Brains and Behavior

So girth does matter!

bushwells — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:05:20 +0000

So girth does matter!

""The Great Wall of China's attractive, but he's too thick - my husband is sexier."

So says Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, whose surname translates to English as "Berlin Wall."

The Telegraph resurrected Frau Berliner-Mauer's fascinating case of objectum-sexual in a news of the weird article: Woman "married" to Berlin Wall for 29 years. Overall, this is an article worthy of The Onion, but apparently the Wall's ~~spouse~~ widow occasionally makes the rounds discussing her fetish.

Having recently polished off Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (I'll review this marvelous book soon - I promise!), my scientific-spidey sense was set off by this article and the condition known as objectophilia.

Insatiably curious bonobo that I am, I brachiated around a bit in Google and found this thread (WARNING - no graphic photos but proceed with caution) I am OBJECTUM-SEXUAL with the very first post originating from Frau Berliner-Mauer who also provides a link to her home page. She thus exposes this psychological condition to the harsh prurient light of day. Another woman has come out and discussed her relationship with the Eiffel Tower, which is the subject of a documentary to be broadcast in the UK tomorrow (June 4).

Human sexuality is -- to the least -- complex, but one wonders what sort of neural-behavioral crosstalk has been affected so that someone is sexually aroused by an object? Those with objectophilia believe in animism, that is, inanimate objects have feelings and are able to communicate. I am reminded here of Paul Bloom's hypothesis that belief in the supernatural -- and possibly by extension, animism -- is an accident of cognitive function (see Is God an Accident?). Is such a cognitive accident responsible for lusting after a kitchen appliance or an imposing architectural feature?

Shoe festishists are pretty mundane compared to some of those who are classified as having objectum-sexual. Although the veracity of the aforementioned thread's content is up for grabs, objectum-sexual is a real condition. The love objects mentioned in the thread are rather varied: hockey sticks, a laminated wood floor, a piccolo, and a toaster (maybe) among them.

Maybe my Bosch dishwasher really is flirting with me!

**A pant-hoot to Ms. Myxomycetes for calling the Telegraph article to my attention.

bushwells Tue, 06/03/2008 - 05:05

Tags

Bio-bizarre

Brains and Behavior

The Berlin Wall ain't got nothing on a nuclear powered pan-sexual roto-plooker. Just ask Joe.

(semi-obscure Zappa reference)

Wouldn't it be more accurate to refer to Frau Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer as the widow of the Berlin Wall?

And where does this categorization leave those with other paraphilias, such as George III's fondness for sex with trees, or promiscuous bicycle-seat sniffers, or (hypothetically) someone with an attraction to Ann Coulter?

Jim: So might one acquire said pan-sexual roto-plooker from Eden Toys or Babeland? A friend of mine wants to know.

[yep, I caught the Zappa reference. A collection of his works resides in my household. Vinyls.]

Pierce: Ah, yes! "Widow" indeed is the more accurate term. My mistake. I have made the correction. Thanks!

Did the hapless arsenical and porphyric George prefer elms over oaks? Beeches over birches? I'm not sure but I think the term for an attraction to Ann Coulter is known as mysophilia.

I am still shaking my head... 'Whatever blows your hair.'

I don't get the Ann Coulter ref - I suspect I don't want to. (Oh, damn, why did I have to go looking?)

The Coulter thing would probably also involve coprophilia and emetophilia (or at least it would help).

Re:moreth: 'Whatever blows your hair.'

Trichophilia!

Wow ... this is a new one for me! And while it does bring to mind the universal human anthropomorphizing tendency that might well be the basis for religiosity, I think that's probably not what's going on here ... not exactly, anyway.

The Independent Article you linked to suggests that at least 50% of the people who report romantic feelings for inanimate objects have Asperger's Syndrome -- and not everyone who has Asperger's has been diagnosed (especially adults) so it might well be a higher percentage. My 7-year-old godson is a very intelligent, articulate oddbody with Asperger's. Over the years I have observed him having crushes on various objects, and I suspect he will always be so inclined. He *is* sociable, but he finds it difficult to connect to people, especially when he doesn't know them well (he needs to know them quite well, in fact). He just doesn't know what to do with himself, or what to make of the things that people (adults or children) say to him. One of the differences between people with Asperger's and those with full-blown autism seems to be that people with Asperger's *are* capable of imagining things. Imagining a personal relationship with an inanimate structure perhaps serves the need for socializing that people with Asperger's feel (interesting to note that all of the objects of affection were complex and/or in some way significant -- no one seems to have fallen in love with, say, a spoon (except the dish)).

Gwidhiel: Many thanks for the insightful comment! You offer excellent points on the social needs of those with Asperger's and that a population of these individuals will transfer that need to objects.

while it does bring to mind the universal human anthropomorphizing tendency that might well be the basis for religiosity, I think that's probably not what's going on here ... not exactly, anyway.

Yep, you're right that this is not a precise equivalent. What made me think of Bloom's work (and I strongly suspect you're familiar with it) is the fundamental property of the human brain to imagine what is not physically present. At a very reductionist level -- and I admittedly am prone to this due to my interest in neuropharmacology -- I wonder if there might be some overlap of neural networks involved with what gives rise to dualism and those which result in animism? Could transference of emotions to objects be caused by genetic or epigenetic conditions or childhood trauma (and hence "re-wiring" as the brain develops) to some common elements of neural architecture?

To imagine some sort of Venn overlap of Bloom's proposed basis of dualism with animism at a cellular network or even molecular level is crazy-ass speculation on my part, I realize, given the complexity of the brain and neural plasticity. But hey, what's a chimp refuge for if not lots of screeching and hooting postulates?

except the dish...

Ha! Yes, the objects seem pretty grand for the most part. However, I can't help but think that there's someone out there who harbors a hot n' heavy thing for a set of silver Reed and Barton spoons.

Thanks again and nice to see you here!

I'm glad I found your blog -- lots of good reads!

wonder if there might be some overlap of neural networks involved with what gives rise to dualism and those which result in animism?

That seems quite plausible to me.

Could transference of emotions to objects be caused by genetic or epigenetic conditions or childhood trauma (and hence "re-wiring" as the brain develops) to some common elements of neural architecture?

Hm ... as far as highly heritable conditions like autism are concerned, I'm inclined to think that's possible. But as the result of trauma (referring to the Independent article re the Eiffel Tower woman who'd been sexually abused as a child) ... I'm more skeptical. I don't know enough about neuroscience (celluar or otherwise) to speculate with any intelligence about how malleable such systems could be. It's an interesting possibility!

Doctor B: I'm not sure whether to thank you or curse you, but that "mysophilia" [etc] link really makes me feel boringly normal, square, and vanilla.

Wait for it...Wait for it...It's Teh Gay Gene!

bushwells — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:40:42 +0000

Wait for it...Wait for it...It's Teh Gay Gene!

So does anyone want to lay odds on how long it will be before "discovery of the gay gene" gets spread like a crazed rhinovirus through the popular media? A recent press release announces the discovery that male fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) with mutations in the GB (genderblind) allele not only mate with female flies but also were attracted to - and try to mate with - male flies.

The mutation apparently alters perception of chemosensory cues. Two of the major chemical attractants in the world of fruit fly sex are 7-tricosene and cis-vaccenyl acetate: the flies taste the former and smell the latter. Flies unable to produce either or both of these chemicals are courted by males. Male flies who can't sense these attractants court other males and attempt to copulate with them.

Yael Grosjean et al. (1) report that this homosexual - or more accurately bisexual - behavior in fruit flies is controlled by glutamatergic synapse strength, i.e., ambient levels of glutamate in the nervous system. Glutamate is what's known as an "excitatory amino acid." It plays an important role as a neurotransmitter in the brain. Glutamate levels in the fly's nervous system are regulated at least in part by an amino-acid transport protein in the glia, the non-excitatory cells that feed and care for neurons. That transport protein is encoded by the genderblind allele.

The researchers could turn homosexual behavior on and off by genetic alteration of the abundance of genderblind genes or by pharmacological manipulation of the glutamate levels. Increased glutamate resulted in bisexual behaviors in the male flies since they attempted to mate with both males and females. They expanded their sexual repertoire.

The researchers propose a model for effect of glutamate levels on the flies' sexual behavior and compare it to a mammalian model proposed by Tali Kimchi et al. (2) Female mice that are homozygous negative (both copies of the gene are defective) for the Tprc2 gene (Tprc2-/-) display male courtship and sexual behaviors.

The Tprc2 gene encodes for the transient receptor potential (ion) channel 2; this is a ligand-activated ion channel. In the case of Tprc2, a biomolecule called diacylglycerol (DAG) is the ligand; DAG binds to the receptor which then opens and allows calcium ions to permeate the cell. As "transient" implies, the channels sense and respond to changes in the environment. The Tprc2 receptor is localized in the neurons of the vomeronasal organ (VNO) of mice. Both the major olfactory epithelium (layer of skin cells within the nose) and the VNO interact with pheromones that contol mating, aggression and gender identification. Kimchi et al. posit that VNO-mediated pheromones act in wild type Tprc2 females to suppress male behaviors and activate female behaviors.

Shah and Breedlove (3) opine that these results indicate that the preference to "mate as a male or female" is not irreversibly set during development. Well, at least in mice with their vomeronasal organs. This Nature "News and Views" snippet coyly states at the end: "Whether such simple rules dictate affairs of the human heart remains to be seen." Cue violins and cheesy romance novel artwork.

Sexual behaviors, and variations thereof, for both fruit flies and mice are strongly influenced by pheromones which in turn trigger specific proteins in the nervous system. However, the mechanisms are quite different: one relies on glutamate levels as influenced by a transport protein and the other by a relatively non-specific calcium permeable ion channel. Kinda complex, isn't it? Suffice it to say that transport proteins and ion channels are different beasts.

I will not be at all surprised to stumble upon a newspaper article or a benighted blog or message board that yammers incoherently "Genderblind is a 'gay gene.'" The next step from there is to extrapolate this to human sexual behavior; such an extrapolation is fraught with peril. Glutamate levels vary temporally and spatially in the mammalian brain. Changes in ambient glutamate affects mood and behavior and may not be readily analogous to Drosophila.

The spectrum of human sexual behavior is varied, more so than a fruit fly, thanks to our intricate brains. We are also not sexual slaves to our noses. Pheromones are not the major mating drivers in Homo sapiens that they are with the aforementioned bugs and rodents. Although homosexuality undoubtedly is biologically based, in humans this is highly likely to be due to multiple alleles, epigenetics and their interplay with environment. But will that stop folks from oversimplifying or worse - deliberately mis-using the information? Of course not! Well, OK, that's what I predict.

Science Daily offers these intro lines to an otherwise fairly accessible article about Grosjean et al.'s work:

While the biological basis for homosexuality remains a mystery, a team of neurobiologists reports they may have closed in on an answer -- by a nose.

But at the conclusion of the Science Daily article, the potential for this discovery may be more important for creation of genetically modified fruit flies that with agriculturally desirable behaviors:

Featherstone says it may someday be possible to domesticate insects such as fruit flies and manipulate their sense of smell to turn them into useful pollinators rather than costly pests.

There's something disingenuous about this. "Wow! Zow! Boffo Headlines! Scientists Closing in on Biological Basis for Teh Gay!" But then one reads the article, and finds the whisper at the end: "Non-Pesty and Useful flies can be bred based on our discovery." The latter isn't so - uh - sexy.

I must admit, I did like this description of a male fruit fly's courtship from the Grosjean article:

In the fruit fly...courtship typically begins when a male fly identifies and approaches a suspected conspecific female. To confirm his suspicions and to test whether she is sexually receptive, he will tap her with his foreleg (to evaluate nonvolatile pheromones via chemoreceptors on his leg), sing a species-specific courtship song (by extending and vibrating a wing) and lick her genitals (to sample pheromones).

Whoa! I'm swooning!

(1) Grosjean, Y., Grillet, M., Augustin, H., Ferveur, J-F., and Featherstone, D.E. (2007) "A glial amino-acid transporter controls synapse strength and homosexual courtship in Drosophila." Nature Neuroscience Advance Online Publication, Dec. 9, 2007.

(2)Kimchi, T., Jennings, X., and Dulac, C. (2007) "A functional circuit underlying male sexual behaviour in the female mouse brain." Nature 448: 1009-1014.

(3) Shah, N.M. and Breedlove, S.M. (2007) "Females can also be from Mars." Nature 448: 999-1000.

bushwells Mon, 12/10/2007 - 16:40

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Brains and Behavior

Humor, Men, and Women: The Film.

bushwells — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:42:52 +0000

Humor, Men, and Women: The Film.

As a belated follow-on to my rant on ol' Hissy Chrissy Hitchies' contention that women aren't funny, I offer this film clip via LiveScience: Humor and the Sexes. Be forewarned that you must suffer through a Yahoo ad in the beginning which pokes gentle fun at Incompetent Men and Their Tools, a subject that is always a knee-slappper. In the meat of the film, Allan Reiss discusses the tantalizing observations that men's and women's brains respond differently to humor.

From Hitchen's Vanity Fair article:

The researchers found that men and women (10 each - Doc Bushwell) share much of the same humor-response system; both use to a similar degree the part of the brain responsible for semantic knowledge and juxtaposition and the part involved in language processing. But they also found that some brain regions were activated more in women. These included the left prefrontal cortex, suggesting a greater emphasis on language and executive processing in women, and the nucleus accumbens ... which is part of the mesolimbic reward center.

And...

"Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch line of the cartoon," said the report's author, Dr. Allan Reiss. "So when they got to the joke's punch line, they were more pleased about it." The report also found that "women were quicker at identifying material they considered unfunny."

Reiss et al. may be on to something there. I'll remember my inherent gender-based mental acuity as to what I consider "unfunny" here on the bonobo-scat splattered Chimp Refuge. "Unfunny" is not a common occurence here, well, other than when I splat my most-boring-woman-on-earth bullshittery here on the Refuge.

Now the tickling of my nucleus accumbens...that could explain why I listened with jaw-dropped astonishment at the lengthy scatology of a certain documentary film, and nearly dropped out of my chair at the sinny-mah in paroxysms of hooting when I heard the punchline of "The Aristocrats." That was almost orgasmic.

As a sidenote, Reiss makes press via Hitchens and now has a little film on the scientific equivalent of The Weekly World News. Now I grant you that the media has latched on to this "accessible to the masses" science story, but I'm detecting the whiff of self-promotion here. It may not be as bad as DTC ads in big pharma but still...where is the purity of academia, I ask you?

bushwells Wed, 07/11/2007 - 00:42

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Brains and Behavior

Doc Bushwell

Minimal Media

Maybe I missed you explaining this, but how is understanding and appreciating humor equivalent to being good at doing it?

Maybe I missed you explaining this, but how is understanding and appreciating humor equivalent to being good at doing it?

You missed nothing, because I did not explain it. Appreciation of humor is not equivalent to having the talent to be a good stand-up comic. Hitchie's contention* (see link) is that not only are women challenged at generating humor, but also inclined to be "unfunny" when confronted with humor. I would say, and I expect you would agree, that in the real world, i.e., not solely in that of the gadfly journalist trying to get a rise out of his audience, there's a stronger differentiation.

Reiss' observations on the differences on how our brains process humor are pretty interesting.

*Keep in mind that Hitchens sets himself up as an enfant terrible/ whipping boy, and that is ever so much fun for shrill harpies such as myself to lash away at him, tongue lodged firmly in my cheek.

I've always thought you were terribly unfunny, Doc, but I suppose I just have low expectations on account of my breasts.

I've always thought you were terribly unfunny, Doc, but I suppose I just have low expectations on account of my breasts.

Now, see...if you bound those babies and scarfed down an androgen here or there, you'd think I was a regular laff riot.

"women were quicker at identifying material they considered unfunny."

This explains they always pick me first and without hesitation from police line-ups, even on those occasions when I'm not the real perp.

Hitchens, Prager, and Ten Men in a Dark Alley

jfiore — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:22:09 +0000

Hitchens, Prager, and Ten Men in a Dark Alley

Thanks to commenter Derelict from my Summer Reading entry, I listened to a talk with Christopher Hitchens on the Dennis Prager show. There was one particular item that caught my ear. Prager posed the following question:

"If you were in a strange city in the USA at night and you saw ten men coming toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just come from a bible study class?"

Apparently, Hitchens mentioned this question in his book God Is Not Great, but generalized it to "religious study" and any city in the world. Hitchens then recounted a number of instances where he'd definitely feel less secure with this knowledge, for example, in Beirut or Baghdad, but Prager countered that he specifically meant the USA and bible study. This got me to thinking how I would react.

Quite simply, I would be relieved, but not for the reasons that Prager implies.

My guess is that Prager is implying that there is something about bible study per se (or perhaps by extension, the men being Christian) that makes the stranger feel better in this situation. Therefore, being Christian (or studying the bible) is a good thing. I think this is way off of the mark. In fact, the scenario really ties into fear of the unknown. Consider the two options:

1) Ten men of unknown origin,
2) Ten men coming from bible study.

In the former case, these men could be coming from anywhere. They could be a bunch of ruffians just out of a bar or gang members prowling their turf. In this instance, the mind has a tendency to run to the extreme, the worst case, in order to operate cautiously. After all, you are in a strange city at night. You are vulnerable. Consequently, knowing something about the men (i.e., that they're coming from bible study) may remove some of these extreme possibilities and therefore reduce the tension.

The important thing is that the same effect can be achieved with a variety of other schemes. For example, in the same situation, would you be relieved to know that the ten men had just come from a night out on the town after attending an ice cream sales convention earlier that afternoon? I certainly would. By all means, attack me with a few pints of mint chocolate chip. Fling a maraschino cherry at me. And don't skimp on the chocolate sauce, 'cause you know I've been a very naughty boy. Or consider this variation: Would you feel less at ease if the ten men were young, with disheveled clothing, and hadn't shaved for at least a day? What if those same ten men turned out to be young computer programmers who had just gotten out of a movie marathon featuring the entire Star Wars series from start to finish? Not quite so scary, is it?

Now consider a comparison: Would you rather that the ten men have come from bible study or that they're a bunch sci-fi loving programmer-types? I don't know about you, but I'd take the programmers because at least then I'd know that they won't verbally accost me and try to sell me "the good news in the good book".

Of course, in either case I'd be looking over my shoulder for those ice cream salesmen.

jfiore Fri, 06/01/2007 - 11:22

Tags

Brains and Behavior

I used to drive cab in Barstow, California. Every single one of the minors who tried cheating me out of a fare I either picked up or dropped off at the christian school. They were skilled liars, astonishingly good for being that young.

Ten bible crazies coming at me? I would turn tail and run!

Depends on the church. I might be *more* afraid of the bible studiers, especially if I were wearing the anti-bush teeshirt I've currently got on. I'd feel really goddamned nervous if I ran into a bunch of white southern baptists in a back alley right about now. Quakers or Unitarians, or liberal Methodists? Pretty safe. Pentecostals? Get me the fuck outta there.

Another question:

"If you were in a strange city in the USA at night and you saw ten men coming toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just come from an American Atheists meeting?"

Now *then* I'd feel perfectly safe.

As a straight woman, probably no more or less worried by bible college students than trainee ice-cream men. But if I were gay, particularly a gay man, I think I'd feel plenty more apprehensive about the bible college students. The level of homophobia and "gay panic" stirred up by the most bigotted of christians, and the lies they tell to bolster that panic, is nauseating.

It depends. What are the Bible studiers wearing, white robes and hoods?

"I don't know about you, but I'd take the programmers because at least then I'd know that they won't verbally accost me and try to sell me "the good news in the good book". "

They might try to get you to watch Firefly, though.

They might try to get you to watch Firefly, though.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow

Ha! My thought was that if they were Apple fanatics* you might be in worse trouble than if they were hardcore JWs coming from a prayer meeting.

====

* Such as myself. ;)

Good posts. Good point about the unknown leading to a higher level of fear.

In addition to the known being less scary than the unknown, there's also the fact that these people are coming from a session in which they read and studied a book. I suspect most of us would be more comfortable encountering a group of unknown literates who choose to spend their time in something like reflection than we would encountering a group that may not have any inclination to bury their noses in a book--any book.

Well, I don't think I'd go as far as "any book". What if they're a bunch of skin heads reading Mien Kampf?

Do avatars dream of electric torture?

bushwells — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:48:53 +0000

Do avatars dream of electric torture?

There's a little corner of the Internet which I stumbled across several weeks ago, a personal blog in which a young writer, her educational background in biopsychology, recently dissected an expansive and bizarre post-modern Milgram-esque experiment which occurred at fast-food chain restaurants throughout the United States during the span of 2000 through 2004, at which time a suspect was arrested, and the hoaxes ceased. The story, as reported originally in the Louisville KY Courier-Journal, A hoax most cruel in October 2005, outlines the history and consequences of a series of abuse by an anonymous caller, posing as a police officer, who persuaded assistant managers at fast food chain restaurants to perform strip searches and lewd acts on young, vulnerable employees who the faux-officer said were crime suspects.

Some examples from the Courier-Journal article:

On May 29, 2002, a girl celebrating her 18th birthday -- in her first hour of her first day on the job at the McDonald's in Roosevelt, Iowa -- was forced to strip, jog naked and assume a series of embarrassing poses, all at the direction of a caller on the phone, according to court and news accounts.

On Jan. 26, 2003, according a police report in Davenport, Iowa, an assistant manager at an Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar conducted a degrading 90-minute search of a waitress at the behest of a caller who said he was a regional manager -- even though the man had called collect, and despite the fact the assistant manager had read a company memo warning about hoax calls just a month earlier. He later told police he'd forgotten about the memo.

On June 3, 2003, according to a city police spokesman in Juneau, Alaska, a caller to a Taco Bell there said he was working with the company to investigate drug abuse at the store, and had a manager pick out a 14-year-old customer -- and then strip her and force her to perform lewd acts.

As the Courier-Journal article unfolds, the reader is astounded by how blitherf*ckedly stupid the assistant managers were with their obeisance. Is this an act of coercion and the human tendency to want to obey? Were the managers victims, too? The perp picked his targets perfectly: uneducated individuals who blindly obeyed orders, and naive teenagers who had not a hint of skepticism, of questioning in them.

But wait a minute. It's easy enough for me to look down my overeducated schnozz at these less than intellectually stellar folks with the skeptical skills of a Platyhelminthes, but Milgram's thesis continues to play out in controlled venues. As Jonah Lehrer of the Frontal Cortex reports in Repeating the Milgram Experiment, but with kinder, gentler "shocks," Primetime Live ably demonstrated that people are still willing to listen to an authority figure, in this case a scientist in a lab coat. We bench monkeys wield such power! Who knew? Anyway, the majority of subjects were willing to inflict pain on their fellow humans at the "scientist's" orders.

An extension of Milgram's experiments, and arguably a more ethical approach, uses a virtual version: A Virtual Shocker. as designed by Mel Slater et al. from the Catalan Polytechnic University in Barcelona, Spain, and University College London, UK.

Slater's volunteers did a similar experiment, but in an immersive virtual environment where they interacted with a virtual woman. This counters some of the ethical protests that have prevented Milgram's experiment from being repeated because the volunteers knew they would be interacting with a virtual woman and so, unlike Milgram's guinea-pigs, knew that nobody was being hurt.

Those who could see the virtual woman stopped the experiment before the limit of voltage was reached, whereas when she was hidden, "faceless," maximum voltage was delivered. What is particularly interesting is that although all the volunteers knew this was a virtual experiment, a number stated afterwards that they considered withdrawing from the study, and based on measurements which are difficult to fake, it became apparent that some part of the subjects' brains continued to perceive this as real:

And instead of becoming accustomed to the virtual person and ceasing to empathise, many volunteers became more anxious as the study continued. Measures of stress, such as heart rate and sweatiness of palms, increased. These measures are nearly impossible to fake, and confirmed for Slater that the volunteers were actually feeling uncomfortable, rather than performing as they thought the experimenter would expect.

Slater believes the virtual world has potential to study the bystander effect, that is, when others do nothing as they witness an act of violence perpetrated on another and do nothing. Although the ethical considerations of the subjects cannot be dismissed, Slater believes the ability to measure automatic responses to anxiety will prove useful.

It's a chilling subject, and I'd like to think I can "just say 'no,'" but the need to obey is hardwired into our brains as children as an evolutionary survival mechanism. Does obedience, playing the "good soldier," linger in adults, expressing itself as a manifestation of atavistic behavior? Please excuse while I shock the virtual monkey and find out.

bushwells Tue, 02/06/2007 - 06:48

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Brains and Behavior

The whites of their eyes

bushwells — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:30:28 +0000

The whites of their eyes

An eye-opening publication in the Journal of Human Evolution garnered some press as noted here in The Economist, Eyeing up the collaboration, and Why eyes are so alluring from LiveScience.com

Michael Tomasello and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute report that whereas great apes like gorillas, chimps and bonobos are influenced by head position when trying to follow another's gaze, humans take cues directly from eye movement. Thanks to the whites of our eyes and other high contrast features, our gaze is easier to follow.

What is the the evolutionary driver for white sclera? One theory addresses the usual mate selection bit: bright white sclera (versus bleary red-veined maybe-he's-flaccid coloration) signal good health and fitness. Another reason, as espoused by Kevin Haley and Daniel Fessler at UCLA, is that the whites of the eyes developed as social cues for cooperative and altruistic behaviors. Haley, as noted in the LiveScience article, believes Tomasello et al.'s findings are consistent with the cooperative eye hypothesis.

In addition to studying eye contact and gaze in the great apes, naked or otherwise, Tomasello and the Max Planck crew have also published some cool stuff on dogs taking social cues from humans, e.g., "Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris) Are Sensitive to the Attentional State of Humans" in Journal of Comparative Psychology (2003) Vol. 117, No. 3, pp. 257-263 and references therein. Among the cues which dogs note are human head position and eye gaze. Fortuitously, perhaps our high contrast peepers serve our canine pals well.

bushwells Mon, 11/13/2006 - 05:30

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Brains and Behavior

So Much Like Us

The Economist:

The advantages of co-operation seem to have outweighed those of competition.

Meriam-Webster:

Competition -- the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms.

Hmm. That makes the Economist sound distinctly anti-capitalist, although we've known all along that capitalistic competition is wasteful.

Should those that hate socialism and collectivism poke their eyes out in protest?

Should those that hate socialism and collectivism poke their eyes out in protest?

Hmmm, good rhetorical question, but I'd really like to know whether your sclera are alluringly bright white or capillariciously pinko red.

Jaundiced yellow.

The accidental deity

bushwells — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:40:03 +0000

The accidental deity

Once again those feisty young fellows at Frink Tank have caused my withered ovaries to twitch with faint lust. As a Simpsonophiliac, casual (and sometimes cynical) Dawkins observer, and admirer of All Things Irreverent, I was sent over the edge by this blog gobbet from Not Shitashi. Crazy Cat Lady. Ha! I will never think of Dawkins as Darwin's Rottweiler again.

That cephalopodean dude wrote a review of The God Delusion which appears in the November '06 print edition of Seed Magazine. We coddled Science Bloggers get freebie print mags but you readers will have to rush to your newstands if you don't want to wait for it to appear online. The good squidly doc gives his review a mention in this post, A devil's catechism. PZ has selected a good passage from the review which lends some perspective to crazy cat lady yowlings.

Myers points out that Dawkins believes the pervasiveness of religious belief is a byproduct of another adaptative characteristic which confers a survival advantage. PZ notes that Dawkins, in his speculation on the evolutionary underpinnings of religious belief, has overlooked the capacity of empathy as biological-religion, and provides a few neat little notes on mirror neurons which may represent the hardwiring for empathy. Reading these passages reminded me of Paul Bloom's article in last December's Atlantic Monthly, Is God an Accident?

This article has been well blogged to a Cajun-blackened crisp, and I have no doubt that most of the Science Blogs crowd has read it. But hey, I'm aging, and we geriatrics love to repeat ourselves. Bloom contends that humans are natural born dualists and pop into this world with a predisposition toward belief in the supernatural. Yep, religion is the darned babies' fault. Human babies quickly develop two systems to help them make sense of the world: an understanding of physical objects and an understanding of social interactions. This, according to Bloom, gives rise to the perception of duality.

Babies have two systems that work in a cold-bloodedly rational way to help them anticipate and understand--and, when they get older, to manipulate--physical and social entities. In other words, both these systems are biological adaptations that give human beings a badly needed head start in dealing with objects and people. But these systems go awry in two important ways that are the foundations of religion. First, we perceive the world of objects as essentially separate from the world of minds, making it possible for us to envision soulless bodies and bodiless souls. This helps explain why we believe in gods and an afterlife. Second, as we will see, our system of social understanding overshoots, inferring goals and desires where none exist. This makes us animists and creationists.

Give the full article a read if you haven't done so already. Also be sure to check back at the Richard Dawkins Foundation web site. An online store is under construction. I hope to buy a Dawkins bobblehead.

bushwells Thu, 09/28/2006 - 10:40

Tags

Brains and Behavior

You need not worry about your ovaries, m'lady:

http://www.reason.com/0610/fe.15.ova.shtml

Scraping together enough cash to pay Not Shitashi's stud price, on the other hand...

Hey doc,
Your link to Is God an Accident? in the third paragraph needs to have the quotation mark removed from the end of the URL.

Hey, thanks, Gene, for catching that. It's fixed.

Seeing how prolific Not Shitashi is over at the Tank, I would expect his spunkiness would command a high price.

I'm 48 years old and as my memory still serves me well, I have always been under the impression that the God's phenomena was nothing more than mans creative mind working his imagination into thinking there is/was a god or god's. I never found any rational reason for myself, or others to believe in a god.
That being said, would there be reason to think that atheists are an evolutionary advancement or throwback when compared to believers?

As well, would atheism be considered beneficial or harmful at our present stage of social developement?

And that comment was in regards to the Is God an Accident? piece. Sorry for not specifying.

Gene, my take is that atheism is neither advancement nor devolution, but a product of our environment, culture and the remarkable adaptability of our brains. To be an evolutionary driver, atheism would have to confer a selective advantage. Based on population demographics in the US, I would say that atheists do not get more dates and reproduce like rabbits. So, there would appear to be no selective pressure there just yet.

We humans are inquisitive creatures, and one can imagine a few outliers in ancient societies thinking, "Huh. Maybe that rock isn't talking to me. Maybe it's just a rock." As we continued to rationally observe our world, dualism became eroded. I also recall reading an interesting speculation that our ancestors may have regarded the internal dialogue which rattles around in our brains as "the gods speaking" and that it was only in the relatively recent past that we became introspective enough to recognize this dialogue as our own thoughts.

Given that atheists can be as kind and altruistic or as cruel and selfish as any god-fearing believer, I'm not sure, overall, how beneficial or harmful atheism would be. Given human nature, even in the absence of sky, earth, water and "soul" gods, we naked apes would invent them anyway.

That being said, would there be reason to think that atheists are an evolutionary advancement or throwback when compared to believers?

I wouldn't think there's any reason to think that. Atheism is not genetic, it is the contingent product of an individual's personal growth. Atheist brains are still wired for percieving a dualistic world, and they (we) are all probably still practically stuck in the illusion that there is a world of "objects" and a world of "thoughts."

Atheists just don't believe in "God."

Thank you for the replies.
I've been looking for the reason of why some believe and some don't and Paul's paper is as close to what I have assumed for a long time. My nutshell has been a creative mind enables the imagination which allows for religions based on some sort of god. Of course, Paul goes into much more detail and fills quite a few of the gaps in my nutshell explanation.

Atheists just don't believe in "God."

Ok. Atheists have made a conscious effort to over come this intuitive nature within thought, which draws so many to religion, which relies on a god.

Maybe the selective advantage lies within scepticism. I'm a sceptic first and an atheist second in regards to religion and spiritual beings.

Is there evidence of a predisposition towards scepticism I wonder?