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In praise of partial explanation (and flowcharts)

Posted by gregdowney on July 7, 2009

Created by RPM at Evolgen

Created by RPM at Evolgen

During our panel at the American Anthropology Association last year, Prof. Naomi Quinn warned that ‘a flowchart is not a theory.’ She stressed the limits to the explanatory power of a simple diagram; her skepticism, of course, is entirely warranted.

But since I was one of the prime offenders with the explanatory flowchart, and I seem to be using them more and more, I wanted to offer a stalwart defense of the use of flowcharts and diagramming in neuroanthropology, especially as both contribute to the practice of partial explanation. So, to pick up a theme from a number of my posts, ‘yes-you’re-right-but-I-still-disagree,’ here’s why I find flowcharts particularly useful and think anthropologists should be doing a lot more diagramming to highlight complex patterns of causation, situating more broadly the parts of complex systems that they are exploring.

But before I go any further, I need to direct all our readers to the recent announcement of the first Neuroanthropology conference which Daniel posted. Although I want to post, I feel like I also want to keep drawing attention to this announcement. But on with it…

As with all of her comments, I felt that Prof. Quinn cut to the quick, highlighting an issue in a cautionary fashion rather than rejecting specific arguments our panelists were making (at least I don’t think she was just calling me out…). In the case of flowcharts, Prof. Quinn suggested that diagramming relationships was a preliminary step, not a final goal – at least that’s one of the ways that I took her comments – and I agree.

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Posted in Methods, general | Tagged: , , , , | 7 Comments »

Hosting Four Stone Hearth – send submissions

Posted by gregdowney on July 7, 2009

Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid.com

Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid.com

We’ll be hosting Four Stone Hearth, the itinerant carnival of anthropology, on 15 July 2009.

So please send us links to your recent postings on anthropology of all sorts. If you can submit them to me by the 12th or 13th, that’d be brilliant; you can reach me at greg{dot}downey{at}mq{dot]edu{dot}au. If you’ve read something totally boss on someone else’s anthropology blog, please don’t hesitate to send along the link, and we’ll try to direct more readers to the piece.

Four Stone Hearth brings together the four subfields of anthropology: archaeological, linguistic, biological and socio-cultural. It’s a veritable anthro-polooza of anthro-blogilization, so make sure you’re part of it!

And check back after the 15th to see who showed up, and whether any of our guests drank too much and went crowd surfing or hooked up with someone inappropriate.

Credits: If you like this cartoon, visit Hugh MacLeod at Gapingvoid.com for many more of his back-of-a-business-card sketches.

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WWW: Wake and Robert Sawyer

Posted by dlende on June 9, 2009

WWW Wake
Neural plasticity, artificial intelligence, vision, theory of consciousness, the internet, and cross-cultural interactions? Yes, all that and more in Robert Sawyer’s new novel WWW: Wake.

I just finished reading this book, and definitely enjoyed it – more for the ideas than for the writing, but then again, it’s not every day you find such a neuroanthropological tale! As for the story, it moves right along, so it’s a good summer read. As Publisher’s Weekly says, “Wildly thought-provoking.”

Here’s Sawyer’s tag: “The World Wide Web wakes up…” And while much of the story does revolve around artificial intelligence and how the Web might develop into an aware agent, the protagonist of the novel is Caitlin Decter, a blind teenager who is a math prodigy and internet whiz. That combination lets Sawyer explore neural plasticity (her visual cortex has mapped onto her navigation of the web) and Decter’s understanding and interactions with the emergent online being.

As Sawyer writes about Wake, “The World Wide Web will soon have as many connections as does the human brain. And, just as reflective, self-aware consciousness spontaneously emerged in Homo sapiens some 40,000 years ago so too might consciousness emerge in the vast network that is the Web.”

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Posted in general | 1 Comment »

Encephalon #71: Big Night

Posted by dlende on May 25, 2009

Big Night
Welcome to Encephalon #71 – a Big Night here at Neuroanthropology, as we are hosting Encephalon for the second time (last year it was The Usual Suspects). Enjoy your multi-course mind feast!

Editor’s Selections
What is this: ‘Too much’? HEY! It is never ‘too much’; it is only ‘not enough’! Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you!

Carl Feagans, A Hot Cup of Joe
Artificial Cranial Modification: Trephination and Head Shaping

Alvaro Fernandez, Sharp Brains
The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp

Students @ Neuroanthropology – their own Big Night!
Gambling and Compulsion: Neurobiology Meets Casinos

Ginger Campbell, Brain Science Podcasts
Brain Science Podcast #57: Chris Frith, PhD (author of “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World”)

Learning
“People should come just for the food!” “I know that, I know. But they don’t.”

Dave Munger, Cognitive Daily
Musicians Have Better Memory – Not Just for Music, but Words and Pictures Too

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Talent: A Difference That Makes a Difference

Walter van den Broek, i.e., Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Learning Arithmetic

Nicky Penttila, Sharp Brains
Brain Scientists Identify Links between Arts, Learning

Brain Health
I’m a businessman. I’m anything I need to be at anytime.

My Mind on Books
“What Makes Us Happy?”: George Vaillant and the Harvard Study of Adult Development @ The Atlantic

Adam Benforado, The Situationist
Something to Smile About

The Neurocritic
Suicide Rates in Greenland Are Highest During the Summer

Ward Plunet, Brain Health Hacks
How to Increase Your D2 Receptor Levels, and therefore the Dopamine System – for Better Brain Health

Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Exercise

On the Basics
Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
The Psychology of Being Scammed

Sandeep Gautam, The Mouse Trap
Synaptic Plasticity: Angelman’s/Autism and Psychosis

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interview with Alexandra Rutherford, author of “Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner’s Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life”

Mo Costandi, Neurophilosophy
Decoding the Brain’s Response to Vocal Emotions

Critique and Comment
“She’s a criminal. I want to talk to her.” “You want to talk to her? Okay! You want to talk to her? That’s great.”

Eugene Raikhel, Somatosphere
A Critical Neurosciences Manifesto

The Neurocritic
The Constant State of Desire: Broccoli & Self-Control

Jared Tanner, Brain Blogger
What is Free Will?

Cristopher Green, Advances in the History of Psychology
“Homosexuality Conversion” Classics Fraudulent?

Philip Dawdy, Furious Seasons
Psychiatrist Calls Profession’s Leaders Out Of Touch

Sandra K., Channel N
Neuroethics Diavlog – Neuroscience and the Law with Carl Zimmer and Michael Gazzanniga

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Escaping Orientalism in Cultural Psychology

Anthropology
Give to people what they want, then later you can give them what you want.

Edmund Blair Bolles, Babel’s Dawn
From Protolanguage to True Language

Dan Sperber, Cognition and Culture
Is the Left Hemisphere more Whorfian than the Right One?

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interviews with Milgram’s Participants

David DiSalvo, Neuronarrative
Are We Born Believers or Cultural Receivers? A Discussion with Author and Psychologist Bruce Hood

Addiction
This place is eating us alive.

Dirk Hanson, Brain Blogger,
Clearing the Haze – Is Marijuana Addictive?

Scicurious, Neurotopia
Things I like to Blog About: Addiction and the Opponent Process Theory
Opponent-Process Theory: Welcome to the Dark Side

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
Numbers Up for Dopamine Myth

Notes on Big Night

For more on the 1996 film Big Night, you can see the IMDb site and Wikipedia. The quotes (with occasional slight modifications) were taken from two sources: IMDb and MovieQuotes.

The movie inspired a cookbook Cucina & Famiglia, where you can actually find the recipe for the wonderful Timpano (see these images) featured in the movie.

Or you can do directly to the web and find the Timpano recipe straight from the cookbook or a slightly modified one. You can also get a 2007 account and a 2008 account of the process of making Timpano.

Posted in Links, general | 3 Comments »

Hosting Encephalon – Send Submissions

Posted by dlende on May 21, 2009

Cajal cerebellum
Hello everyone! Neuroanthropology will be hosting the mind/brain carnival Encephalon scheduled for this coming Monday, May 25th. Please send your submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com

Given our anthropological slant, we do take a wide view of mind/brain materials, including psychological anthropology, mental health, cross-cultural variation in behavior, and so forth. We also like the hard-core brain stuff. So just send your good stuff!

For more info on Encephalon, see the Sharp Brain hosting site.

Looking forward to a great Encephalon!

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Escaping Orientalism in cultural psychology

Posted by gregdowney on April 30, 2009

eastwest1In a recent article in American Psychologist, Adam Cohen (2009) suggests that a number of fields in psychology have taken up the study of culture, but the results, although interesting, have been limited by what sorts of ‘culture’ have been investigated. As Cohen (2009:194) writes:

A person reading these literatures could be excused for concluding that there is a very small number of cultural identities (North American vs. East or Southeast Asian), that vary principally on the dimensions of individualism–collectivism or independent–interdependent self-construal—whether people are seen as inherently independent from others or whether social roles are most important in defining the self.

In this post, I want to provide a bit of a bibliography of some of the literature fast emerging on cultural difference in psychology, neuroimaging, and related fields, but also focus a bit on the consequences of this limited imagination in considering cultural difference, the almost exclusive focus on East-West contrasts. Just because I love a bit of controversy with my breakfast, I’ll suggest it’s a form of what Edward Said has called ‘Orientalism.’

Although Cohen brings up the issue and offers a few suggestions for how the problem might be addressed, I think his prescriptions would herald more of the same sickness, although perhaps spreading the infection to more hosts. That is, Cohen puts his finger on a serious problem in the psychological study of culture, but the prognosis won’t improve much unless we actually understand the root of the problem: it’s not studying Europeans (and European-Americans) and Asians (and Asian-Americans) that’s causing the whole problem. Part of it is misunderstanding what is being studied in the first place when cultural difference is under the lens.

This post is based on part of a talk I gave on Tuesday to the Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS) here at Macquarie. When I got into the subject, I realized it was far more than I could possibly share in a 50-minute presentation, so I thought I’d post it here.

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Posted in Brain imaging, Human variation, general | 5 Comments »

Four Stone Hearth Out

Posted by dlende on April 24, 2009

four-stone-hearth
A Primate of Modern Aspect (which has the best url ever, zinjanthropus.wordpress.com) is hosting the anthro carnival Four Stone Hearth.

Lots of good stuff – language and culture, online ethnography, female choice over male provisioning, good and bad news about primate conservation, and more. A real four-field one! It’s great.

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Is Your Brain Green?

Posted by dlende on April 18, 2009

green-lantern
Why Isn’t the Brain Green? asks Jon Gertner in the feature article of the “Green Issue” in this week’s New York Times Magazine. The issue is worth a visit alone for the striking photos, where the Momix Dance Troupe form vivid images of the head and the brain. But Green Lantern is going to come in handy.

So who wants to know why the brain isn’t green? CRED – Center for Research on Environmental Decisions – where they use behavioral research and decision science to understand “the green mind” (or lack thereof). As seems de rigeur today, any topic where we don’t act on the information available and seem to make irrational decisions is the target of this new decision science.

CRED has the primary objective of studying how perceptions of risk and uncertainty shape our responses to climate change and other weather phenomena like hurricanes and droughts. The goal… is to finance laboratory and field experiments in North America, South America, Europe and Africa and then place the findings within an environmental context.

So what are the problems? We’re bad at long-term decision making; we see environmental problems as far away from our everyday lives; we seem to have a “finite pool of worry” and make an occasional decision to help the environment while continuing on with our overall lifestyle.

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Posted in Decision Making, general | 3 Comments »

Who you callin’ a ‘neuroconstructivist’?!

Posted by gregdowney on April 17, 2009

brain_construction1Intellectual labels are always a tricky business, necessary for talking about ideas and suggesting that a theorist is in a particular ideological neighborhood. Yet, they can drag along so much baggage that they become self-defeating, evoking instant resistance or inevitable misinterpretation if poorly used. In the best of cases, they can help to create a clear identity for innovative work in an academic field, speeding the effort to carve out a space for ideas in a cluttered terrain of thought. Deployed well, they can help to clarify and orient us; applied clumsily, they become intellectual invective, prematurely close off discussion or debate, and substitute labeling for thinking.

Today, I want to write briefly about ‘neuroanthropology’ as a badge, but spend more time on ‘neuroconstructivism,’ as it’s a term that sometimes gets associated with the sort of research and thinking that we are advocating here at Neuroanthropology.net. In a sense, this piece is written for non-anthropologists, to help them understand why they might get a really strange reaction from an anthropologist colleague if they start talking excitedly about new ‘neuroconstructivist’ perspectives.

We’ve obviously decided that ‘neuroanthropology’ is one of the labels that we find helpful. We stand by the neologism, even though some of our readers have described our choice of terms ‘deplorable,’ and we’ve sometimes had to struggle against the term’s use elsewhere. For example, Oliver Sachs, the wonderful chronicler of the lived worlds of people with severe brain lesions, often calls himself a ‘neuroanthropologist,’ as Jovan Maud at Culture Matters pointed out to me and Daniel highlights in a recent, more thorough post on the relation of what we’re doing to what Sachs has done (see also Neuroanthropology).

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Posted in Cognitive anthropology, Developmental psychology, Neural plasticity, general | 4 Comments »

Fear of Twitter: technophobia part 2

Posted by gregdowney on April 14, 2009

When I was a lifeguard in high school, two of my fellow lifeguards — Steve and Pete — sought to converse as much as possible quoting directly lines from the Chevy Chase movie, Fletch. This is what qualified as comedy. Steve was apparently the ‘more clever’ of the two as he probably achieved Fletch Quotation Ratios as high as 20%; Pete, though quite well tanned, likely only managed 10% FQR at best. I hadn’t seen the movie, and I was never much for quoting film scripts (not even Monty Python), so I assumed that Steve’s high FQR was either a symptom of premature senility or a sign of the impending collapse of Western civilization.

Recent fears about the negative cognitive consequences of the social networking site Twitter, which I mentioned in an earlier post, Is Facebook rotting our children’s brains?, led me to recall Steve and Pete’s battle for high FQR. In both cases, concerned observers might wonder whether patterns of mental activity can lead to long-term neural degeneration; I haven’t checked in on Steve or Pete in more than 20 years, but I suspect they’re both locked in institutions living out a cruel Chevy Chase imitation from which they can no longer escape.

Twitter, even more than other Internet-based social networking applications, seems to provoke apocalyptic fears of mass mental degradation. Over at Alternet, for example, Alexander Zaitchik asked Twitter Nation Has Arrived: How Scared Should We Be? In the piece, Zaitchik wonders whether what was ‘once an easily avoided subculture of needy and annoying online souls’ was bringing about the apotheosis of all that is loathsome in American pop culture: ‘look-at-me adolescent neediness, constant-contact media addiction, birdlike attention-span compression and vapidity to the point of depravity.’ Rob Horning of Pop Matters warns about ‘Twitterification’ in a piece titled, Foucault’s Facebook. Keith Olbermann named Twitter ‘worst person in the world,’ …for the one episode at least (see video at You Tube); Olbermann found someone already Twittering in his name, even using his email address. And if you’re not already convinced that Twitter is the unmentioned fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, John Mayer’s Twitter obsession is blamed for Jennifer Aniston pulling the pin on their relationship.

Fortunately, even if we are on the non-stop plane to cognitive Armageddon, Web 2.0 assures us that we will have clever guerilla videos about our own immanent destruction as our in-flight entertainment. From SuperNews, we have a helpful cartoon, ‘The Twouble with Twitters’, to explain to us ‘the latest socially networking micro-bloggy thingy,’ especially if you’re a slow-on-the-uptake parent not sufficiently worried about adolescent technology use (are there any?).

More after the jump…
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Posted in Learning, Psychological anthropology, Technology, general | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

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