Research Blogging - All Topics - English

Do newborns learn language or do they show musical skill?

2009-11-11T05:22:00Z

This week an interesting study appeared in Current Biology. The research suggests that newborns don’t just cry randomly, but that - when studying the audio signal of their crying - one can distinguish French crying from German crying babies. The German babies - only three days old - cry in a downward fashion, their French contemporaries showed an increasing swelling of the cry and stop abruptly (click on figure for two typical examples).Babies do hear about three months before they are born. The few prenatal studies that are available show that babies, in that stage of their development, already hear and remember sounds. For instance, they recognize the sound of their mothers voice just after birth, and they can distinguish between tunes that they heard during pregnancy from those they haver never been exposed to before.These results made the researchers hypothesize that exposure to the language spoken by the caregivers (mother, father, etc.) influence the crying, since French language, on average, consists of raising melodies, and German intonation often shows a decreasing shape.While until the general assumption was that children between 6 and 18 months start to imitate their mother langauge, the researchers claim that this is actually happening at day one.My interpretation would be different. I would not so much relate these results to language, but to the musical aspects of speech: rhythm, melody, stress (i.e. prosody). As quite some studies have shown (e.g., authors like Fernald, Trehub, Trainor, and others), infants and young children are extremely sensitive to' musical' variations in their environment. I would therefore claim these results are actual evidence for a musical sensitivity for the idea than that it is evidence for the start of learning a language.P.S. I describe this argument in length in my new book Iedereen is muzikaal (unfortunately, only available in Dutch, as yet).Mampe, B., Friederici, A., Christophe, A., & Wermke, K. (2009). Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.064...

Mampe, B., Friederici, A., Christophe, A., & Wermke, K. (2009) Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.064

‘What do I do when I’ve had enough’: The Effect of Emotions on Self-regulation & Chronic Pain

2009-11-11T01:15:44Z

As soon as read the first paragraph of the paper I’ve used as the basis for this post, I knew I was onto something that resonated with my original occupational therapy values. It says this: ‘Living with chronic pain is a balancing act. People with chronic pain are required to make daily decisions [...]...

Hamilton, N., Karoly, P., & Kitzman, H. (2004) Self-Regulation and Chronic Pain:The Role of Emotion. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 28(5), 559-576. DOI: 10.1023/B:COTR.0000045565.88145.76

The Evolution of Depression

2009-11-10T23:58:49Z

Millions of people around the world suffer from depression, the most common mental disorder of all. Since depression appears to be largely genetic, several long-standing questions continue to bedevil researchers. Have the genes for clinical unipolar depression undergone selective evolution–or is depression a random product of mutation, evolutionary drift, or other non-selective forces? The symptoms of [...]...

Andrews, P., & Thomson, J. (2009) The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems. Psychological Review, 116(3), 620-654. DOI: 10.1037/a0016242

Watson, P. (2002) Toward a revised evolutionary adaptationist analysis of depression: the social navigation hypothesis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 72(1), 1-14. DOI: 10.1016/S0165-0327(01)00459-1

Hertel, Jochen Neuhof, Thomas Theue, G. (2000) Mood effects on cooperation in small groups: Does positive mood simply lead to more cooperation?. Cognition , 14(4), 441-472. DOI: 10.1080/026999300402754

High Octane Dinosaurs

2009-11-10T23:25:31Z

The question of whether dinosaurs were endothermic has been a rich source of controversy for decades. Although they were originally portrayed as sluggish reptiles that crept their “cold-blooded” way through the Mesozoic, over time evidence has suggested that they may have actually had active and athletic lifestyles, with fast-running metabolisms to match. Everything from growth rates to diet to integument has been used as evidence that dinosaurs, if not as fully “warm-blooded” as mammals, at least ran on a higher octane than many modern ectotherms. (“Cold-blooded” and “warm-blooded” are misleading terms; some ectothermic reptiles, such as large marine turtles, maintain consistently high body temperatures through behavioral adaptations, and some endothermic species, such as hummingbirds and bats, have a wildly variable body temperature that periodically drops low enough to drop them into torpor. Poikilothermic = variable temperature, homeothermic = consistent temperature, and endo- or ectotherms can be either.) There is a new paper in PLoS ONE today that jumps into the fray of the dinosaur energetics question. Pontzer and Hutchinson (2009) test the hypothesis that dinosaurs were endothermic, using biomechanical analysis to model the metabolic rate of 13 bipedal dinosaurs, in addition to an outgroup ornithodiran, Marasuchus. They calculated metabolic demands of both walking and running using locomotor anatomy (limb length and active muscle volume), and compared their results to the aerobic capacity of extant ectotherms and endotherms. These comparisons can give us clues where the dinosaurs might have fallen along this metabolic spectrum. So, what did they find? The results showed strong evidence that dinosaurs had aerobic capacities that exceeded the maximum limits of extant ecotherms. In other words, they were most likely endothermic to at least some degree, otherwise they could not have afforded the amount of energy that it apparently cost them just to move around. It is suggested that development of endothermy could be a reason for the long and extensive reign of the dinosaurs, which continues to this day in the form of their avian descendents. It is certain that the debate over dinosaur energetics is far from resolved, but this study definitely adds a fascinating piece to the puzzle. Pontzer, H., Allen, V., & Hutchinson, J. (2009). Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs PLoS ONE, 4 (11) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007783...

Pontzer, H., Allen, V., & Hutchinson, J. (2009) Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE, 4(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007783

Road Redux

2009-11-10T19:30:56Z

Ancient Chinese road construction method preserves cliff ecosystems...

Cao, S., Ye, H., & Zhan, Y. (2009) Cliff roads: An ecological conservation technique for road construction in mountainous regions of China. Landscape and Urban Planning. DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2009.10.007

Do chimps understand what Jon Stewart (or another chimp) believes?

2009-11-10T17:09:04Z

Take a look at this video from last night's episode of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show." If you'd like, you can skip past all the political snark to the 4:47 mark to watch Jon bring cognitive psychology into prime time (or at least latenight cable)! That's right; you saw it: Jon Stewart mentioned the psychological concept of "object permanence" on national TV. Object permanence was introduced by Jean Piaget as a way of measuring the growing cognitive ability of children. Three-month-olds don't have it; most 6-month-olds do. More recently, researchers have investigated similar milestones in animals. Parrots, it turns out, have object permanence, as do chimpanzees. Insects don't. But what about higher-order cognitive functions? Do chimps understand that others have thoughts distinct from their own? Humans understand this around the age of 1, but the evidence is less clear with chimps. Some chimps will beg for food from a blindfolded human. Does this mean they don't "know" the human can't see them? Perhaps not, but normally a chimp doesn't expect to communicate with a human. When two chimps are in two separate rooms, but can see into a third room where food is being hidden, the subordinate chimp will behave differently if she knows the dominant chimp saw the food being hidden. This suggests chimps do understand that other chimps have different thoughts from their own. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post......

KAMINSKI, J., CALL, J., & TOMASELLO, M. (2008) Chimpanzees know what others know, but not what they believe. Cognition, 109(2), 224-234. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.010

Arch Intern Med roundup: diets, delays and disclosure

2009-11-10T17:00:17Z

The journal Archives of Internal Medicine has a several cracking research papers this week. Low carb dieters are grumpier than those on low fat diets First up is Brinkworth et al.’s research on the long-term psychological effects of low carbohydrate diets compared with low fat diets. In this study, 106 overweight and obese individuals were randomly assigned to [...]...

Brinkworth GD, Buckley JD, Noakes M, Clifton PM, . (2009) Long-term Effects of a Very Low-Carbohydrate Diet and a Low-Fat Diet on Mood and Cognitive Function. Arch Intern Med, 169(20), 1873-1880. info:other/http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/169/20/1873?home

Horwitz LI . (2009) Percentage of US Emergency Department Patients Seen Within the Recommended Triage Time: 1997 to 2006. Arch Intern Med, 169(20), 1857-1865. info:other/http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/169/20/1857?home

Chen LM, Farwell WR, . (2009) Primary Care Visit Duration and Quality: Does Good Care Take Longer? . Arch Intern Med, 169(20), 1866-1872. info:other/http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/169/20/1866?home

López L, Weissman JS, Schneider EC, Weingart SN, Cohen AP, . (2009) Disclosure of Hospital Adverse Events and Its Association With Patients' Ratings of the Quality of Care. Arch Intern Med, 169(20), 1888-1894. info:other/http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/20/1888

Measuring dino fitness - more evidence that two-legged dinosaurs were warm-blooded

2009-11-10T16:56:41Z

The question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded is one of the most enduring in palaeontology. Did they generate their own body heat like today's mammals; was their temperature more influenced by their environment like today's reptiles; or did they use a mixture of both strategies? Scientists have put forward a slew of arguments for all of these alternatives, but Herman Pontzer from Washington University has a new take on things which suggests that many dinosaurs were indeed warm-blooded. Based on our knowledge of living animals, Pontzer worked out the energy that 14 dinosaur species would have used while walking or running. His model reveals that these ancient reptiles would have needed more energy than a cold-blooded physiology could supply. Their metabolic demands were within the range of modern warm-blooded animals like mammals and birds, which can keep up their physical activity for far more time than their cold-blooded peers. While both warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals can be equally active over short bursts, warm-blooded ones have the advantage in the long run with their higher capacity for aerobic exercise. This aerobic capacity is signified by a measurement called VO2max, which is often measured by getting animals to run on a treadmill. Obviously, that's not feasible if the animal in question has been dead for 65 million years before the invention of the treadmill, but Pontzer had a solution. In earlier work, he showed that you can predict with 98% accuracy how much energy an animal needs to run or walk by looking at how high their hips were from the ground. Pontzer looked at the hip heights of 13 species of dinosaur including Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Archaeopteryx, as well as a closely related non-dinosaur called Marasuchus, and used these values to calculate crude estimates of their aerobic capacity. He focused on species that walked on two legs, since the way they distributed their weight is clearer-cut than four-legged relatives like Diplodocus or Triceratops. His figures showed that the aerobic capacity of his dinosaurs, especially the larger ones, were consistently over the maximum values for living reptiles, from alligators to iguanas. Even while walking, the energy demands of the largest dinosaurs, particularly the large meat-eaters, would have far exceeded anything that cold-blooded animals could have coped with. For more accurate estimates, Pontzer also used a mathematical model to calculate the size of the dinosaurs' walking muscles and from these, their aerobic capacity. Again, he came to the same conclusion. The largest species simply wouldn't have been able to function with cold-blooded metabolisms, and the smaller ones like Velociraptor could have walked but not run. Only Archaeopteryx, the smallest of the baker's dozen, had VO2max values that approached the range of living cold-blooded animals. There are a couple of alternative interpretations. It's possible the larger dinosaurs were cold-blooded but had adaptations that granted them greater aerobic capacities than modern reptiles can achieve, although Pontzer thinks this unlikely. It's also possible that the dinosaurs didn't go in for sustained bursts of speed and, instead, relied on sprints, as many monitor lizards use to run down prey. But that would saddle the largest species with unfeasibly long recovery periods, when they could barely function. Pontzer says that the relationships between his 13 species support the idea that all dinosaurs powered their runs with a warm-blooded metabolism. If he takes a conservative view of his estimates, the alternative explanation is that warm-bloodedness evolved at least three times - in the early sauropods, in the tetanurans (including birds and most of the carnivores) and in modern birds - and was lost once in between among the small predatory coelurosaurs like Velociraptor. That reconstruction is not only messy, but it contradicts evidence from bones and primitive feathers suggesting that the coelurosaurs were warm-blooded. Nonetheless, there's a risk that by looking exclusively at two-legged dinosaurs, Pontzer has biased his dataset to species that were perhaps most likely to be warm-blooded anyway. Groups like the massive sauropods and the diverse ornithischians are represented only by three of their earliest members - Plateosaurus, Heterodontosaurus and Lesothosaurus. It's still possible that the largest of the plant-eaters had a different physiology altogether including "inertial homeothermy", where they maintain a constant temperature simply because their gargantuan bulks lose heat very slowly. Pontzer's new study far from settles the debate about dinosaur physiology, but it adds another piece of evidence into the mix. This debate isn't just an academic fancy - it's critical for understanding how the dinosaurs lived, evolved, and ultimately died. Reference: Pontzer, H., Allen, V., & Hutchinson, J. (2009). Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs PLoS ONE, 4 (11) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007783 More dinosaurs: The plague of tyrants - a common bird parasite that infected Tyrannosaurus Raptorex shows that T.rex body plan evolved at 100th the size Evidence that Velociraptor had feathers Dinosaur proteins, cells and blood vessels recovered from Bracyhlophosaurus Tianyulong - a fuzzy dinosaur that makes the origin of feathers fuzzier Beipaiosaurus was covered in the simplest known feathers Dinosaur daddies took care of their young alone Read the comments on this post......

Pontzer, H., Allen, V., & Hutchinson, J. (2009) Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE, 4(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007783

B:III evidence for evolution (which is just a theory)

2009-11-10T15:09:00Z

Having trouble with your eyes? Well, then, let me have a look at it, because I have read stuff about eyes. I'll be prescribing glasses. Contact lenses don't work, because I don't understand how they can be made, so don't wear those. Got worms in your eyeball? Let me get a knife......

William E. Smiddy. (2009) Evolution: Theory, Not Fact. ARCH OPHTHALMOL, 127(11), 1552-1553. info:/

Ebell MH, Siwek J, Weiss BD, Woolf SH, Susman J, Ewigman B, & Bowman M. (2004) Strength of recommendation taxonomy (SORT): a patient-centered approach to grading evidence in the medical literature. American family physician, 69(3), 548-56. PMID: 14971837

New Virtual Issue of Cultural Anthropology on "Security"

2009-11-10T14:58:55Z

special online virtual issue of Cultural Anthropology on the topic of "Security"...

WELKER, M. (2009) “CORPORATE SECURITY BEGINS IN THE COMMUNITY”: Mining, the Corporate Social Responsibility Industry, and Environmental Advocacy in Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology, 24(1), 142-179. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2009.00029.x

LAKOFF, A. (2008) THE GENERIC BIOTHREAT, OR, HOW WE BECAME UNPREPARED. Cultural Anthropology, 23(3), 399-428. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2008.00013.x

MASCO, J. (2008) “SURVIVAL IS YOUR BUSINESS”: Engineering Ruins and Affect in Nuclear America. Cultural Anthropology, 23(2), 361-398. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2008.00012.x

FELDMAN, I. (2007) DIFFICULT DISTINCTIONS: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political Identification in Gaza. Cultural Anthropology, 22(1), 129-169. DOI: 10.1525/can.2007.22.1.129

Fassin, D. (2005) Compassion and Repression: The Moral Economy of Immigration Policies in France. Cultural Anthropology, 20(3), 362-387. DOI: 10.1525/can.2005.20.3.362