Category: Psychology & Medicine

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Pepsi Challenge

Posted on by Jinavie

The “Pepsi challenge” was a marketing campaign by Pepsi, where a person blindly takes sips from two different cups – one of Coke, one of Pepsi – and states which tastes better. The Pepsi challenge showed that people tended to prefer Pepsi to Coke in a blind sip test. This caused significant controversy and even led Coca-Cola to trial a change in their classic recipe, which failed disastrously.

Of course, there are many reasons why the results of this challenge may be invalid, as Malcolm Gladwell explored in his book Blink. The challenge is designed to isolate just a snapshot experience of each drink. Ergo, people tend to prefer a single sip of the sweeter, more citreous drink that is Pepsi, when they may not have enjoyed it as much if they had to drink an entire bottle.

Furthermore, multiple studies and experiments in the marketing field show a psychological phenomenon called sensation transference. This is when our perception of a sense is affected by other information such as the brand name, packaging or even the colour of the food or drink. For example, margarine was originally white but yellow colour was added to make it look more “butter-like”, greatly increasing sales.

This shows how little things that we may find insignificant can affect our decisions and first impressions. Our subconscious mind is a powerful processor that makes rapid assessments from a sea of information, while not bothering the conscious mind. We might buy a certain wine because the bottle looks more premium than another bottle. We may fall in love with someone because of a small detail like the way their nose looks. But at the same time, it can be just as easily misled as it uses only the information given to it at the time.

So the question is not how powerful your gut instinct is, but if you know yourself well enough to trust it.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Rat Park

Posted on by Jinavie

In the mid-20th century, rat models were used by psychologists to study the science of drug addiction. Rats would be placed into cages, connected to a pump that would deliver a dose of morphine when a switch was pressed. These rats would press the switch to get more “hits”, with some rats pressing the button in preference to food and water, eventually dying from dehydration.

In the 1970’s, Professor Bruce Alexander questioned whether this was an accurate description of the nature of drug addiction in humans. He posited that given that rats are social animals, placing them in isolation would put them in an environment where the drugs were the only “escape”. To study this, his team designed a large enclosure that they nicknamed “Rat Park”.

image

Rat Park was designed to be a utopia for rats. It was 200 times the size of a standard cage, filled with comfortable cedar shaving floors, plenty of nesting areas, toys and abundant food. Most importantly, the enclosure had all 16 rats living in the same enclosure, so that they could interact with each other. The control group were placed individually in 16 separate isolated cages.

The researchers gave the rats a choice of two fluids to drink from – water and water laced with morphine. Although the rats initially stayed away from the morphine due to the bitterness, they eventually started drinking from it when they realised the euphoric sensation they got from drinking it. Interestingly, rats in cages would follow the traditionally predicted path of drinking more and more morphine, becoming addicted. However, rats living in Rat Park would barely touch the morphine water. Even when the morphine was sweetened with sugar, the rats would still not drink much of it.

image

Through rigorous experiments, the researchers deduced that the Rat Park residents preferred social interaction over the drug-induced haze from drinking morphine. Rats under the effects of morphine were less able to socialise and in an environment with adequate social stimulus, this was a good enough reason to avoid drugs.

In a different experiment, Professor Alexander’s team put rats already dependent on morphine into Rat Park. They found that despite withdrawal symptoms, rats would prefer staying away from morphine and would attempt to socialise.

Although it remains controversial, Alexander’s research into Rat Park offered new insights into the study of drug addiction. It raised the question of whether drug addiction was purely an issue of biochemistry and how much effect our social environment has on our life choices.

image
Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Typhoid Mary

Posted on by Jinavie

New York City, 1901 – an upper-class family presented with fevers and diarrhoea, diagnosed with the infection typhoid fever. This was unusual as typhoid fever was classically associated with poor hygiene, overcrowding and lower socioeconomic status households. It was atypical to see typhoid fever in upper-class households. Within a year, a lawyer and his household fell ill to the same disease – 7 out of 8 people contracted typhoid. Another case emerged 5 years later in Long Island, New York – an area where typhoid fever was very uncommon. This time, 10 out of 11 family members were hospitalised with typhoid. Countless families fell victim to typhoid fever within this year and people started becoming curious as to the cause of this epidemic.

In 1906, typhoid researcher George Soper began investigating the epidemic and found a common link between all of the families who became sick. They had all at some point employed a cook by the name of Mary Mallon. Soper noticed that Mallon had worked for each of these families roughly three weeks before each of them fell victim to the illness, upon which she would leave the job for another family. Soper approached Mallon to obtain urine and stool samples to prove this, but Mallon adamantly refused and denied any responsibility in her possible role in spreading typhoid as she “was not sick”.

Eventually, the New York City Health Department appointed Dr Sara Josephine Baker to handle the situation. Mallon still refused to comply with the investigation and had to be taken into custody by the police. She was forced to be tested while in prison, which proved that she was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. Doctors discovered that she had a significant growth of typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder. It was determined that Mallon has infected the families through preparing and serving food (she was famous for her ice cream) with poor hand hygiene.

Due to her non-compliance to the order of restricting her from being a cook, Mallon was quarantined for the rest of her life until she died from a stroke in 1938. Mallon – or as the media called her, “Typhoid Mary” – was the source of at least 51 confirmed typhoid fever cases, three of which were fatal. Some estimates say she could have been responsible for as many as 50 deaths as she had worked under many aliases. All because she did not wash her hands properly.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Three Types Of Responses

Posted on by Jinavie

In his book Praise of Escaping (“Éloge de la fuite”), physician Henri Laborit suggests the following. When a person faces an ordeal, they face three options. The first is to fight against the ordeal, the second is to do nothing and third is to flee from it.

Firstly, fighting against a challenge is a very natural behaviour. These people are not hurt by the ordeal because they turn the attack into a retaliation. But this attitude has a problem. Continuous attacks and retaliations result in a vicious cycle. An aggressive person ultimately will be stopped by someone who is stronger than them.

The second option involves not doing anything in the sense that you act as if you hadn’t been attacked by pushing down the resentment. This is the most widely accepted attitude in modern society. Scholars call this behavioural inhibition. People with this attitude have the want to punch their opponent in the face, but swallow their anger as they recognise the risk of being retaliated against and entering a vicious cycle. And so, the punch that did not land on the opponent hits themselves instead. This may even show as medical conditions such as stomach ulcers, aches, or other psychosomatic symptoms.

The third way of escaping can be done through different ways.
Chemical escape: Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, stimulants, relaxants, sleeping pills. All of these can soften or erase the pain from external attacks. By using these substances to forget everything and knocking oneself out, the ordeal will pass. However, because this kind of escape weakens your sense of reality, people who use this method lose their ability to live in the real world.
Geographical escape: Moving from one place to another endlessly. Some people shift their problems by changing jobs, friends, lovers and the places they live in. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, but they feel a little better and gain energy from changing the environment they are in.
Creative escape: Transforming your anger and pain into film, music, writing, painting, sculpting etc. Some people take the things they cannot dare say in the real world and have characters in an imaginary world say it instead. By doing this, they feel a sense of catharsis. People who like to watch characters in movies and books take revenge against those who have wronged them also fit into this category.

image

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Genuine Smile

Posted on by Jinavie

Guillaume Duchenne, the famous French neurologist of the 19th century, conducted many experiments to study facial expressions. Part of his research involved determining how certain expressions are produced – such as stimulating different muscles with electricity to see what muscle produced what expression. During this research, Duchenne identified that a smile could be divided into two distinct groups.

The first – what he called the “Duchenne smile” – involves a muscle called zygomatic major, which raises the corners of the mouth, and also orbicularis oculi, which raises the cheeks and wrinkles the corners of the eyes. The second (“non-Duchenne smile”) type of smile involves less muscles; more specifically it only uses the zygomatic major muscle.

To better visualise this, think of what a natural, genuine smile looks like – a wide grin on the mouth, lifting of the cheeks and slanting of the eyes. This is a Duchenne smile, as opposed to the forced, non-Duchenne smile you see often in photographs. Duchenne concluded that a Duchenne smile only showed when the person was genuinely experiencing a positive emotion. Non-Duchenne smiles were more associated with polite social behaviour when people were pretending to have a good time.

The easiest way to distinguish the two is to look at the eyes, for a real smile is when the eyes are smiling as well. This is a useful physiological trick to remember when you want to figure out whether someone is smiling because they are genuinely happy, or because they are just trying to be polite. Also, knowing how to smile with your eyes to fake a “genuine” smile can be a handy social skill.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

A Sensational Experience

Posted on by Jinavie

We use our senses to interpret the world around us. Thanks to photography, video and sound recording, we are able to preserve what we see and hear in our lives. If you have the good fortune of seeing an incredible view such as a beautiful sunset, you can take a photo, look at it ten years later and remember what it was like watching it with your own eyes. If you miss the sound of your loved one’s voice, you can record the sound and play it again.

However, we are still unable to record senses such as taste, smell and touch. No matter how hard you try, you can never perfectly describe the taste of your mother’s cooking, the soft touch that you felt during your first kiss, or the scent of the person you love to another person using just words. This means that these sensations are only in your memories – and yours alone.

It is a shame that you cannot recall these experiences perfectly, as some of our best memories are associated with them. But perhaps you could think of it from a romantic point of view. You can share a photo or a sound clip with others to share your experience – even make it public so that everyone can know of it. However, with things like taste and smell, only you will know and remember that specific sensation. It is a truly unique experience that belongs only to you (and the few others who were lucky to have tasted your mother’s cooking).

Furthermore, as it is only in your memories, the moment you forget about it, the experience will disappear forever. Maybe that is why people cling to nostalgia of these senses – because it is a fragile yet precious thing that is worth treasuring and holding on to.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Money And Happiness

Posted on by Jinavie

They say money cannot buy happiness. But everyone eventually comes to the realisation that in the world we live in, this is a lie. Who hasn’t felt the thrill of retail therapy – feeling joy from purchasing something they have always desired, from expensive clothes to delicious dessert? It is difficult to persuade a starving person that “money cannot buy happiness” when even a small donation could mean that person being happy from a full stomach.

Of course, this is a literal explanation of the saying. The lesson from the saying is more that money is not the only thing that can buy happiness. Some of the greatest joys a human being can experience – such as connection, love and humour – are virtually free.

That being so, having money gives you the luxury of being able to enjoy even the free things more, because there is one resource that money can buy and that is time. If you are spending less time having to earn a living, then you have more free time to enjoy hobbies and social activities that will bring you happiness. Ergo, money does not equal happiness, but it sure helps your happiness to have enough money.

As mentioned above, money can bring direct happiness as well from purchasing things. However, most of the “happiness” we receive from buying things is from dopamine, meaning it is short-lived and not sustainable.

A better use of your money is purchasing experiences. If you spend your money to go travelling or do an activity like skydiving, the happiness you feel will be linked to the memory and you will be able to reminisce about it in the future. And if you cannot afford an expensive adventure, you can still buy a cup of coffee and catch up with a friend.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Dark Circles

Posted on by Jinavie

One of the most tell-tale signs that someone is extremely tired or sleep deprived is having dark circles around the eyes. The skin beneath the eyelids are very thin – almost a quarter of the thickness of skin elsewhere on the body.

During times of exhaustion, the skin becomes paler due to a number of factors. The paleness makes it easier to see the blood vessels running under the skin, which shows as a greyish-blue tint. The more vessels that can be seen and the paler the skin, the darker the circle appears.

Dark circles appear to be an inherited trait, most likely related to the thickness and transparency of your skin. It is also more common in people with hay fever, anaemia and liver problems. The only real treatment for dark circles is rest.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Ebola

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1976, an outbreak of a viral illness was identified in Sudan. Patients would present with symptoms of high fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhoea and a spotted rash, but would rapidly deteriorate in health. Within days, patients showed signs of decreased blood clotting, such as bleeding from intravenous line sites, having blood in their vomit and stool, or bleeding from essentially any bodily orifice. If untreated, patients would die within two weeks of shock (very low blood pressure), kidney failure or bleeding into the brain. The outbreak killed 151 people before it disappeared.

Later in the year, a headmaster at a school in Zaire developed a similar disease after travelling to the Ebola River. He died two weeks later. Soon after, people he came in contact with after his trip died of similar symptoms. The World Health Organisation investigated this epidemic and realised that the disease was caused by a new type of virus, which was named ebola virus. Due to its symptoms, the disease caused by the virus is named ebola haemorrhagic fever.

Since the discovery of the disease, occasional ebola outbreaks were seen in various parts of Africa, mainly around Congo and Uganda. Each time, the disease would rapidly claim the lives of hundreds of people and then vanish. This is because ebola virus was so effective in killing people (with a death rate of 90% in one outbreak), that it would kill the infected person before they spread the disease further.

The virus can be spread through any bodily fluid, including blood, tears, semen and sweat. Because of this, once an infected patient is brought into hospital, the disease can spread rapidly throughout the building and infect many patients and hospital staff if proper precautions are not taken. Fortunately, the virus is not known to spread when the patient is in the incubation period (when they are infected but have not shown symptoms yet).

The origin of the virus has been traced back to fruit bats (like many other serious viruses). Fruit bats have extremely powerful immune systems to protect their cells from the harmful metabolites produced by flying, allowing bats to harbour deadly viruses without succumbing to them. These viruses have also evolved to withstand the high temperatures produced by flying (which involves significant muscle work), meaning they can easily survive the high fevers they cause in humans. The transmission from bats to human in modern times is likely attributed to deforestation and humans encroaching into the bats’ native territory.

The current epidemic that originated from West Africa is the biggest ebola outbreak so far, having infected over 9000 people and claiming the lives of over 4500 people (October 14, 2014). However, this is likely a grossly underestimated number. The epidemic is focussed mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and surrounding countries, but has infected foreign workers and volunteers who have been repatriated to be treated in their home country.

Despite a robust effort from the WHO to try and curb this epidemic, the infection rate continues to climb due to various factors, such as traditional funeral rites involving touching the deceased person’s body, which is still infective after death. There are currently no effective vaccines or treatments and the only thing that can be done is supportive treatment in an intensive care unit where the patient can be adequately hydrated and monitored. Like with most communicable diseases, the most effective treatment is preventing the disease from spreading through education, rigorous infection control protocols and improved healthcare systems in the affected countries.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Rubber Hand Illusion

Posted on by Jinavie

The five senses are something we take for granted as we never even give a thought as to how complex the way we receive sensory information about the world we live in. As incredible the science behind all the senses may be, it is also interesting to see such intricate mechanisms being fooled by sensory illusions. An experiment that highlights how intricate the senses can be is that of the rubber hand illusion.

In this experiment, researchers made participants look at a dummy rubber hand, while obscuring their real hand from view. They then applied exactly the same stimulus to the real hand as the rubber hand, such as stroking it with a brush or feather. Within a short amount of time, the participants reported that they were convinced that the rubber hand was their real hand, confusing the visual sensation of seeing the rubber hand with the tactile sensation of their real hand being brushed.

image

Because the brain is so good at piecing together things to come up with explanations, it links the two sensations and thus concludes that the rubber hand must be part of the body. The association is so strong that some participants would even feel pain when the rubber hand was attacked, pulling away their real arm.

One of the lesser known senses of the body is proprioception – the sensation of knowing where your body lies in three-dimensional space. This sensation is what lets you do things with your eyes closed, while also being responsible for the feeling of embarrassing yourself with a fall when someone pulls the chair out from under you. Proprioception is based on a delicate “body map” your brain draws out from various sensory information such as your joint position and touch sensation from your muscle and skin. It then adds more information such as vision and spatial orientation information from your inner ears to accurately predict how you will interact in your environment. In the case of the rubber hand illusion, the brain is fooled into remapping the body map to accommodate the rubber hand.

The application of this phenomenon, known as multisensory integration, extends from out-of-body experiences to phantom limb pain, where amputees feel pain and sensation from an amputated limb. There are also anecdotal evidence of men with penile prostheses being able to achieve orgasms, most likely thanks to the rubber hand illusion.

image