i'm moving

all because of my talented friend jason, today i am transferring to my very own URL, flyinghedgehogs.com. if you’d please change your links/RSS feed, i promise to love you forever. i appreciate your readership, and apologize for the inconvenience (if you consider switching worth the effort, that is…)!

the new feed seems to be http://www.flyinghedgehogs.com/atom.xml

i will no longer post here, but rather there.

i’m going to leave this post up for a while, then create a redirect link so visitors are automatically forwarded to the new site.

thanks again!

cheerios,
me

where did our freedom go?

today i had $4 eggs and home fries at annie’s place, newark, ohio restaurant i mentioned before. annie’s owners are vociferous in their opposition to the city’s recently passed smoking ban, so while i was in town i thought i’d drop by and hear what they had to say.

after they closed (hours are 6 AM - 2 PM), i was able to talk with teri paxson, co-owner, and several other patrons who stopped by to voice their support. ideologically, the crowd was mixed; two republicans, one democrat, and two libertarians, all against the ban.

teri is quite the firecracker – throwing her hands wide, she shouted “this is america! where did our freedom go?” she’s hired a lawyer and plans to fight the ban with all her might; she’s willing to shut her doors over it. teri feels that framing it as a “smoking issue,” is fruitless, and is focusing her efforts on choice and enforcement. not only is she free to do with her property what she chooses, but she’s made to enforce a law regulating individual behavior. that’s the police’s job, she says, and she won’t do it for them. “i’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me – my customers’. ... if a police officer wants to come in here and make sure no one smokes, they're welcome to - but i won't."

i'm afraid teri has an uphill - or vertical - battle ahead of her. nonetheless, i think i’ll be mailing her this flag shortly for her wall. if you’d like to send a letter of support, address it to teri paxson, annie’s place, 369 e. main st., newark, ohio 43055.

the image is of the sign on annie's window: "this is a smoking freedom of choice establishment"

hidden biases in the WaPo

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial."

today the washington post has an interesting article on implicit racial bias and voter preference focusing on research suggesting white conservatives have stronger implicit bias against blacks than do liberals. the study's not published yet, so i can't say much about it except the following: the study seems to be utilizing an outdated - or at best simplistic - understanding of bias. recent studies have shown that, given an additional 500 milliseconds, most implicit reactions disappear and the brain utilizes more advanced regions, such as the frontal cortex, instead of the amygdala which is activated in the shorter-response-time studies (30 milliseconds).

so do these initial amygdala reactions matter at all for behavior? are conservatives in general really more racist? i don't know. either way, let's not forget about the frontal cortex either.

the 500 millisecond article was published in psychological science, but i forget the actual reference - if i find it i'll post it as an update here. i blogged about it before, but archives are temporarily missing b/c of the transition to a new URL.

thanks to nigel for the article.

a freedom of choice establishment

one restaurant in my lovely hometown of newark, ohio is bucking the smoking ban enacted on january 1st. the owner, teri paxson, has refused to comply with the ban despite warnings, dubbing her restaurant a "freedom of choice establishment."

four other restaurants in the area have been caught hosting smokers. violators can face $150 in fines and the loss of their liquor license.

unfortunately ms. paxson did not give comment to the newspaper, so that's about all i know. read the whole story here.

monkey business

i'm currently in the process of transferring my blog to my very own URL, so things will be a bit odd over here for a while...

until then, i'll continue posting here.

excellent post i missed last week

the whole post is worth a read, but here's an exerpt from psych pundit, the blog of a clinical psych professor and therapist:

If, as a psychologist, I can help change a patient's thoughts, I've also (by definition) helped change his brain. Changing behavior changes the brain. Changing feelings changes the brain.

In a nutshell: experience changes the brain.

Why is this important? Because when it comes to mental illness, so many people automatically assume, "Oh, well the doctor said I probably have a 'chemical imbalance' or something wrong with my brain, so that means I have to take drugs to fix it." But if we understand that experience changes the brain - that the mind and brain are flip sides of the same underlying reality - we won't make this logical error.

well said!

related news: meditation makes your brain bigger in areas of attention and sensory input.

self-medication for the medicated

schizophrenia drugs are notorious for, among other things, blunting mental ability. via world of psychology, nicotine may counteract this effect:

nicotine patches boosted schizophrenics’ performance on tests of short-term memory and of mental processing speed abilities with which Haloperidol, the leading antipsychotic drug, interferes. Nicotine also improved participants’ attention spans as they tackled a boring computer task for 14 mind-numbing minutes

flaws in democratic decision-making

"The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making. "

a new study suggests that political decision making and analytical thinking may be opposed, illustrating the neural substrates of confirmation bias (tendency to ignore facts opposing your view and seek those confirming it).

in the study, staunch political party members evaluated data critical of their candidate - george w or john kerry's - position on an issue. brain scans revealed no activity in areas of conscious analytical thought, but instead in emotional circuits including conflict and disgust. reward centers took over when subjects came to their decisions.

we are a jaded polity; most of us (justly) feel that politicians manipulate facts. i'm not sure the study says much more than that. once someone's convinced, by whatever method, that her party or candidate is usually correct, that trust makes her likely to be skeptical of any information contradicting the party tract. it's energy and time efficient; it's farming out work to an institution you trust.

so does this say something horrible about us? should we feel guilty for not being analytical enough? not necessarily. at most, it illustrates one of the dangers of direct democracy. perhaps we aren't really cut out to make decisions for everyone.

unfortunately, the study did not look at independent or swing voters, or even party folks who are less involved. i'd also like to see if brain activity differs between issues of greater or lesser personal and worldwide importance, and unfamiliar issues.

thanks to tenacious jdt for the link.

know thyself

money magazine has five cool tips on how to control for common errors in investing using lessons from neuroeconomics. a few are common sense and have little to do with neuroecon, but the best piece of advice is probably:

"It's important to realize," says Stanford University neuroeconomist Brian Knutson, "that the magnitude of a long-shot reward is going to drive your behavior far more than the probabilities, which are minuscule."

sustainable microfinance

kiva, which means "agreement" or "unity" in swahili, is a unique microfinance nonprofit that connects individuals with small businesses in the developing world:

By choosing a business on our website and then lending money online to that enterprise, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive monthly email updates that let you know about the progress being made by the small business you've sponsored. These updates include reports on loan repayment progress, photos of new capital equipment, narratives on business growth and standard of living improvements, and more. As loans are repaid, you will get your original loan money back.

anyone with a credit card and paypal account can loan much-needed funds in $25 increments. interest goes to operating expenses only (partly due to massive SEC regulations on interest-bearing loans), so investors receive only their capital investment when the loan is repaid.

so why would a nonprofit choose microfinance instead of donations? insisting that poor entrepreneurs repay their loans seems much colder than handing out grants. yet it seems to me that requiring repayment engenders a feeling of obligation and indebtedness, possibly making entrepreneurs work harder to succeed. kiva's answer is focused on our behavior rather than that of the entrepreneur - we are more likely to give money when we get it back, increasing the number of loans and people they can help:

There is a limit to the amount of money people can give; loans, on the other hand, can be repaid and re-loaned indefinitely. We believe in the power of creating a more sustainable option for people to contribute.

visit kiva's website for more information. the founders also have a blog.