreotype as the battered whaler.

In December 2007, Beverly posted a scan of the image on Flickr, the photo-sharing Web site, and titled it "One-Eyed Man with Harpoon." Soon, a whaling enthusiast e-mailed her a dissent: that is no harpoon, which suggested that the man was no whaler. Months later, another correspondent told her that the man might be Phineas Gage and, if so, this would be the first known image of him.

Beverly, who had never heard of Gage, went online and found an astonishing tale.

In 1848, Gage, 25, was the foreman of a crew cutting a railroad bed in Cavendish, Vermont. On September 13, as he was using a tamping iron to pack explosive powder into a hole, the powder detonated. The tamping iron-43 inches long, 1.25 inches in diameter and weighing 13.25 pounds-shot skyward, penetrated Gage's left cheek, ripped into his brain and exited through his skull, landing several dozen feet away. Though blinded in his left eye, he might not even have lost consciousness, and he remained savvy enough to tell a doctor that day, "Here is business enough for you."

Gage's initial survival would have ensured him a measure of celebrity, but his name was etched into history by observations made by John Martyn Harlow, the doctor who treated him for a few months afterward. Gage's friends found him"no longer Gage," Harlow wrote. The balance between his "intellectual faculties and animal propensities" seemed gone. He could not stick to plans, uttered "the grossest profanity" and showed "little deference for his fellows." The railroad-construction company that employed him, which had thought him a model foreman, refused to take him back. So Gage went to work at a stable in New Hampshire, drove coaches in Chile and eventually joined relatives in San Francisco, where he died in May 1860, at age 36, after a series of seizures.

In time, Gage became the most famous patient in the annals of neuroscience, because his case was the first to suggest a link between brain trauma and personality change. In his book An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage, the University of Melbourne's Malcolm Macmillan writes that two-thirds of introductory psychology textbooks mention Gage. Even today, his skull, the tamping iron and a mask of his face made while he was alive are the most sought-out items at the Warren Anatomical Museum on the Harvard Medical School campus.

Michael Spurlock, a database administrator in Missoula, Montana, happened upon the Wilgus daguerreotype on Flickr in December 2008. As soon as he saw the object the one-eyed man held, Spurlock knew it was not a harpoon. Too short. No wooden shaft. It looked more like a tamping iron, he thought. Instantly, a name popped into his head: Phineas Gage. Spurlock knew the Gage story well enough to know that any photograph of him would be the first to come to light. He knew enough, too, to be intrigued by Gage's appearance, if it was Gage. Over the years, accounts of his changed character had gone far beyond Harlow's observations, Macmillan says, turning him into an ill-tempered, shiftless drunk. But the man in the Flickr photogragh seemed well-dressed and confident.

It was Spurlock who told the Wilguses that the man in their daguerreotype might be Gage. After Beverly finished her online research, she and Jack concluded that the man probably was. She e-mailed a scan of the photograph to the Warren museum. Eventually it reached Jack Eckert, the public-services librarian at Harvard's Center for the History of Medicine. "Such a 'wow' moment," Eckert recalls. It had to be Gage, he determined. How many mid-19th-century men with a mangled eye and scarred forehead had their portrait taken holding a metal tool? A tool with an inscription on it?

The Wilguses had never noticed the inscription; after all, the daguerreotype measures only 2.75 inches by 3.25 inches. But a few days after receiving Spurlock's tip, Jack, a retired photography professor, was focusing a camera to take a picture of his photograph. "There's writing on that rod!" Jack said. He couldn't read it all, but part of it seemed to say, "through the head of Mr. Phi..."

In March 2009, Jack and Beverly went to Harvard to compare their picture with Gage's mask and the tamping iron, which had been inscribed in Gage's lifetime: "This is the bar that was shot through the head of Mr. Phinehas P. Gage," it reads, misspelling the name.

Harvard has not officially declared that the daguerreotype is of Gage, but Macmillan, whom the Wilguses contacted next, is quite certain. He has also learned of another photograph, he says, kept by a descendant of Gage's.

As for Spurlock, when he got word that his hunch was apparently correct, "I threw open the hallway door and told my wife, 'I played a part in a historical discovery!' "

Steve Twomey is based in New Jersey. He wrote about map and document thieves for the April 2008 issue of Smithsonian.

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Phineas Gage: Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient

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Jack and Beverly Wilgus, collectors of vintage photographs, no longer recall how they came by the 19th-century daguerreotype of a disfigured yet still-handsome man. It was at least 30 years ago. The photograph offered no clues as to where or precisely when it had been taken, who the man was or why he was holding a tapered rod.

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Oliver Sacks, psychologist : The man who mistook his wife for a hat, and other bizarre cases

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Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation

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Praise for The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat

"Insightful, compassionate, moving . . . the lucidity and power of a gifted writer." The New York Times Book Review

"A provocative introduction to the marvels of the human mind...." -Clarence E. Olsen, St. Louis Post Dispatch

"Dr. Sacks's best book....One sees a wise, compassionate and very literate mind at work in these 20 stories, nearly all remarkable, and many the kind that restore one's faith in humanity." -Noel Perrin, Chicago Sun-Times

"Dr. Sacks's most absorbing book. . . . His tales are so compelling that many of them serve as eerie metaphors not only for the condition of modern medicine but of modern man" -New York Magazine
"This book is for everybody who has felt from time to time that certain twinge of self-identity and sensed how easily, at any moment, one might lose it."

"Oliver Sacks has become the world's best-known neurologist. His case studies of broken minds offer brilliant insight into the mysteries of consciousness." -The Guardian

"Sacks explores neurological disorders with a novelist's skill and an appreciation of his patients as human beings." -Publishers Weekly

"Sensitive yet lively. . . . This book ranks with the very best of its genre. It will inform and entertain anyone, especially those who find medicine an intriguing and mysterious art." -Kirkus Reviews

A one-act opera adapted by Michael Morris, music by Michael Nyman, based on The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. Produced and libretto by Christopher Rawlence. First performed at the Inst. of Contemporary Arts, London, Oct. 30, 1986. U.S. Premiere at the American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia, Sept. 30, 1987. Performed at Lincoln Center Theater, New York City, July 14, 1988.

Theatrical production by Peter Brook, inspired by author Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. First production at the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, 1993; English version, "The Man Who...," first performed at the National Theatre, 1994 and 1995; Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1995; and elsewhere.

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"Populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction . . . Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be." - Sunday Times The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat "Short

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A TBI can happen to anyone, whether it happens while playing sports, at work, or just slipping on an icy sidewalk. Injuries can range from "mild" to "severe", with a majority of cases being concussions or mild TBI. The good news is that most cases are treatable and there are several ways to help prevent injury.

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TBI Basics | What you need to know about brain injury

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A TBI can happen to anyone, whether it happens while playing sports, at work, or just slipping on an icy sidewalk. Injuries can range from "mild" to "severe", with a majority of cases being concussions or mild TBI. The good news is that most cases are treatable and there are several ways to help prevent injury.

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Interactive chart of different lobes of the brain

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Interactive chart of different lobes of the brain

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Interactive Brain | How the brain works & the impact of injury

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Take an interactive journey to see how the brain works and what impact an injury can have

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Elizabeth Loftus talks about false eye witness accounts, the myth of repressed memories, and memory contamination and confabulation.

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Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus studies memories. More precisely, she studies false memories, when people either remember things that didn’t happen or remember them differently from the way they really were. It’s more common than you might think, and Loftus shares some startling stories and statistics -- and raises some important ethical questions.

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Some people remember EVERY second of their life!

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Some people remember EVERY second of their life!

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People who remember every second of their life  | 60 Minutes Australia

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Test your memory with this game from Johns Hopkins

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Think about your fifth-birthday party. Maybe your mom carried the cake. What did her face look like? If you have a hard time imagining the way she looked then rather than how she looks now, you're not alone.

The brain edits memories relentlessly, updating the past with new information. Scientists say that this isn't a question of having a bad memory. Instead, they think the brain updates memories to make them more relevant and useful now - even if they're not a true representation of the past.

To figure this out, researchers at Northwestern University asked 17 people to look at images of a scene, like a beach or a farm, with a small object like an apple layered on top. They were then shown a scene with the object in a new location. Then they were asked to move the object to its location in in the first picture. They always got it wrong.

Finally the participants were shown the original scene, with the apple in three places: the original location, the second or a brand-new one. They always picked the second, updated location.

"Their memory from the original location has been overwritten," says Joel Voss, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Northwestern. "It's taken that new location and stuck it to the original photograph."

This is a contrived laboratory setting, Voss tells Shots, so it's not guaranteed that the brain is taking current events in your life and stuffing them into your past. But the researchers had people do the experiment while observing their brain with a special MRI scanner.

The brain structure that the people in this experiment were using when they were rewriting their memories, the hippocampus, is very involved in autobiographical memory. "It's essentially as if the hippocampus doesn't care if it's putting together two new things," Voss says.

The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Voss and his co-author Donna Bridge tested the participants' memory of the original image, and they remembered it very well. So this wasn't a case of bad memory overall. It wasn't until they were asked to move the object and place it in the original spot that the memories changed.

"Our memories aren't perfect," Voss says. "They're not like tape recorders. There's a small current of thought that thinks these failures aren't necessarily a bad thing. Memory is not intended to allow you to remember what you did last week, or remember your childhood. The point is to help you make good choices right now."

It can be disturbing to realize that cherished memories may not be true, Voss agrees. But plenty of other studies have shown that memories are indeed often faulty. This doesn't keep you from recalling memories and treasuring them, Voss says. "But they might not be perfectly accurate."

And some things are worth forgetting. Voss, for one, is fine not remembering his father's 1980s mustache. "And the half-mullet," he says.

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Our Brains Rewrite Our Memories, Putting Present In The Past

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Even people with good memories can have a hard time remembering the past accurately. That may be because the brain is constantly editing memories, updating them with current information. This may make good evolutionary sense. But it also means that some of your cherished memories may be wrong.

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Is Photographic Memory Actually a Thing?

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RED, you should say "Blue."
As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown. If you want to try the same set of words, click on the "reload" button of your browser. If you want to continue with the experiment, click on "Continue Experiment."

Go to the first test.

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RED, you should say "Blue."As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown.

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Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers

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How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure.

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Texting and driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving

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Texting and driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving

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A person is distracted up to 27 seconds after texting.

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Oct. 22, 2015 - If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

One of the studies showed that it is highly distracting to use hands-free voice commands to dial phone numbers, call contacts, change music and send texts with Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri and Google Now smartphone personal assistants, though Google Now was a bit less distracting than the others.

The other study examined voice-dialing, voice-contact calling and music selection using in-vehicle information or "infotainment" systems in 10 model-year 2015 vehicles. Three were rated as moderately distracting, six as highly distracting and the system in the 2015 Mazda 6 as very highly distracting.

"Just because these systems are in the car doesn't mean it's a good idea to use them while you are driving," says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, senior author of the two new studies. "They are very distracting, very error prone and very frustrating to use. Far too many people are dying because of distraction on the roadway, and putting another source of distraction at the fingertips of drivers is not a good idea. It's better not to use them when you are driving."

The research also found that, contrary to what some may believe, practice with voice-recognition systems doesn't eliminate distraction. The studies also showed older drivers - those most likely to buy autos with infotainment systems - are much more distracted than younger drivers when giving voice commands.

But the most surprising finding was that a driver traveling only 25 mph continues to be distracted for up to 27 seconds after disconnecting from highly distracting phone and car voice-command systems, and up to 15 seconds after disconnecting from the moderately distracting systems.

The 27 seconds means a driver traveling 25 mph would cover the length of three football fields before regaining full attention.

"Most people think, 'I hang up and I'm good to go,'" Strayer says. "But that's just not the case. We see it takes a surprisingly long time to come back to full attention. Even sending a short text message can cause almost another 30 seconds of impaired attention."

"The voice-command technology isn't ready," says Joel Cooper, a University of Utah research assistant professor of psychology and a co-author of the new studies. "It's in the cars and is billed as a safe alternative to manual interactions with your car, but the voice systems simply don't work well enough."

"Many of these systems have been put into cars with a voice-recognition system to control entertainment: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facetime, etc. We now are trying to entertain the driver rather than keep the driver's attention on the road."

In 2013, 3,154 people died and 424,000 others were injured in motor vehicle crashes on U.S. roads involving driver distraction, says the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The new AAA reports urge that voice activated, in-vehicle information systems "ought not to be used indiscriminately" while driving, and advise that "caution is warranted" in smart-phone use while driving.

The studies are fifth and sixth since 2013 by University of Utah psychologists and funded by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. AAA formerly was known as the American Automobile Association. Strayer and Cooper ran the studies with Utah psychology doctoral students Joanna Turrill, James Coleman and Rachel Hopman.
The ratings: In-car systems and smartphone assistants are distracting
The previous Utah-AAA studies devised a five-point scale: 1 mild distraction, 2 moderate distraction, 3 high distraction, 4 very high distraction and 5 maximum distraction. Those studies showed cellphone calls were moderately distracting, with scores of 2.5 for hand-held calls and 2.3 for hands-free calls. Listening to a book on tape rated mild distraction at 1.7. Listening to the radio rated 1.2.

One of the new studies found mild distraction for in-vehicle information systems in the Chevy Equinox with MyLink (2.4), Buick Lacrosse with IntelliLink (2.4) and Toyota 4Runner with Entune (2.9).

High distraction systems were the Ford Taurus with Sync MyFord Touch (3.1), Chevy Malibu with MyLink (3.4), Volkswagen Passat with Car-Net (3.5), Nissan Altima with Nissan Connect (3.7), Chrysler 200c with Uconnect (3.8) and Hyundai Sonata with Blue Link (3.8). The Mazda 6's Connect system rated very highly distracting (4.6).

In some cases, the same voice-command system (like Chevy MyLink) got different distraction scores in different models - something the researchers speculate is due to varying amounts of road noise and use of different in-vehicle microphones.

The second new study found all three major smartphone personal assistants either highly or very highly distracting. Two scores were given to each voice-based system: A lower number for using voice commands only to make calls or change music when driving - the same tasks done with the in-car systems - and a higher number that also included using smartphones to send texts by voice commands.

Google Now rated highly distracting (3.0, 3.3), as did Apple Siri (3.4, 3.7), while Microsoft Cortana rated highly to very highly distracting (3.8, 4.1).

Strayer says of both in-car information systems and smartphone personal assistants: "These systems are often very difficult to use, especially if you're just trying to entertain yourself. ... The vast majority of people we tested ended up being frustrated by the complexity and error-prone nature of the systems."
How the studies were conducted
The new studies were conducted with participants driving the various cars at 25 mph or less around a 2.7-mile route in Salt Lake City's Avenues neighborhood as they used voice-commands to dial numbers, call contacts and tune the radio using in-car systems, and to dial numbers, call contacts, choose music and text using smartphones.

With researchers in the car, the drivers were tested for the extent of their distraction, even as they kept their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel after hitting a voice-command system button. A head-mounted LED light flashed red every three to five seconds at the edge of a driver's left eye. Drivers pressed a switch attached to a thumb when they saw the light. The researchers measured how voice interactions with a car or smartphone reduced drivers' reaction times and accuracy at seeing the flashing lights. The drivers also completed surveys about their perceived level of distraction, and videos measured how much of the time they kept their eyes on the road, mirrors or dashboard.

The in-vehicle information system study included 257 people and the smartphone personal assistant study had 65 participants, all with no at-fault accidents during the past five years. Unlike the 2013 and 2014 studies, which included primarily people in their 20s, subjects in the new studies ranged in age from 21 to 70.

In the in-car information system study, the researchers did an initial test on the subjects, then let them take the cars home for five days to practice using the systems. Then they returned for reassessment of the mental workload from using the systems.

Strayer personally doesn't even make hands-free cellphone calls while driving. He advises against using voice commands system while driving for purposes such as voice dialing, voice contact calling, surfing the Internet, sending email and text messages, reading email, tweeting or updating Facebook.

"If you are going to use these systems, use them to support the primary task of driving - like for navigation or to change the radio or temperature - and keep the interaction short."

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AAA FOUNDATION FOR TRAFFIC SAFETY NEWS RELEASE
Media Contact: Michael Green, (202) 942-2082, mgreen@national.aaa.com
New Hands-Free Technologies Pose Hidden Dangers for Drivers
Surprising Research Finds that Mental Distractions Can Persist Long after Completing a Task

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Oct. 22, 2015) - Potentially unsafe mental distractions can persist for as long as 27 seconds after dialing, changing music or sending a text using voice commands, according to surprising new research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The results raise new and unexpected concerns regarding the use of phones and vehicle information systems while driving. This research represents the third phase of the Foundation's comprehensive investigation into cognitive distraction, which shows that new hands-free technologies can mentally distract drivers even if their eyes are on the road and their hands are on the wheel.

"The lasting effects of mental distraction pose a hidden and pervasive danger that would likely come as a surprise to most drivers," said Peter Kissinger, President and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "The results indicate that motorists could miss stop signs, pedestrians and other vehicles while the mind is readjusting to the task of driving."

Researchers found that potentially unsafe levels of mental distraction can last for as long as 27 seconds after completing a distracting task in the worst-performing systems studied. At the 25 MPH speed limit in the study, drivers traveled the length of nearly three football fields during this time. When using the least distracting systems, drivers remained impaired for more than 15 seconds after completing a task.

"Drivers should use caution while using voice-activated systems, even at seemingly safe moments when there is a lull in traffic or the car is stopped at an intersection," said Marshall Doney, AAA's President and CEO. "The reality is that mental distractions persist and can affect driver attention even after the light turns green."

The researchers discovered the residual effects of mental distraction while comparing new hands-free technologies in ten 2015 vehicles and three types of smartphones. The analysis found that all systems studied increased mental distraction to potentially unsafe levels. The systems that performed best generally had fewer errors, required less time on task and were relatively easy to use.

The researchers rated mental distraction on a five-point scale. Category one represents a mild level of distraction and category five represents the maximum. AAA considers a mental distraction rating of two and higher to be potentially dangerous while driving.

The best performing system was the Chevy Equinox with a cognitive distraction rating of 2.4, while the worst performing system was the Mazda 6 with a cognitive distraction rating of 4.6. Among phone systems, Google Now performed best with a distraction rating of 3.0, while Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana earned ratings of 3.4 and 3.8. Using the phones to send texts significantly increased the level of mental distraction. While sending voice-activated texts, Google Now rated as a category 3.3 distraction, while Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana rated as category 3.7 and category 4.1 distractions.

"The massive increase in voice-activated technologies in cars and phones represents a growing safety problem for drivers," continued Doney. "We are concerned that these new systems may invite driver distraction, even as overwhelming scientific evidence concludes that hands-free is not risk free."

Previous AAA Foundation research established that a category 1 mental distraction is about the same as listening to the radio or an audio book. A category 2 distraction is about the same as talking on the phone, while category 3 is equivalent to sending voice-activated texts on a perfect, error-free system. Category 4 is similar to updating social media while driving, while category 5 corresponds to a highly-challenging, scientific test designed to overload a driver's attention.

Over the last two weeks, AAA has used the findings to continue our collaborative work with policymakers, safety advocates and manufacturers to improve the safety of future technology.

"Developers should reduce mental distractions by designing systems that are no more demanding than listening to the radio or an audiobook," continued Doney. "Given that the impairing effects of distraction may last much longer than people realize, AAA advises consumers to use caution when interacting with these technologies while behind the wheel."

Dr. David Strayer and Dr. Joel Cooper of the University of Utah conducted the research. A total of 257 drivers ages 21-70 participated in the study of 2015 model-year vehicles, while 65 additional drivers ages 21-68 tested the three phone systems.

Established by AAA in 1947, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, publicly-supported charitable educational and research organization. Dedicated to saving lives and reducing injuries on our roads, the Foundation's mission is to prevent crashes and save lives through research and education about traffic safety. The Foundation has funded over 200 research projects designed to discover the causes of traffic crashes, prevent them and minimize injuries when they do occur. Visit www.AAAFoundation.org for more information on this and other research.

As North America's largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA provides more than 55 million members with travel, insurance, financial and automotive-related services. Since its founding in 1902, the not-for-profit, fully tax-paying AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety and security of all travelers. AAA clubs can be visited on the Internet at AAA.com.
Links to B-roll video, other information and the two studies
AAA B-roll video about the University of Utah research is here: https://vimeo.com/aaapublicaffairs/review/141697388/791daa0c75

After the embargo expires, AAA news releases, high-resolution images, broadcast-quality video, fact sheets and podcasts will be available on the AAA NewsRoom at NewsRoom.AAA.com

PDFs of the two studies may be downloaded here:

In-vehicle systems: https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/strayerIII_FINALREPORT.pdf

Smartphones: https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/strayerIIIa_FINALREPORT.pdf

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Up to 27 seconds of inattention after talking to your car or smart phone | UNews

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Oct. 22, 2015 - If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new...

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Learning to grow and explore: The Growth Mindset

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Learning to grow and explore: The Growth Mindset

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Acton Academy Columbus | Private School | Dublin

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Carol Dweck - Growth Mindset - The Power of Yet -  Ted Talk

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

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Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

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There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it, including him.

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Why it's important to take breaks

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Spaced Practice - The Learning Scientists

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Metacognition, Interleaving, Spaced Practice, etc.

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The understanding of how one thinks and learns. It involves planning, monitoring, assessing and adapting one's efforts to learn, understand and perform. Metacognition practices increase one's level of awareness of his/her/their strengths and weaknesses.

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Higher-order theories of consciousness postulate that consciousness consists in perceptions or thoughts about first-order mental states. In particular, phenomenal consciousness is thought to be higher-order representation of perceptual or quasi-perceptual contents, such as visual images.

Higher-order theories are distinguished from other cognitive/representational accounts of consciousness which suggest that merely first-order mentality of certain sorts constitutes consciousness.

Higher-order theory can account for the distinction between unconscious and conscious brain processing. Both types of mental operations involve first-order manipulations, and according to higher-order theory, what makes cognition conscious is a higher-order observation of the first-order processing.

In neuroscience terms, higher-order theory is motivated by the distinction between first-order information in early sensory regions versus higher-order representations in prefrontal and parietal cortices.

Also called inner-sense theory, this version of higher-order theory proposes that phenomenal consciousness consists not in immediate sensations but in higher-level sensing of those sensations. Or put another way:

A phenomenally conscious mental state is a state with analog/non-conceptual intentional content, which is in turn the target of a higher-order analog/non-conceptual intentional state, via the operations of a faculty of 'inner sense'.

One motivation for this approach is that it accounts for phenomenal consciousness absent beliefs or behaviors associated with those experiences-so that, e.g., someone could feel pain without necessarily exhibiting functional reactions to pain.

David Rosenthal is a foremost advocate of this view. It claims that a mental state is conscious when it's the subject of a higher-order thought (HOT). Phenomenal consciousness in particular corresponds to certain kinds of mental states (e.g., visual inputs) that are the subjects of HOTs. Rosenthal excludes the special case in which one learns about one's lower-order states by conscious deduction. For instance, if psychoanalysis could reveal one's unconscious motives, this would not suddenly make them conscious.

The dispositionalist mirrors the actualist view except that the first-order mental state needn't actually be thought about-it only needs to be available to potentially be thought about.

While actualist accounts would seem to require immense higher-order computation on all first-order percepts, dispositionalist accounts do not; they merely require availability of first-order information. Such availability could come from, e.g., global broadcasting as in the Global Workspace Theory.

Self-representational higher-order theories consider the higher-order state to be constitutive or internal to its first-order state. This may be either because

1. the first-order and higher-order states are identical, with the same state serving two different roles, or

2. the first-order and higher-order states are part of the same whole, and the whole complex is what becomes conscious.

An example of the second, "part-whole" self-representational theory is Vincent Picciuto's "quotational theory of consciousness" in which consciousness consists of "mentally quoting" a first-order perception.

In this theory, higher-level processing determines that a first-order representation is reliable.

Similar to a HOT view, this theory proposes that the brain "learns" when there exists a trustworthy lower-level representation.

Higher-order theories originated in philosophy, but they have also gained some scientific defenders. Here are some examples of evidence supporting higher-order views:

Reporting of conscious experience seems in some studies to occur serially following unconscious processing rather than in parallel with it.

Unconscious processing is quite powerful on its own, so it's not obvious that task performance requires consciousness. Higher-order views agree with this, unlike, e.g., global-workspace views.

Impairments to the prefrontal cortex may impair subjective reports without affecting task performance. If the prefrontal cortex were mainly serving an attentional role, performance should degrade along with reportability.

Some interpretations of certain disorders of consciousness suggest that they operate by affecting the prefrontal cortex, where higher-order thoughts are assumed to take place.

Edmund Rolls defends a higher-order account of consciousness. He argues that consciousness consists in higher-order thoughts allowing one to monitor and correct errors and "that the brain systems that are required for consciousness and language are similar." Qualia like pain become conscious when "they enter into a specialized linguistic symbol-manipulation system, which is part of a higher-order thought system" that helps with, inter alia, "flexible planning of actions."

Scott Sturgeon argues against inner-sense theory on the grounds that it could give rise to disorders in which, e.g., one has a first-order perception of red which mis-triggers a second-order sense of "looks orange". But we don't see any such disorders in neurology. More generally, inner-sense and actualist views face the "targetless higher-order representation problem" in which there might be, e.g., a higher-order experience/thought about perceiving red without a corresponding first-order redness percept. One reply is that this is no more a problem for higher-order theories than for other neuroscientific theories of consciousness, which also involve many layers of processing that could theoretically be inconsistent.

Peter Carruthers points out that inner sense of or actualist HOTs about first-order percepts might greatly increase the computing power required to consciously process stimuli, for not only does one need to have a perception, but one then needs to have another (perhaps highly detailed) perception or thought about that perception.

The "rock objection" notes that thinking about a rock doesn't cause the rock to "light up" with consciousness, so why does thinking about a first-order percept cause it to light up? Higher-order theorists reply that first-order states need to be mental states, which rocks are not.

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Higher-order theories of consciousness - Wikipedia

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Higher-order theories of consciousness postulate that consciousness consists in perceptions or thoughts about first-order mental states. In particular, phenomenal consciousness is thought to be higher-order representation of perceptual or quasi-perceptual contents, such as visual images. Higher-order theories are distinguished from other cognitive/representational accounts of consciousness which suggest that merely first-order mentality of certain sorts constitutes consciousness.

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Phenomonology: The study of the structures of consciousness

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Phenomonology: The study of the structures of consciousness

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Phenomenology is commonly understood in either of two ways: as a
disciplinary field in philosophy, or as a movement in the history of
philosophy.

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Affects of social media on self-perception

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Key points

Obsessing about how others view us on social media may not only preoccupy our time but also lead to self-distortions.

Disclosures via social media and the inherent nature of some viewers may stimulate commentary and reactions that may not be expected.

Cyber communication may have many benefits, but it can also be psychologically harmful to vulnerable individuals.

Well over a century ago, in his seminal work, sociologist Charles Horton Cooley coined the term "looking-glass self." He theorized that other people act as a mirror of sorts to reflect our social identity. Cooley noted that we make judgments about our ideas of others' perception of us, and this, in turn, leads to positive or negative feelings. Therefore, he characterized the looking-glass self not as a reflection of how others saw us but of how we imagined others saw us. Psychologists have described the looking glass as a process of reflective self-appraisal. That is, one's self-concept is highly influenced by how we perceive what other people think about us.

Is perception reality?

Notably, Cooley's observations were from the early 20th century within a social milieu that was in-person through much of the century. That is, reflective appraisals, or our looking-glass selves, were based largely on face-to-face interactions with known others within familial, social, or professional circles. Although in-person interactions have not been replaced by virtual communication, the dominance of social media networking sites and other electronic means of interaction arguably influences our sense of self.

In the latter part of the 20th century and now two-plus decades into the 21st century, we interact with others in a very different manner in a digital world. Much of reflective self-appraisal and our ultimate interpretation of our imagined sense of others' opinions of us rests on the type of information we provide to others to form impressions. The question that remains now, perhaps even more so now than it did in Cooley's time, is whether perception is reality or whether it is a distorted reality fueled by a "digital" looking glass.

The digital looking glass

This digital looking glass is a very different animal than the Cooley social mirror that was anchored in interactions with others in real-world, in-person settings. Social media offers instantaneous feedback ("likes/dislikes") and commentary, often by strangers. It shows the number of friends, or how many blog followers or followers on other venues, one has. Social networking sites such as Facebook (now called Meta) have the positive benefit of electronically remaining connected with others through updates about our lives, such as posting pictures of oneself, vacations, and so forth. However, there are psychological downsides.

Cyberpsychology is a newly emerging area that examines the influence of technology on behavior. Though still in its nascency, a body of literature has focused on the impact of online social networking and whether there are harmful effects on mental health. Depression, anxiety, and changes in self-esteem, as well as the obsession with digital communications, have been studied.

Social media posts have the potential to inflate or deflate self-esteem, aggravate anxiety for an introverted person, and augment erroneous perceptions based on limited interpersonal cues. Others' perceptions of us may be skewed by judgments based on "sound bites" or incomplete information. Some people are skilled at impression management and convey an inflated picture of competence, such as living an exciting life, whereas others may be too disclosing of their weaknesses, perhaps as a means to reach out and connect when feeling lonely. Or some people simply may not realize the negative reaction others may have to their reported information. Social media may enhance the disclosure of personal information and may be driven by a need to gain acceptance or attention.

Risk of distorted reflections

Social media can aggravate or serve to disconnect us from who we are as well as make us vulnerable to distorted reflections. Distorted reflections can impact those with high self-esteem and low self-esteem. High self-esteem may lead to or aggravate the risk of psychological blind spots through reinforcing narcissism: e.g., that the reflection of "like," "thumbs up," or flattering posts on social media by anonymous others is the same as the respect earned in real-world interactions with others.

Those given to over- optimism and self-aggrandizement may be particularly vulnerable to ignoring constructive criticism. Low self-esteem may color what we believe others think of us through a constant bombardment of reactions to us and negative comparisons of ourselves to others or a tendency to accept more friend requests from unknown online individuals. Those who are temperamentally given to pessimism may misinterpret or negatively personalize social commentary.

Some studies have found that increased use of social media is correlated with decreases in self-esteem, theorized as being driven by social comparisons with those they do not know offline: for example, body image distortions fueled by unrealistic thinness, that others have more friends, or are financially successful while they are struggling. Such comparisons can foster feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and reductions in self-esteem.

Cyberpsychology continues to debate the impact-negative or positive-of online social networking and digital communications on our sense of self and mental health. Certainly, the pathways are complex; negative outcomes due to social networking may be a function of preexisting vulnerabilities to anxiety or depression.

Nonetheless, it is not a stretch to conclude that the sheer volume of material that one can post, the ease of access to see what others think of our communications, and the fact that we can do so multiple times in an hour only serve to ramp up a preoccupation with what others think of us. An obsessive self-evaluation and social comparison are the consequence of an ever-present digital looking glass.

Seeing ourselves as how we think others see us may be a dangerous thing to do as it is vulnerable to our misattribution and misinterpretation of others' views of us. Perhaps this risk is greater now in the digital age. If we assume that perception is reality, but the reality is now more malleable through social media manipulation, the reflective credibility of the looking glass is challenged and risks a distorted view of one's self. We should keep this in mind.

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Seeing ourselves as how we think others see us may be a dangerous thing to do.

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Overcrowding causes strange behavior in rats

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Overcrowding causes strange behavior in rats

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A strange experiment where overcrowded rats became either beautiful or violent.

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“Brilliant. . . . An absorbing read and a potent lesson in moral behavior—both of rodents and of humans.”—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Poison Squad • “A fascinating read about an immensely influential scientist.”—Robert M. Sapolsky, author of the New York Times–bestseller Determined • “Stimulating scientific history. . . . Colorful accounts. . . . This fascinates.”—Publishers Weekly A bizarre and compelling biography of a scientist and his work, using rodent cities to question the potential catastrophes of human overpopulation. It was the strangest of experiments. What began as a utopian environment, where mice had sumptuous accommodations, had all the food and water they could want, and were free from disease and predators, turned into a mouse hell. Science writer and animal behaviorist Lee Alan Dugatkin introduces readers to the peculiar work of rodent researcher John Bumpass Calhoun. In this enthralling tale, Dugatkin shows how an ecologist-turned-psychologist-turned-futurist became a science rock star embedded in the culture of the 1960s and 1970s. As interest grew in his rodent cities, Calhoun was courted by city planners and his work was reflected in everything from Tom Wolfe’s hard-hitting writing to the children’s book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He was invited to meetings with the Royal Society and the pope and taken seriously when he proposed a worldwide cybernetic brain—a decade before others made the internet a reality. Readers see how Calhoun’s experiments—rodent apartment complexes like “Mouse Universe 25”—led to his concept of “behavioral sinks” with real effects on public policy discussions. Overpopulation in Calhoun’s mouse (and rat) complexes led to the loss of sex drive, the absence of maternal care, and a class of automatons that included “the beautiful ones,” who spent their time grooming themselves while shunning socialization. Calhoun—and those who followed his work—saw the collapse of this mouse population as a harbinger of the ill effects of an overpopulated human world. Drawing on previously unpublished archival research and interviews with Calhoun’s family and former colleagues, Dugatkin offers a riveting account of an intriguing scientific figure. Considering Dr. Calhoun’s experiments, he explores the changing nature of scientific research and delves into what the study of animal behavior can teach us about ourselves.

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Academic study of human AI relationships

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Laura V. Machia, Daniel Corral, and Brett K. Jakubiak

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Social Need Fulfillment Model for Human–AI Relationships