Jordan Ooms experiences in the lab as an RA

My time in Susan Ravizza’s Cognitive Control Neurolab has been extremely fulfilling. I feel that I have learned more about the practical implications of research while in this lab than in any class I have taken thus far. While I may not understand all of her research on a conceptual level, I was able to see the process of collecting data and the frustration when the data does not turn out how one would like. Working in this lab was defiantly a learning experience.

The first time I was in lab was by far one of the more nerve wreaking events I have encountered during this semester. I came in knowing I would be trained on how the computer system worked and how the experiment that I was taking over would be carried out. “Go into Mercury, open your folder, click the “running man,” send it all back through Mercury, transform that data, transfer it to Excel, then please code all the lines.” The only thing that was running through my head was “Ummmm… What?” Computers and I have had a bad history and we rarely get along, but I the whole time I had smile on my face nodding hoping I would be able to recall all of what had just sent my way. Poor Jon, our graduate student in the lab, I asked him more questions than was probably appropriate. But I eventually understood what needed to be done and was able to fly through it with ease. (Looking back now, I had nothing to worry about.)

My responsibilities in the lab included running undergraduate students through an attentional capture experiment. I would let them know what they would be doing in the experiment, place them in a booth and make sure that they were completing the practice trials in a correct manner. When they were done with their experiment I would transfer the data to another computer and code their data. Each participant would have approximately 600 lines of data that needed to be coded. Six hundred. Times 44 participants, means I coded over 25,800 lines of data. This work was tedious, boring, mind numbing, and yet also calming. I found that I’m quite good at this task. Let me tell you, being good at coding is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing in the fact that it comes easy, goes relatively quickly, and you know you’re data is correct. It’s a curse in the fact then you get asked to code extra data. This was a task that I had no problem doing, for its not difficult in anyway. It was also a slight ego booster to be noticed for the fact that my work was completed in a sufficient manner! If you are going to do something, it might as well be done right, and getting recognition was defiantly a bonus.

Currently this study is being reviewed and I am at a standstill until next semester starts. I have been asked to be trained on the study that involves working with Parkinson’s patients. While I am, yet again, slightly nervous, I know that I will eventually be fine. I am unsure of the symptoms of the disease and will need to do some research over break to better understand the patients that I will be working with. The study itself seems to be very straight forward. I am looking forward to be given more responsibility in the lab and to prove that I am capable of completing the tasks given to me.

Over all, working in this lab has been a joy! My experiences have allowed me to see that research is truly a passion for me and that I love the process through the good and the bad. I am excited for next semester to see what new research procedures I might learn. I am looking forward to working with and learning more about Parkinson’s patients. One goal that I set out for myself is to actually work with that data more. I love statistics and would be excited to be given the opportunity to understand the statistical programs in a more proficient manner.

Week 12 – Jennifer Harmon

Imagine living in a world where you believe all your loved ones are not who they claim to be, but are in fact very good imposters of your parents, siblings, spouses etc. This is the typical thought of patients who suffer from Capgras Syndrome. Capgras syndrome is sometimes associated as a “symptom” of schizophrenia as well as dementia; however it can also develop after an accident causing brain injury. The theory as to why people develop this syndrome is a disconnection between the limbic system (part of the brain that is involved with emotions) and the temporal cortex (face recognition area). The patient is able to see and recognize their friends and family, but cannot connect emotions and memories with their face. Since they have no emotions that come with seeing them, they assume it must be an imposter. Some psychologists believe that Capgras syndrome is just a form or another type of Prosopagnosia which is a disorder with involving face perception. A patient with prosopagnosia is unable to identify faces but has relatively no problem identifying other objects. I don’t think that these two disorders are related, unlike some psychologist . A patient with Capgras syndrome is able to identify people by looking at their face; they know what their family and friends look like. If they didn’t they would be unable to accuse them of being an imposter since they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between their looks. With prosopagnosia the people are unable to recognize who is who but they still have an emotional connection to whom they cannot identify. When the patient is told who they are looking at they still feel all the emotions and are able to recollect the memories they associated with that person. To me these disorders seem to be the exact opposite of each other . I believe that similar brain structures and pathways are involved in each of these orders, but the way they preform and affect the patient are different. Although Capgras syndrome is not very common, and can go away with time, I think that more research needs to go into looking at why they are assuming that their love ones are imposters. It also makes me wonder how they interact when they meet new people, do they develop new emotional connections to that person? Or will they “forget” those emotional ties and assume that they too are an imposter? I think that the discovery of Capgras disorder has raised more questions than it has answered. I for one cannot imagine what it would be like to lose all the memories and emotional connections I have to my loved ones.

Week 11 – Austin Cesarz

A conflict that is faced by many college students is the building pressure of an upcoming exam. Just the simple idea of one exam influencing your final grade is terrifying and can lead to a lot of unnecessary stress. Now you might be wondering why this stress is unnecessary, and the answer is simple. If the student prepares beforehand in the correct manner, success is increasingly probable. The key to success in school is the planning and selecting of an action.

The area of the brain that controls this planning and selecting is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is used in maintaining the current goal or task and selects which ones are most relevant given the task at hand. When a student is preparing for an exam, they must develop an action plan. This action plan can be represented as a hierarchy of subgoals, each requiring actions to achieve the goal. For the student, ‘at the top’ is succeeding on the exam. The subgoals would be the many things that make succeeding on the exam possible. Examples would be reading the text, going to class, and studying all the materials thoroughly. After making the goals, the consequences must be anticipated. Would it be best to study weeks before the exam or cram an hour before? Lastly, in order to succeed the student must determine what is required to achieve the subgoals. Examples would be having a writing utensil, a place to study, and people to study with. When the action plan is finally in place, it is easy for the student to step back and plan for the best way to execute the action of preparation for the exam.

Another example of correctly using the action hierarchy to determine the way to best succeed would be writing this blog. Without the help of my prefrontal cortex I would be in trouble. It helps me straighten out my goal and subgoals. My top goal is to write the best blog ever created. The subgoals would be researching the material, creating a clear argument, and completing the task in a timely manner. After figuring out the goal and subgoals it makes the execution of the blog much smoother. The problem with some students is they fail to execute the planning and selecting of an action. Instead of having a main goal of writing a quality paper, they reach for writing a quick and sloppy paper. The problem with this is they fail to plan ahead of time. By skipping the planning stage, their paper is doomed from the start. In order to succeed in school, planning and selecting of an action are important.

Without input from the region called the prefrontal cortex, our actions would be much more based on impulse. It is with the prefrontal cortex that goal-oriented behavior (the behaviors that allow us to interact in the world in a purposive manner) arises. When the student is creating their action hierarchy, they draw on their past experiences and the current environment as references. These actions are particularly adaptive and flexible. For example, if a teacher tells the student a couple days after they started planning for the exam that there will be an additional part included on the exam, the student must be able to edit their existing plan to better adapt to the new goal. It is through the workings of the prefrontal cortex that this adaptation is possible. So next time you are cramming for final exams remember that there is a better way, you just have to use your prefrontal cortex and execute an action plan weeks in advance.

Week 10 – Mark Pressler

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The brain is a prime example of this, because the creative, thinking, dreaming brain is greater than a mass collection of cells . It can also coordinate movements using an integrated system, employing many parts of the brain for a task as simple as walking. The basal ganglia (midbrain) and cerebellum (close to spinal cord) work to fine tune the motor signals so we don’t jerk around while walking, or misstep, or fall over. The motor, premotor, and parietal areas of the brain (top center of the brain) start the codes for movement, put them in a correct sequence, and abstractly interpret the goals of movement in space. One could go as far as to say that the vision center of the brain (occipital lobe, back of the brain) allows us to see if we are walking the right path. For a task as simple as walking, something that we learn at a young age, something we take for granted, it employs a lot of different areas of the brain to work together. This kind of integrated system makes it hard to believe that certain areas of the brain are “responsible” for tasks.

For example, research shows that the back of the brain (occipital lobe) is responsible for vision. Yes, it does interpret the signals coming from the eye, but the idea of “vision” involves more than just visual signals . The eye and head move to orient to the visual object, which is a motor process. The object needs to be recognized, which is a higher brain function. Or, if the object is new, it needs to be encoded and remembered by the hippocampus (midbrain). The visual grasp reflex, which is put into motion if something interesting is seen in the peripheral areas of the field of vision, is another process the brain manages for vision. All of these processes are also updating many times a second to give a person the picture in front of their eyes, to give them vision.

Maybe I am getting too wrapped up in how psychology lessons are being worded. Maybe psych professors know to say the occipital lobe is responsible for vision, or the motor cortex is responsible for movement is too simple, but for the sake of the lesson it must be done. Or, maybe I am geeking out about the truly amazing multi-task abilities of the human brain. That I can walk (using all the processes aforementioned), see where I am going (using all of the processes aforementioned), and predict the repercussions of bombing the next exam is a feat supercomputers cannot handle. To think a collection of cells that’s about 3 lbs can go toe to toe with the fanciest computers available is mind blowing. A single nerve cell cannot do much, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Week 9 – Rachel Margulies

Disclaimer: The following is a student essay and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Dr. Ravizza.

The degenerate disorder, in the central nervous system, of Parkinson’s disease has been brought to the forefront of modern media due to the fact that the actor Michael J. Fox has been diagnosed with this disease for about twenty years. However, not all patients diagnosed with this disease have the means to try every ‘cure’ known to modern medicine. According to USA Today approximately 50.7 million American citizens live without health insurance, and such statistics are rising. For those citizens, holistic measures might be their only way to help manage their disease. Holistic remedies such as nutrition, herbs, exercise, and acupuncture can be used to slow the progression of, and help manage, the neurological disorder of Parkinson’s disease.
As defined in the text book; Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind; Parkinson’s Disease(PD) is a degenerative disorder of the basal ganglia in which the pathology results from the loss of dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra is composed of two parts: the axons that provide the primary source of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and the output nuclei from the basal ganglia; which is correlated with motor control and learning. Primary symptoms include difficulty initiating movement, controlling and slowing of movement, poor speech articulation, and tremors. However, many invasive treatments are dangerous. Access to the substantia nigra with traditional lesion methods are difficult because of its proximity to vital brainstem nuclei. Positron emission tomography (PET), which measures metabolic activity in the brain by monitoring the distribution of a radioactive tracer in the brain, confirmed the decreased rate of dopamine. All which result in a fundamental brain deficit that helps direct muscle activity in the body.
Some would say that nutrition directly connects mind and body functioning. Beneficial nutrition for a PD patient would include a high fiber, a limitation of high protein, and an increase in fresh water lifestyle. For example; spelt (type of wheat), fruit, vegetables (leafy greens), vegetable juices (carrot juice), seaweeds, sprouted grains, and raw seeds (sunflower and pumpkin) support a healthy body for such patients. Foods to avoid would be chemically processed foods, coffee (caffeine), sugar, tobacco, hot spices, and alcohol that hinder the body and mind functioning. To get even more holistic, many herbs are said to provide benefits to PD patients. Certain combinations of herbs are said to relax muscles, strengthen the brain (functioning and circulation), and nourish the central nervous system (CNS). Such herbs and combinations of herbs, according to holisticonline.com, would include: rhubarb, peony, licorice, and magnolia bark which are said to stop tremors and relax stiff muscles. Also, ginseng, horsetail, hops, skullcap, passionflower, and valerian root can specifically help alleviate PD symptoms. Specifically, skullcap is known to strengthen the brain, whereas passionflower can improve the effectiveness of L-dopa; a drug used to help one’s body compensate for the loss of endogenous dopamine. Ginkgo biloba searches for free radicals, which are atoms or molecules that are unstable and highly reactive, this search can help boost circulation to the brain. Finally a very beneficial combination would include black cohosh catnip, lemon balm, passionflower, skullcap, and valerian root which have anti-stress properties and help nourish the nervous system. Such herbs might be hard to come by at a local markets but if obtained they are a safe and less expensive way to manage the progression of PD then most medical treatments.
Another way a Parkinson’s disease patient can slow the progression of the disease is through exercise. Since PD directly affects mobility it is important to strengthen muscles and put underused rigid muscles through full range motion to help increase balance and improve emotional well being. Slow controlled movements are preferred for PD patients so practices in Yoga are recommended. Traditional Chinese medicine also suggests the practice of Chi Yi, as described in holisticonline.com; which focuses on deep breathing. Chi Yi is described by patients sitting upright in a chair, feet flat on the floor, raise arms in the air and inhale deeply through the nose. Hold that breath and raise arms into the air, ball hands into a fist to contract arm muscles, and exhale slowly. Finally cross arms over chest and take 4 quick intakes of breath until lungs are filled, hold and exhale. This practice will increase blood flow and the oxygen in the blood; which will increase brain functioning and in turn improves emotional wellbeing.
To end with, acupuncture is a known holistic way to deal with PD symptoms. Acupuncture, as described in MichaelJFox.org, is a traditional Chinese medical technique of inserting and manipulating needles in various parts of the body to encourage the flow of energy. Parkinson’s disease, as previously described, is associated with muscle stiffness, soreness, and imbalance. Acupuncturists might believe those symptoms are due to an imbalance of energy, and acupuncture is needed to encourage the flow of that energy. A specific point for acupuncture is discussed on MichaelJFox.org, the GB-34 acupuncture point. GB-34 is located generally below the knee and if the left acu-point is stimulated it is said to be significantly correlated with the degree of the enhanced motor function in the motor-cortex. Acupuncture, if stimulation is consistent, is said to greatly influence the brain regions known to be impaired by PD (about.com: Acupuncture for PD). Interestingly enough, if Parkinson’s Disease is diagnosed early and acupuncture is used as a holistic remedy tests have shown that dopamine levels decrease much less steeply, nearly 80% of dopamine remained!(about.com) This, of course, is not a cure for PD but by preventing unnecessary inflammation of the brain and increasing energy flow throughout the body one would be able to slow the rapid progression of PD.
As discussed above, holistic remedies can have an overall positive effect on the progression of, and the management of, Parkinson’s disease. Nutrition and herbal remedies are a great way to help connect the mind and body by strengthening the brain, increasing circulation, and nourishing the CNS. Exercise can slow the progression of immobility by keeping muscles strengthened and increasing balance. And finally, acupuncture has the ability to holistically balance energy flow throughout the body to increase motor functioning. Overall, holistic remedies are a great way to help manage the changes one’s body would endure with Parkinson’s disease. And why not try them? Stay in control with a disease that hinders motor control.

Week 8 – Audra Artzberger

Right and left brained. I remember hearing this term in high school before I took any psychology classes or any classes related to the brain. The theory that the right and left brain are significantly different from each other seems to be common knowledge as I heard it repeated throughout my high school career. I remember one time specifically where the importance of the right and left brain (more accurately described as the right and left hemisphere of the brain) was stressed in two art classes I was taking at the time. The class gave an assessment telling you if either your right brain or your left brain is dominant. The assessment was based on the theory that the right and left hemisphere of the brain are specialized in certain processes and ways of viewing the world. The right brain is said to be the less analytical of the two hemispheres. The right hemisphere views scenes and situations in a more holistic way, emphasizing the effect of the stimulus as a whole rather than the specific pieces that create such stimulus. Once piece of evidence that the right hemisphere is said to have has global tendencies is face recognition is mainly located in the right hemisphere . People recognize a face as its whole and not by breaking it up into its individual pieces. It is the creative hemisphere associated with more abstract thinking. The left hemisphere encompasses the opposite of the right hemisphere concepts. It is said to be the side of the brain that uses logic and reason, makes plans and follows rules.

The interest in discovering whether someone thinks more with their right brain or left brain is obvious in an art class because art is typically considered a right brain function. However the differences between the hemispheres are not as pronounced as popular culture likes to emphasize . The human brain can do an unbelievable amount of processing and out of this only a handful of processes are thought to be lateralized. The pigeon-holing of certain cognitive processes to a hemisphere is questionable. Children injured in an area said to be specific to that hemisphere, grammar in the left hemisphere for example, can still learn grammar from the processes of the right hemisphere. There are rare cases wheere a person is born with only one functioning hemisphere and they are still very functional; carrying out all the processes that are said to be “lateralized” like language, visual and auditory processing. This does not only speak for the amazing plasticity of the brain but illustrates that the brain has the capability for a certain hemisphere to do the job of what would be considered the opposite hemisphere’s job. Such that when one side is absence the other side picks up the slack. Much of the research that has been done on the lateralization of the brain has been on spilt brain patients. The incidence of spilt brain patients is rare and as Stephen M. Kosslyn (Ph.D.) points out, there is a “large variability even among spilt brain patient.” This makes it difficult to confidently say whether certain processes are lateralized. Kosslyn acknowledges that when scanning the brain during a specific task, “we see varied patterns of activation in each half-brain.” The hemispherical operations seem to work together more in a single system than what is often believed. There is obviously much more going on in the brain than is easily measured so we should be careful when classifying the halves and not put too much stock in right and left brain tests.

Week 7 – Savahanna Matyasic

In my high school English writing and literature classes, there were always a couple of incidents throughout the year in which someone would make it a point to state how completely counter-intuitive and inconsistent the language is. Spelling, in particular, is rather tricky and the rules designed to help us have exceptions and loopholes. The comedian Brian Regan once paraphrased the popular English rule of ‘I’ before ‘E’ as, “’I’ before ‘E’, except after ‘C’, and when sounding like ‘A’ as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’. And on weekends and holidays, and all throughout May, and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say.”

As irritated as I was with these students for wasting valuable class time with their frustration at their own inability to accept and abide by the rules, they did have a point. English, on the whole, would be far easier to learn if the rules were constant rather than case-specific. The translation from written language to speech is particularly tricky because, even though our English language has only 40 unique phonemes (the smallest bits of sound that make a difference to the meaning of the word), there are roughly 1120 letter combinations that make them up. With so many different ways to spell the same sounds, it can be difficult to know how to spell a word simply by knowing how it is pronounced. Even worse, we have words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and/or pronunciations (homographs. Ex: the word “desert” as in ‘the desert’ and ‘to desert’) and words that are spelled differently that are pronounced the same (homophones. Ex: ‘to stare’ and ‘that stair’).

Because the mapping and translation of the English language from written to verbal and vice versa is so convoluted, there are a multitude of cases in which we must simply memorize the exceptions. It is postulated that one of the areas of the brain that assists in helping us with these exceptions is the visual word form area (VWFA), which is located in the anterior left hemisphere. This special area is designed to recognize strings of letters quickly so that we recognize words as a whole, rather than reading letter-by letter, which is considerably slower. Because of the VWFA, word length does not seem to have a significant influence on how much time it takes to read long words compared to short words. However, when the VWFA is damaged, subjects spend significantly more time reading longer words than shorter words, indicating that subjects are engaging in letter-to-letter reading.
It’s important to note, however, that this process of reading word forms is not automatic and that we can choose to read letter-by-letter. This is the very basis of phonics programs, which attempt to teach the most common ways to translate written language to verbal and vice versa. While phonics is an acceptable fallback for learning to read new words and to spell unfamiliar words, it should be noted that it is a system that is far from perfect. Phonics should still be taught early on, but a more effective way to increase understanding of the English language is gained by exercising the VWFA through extensive reading and exposure to as many new word forms as possible at an early age. The end result of this style of education will be to diversify vocabulary, reduce reading time, and increase reading comprehension.

Week 6 – Holly Gilson

The distinction between episodic memories, memories gained from personal life experiences from a particular time and place, and semantic memory, factual knowledge (including language) and conceptual priming, was first introduced by a man named Endel Tulving. Tulving believed that animals only had semantic memory and not episodic memory. I find this an arguable statement and would lean towards disagreeing with this assumption.

My fiancé and I have two very unique and active cats. One day, one of our cats, Lily, wandered into the bathroom while I was on the toilet, since I am female, I always sit down to perform this task. Lily doesn’t particularly like the bathroom because of the loud noises that come from it, specifically the toilet itself. While I was sitting there, Lily came within arm’s reach, so I gave her a pet, which she enjoyed. When I was finished doing what I had to do, I stood up, and flushed the toilet which caused Lily to runaway.
A few days later the same scenario happened, with one small exception, when I started to stand up she ran out of the room and into the doorway of the bathroom before I flushed the toilet! While in the doorway Lily watched what I was doing, I turned towards the toilet and then the big sound came. The next day the same thing happened but again, the ending to this bizarre ritual changed, instead of leaving when I stood up, Lily left when I turned towards the toilet. Another thing to note is that Lily will not enter the bathroom when my fiancé, who is male, uses the bathroom, because in her mind, he does not sit.

Many would say that Lily only had semantic memories and only made semantic memories in this situation, but to make the semantic memories about the toilet and me so quickly, and to know that there was time between me standing up and the toilet flushing, so she had the opportunity run out the door and peer in the doorway to watch how the noise was made, leads me to believe that she remembered the actual episode herself so she could learn, then change her actions according to what she learned. I cannot know for sure if she did remember each episode because I cannot ask her but her actions would lead me to believe that she can remember different variations of this situation.

Another situation I find relevant to my argument occurred years ago with my dog Ryder when I was just a toddler. Ryder was very protective of me and would follow me everywhere I went. One day my parents decided to try and see if Ryder would play hide and go seek with me. I hid in a barn while my father took Ryder outside of the barn and closed the door. After I was hidden my father opened the door. Seemly without using his nose, Ryder started looking for me. He would look behind equipment and wood panels until he found me. When he did find me we would repeat the process.

At first, he ran to the place he found me last. But when I was not there he started looking in other places again. He found me again and then the process was repeated. When allowed back inside he did what he had done before but when I was not there he tried the first hiding place. After repeating this process a few more times we realized something; Ryder would look in all the places he had found me before, and not even in order, until he found me. Ryder not only knew the function of the objects that he looked around but also, from previous episodes (assuming he was not using his nose) knew previous hiding places, and was not looking in these places in any sort of pattern.
Lily and Ryder, both seemed to have mentally traveled back in time to previous experiences and in that process also added new memories. Both instances lead me to believe that even though semantic memory was definitely involved, episodic memory could also be a large factor. Perhaps not in the same way humans use it, but in a similar way.

Week 4 – Thiera Lane

Have you ever been in trouble by with your parents, and by the end of the conversation you were in even more trouble by the time the conversation endedthan when the converstation started? I know I have especially with me being theas a only child. I had no one to push the blame on. As I grew older, I really wanted to understand how and why I kept getting in more trouble regardless of how hard I tried to listen to my mother. Now, I realize it was my selective attention that assisted in the mischief. My mother is very long winded, and once she starts it is almost impossible to stop her. So how does selective attention come into play? Well, for starters selective attention is a cognitive process that allows us to pick out relevant input messages, thoughts, or actions while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant or distracting ones. It can also be either voluntary (top-down, goal oriented, intentional) or reflexive (bottom-up; stimulus-driven; sensory event captures attention) and we can just about guess which one applies to me. I don’t know about you, but as a teenager, I felt everything that my mother said to me was either irrelevant or pointless until itwhich resulted in me being grounded. This wonderful survival mechanism was essentially the death of my social life in high school. It almost always happened like this; I do something to set my mother off, she give me a huge lecture, and a list of instructions, meanwhile I tune her out and by the time she asks me if I understand I am now looking at her with a blank stare as if she had never spoke a single word. Bad Idea, I know. My mother initially thought I had attention deficit disorder, but then she realized I just was not paying attention on my own will. When my mother figured out that I voluntarily decided to tune her out and not pay attention to her, she decided to take matters into her own hands and force me to pay attention. When she felt as though I was tuning her out, she would pinch my arm to grasp my attention again. Little did she know, I really tuned her out because although I turned my attention to her pinch (the stimulus), now I focused more on the pain and still missed half of her conversation. My mother essentially took me from using the frontal eye field as well as the intraparietal sulcus/superior parietal lobule in the brain (responsible for voluntary attention) to using the inferior parietal lobule/superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus/middle frontal gyrus in the brain (responsible for reflexive attention); Luckily, by the time I graduated from high school, I matured enough to listen to her and tune everything else out and stay out of trouble as well.

Week 3 – Anthony McLaughlin

When I walked onto campus as a young and impressionable freshman, I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. To be fair, I’m still not sure if I have that figured out, but an advisor asked me what classes I was interested in. “Don’t think about what job you want, think about what you enjoy studying.” Sadly I couldn’t major in Michigan State Athletics or tailgating, but I was always good at math, so I declared statistics as my major. The next two years were dedicated towards learning the truth in the phrase “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Numbers were the one thing that I thought always had a right and wrong answer. I was wrong. My life was headed towards a cubical; my career would determine who was profitable to provide insurance for.

In general I prefer helping people to ruining their lives, so I decided not to carry on down that path. I started to look at the ways I could use my statistics background for the betterment of society, as well as myself. Psychology was a natural draw. I have always been interested in the reason things work the way they do, and psychology provides me an outlet for my curiosity.

Though my class schedule is now full of psychology classes, I never fully left the math geek behind. Any article I read is treated with a healthy amount of skepticism, especially when they cite statistics as fact. Often psychologists will reach conclusions that make sense to the untrained eye, but a person with a background in statistics can pick those conclusions apart.

My google news alert recently popped up with an article titled “The statistical error that just keeps on coming.” The article references a study of five of the most popular Neuroscience journals (Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and The
Journal of Neuroscience). The study noted that a large portion of the articles published were incorrectly using statistics to interpret the outcome of their study.

After reading that I decided to find the actual study, to see if I thought the testing procedure was fair and to read the outcome of the study. It hypothesized that studies were determining statistical significance without actually doing the proper testing. They describe the problem with a hypothetical study involving rats and a significance value of .05. For a study to be statistically significant, a value is set to determine how much error is acceptable. If something scores under that value after interpreting error it is declared “significant.”

Consider an extreme scenario in which training induced activity barely reaches significance in mutant mice (for example, P = 0.049) and barely fails to reach significance for control mice (for example, P = 0.051). Despite the fact that these two P values lie on opposite sides of 0.05, one cannot conclude that the training effect for mutant mice differs statistically from that for control mice.

They looked at 513 articles from the 5 magazines and determined there were 157 studies that could have made this mistake. Of those 157 articles, 78 used the correct procedure, while 79 used incorrect procedures. More than half of the articles were not accurately comparing and displaying the data. Instead of discussing the interaction, they only focused on “simple main effects.” Now, just because fifty percent of the tests were not performed correctly it doesn’t mean half the articles are wrong. In about a third of the tests, where the error occurred, the results were so skewed any conclusion that was made would probably be the same after proper testing. However, in the other two-thirds, they expected the error to make a difference in the outcome of the study.

The authors wanted to see if the outcome was specific to Basic Neuroscience journals and the published work within their fields. To test this they reviewed 120 studies from molecular and cellular neuroscience magazines. The results were even more shocking. There wasn’t a single article that had properly used statistical analysis.

The reason for the error is unknown. It is possible that ignorance was the cause and those conducting the studies made accidental mistakes. The authors argue that it might be the effect of “dumbing down” the article so the average person can understand it. I certainly hope that is the case. Sadly, I disagree with them. If there was one thing I learned as a Statistics major, it is that numbers can be manipulated to say just about anything.

In my mind, the reason this is so prevalent is because people are trying to publish something that is “significant.” Studies get published when they show something. There is a desire to get a result which sometimes requires the manipulation of statistics. As was pointed out in our first lecture, the field of Neuroscience is still young. It is growing so quickly; everyone is rushing to make the next great discovery.

These mistakes worry me. I left statistics to avoid the falsification of numbers for a profit. I certainly hope psychology isn’t headed the same direction.