Are Seductive Details Detrimental to Learning?

 

As college students many are aware of having to read long, plain textbooks or lectures with little motivation. However, increasingly teachers have used other methods to bring students attention to learning through sidenotes, graphics, illustrations, even in newer textbooks. Mainly as a source of fun but irrelevant information called seductive details. As a student that prefers visual learning, I have always found these breaks from plain text quite alluring. But previous studies, such as a meta-analysis Rey (2012), on this subject have concluded these details harm learning on students through its distraction. Will we have to be plagued with long boring lectures again to learn better? Well, that is what the Dr. Eitel, Dr. Bender, and Dr. Renkl (2019) were trying to find out. Their fundamental hypothesis focused on why these seductive details are so detrimental, by measuring their false belief in relevancy.

                In this study, the experimenters focused on three avenues to which seductive details can be bound by perceived relevance, cognitive load, and time pressure that mitigate learning efforts. Meaning, if students perceived seductive details as relevant, if these details can put a cognitive burden on them, and whether too much time was taken out from focusing on these details. Thus, to test their hypotheses. experimenters randomly assigned 84 undergraduate students in a control with no seductive details, and uninformed vs informed seductive detail condition then self-reported their own perceived awareness of time pressure, cognitive load, and manipulation of the experiment. Then the learning outcomes of these participants were rated independently to measure what effect each condition had on them after each participant wrote their recall of what they had learned in their condition.  Ultimately the researchers concluded from their results that perceived relevance and cognitive load had a significant detriment to learning material. However, when students were informed of the seductive details design (they are not relevant but interesting information), these detriments are mitigated more easily. As well, due to these uninformed seductive details, more cognitive processing took place on students leading to worse off outcomes. Ultimately, the researchers were able to conclude the definitionally of previous research is now put into question and may not be harmful to student learning after all.

                While this study is very niche topic about essentially fun pictures in textbooks, I found it interesting for both its measurements and implications with sensible findings. As a person who is easily distracted and can’t be bothered to read /sit still without some engagement, I find it helpful from their results that seductive details in the classroom can easily be mitigated and have a boundary effect that doesn’t distract from learning outcomes overall. Classrooms and textbooks should be fun and sometimes lighthearted in their approach to learning thus giving students a reprieve when ingesting heavy material all the time, hours, and hours a day. 

Eric Brehmer

Eitel, A., Bender, L., & Renkl, A. (2019). Are seductive details seductive only when you think they are relevant? An experimental test of the moderating role of perceived relevance. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(1), 20-30. doi:10.1002/acp.3479

 

               

Stressed Out: The Impact of Only Speech Method Education During a Pandemic

 The year of 2020 has pushed many people outside of their comfort zones (and pushed them to their limits). A large category of these individuals are parents turned teachers. Filling in for an occupation they were not trained for effects not only them, but their children, the students, too. Teachers learn and develop methods that help engage and entertain their students, keeping them fully captivated in the learning experience. Adjusted online/hybrid classrooms don’t allow teachers to use many of these practices, and many parents do not attain these methods. Some of these practices can be complex, involving many different steps, but some can be as simple as hand gestures. 

In her article, “Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children,” Elizabeth M. Wakefield, and her colleagues, discuss their study on the effect gestures have in the process of learning. This study focused on two groups of children, those who learned by only speech, and those who learned by speech and gestures. By observing the children through fMRI while they solved mathematical problems led them to an interesting finding. The study showed that “the motor signatures found for children in the speech and gesture condition occurred in runs during which children were not producing gestures, providing evidence that, as in learning through action on objects, learning through gesture leads to a lasting and embedded neural trace of motor system involvement, which is activated when children later solve the math problems they had learned with gesture.” This is very important evidence to consider as the country continues online learning. This study illustrates the importance of two method learning, and ensuring students aren’t only being talked at.

In an article published by the New York Times titled “This Is Schooling Now for 200,000 N.Y.C. Children in Special Education” by Eliza Shapiro discusses the problems parents face when trying to provide an education for their special needs child at home during the pandemic. For many students who need special accommodations in their education, it means more than another teacher talking to them. For special needs kids gesturing can be a better form of communication than speaking. When they lose this ability to communicate effectively, their education declines. In the article parents note their child’s development going “backwards” when they were moved online. To continue educating special needs students there needs to be, at the very least, a dual-communicative program, where students can fully see the gestures happening, but also engaging with them. 

As the country continues in these uncertain times it’s important that students still receive high-quality education. Through Wakefield’s study we see that students benefit from two-method learning, speech and gestures. Shapiro’s article speaks for many parents across the country who are concerned for their child’s education as they continue to only receive (virtual) speech method learning. As education continues to develop nationwide, it is important we take into account studies, like Elizabeth Wakefield’s, but also the views of the parents, like those highlighted in Eliza Shapiro’s article. 

 

References

Shapiro, Eliza, and Elizabeth A. Harris. “This Is Schooling Now for 200,000 N.Y.C. Children in Special Education.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/nyregion/special-education-coronavirus-nyc.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article.

 

 

Wakefield, Elizabeth M., et al. “Learning Math by Hand: The Neural Effects of Gesture-Based Instruction in 8-Year-Old Children.” Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. The Psychonomic Society, Inc, 2019. 

 

What Makes Art Beautiful, and How Do Our Brains Know?

 

 

Whether it’s a vast landscape in nature, a meticulous painting, an eloquent poem, a melodious song, or even a face, how do we decide what is beautiful? How does one person’s perception of beauty differ from the next? How is the emotional or affective response from experiencing something beautiful reflected in the brain? Does beauty truly lie in the eye of the beholder? The search for the answer to the age-old question of what makes something beautiful has been a never-ending quest across multiple disciplines—philosophy, psychology, and art. Recently, neuroscientists have undertaken the same quest. The emerging field of Neuroaesthetics, cognitive and neurobiological approaches to discover the underlying mechanisms in the brain that lead to the perception, emotional affect, and residual judgment of beauty by humans, and whether this process can be objective or subjective, or even both.

In the article "Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuroscientific Answer," researchers Aleem et al. discussed the question of what defines beauty from a neuroscientific point of view. Utilizing a major theory in neuroaesthetics, the processing fluency theory—the more fluent or easy one perceives and conceptualizes an object, the more positive their aesthetic response (Reber et al., 2004)—and various experimental models to measure individuals' "aesthetic values" as applicable to artwork, researchers found that both objectivity and subjectivity, and the neuronal circuits that process these mechanisms, interact to produce the perception of beauty for the perceiver, alone. While internal factors, such as reinforcement learning and motivational personality traits, influence this perception, so do external factors, such as culture. Researchers concluded that while the universality of the objective view of beauty is most likely due to evolution, the more subjective view of beauty is, in contrast, more flexible and individualized because it involves the mechanisms behind reinforcement learning. Ultimately, the perception of beauty comes as result of the interaction between both objectivity and subjectivity to account for the universality in addition to the individuality for the perceiver’s preferences for aesthetic value (Aleem et al., 2019).

Art in the form of portraits or paintings isn't the only aesthetic experience people enjoy. The field of neuroaesthetics has also extended to music. A study conducted by Rebrouk et al. summarizing multiple neuroscientific studies dissecting the musical aesthetic experience, primarily seeking to uncover the subjective, affective, and evaluative processes and their functional neural connectivity in the brain (Reybrouk et al., 2018). These researchers wanted to look at a more neurobiological network-based approach to explore the aesthetic experience of music, rather than a cognitive neuroscience approach, in order to find out how different brain areas and neuronal circuits communicate during the aesthetic processing, as opposed to simply seeking what brain regions are independently activated. Therefore, they wanted to combine neuroimaging, network science, and connectomics methods of neuroscience, and conducted a meta-analysis of different studies contributing to this approach at studying the musical aesthetics and, specifically, its subjective experience. They found that there were many integrating neuronal networks involved in the aesthetic experience of music, including neuronal circuits of the reward system in the brain, the DMN, cortical regions such as the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), subcortical regions such as the amygdala, and functional connectivity of the brain as a whole (Reybrouk et al., 2018).

            The field of neuroscience can be a wonderful contribution to further understanding of how the brain works. Uncovering the neuronal mechanisms as to how people perceive beauty could take a step in the direction of utilizing this knowledge in a clinical sense, as well. For example, in the instance of the neuroaesthetics of music, this could be an essential factor in improving treatments in music therapy. The field of neuroaesthetics is relatively untapped and it is exciting to think about where the field could take us in the quest to better understand how our brains make us human.

 

 

Works Cited 

Aleem, H., Pombo, M., Correa-Herran, I., & Grzywacz, N. M. (2019, November 16). Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuroscientific Answer. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-24326-5_11.

Reybrouck, M., Vuust, P., & Brattico, E. (2018, June 12). Brain Connectivity Networks and the Aesthetic Experience of Music. Brain sciences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29895737.

Rolf Reber, N. S. (2004, November 1). Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver's Processing Experience? - Rolf Reber, Norbert Schwarz, Piotr Winkielman, 2004. SAGE Journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3.

Amplification of the Obesity Crisis Through COVID-19

   Amplification of the Obesity Crisis Through COVID-19

             Over the last few decades, the obesity crisis has grown drastically throughout the world. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42.4% of the U.S. population fell under the obese category in 2018. This figure is an increase from 30.5% in 2000 (CDC, 2020). Due to socioeconomic inequalities and disparities in access to healthy food options, obesity disproportionately impacts the Black and Hispanic populations, with obesity rates of 49.6% and 44.8% respectively (CDC, 2020). Considering the fact that obesity directly leads to potentially deadly conditions like type II diabetes, stroke, heart disease, etc., the above data represent a grim prognosis (CDC, 2020). For this reason, researchers like Dr. Jennifer Beshel and her colleagues aim to gain greater insight into the genetic and behavioral components of obesity. As their findings demonstrate, obesity is still not fully understood, and there is a great need to increase research in this field as figures continue to rise at quicker rates each passing year. The recent onset of COVD-19 serves to underscore the urgent nature of the obesity crisis. As seen in newly published studies, obese individuals face a significantly greater threat from this pandemic.

In the article “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila,” Dr. Jennifer Beshel and colleagues investigated leptin, a significant weight regulating hormone in mammals, by studying the leptin homolog unpaired 1 (upd1) in Drosophila. First, the researchers found that upd1 affects obesity phenotypes by acting in brain tissue. When upd1 was knocked out in the fat body (FB), the researchers noticed no change in weight or feeding behavior. Next, by utilizing qRT-PCR, it was found that flies showed greater upd1 expression in the fed state. Subsequently, after knockout of upd1 in brain tissue, fed flies demonstrated the same level of attraction to food as starved flies. After these upd1 neural tissue knockout flies were exposed to high fat and high sugar diets, similar to many diets individuals eat today, they stored fat and gained weight at disproportionately higher levels as compared to flies with upd1 intact. This demonstrates that environmental conditions, such as diets consisting mainly of fat, contribute greatly to obesity. To demonstrate the powerful effect of upd1 in modulating obesity, the researchers demonstrated that when upd1 was reinstated in adult Drosophila neural tissue after knockout, flies’ obesity phenotypes returned to normal levels. Conversely, when upd1 was knocked out in the adult fly brain tissue, obesity phenotypes emerged. The researchers then further investigated how upd1 functions in the brain. Data indicated that when the domeless receptors for upd1, homologs of leptin receptors, were knocked out specifically on neurons containing neuropeptide f (npf), the homolog of mammalian neuropeptide Y (NPY), flies acted as if they were starved when presented with food, and presented many other obesity phenotypes. From here, the researchers concluded that the elimination of either upd1 or domeless receptors on neural tissue, resulted in the loss of inhibition on npf neurons, causing these neurons to function indistinguishably in starved and fed flies. When extrapolated to humans, these findings provide significant insight on the role of leptin in obesity.

In order to find an urgent motivation to conduct more studies looking into obesity, similar to Dr. Beshel’s research, one can look at the currently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to the recently published article “Obesity is a potential risk factor contributing to clinical manifestations of COVID-19,” Zhenyu Kang and colleagues demonstrate, through a retrospective study on COVID-19 patients at Wuhan Union Hospital, that obesity exacerbates the effect of COVID-19 in patients. The researchers first split 95 COVID-19 patients into two groups, those with a BMI equivalent or greater than 25 were termed obese, while those with a BMI below 25 were considered normal weight. No significant difference in gender or age existed between the two groups. After analyzing data, the researchers found that the obese group faced significanlty more COVID-19 related complications. The obese group had a high moratlity rate of 5.5%, compared to 0% for the other group. When first admitted into the hospital, the obese group showed a larger number of underlying diseases, including endocrine issues, heart disease, respiratory disease, etc.. These obesity linked diseases made it harder for these patients to fight off COVID-19. Furthermore, chest CT images indicated that the obese patients showed a greater distribution and overall level of lung injuries, resulting in a higher CT score. Considering how COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, this finding indicates how the obese face a greater impact of COVID-19 symptoms. Obese patients also exhibited significanlty higher level of triglycerides, monocytes, lymphocytes, and inflammation markers like hsCRP, ESR, and IL-4. This is indicative of abnormal metabolism in obese patients, and therefore resulting in an ineffective immune response against COVID-19. Taken altogether, obesity is one of the largest risk factors for COVID-19.

In her talk, Dr. Jennifer Beshel brought up the interesting point about a much greater response to the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the obesity crisis, although the latter arguably presents an equally important public health concern. Looking at how the obesity figures continue to rise uncontrollably, it appears that one of the greatest factors hindering a greater reaction to obesity is that the general population is still not entirely cognizant of its dangers. Considering how people are becoming aware of how significant of a risk factor obesity is for COVID-19, hopefully this may serve as an important catalyst for a greater united response against the obesity crisis. 

Works Cited

“Adult Obesity Facts.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html. 

Beshel, Jennifer, et al. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell Metabolism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 208–217., doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2016.12.013. 

Kang, Z., Luo, S., Gui, Y. et al. Obesity is a potential risk factor contributing to clinical manifestations of COVID-19. Int J Obes (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-020-00677-2 

The Effects of COVID-19 on Gesture-Learning

When it comes to understanding how our minds work, we often fail to consider the motor system and its connection to our cognitive processes. A common misconception is that these two entities: both the motor system, and cognitive processing, are two separate things. This is actually the contrary; several neuroscience studies uncover the deep connections that are found within these two systems, and have determined that motor systems both facilitate and enhance various cognitive processes such as learning. For example, recent studies have found that using gestures (a movement of a part of the body to express an idea), helps make learning a language easier. In addition, through Elizabeth Wakefield’s research, it is discovered that gestures improve one's ability to learn mathematics compared to those that don’t use gestures as a facilitator. Gestures provide more emphasis and meaning to the words we say, hence it allows for more understanding and engagement with others when communicating. For this reason, it has a lot of potential to improve even our learning mechanisms. 

    Elizabeth Wakefield and researchers through the scientific article, “Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children” uncovers the neural circuitry involved in solving mathematical problems. Through the use of fMRI technology, two conditions, and twenty participants that were between 7 to 9 years of age, Dr. Wakefield and her team were able to investigate just how gestures promote learning. One condition was a speech+gesture group, while the second was a speech-only group. Both groups watched videos pertaining to their specific condition (videos explaining math problems with gestures and those with speech only) and were then required to complete a set of math problems. Through collecting data and undergoing specific calculations, it was determined that those in the condition where speech and gesture were utilized performed better than those in the speech-only condition. In addition, the results from the fMRI revealed that multiple regions within the brain associated with motor movement were activated in those using action-based learning compared to those who did not. This study proves not only that gesture enhances learning and comprehension, but also that there are stronger connections between motor systems and cognitive processing than previously assumed. Due to the present global health crisis, we must now live in a world where we are exposed to less and less of these gestures, thus we must understand the possible repercussions that could arise with doing so. 

     As the world faces an unprecedented moment in history, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, there has been much hardship, a lot of uncertainty, and major setbacks. The virus has affected nearly all facets of human life, not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. Through a transition to living life remotely, there have been significant effects in terms of learning development for students undergoing e-learning. In a Los Angeles Times article, “Op-Ed: Why remote learning is hard — and how to make it easier”, the author discusses how Covid-19 is perpetuating a stunt in learning growth among students taking online classes due to a lack of social cues, making it increasingly difficult to both focus and understand material better. Some of these social cues include eye contact, as well as gestures, noting that gestures have a much larger effect on learning. Further supporting Dr. Wakefield’s work, the author notes that gesturing serves as an aid for students’ learning comprehension, however due to classes switching over to online platforms, those aids are absent. In most cases the teachers have to sit near their mouse and computer to control everything and ensure the lecture is running smoothly, as a result students oftentimes only see their faces. Without these gestures, it is significantly more difficult to not only keep students engaged and learn their material, but they will also have more trouble understanding the material as well. There are some ways however, that teachers try to combat this issue, whether it is by pointing to something with their mouse, or by even indicating where they want students to look ( a type of auditory gesture). Though it may seem like a minor issue in a heap of larger issues that arose as a result of Covid-19, this effect may accumulate over time and thus, can lead to larger developmental and cognitive issues in future years. For that reason, it is imperative that there are methods established to combat this in a way that does not both put students at risk both physically and cognitively. 

    Gestures are very important as they can enhance not only our communication with others, but can also help with our learning and comprehension. This is because these movements can guide us and can keep us more attentive. Without gestures, especially in this current pandemic, it can lead to lower levels of engagement whether in work or in school, and can lead to fatigue and lower performance in daily tasks. Therefore, it is important to find ways to combat this issue so that it does not lead to more detrimental effects later down the line. 

Sources: 

Morgan, N. (2015, February 10). Why Gesture Is Important - And What You're Not Doing About It. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2015/02/10/why-gesture-is-important-and-what-youre-not-doing-about-it/ 

Wakefield, E. M., Congdon, E. L., Novack, M. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., & James, K. H. (2019). Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81(7), 2343–2353. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y 

 

Willingham, D. T. (2020, September 18). Op-Ed: Why remote learning is hard - and how to make it easier. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-18/remote-learning-hard-make-easier

The Rising Significance of an Acute Stress Paradigm given the Long-Term Duration of COVID-19

Psychopathological conditions such as depression and anxiety surged as a significant public health issue in the 21st century. With the advent of COVID-19, this generation has experienced an unprecedented vulnerability in mental health, exacerbating the already pressing dilemma. As mental health professionals and researchers attempt to remediate this difficult situation, the topic of acute stress and its link to mental health conditions is more important than ever to understand. In their 2020 article, “Risk and resilience in an Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence From Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of Reward Positivity,” Ethridge and colleagues discussed the “associations between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis stress response and event-related potentials sensitive to the receipt of reward-related feedback”(1). They reported that “it is possible that those who experience increased stress have subsequently altered reward processing, but it is also possible that those with altered reward processing experience increased stress” (2). This state of altered reward processing is called anhedonia, defined as “an inability to derive pleasure from formerly satisfying activities” (1). 

Anhedonia is a condition that is highly linked to increased risks in mental illness, and “has a functional impact on engagement in social connection, as social anhedonia has been associated with decreased social support and impaired functioning in social domains” (Hagerty 2-3). In the recent paper, “The impact of COVID-19 on mental health: The interactive roles of brain biotypes and human connection,” Hagerty and colleagues state, “Cruelly, COVID-19 sets the perfect stage for the propagation of social anhedonia cycle. Due to social distancing ordinances, exposure to usual sources of rewarding stimulation, including sources of human connection, are markedly reduced in our current reality” (3). This further signals that “individuals who are already primed for blunted anticipatory reward [anhedonic brain style]... could experience an even greater degree of amotivation to connect with others” (3). These findings are consistent with the reported increase in depression, dissociation, anxiety, and substance abuse that has followed the onset of the global pandemic. In an article published in The Guardian, Eilene Zimmerman writes, “The isolation, uncertainty and lack of control are a perfect setup for depression, anxiety, drug use and excessive drinking.” In the same article, Zimmerman discusses the lack of repercussions that might contribute to the increasing prevalence of mental health conditions; for example, professionals now “only have to look good from the neck up for 8am Zoom meetings, so it’s easier to hide intoxication or a hangover” (Zimmerman online). Casey Schwartz, in her article in The New York Times, discussed the findings of the Computational Story Lab of the University of Vermont. The Hedonometer, an instrument that measures the “happiness of populations in real time,” analyzes and measures word choices across millions of tweets all around the world, every day, to give its reading of well-being. According to the Hedonometer, the saddest day of 2020 was Sunday, May 31; it was also the saddest day recorded in the last 13 years (Schwartz online). Dr. Danforth, co-founder and inventor of the Hedonometer, stated “there was a full month of days [in 2020] that the Hedonometer was reading sadder than the Boston Marathon day,” (Schwartz online).

Considering the onset of COVID-19 and the projection of its long-term trajectory, research on the mechanisms of stress and its effects on reward processing is essential and necessary. Ethridge and colleagues found that “neural responses to gains and losses were blunted” (11) after being exposed to acute stress. This signals that repeated stressors induce a state of dissociation from life events, which results in the reduction in neural responses to both positive and negative stressors. Given this knowledge, it will be imperative to implement mental health interventions by increasing awareness, access, and availability of mental wellness resources as we brace for the ensuing second wave of the pandemic.

References

Ethridge, P., Ali, N., Racine, S. E., Pruessner, J. C., & Weinberg, A. (2020). Risk and Resilience in an Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence From Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of the Reward Positivity. Clinical Psychological Science, 8(5), 872–889. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620917463

Hagerty, S. L., & Williams, L. M. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on mental health: The interactive roles of brain biotypes and human connection. Brain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health, 5, 100078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2020.100078

Schwartz, C. (2020, October 12). Is Everybody Doing ... OK? Let's Ask Social Media. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/style/self-care/social-media-.html.

Zimmerman, E. (2020, October 13). Why professionals, depressed and anxious, are developing addictions during Covid. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/13/white-collar-professionals-substance-use-disorders-pandemic. 

The processing fluency theory and the impact of motivation on our subjective interpretation of beauty

How do we perceive something as being beautiful? Are there some objective aspects of beauty? These are some of the questions that philosophers have asked themselves for centuries. Today, thanks to the development of neuroscience and new modern tools we can get a better understanding as to what mechanisms are responsible for our perception of beauty as individuals. In this post, we will explore a research conducted by Dr. Grzywacz: “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuroscientific Answer”, and a research by Dr. Gottlieb: “Motivated cognition: Neural and computational mechanisms of curiosity, attention and intrinsic motivation”

Dr. Grzywacz proposes that beauty has both objective and subjective components. According to the fluency theory, "the easier it is for a perceiver to process the properties of a stimulus, the greater its aesthetic response will be”, this would mean that beauty is both dependent on the perceiver as well as on the object itself. Moreover, objects differ in how fluent they are, meaning that some objects are more easily perceived than others. But what makes an object fluent? Some of these objective components of beauty can be proportion, balance, contrast, complexity and even symmetry for example. As we said previously, the more fluent an object is, the more we will perceive it as positive, in contrast, the less it is fluent, the more we will perceive the object as negative. Our brain has dedicated neural circuitry for fluency processing, for example fMRI studies have shown that symmetry is processed very early in our visual cortex making the processing of symmetrical stimuli faster and thus more fluent. Furthermore, evolutionary important variable which have specific brain regions dedicated to them form a major part of processing fluency. This still doesn’t tell us why fluency has a positive neuroaesthetic response in our brain, well this is because we constantly make perceptual estimations through our sensory system to take information about our environment. These estimations are then used to make decisions which could be life threatening, thus it makes sense that evolution might associate reward to these fluency features. For example, balance which is another component that is perceived fluently is critical to survival, our brain notices imbalance immediately because it “isn’t normal” and so we avoid falling off a steep hill for example. Another fluently processed feature which might be a bit confusing to understand is complexity, why would more information be more fluent? Have you ever looked at a Jackson Pollock painting and asked yourself, what is going on here? Well, complexity is in constant competition with other fluency features such as symmetry and balance. If the amount of balance and symmetry increase in an image then the amount of complexity will therefore decrease. This is all very interesting, but if objects have objectively defined characteristics for beauty then why don’t we all like the same things? Well because firstly, this would be extremely boring, secondly and more seriously this is because we as individuals give more or less importance to these fluency features. How we perceive beauty subjectively is due to our cultural background, meaning the different environments we grew-up or live in and how we interact and experience with this environment. Let us take a simple example, if you see an apple on the table, it is bright red and is in great shape, your brain will take all this sensory information and make a prediction (does it look good or bad), you will then taste it and ultimately decide if it is good or bad. Your brain will then learn this outcome and make changes to future predictions about the apple so that overtime the prediction will resemble more the actual reward or outcome. It is also said that motivation plays a key role in individual aesthetic preference, if you see the apple for example and you never tried an apple before but you just ate a big lunch so you’re not hungry, hunger would be your motivational factor in this case, thus you have no motivation because you just ate so you won’t try the apple and you won’t learn from this experience. 

Let’s see why motivation is so important in individual learning of aesthetic preferences. Dr. Gottlieb’s research is focused on answering, “What are the factors that motivate us to learn, memorize or otherwise process new information? How do these intellectual drives serve our biological needs, how do they control our actions and what are their neural substrates?” The research mostly focuses on curiosity which is defined as the intrinsic desire to learn or obtain information. Without curiosity, we would not learn any new aesthetic preferences. Curiosity is a specific example of a system of intrinsic motivation, it is “a behavior that is undertaken for no apparent reward except the behavior itself”. We define intrinsic behaviors as behaviors that are not necessary for survival but yet are highly motivated to pursue. For example, we each have our hobbies that we enjoy doing, and while doing these hobbies we might experience what we call a state of “flow” defined as “intense feelings of effortless control, concentration, enjoyment and even a contraction of the sense of time”. These actions are performed to maximize an internal goal. Curiosity drives us to learn, it also implies a strong connection between both cognitive and motivational systems, cognitive because each individual is free to experience and attempt to fulfill non-vital needs as he or she desires for no apparent reason. When curiosity arises in our cognitive processing, the brain does not simply encode and remember information, rather the brain will evaluate the degree of knowledge associated to these cognitive operations, as well as its emotional qualities and will use these estimations to generate an “interest”, this interest will ultimately decide rather or not to act, thus directly impacting learning. It is said that the mechanism that drives curiosity would be adapted to allow us to discover new and useful regularities in wide open-ended spaces which contain unlearnable tasks. We possess strategies to overcome the difficulties associated with unlearnable tasks, these include exploration of new things, surprise, uncertainty, and reward. Some strategies are more complex such as "meta-cognitive estimates of learning progress and information gain”. These mechanisms act together to take our focus away from performing over learnt and unlearnable tasks, and focus our attention toward a middle range where we can learn as well as discover new things. 

Beauty has both objective features as well as subjective features, these subjective features are governed by both motivation and social factors. More specifically, curiosity plays a critical role in learning new things such as aesthetic preferences. Objective features of beauty have an important role in survival and our brain allows us to pay closer attention to these fluency features. How much we pay attention to them defines our subjective interpretation of beauty. I hope you all enjoyed this post, see you soon for more about the brain.

    

Can Control Over Stress Reactivity Lead to Prevention of Mental Disorders?

    There are numerous studies past and present that postulate the idea that stress is significantly associated with a higher risk for mental disorder development. Numerous reviews, experiments, and articles all point to the need for more research into understanding the basis for the connection between stress and increased mental disorders. The discoveries made indicate that to best be able to understand the connection, one must look to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as well as the mesolimbic pathway (specifically the neural reward circuit).

    In the article "Risk and Resilience in an Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence from Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of the Reward Positivity," by Ethridge et. al. (2020), the researchers looked for the association between the HPA-axis stress response and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) that would show activity during reward-related feedback. The specific ERP used was the reward positivity (RewP), for the measure of reward processing. The researchers hypothesized that psychosocial stressors could lead to reduced RewPs, and in opposite association, awareness of reward would lead to less reactivity to stressors. The results of the study showed that it coincided with past research, and that a bidirectional relationship could be suggested between the HPA-axis response for stress as well as the reward system in the brain. However, it was important to mention that there was also an association between the stress response and losses (alongside gains). This study mentioned that dopamine neurons in the VTA were activated in both the stress response as well as reward processing of a brain. Another interesting point from this article for further study was that there was a presence of sexual dimorphism in regard to the stress response.

    In the article “Stress-induced plasticity and functioning of ventral tegmental dopamine neurons,” by Douma and Kloet (2019), the researchers provide a review as to why researching the mesolimbic pathway specifically via the VTA dopamine circuit with congruence to stress would prove beneficial. The review highlights how chronic stress can potentially lead to neurodegeneration of the dopamine neurons, which in turn would diminish the function of the behaviors associated with VTA dopamine neuronal circuits. The review also found (for further study) the significance of VTA dopamine neuronal excitation and inhibition when dealing with the reward-response behavior. Finally, this study also emphasized the importance of sexual dimorphism when researching the stress response, as the male and female brain react differently with regard to glucocorticoid production.

    Both studies “stress” the importance of studying the mesolimbic pathway through the VTA dopamine circuit and the HPA-axis for stress reactivity and the reward circuit in order to better understand the neuroscientific basis for mental disorders. While behavioral studies may help gain insight to better deal with mental disorders, if the neurological basis of these mental disorders is expanded upon, then a concurrent process may happen in which both biology and behavior can be studied to effectively diagnose and treat mental disorders before their onset becomes debilitating.

Sources Cited:

Ethridge, P., Ali, N., Racine, S. E., Pruessner, J. C., & Weinberg, A. (2020). Risk and Resilience in an    Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence From Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of the Reward Positivity. Clinical Psychological Science, 8(5), 872–889. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620917463

Douma, E. H., & de Kloet, E. R. (2020). Stress-induced plasticity and functioning of ventral tegmental dopamine neurons. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 108, 48–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.10.015

A Beautiful Perception Through The Scientific Mind

     Since the beginning of time, aesthetics were unique in many ways, but often not understood. In the field of neuro aesthetics,  cognitive elements have been studied to pinpoint what brain region indicates attraction to the human mind. Objective and subjective beauty are differentiated throughout many neural circuit pathways.

    In the article, "Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuro scientific Answer," By Aleem et. al., the researchers attempted to find the correlation between subjective beauty and objective beauty as seen from many standpoints. Researchers did studies on different cultural backgrounds to see what preferences are preferred based on the region. This is all done and understood by the perception of imaging. Researchers also indicated that there was an interest in the "Fluency Theory", that put a lot of the weight on the perceiver of an image rather than the object itself. People who come from different backgrounds and religions grow innate to certain pieces of art or visual features that best suit their preference. As this is still unknown today, researchers then concluded that there was the existence of some universal aesthetic variables such as balance, symmetry, and complexity. objective beauty was found in responses to humans instead of qualities, as subjective beauty was found based on a reward-based-learning system.

   Similarly, in a more recent study conducted in 2016 titled, "Neuroaesthetics: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience" by Marcus T. Pearce et al., researchers visit the phenomenon between the perspectives of humanities and the sciences combined. Much like the first article, researchers are fascinated by the human mind as it deems what is attractive vs ugly. Touching base on traditional aesthetics that have been studied for years and cognitive neuroscience hand in hand, the article explains that researchers have conducted an extensive study upon objective experiences from individuals, sensory stimuli, and context. fMRI was conducted to see the effects of the neural responses in participants who received samples of photos that were universally accepted as attractive. The same method was used to present pictures that were less pleasing, monitoring the fMRI signals. Short cues indicated that the activation of the amygdala, paired with repetition of pictures and memory, enhanced the fluidity on the receptors through the eyes. Much like the brain adjusting to light through optical neurons. this process creates the innate persona to presume an object be aesthetically pleasing. This was also then correlated to the different cultural backgrounds and regions that people lived in all over the world. It was conferred that Aesthetic pleasure comes from familiarity as humans are actually scared of change. Results also concurred that observations made through pictures were focused through different points. as one viewer from the south sees a picture from top to bottom, someone from the north can view an image from bottom to top, also playing a role through interpretation of the brain.

    Both studies emphasized the importance of the amygdala through perception of aesthetic comfort. Throughout humanity and the beginning of time, objectivity and subjectivity have been viewed through innate responses taken from culture and regional backgrounds. As one person can deem an object attractive, others may not due to the neural acuity derived from natural perception in each's own habitat. 

References:

Gryzwaxz, Norberto M., et al. "Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuro scientific Answer," springer series on Bio- and Neurosystems Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and The Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity, 2019, pp. 101-110., doi:10.1002/pchj.379.

Marcus T. Pearce, D. W. Z. Neuroaesthetics: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience - Marcus T. Pearce, Dahlia W. Zaidel, Oshin Vartanian, Martin Skov, Helmut Leder, Anjan Chatterjee, Marcos Nadal, 2016. SAGE Journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691615621274.