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  • Emotional Information

    In the previous article on emotional intelligence we saw how an intelligence is based on the ability to think in abstract ways, and to learn and adapt to an environment. Maybe you’d previously heard about how we have multiple intelligences; IQ, social intelligence, practical intelligence, emotional intelligence, and so on.

    What distinguishes these intelligences from each other is the type of information they process. So verbal-propositional intelligence is about vocabulary, sentence structure, etc., and likewise, emotional intelligence is based on emotional information. I just wanted to clarify what this is exactly, as this was missing from the last post.

    What is emotional information?

    Since Darwin, emotions have been viewed as controlling and signalling our responses to situations – they occur in response to the environment and/or an appraisal of it. They are mostly geared towards things that could have an impact on our chances of surviving and reproducing, and each emotion has it’s own particular role to play in this. So for example, anger comes up when someone transgresses against you, jealousy arises when someone’s flirting with your girlfriend or boyfriend, fear in the face of a potential threat, and so on. The theory goes that each emotion was originally ‘designed’ to solve a particular problem we faced in our evolutionary past, by influencing our response to it. So anger might put people off transgressing against you in the future, jealousy helps to ward people off your mate, and fear helps you stay out of trouble.

    Each emotion has it’s own unique signals, which might be facial expressions, body language, voice tone, and so on. This is what ’emotional information’ is. Facial expressions in particular have been particularly well researched. Expressions have been identified for a number of categories of emotion, and wherever you go in the world, you find that these facial signals always go with the same emotions. For example, you don’t find one culture who furrow their brow and pout when they feel ecstatic – everyone smiles. Even hunter-gatherer societies, with no access to our modern culture, signal emotions using the same facial expressions we do.

    So in a sense, emotional information is a kind of language; although it differs from verbal language because it relates primarily to relationships among people rather than relationships in a more general sense.

  • Positive affirmations don’t work!

    …all of the time. Forgive the title, I’m experimenting with controversial post titles. More on that another day.

    Today the topic is self-help again, and if you’ve read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I take a skeptical attitude towards the self-help industry. A quick inspection of the self-help section of a bookstore will explain why – some of these books are just plain ridiculous.

    As I mentioned in the self-help industry and the self-help book reader’s guide, my main problem with this industry is the fact that the authors feel they have the right to make outrageous claims that they can’t back up with solid evidence. Sometimes they’ll give a few anecdotes of times their advice worked – as if that’s supposed to mean something – but often, all you get is pure unsubstantiated opinion, in-between layers of hyperbole.

    So take positive affirmations, for example. You might think “Do you really need evidence? Isn’t it just so obviously true?” The answers are yes you do really need evidence and, no, it’s not obviously true. Just because something is highly ingrained into our modern parlance doesn’t make it true. How a woman carries her baby during pregnancy does not predict the sex of the child. Walking under a ladder isn’t unlucky. No one ever went blind from, well, you know.

    But sometimes these ideas make such pure, unadulterated, intuitive sense, that you can’t help getting swept along. This theory goes like this: If you want to feel happy with yourself and where you’re going, you have to program your mind to think that way. The way to do this, is through affirmation – you repeat, sometimes in your head, sometimes out loud, a positive statement, over and over again. Eventually, your subconscious mind takes this as truth, and you start to feel the way you’ve been affirming.

    The classic affirmation is “every day in every way I’m getting better and better,” but you could try “I am extremely happy,” “I am loved by everyone,” “I am always confident”, or whatever.

    It makes sense doesn’t it? Say positive things to yourself, feel positive. Keep saying them, keep feeling positive. Sort of a priming effect. So simple. So neat and tidy. And everyone else believes it. Don’t tell me it’s not true!

    Some research in this area says that it isn’t…at least not always. A study last year had two groups of people complete a different task each. One did a free-writing exercise for a few minutes, the other said a positive affirmation (“I am a loveable person”) several times each minute for the same time period. Then, measures of mood and self-esteem were taken.

    positive_affirmation
    They certainly do their affirmations… (Credit)

    What happened? For people with high self-esteem, it worked – the high self-esteem people in the affirmation group did end up in a better mood than the free-writing group. But the people with low self-esteem actually ended up in a *worse* mood than the free-writing control group!

    The suggestion is that saying the positive statements only served to highlight, by contrast, just how poor an opinion the low self-esteem people had of themselves.

    This research is not conclusive, of course. There’s more work to be done to discover the individual differences that make a certain technique work for some and not for others – there may be more things interacting with affirmations than just self-esteem.

    So should you do positive affirmations? This one study says that if you’re already high in self-esteem, this might be a useful mood booster. If you’re not, don’t bother.

    However, as always in science the results only support the findings under the exact conditions under which the study was conducted, and there were a few limitations to this one, for example:

    • Only one affirmation was tested: different affirmations may work for low self-esteem people
    • We are not sure what would happen to low self-esteem people after a longer intervention than 4 minutes (could be better, could be even worse)

    But for me, the key point of all this is that the affirmation tested was lifted directly from a self-help book. The author promoted a one-size fits all solution, which was not found to be the case in this study.

    I’m not trying to promote a negative attitude towards the self-help industry – as fun as that would be. If this study says anything, it just says that it’s unwise to accept something because it seems to ‘make sense.’ Sometimes the truth is a little more complicated.

    Reference:

    Wood, J., Elaine Perunovic, W., & Lee, J. (2009). Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others. Psychological Science

  • Using a Wiki to organise your notes

    There’s a recent post up at Cal Newport’s blog that’s very interesting. He discusses the study strategy of a man known only as Ricardo. His method is to using a wiki app installed on his iphone to type his notes onto. He then whips out his iPhone whenever he’s got a spare 10-15 minutes, and goes over the notes. The idea is that over long periods of time, these tiny chunks add up to a lot of study without any additional inconvenience.

    I used to do a similar thing with software that converted text files into audio. I would copy and paste journal papers into textpad, convert them to mp3, and listen to them as I travelled around. At one point I had a job which basically entailed walking around London (distributing flyers), and I essentially got paid to listen to papers and my notes. It sounded robotic but you could understand it.

    But using a wiki on-the-go is an excellent idea. If I had an iphone I would do it. However, I do use one for ordinary sitting-at-a-desk type studying. The one I use is called ZuluPad, and I’ve found it to be a really useful tool.

    ZuluPad has two features – writing text, and adding pages. That’s it. When you add a new page to the wiki, you give it a name. Anywhere else that that name appears in the wiki is automatically transformed into a link leading to that page. So, say a few weeks ago I write a page with notes on intrinsic motivation. If today I’m writing notes on the effects of meditation, and I put down some comments about how it links in with intrinsic motivation, I instantly get a link back to my notes on that.

    Compare this to the analogue paper and pen system. If I want to look up related notes in folders or notepads, I can index the notes as well as I want but it still requires getting the right folder or notebook out, going to the contents, checking the page number, flicking to the page. With ZuluPad, I don’t have to do anything I wouldn’t already do. I’m a big fan of simple programs that have zero learning curve, and ZuluPad is exactly that. Oh, and it’s completely free too.

    So give it a go for a while, see if you find it useful. By the way, I highly recommend Cal’s blog too – go and subscribe to it if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it.

    Note: I’m going to add study tips to the blog more regularly now. My aim is to put a post up every Sunday, though I’m not promising I won’t miss one here and there.

  • A guide to emotional intelligence

    You have probably heard the term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ before, probably along with bold claims like “emotional intelligence matters twice as much as IQ” (1), or 80% of success is accounted for my emotional intelligence. But leaving the hype aside for a moment, what exactly is emotional intelligence, and is there any truth to these incredible claims?

    A quick guide to emotional intelligence

    As a field, emotional intelligence is quite a confusing because there are a number of different constructions, each with slightly different definitions. The leading model, and the one with the largest research base, is the Mayer-Salovey model. In this model, emotional intelligence is defined as the capacity to:

    • Accurately perceive emotions
    • Generate emotions so as to assist thought
    • Understand emotions and emotional knowledge
    • Regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth (2)

    In other words, it’s the “cooperative combination of intelligence and emotion” (3). This model also views emotional intelligence as an ability, or set of skills, rather than a trait or a ‘gift’.

    This framework of emotional intelligence does not make the bold claims you might have heard of. These belong to other models, and in fact, researchers using this model actively try to expose these popular but unfounded claims. If you’re reading up on emotional intelligence and come across contentions, then make sure you keep your skeptic’s hat on because you might be reading something that isn’t supported by the research.

    The four branches of emotional intelligence

    The skills and abilities that make up emotional intelligence can be broken into four ‘branches’:

    1) Perception and expression of emotion

    Branch one is the ability to recognise emotion signals in other people, through their facial expressions, bodylanguage and voice; including the ability to detect false emotional expressions. It also involves the ability of a person to express their own emotions through these same channels. An example might be the salesperson, who knows just when the prospect is ready to buy.

    2) Using emotion to aid thought

    This branch reflects a sensitivity to the fact that certain emotions are more suitable for certain types of thinking than others, and the ability to intelligently draw upon this knowledge as required. An example could be the entrepreneur, who knows that good moods help him come up with original ideas, so he boosts his mood somehow before a brainstorming session.

    3) Understanding emotion

    Branch three is the analysis of emotions, an awareness of the trends of emotions, and an understanding of what outcomes usually result from which emotions. It includes the ability to label and distinguish between different emotions, their intensity, and the transitions between different emotions. A high level of skill in this branch reflects a high degree of self-awareness.

    4) Managing emotion

    This represents the ability of an individual to manage their own emotions and the emotions of others, in line with their particular goals, their self-knowledge, and social norms. An example could be the young child who is taught to count to ten when feeling angry, or the sports coach who motivates his team at half time a la Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday.

    The order of the branches represents the extent that the ability is integrated into the rest of a person’s psychology. That probably requires a bit more explanation. If you imagine that you have a set of emotional systems in your brain (which you do), branch one is the most deeply integrated into these ‘hard-wired’ systems, while branch four will be the least integrated into these, and the most open to variation through experience. This fits into other observations, such as the Paul Ekman’s fascinating research, where he demonstrated that tribal cultures with little exposure to outsiders used the same facial expressions to display the same emotions as the rest of the world (branch 1), and the differences between cultures in which emotion is appropriate to display when (branch 4).

    And that, in a nutshell, is it. Hopefully this quick guide to emotional intelligence gave you a more realistic view of what it is, without the hype that usually comes along with it.

    References:

    (1) Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. NY: Bantam.
    (2) Mayer, J.D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (p 3-31). NY: Basic Books.
    (3) Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D.R. (2004). Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings and Implications. Psychological Inquiry, 15(3), p197.


    Recommended Reading:

  • Weaknesses of the working memory model

    We’ve recently looked at Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model, which they first proposed back in 1974 and has been through a few changes since then. For an overview of the working memory model, see this article, and there’s another one looking at the strengths of the model. Here’s a quick look at some of the weaknesses of the model, which mainly revolve around the lack of understanding and depth of the model at present.

    Weaknesses of the working memory model

    1) The components of the model may as yet be too simple, and do not explain the full range of day-to-day phenomena, for example, some things we’re pretty good at remembering, unless someone starts talking to us while were trying to remember it. Is there any information that is not as prone to decay as it is to interference from competing input?

    2) The central executive is poorly understood. Since there are only modest correlations between people on different executive functions, and since some people can lose some executive functions but keep others, it’s highly unlikely that the CE is one unitary construct. Without knowing how the CE is broken down, it’s very difficult to come up with hypotheses to test the model further, and to know how these subsections relate to each other and the other parts of the model. Take verbal rehearsal for example. Does the CE initiate this, monitor it, maintain it? Or is it purely a function of the phonological loop?

    3) Researchers do not yet have a detailed understanding of how the episodic buffer combines information from the other parts of the model, and from long-term memory.

    Recommended Reading:

  • Why 88% of New Years' resolutions fail

    Jonah Lehrer wrote an excellent article for the Wall Street Journal on why New Year’s resolutions fail.

    Quick overview of reasons:

    • The more overloaded our brain is with ‘stuff’ (including resolutions we need to keep track of), the weaker its willpower is. We need to spread our resolutions across the year.
    • Just like a muscle, our will-power has limited capacity – don’t make it do too much or you’ll lose self-control.
    • Again, just like a muscle, exercising will-power uses up energy (glucose), so beware if you’re trying to lose weight as a resolution – starving yourself will reduce your will-power.
    • When you reach the inevitable point of temptation, distract yourself rather than trying to power through.
    • Will-power can be trained and training it in one domain (eg posture) increases will-power in others

    I really recommend the article, it’s great stuff. You can also find Jonah’s blog here.

  • Subliminal Advertising: Should we be worried?

    In 1957, a gentleman by the name of James Vicary created a new concept: Subliminal advertising. He flashed the words “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” for a fraction of a second during a film, and claimed increases in sales of these products of 18% and 57% respectively.

    But, there’s one other thing that bugged me about that ‘study’. The name of the film. It was called ‘Picnic’. I’ve never seen this film, and I don’t know if you have, but I find it hard to imagine that there weren’t multiple scenes of gratuitous eating and drinking in it! Could this possibly have a more powerful effect than a few words, flashed for only 1/300th of a second?

    Maybe, but this is all academic, as Vicary supposedly admitted to fabricating his results. Still, I think my general point is valid.

    Most people would see subliminal messages as some kind of slimy, dirty, underhanded advertising trick, right up there with spam emails. However it’s apparently OK to use every other persuasion technique in the book to get you to buy something: celebrity endorsements which bring authority and social proof. Free gifts to trigger the reciprocity principle. Short-term sales to activate the scarcity principle. Are these things underhanded? Oh no, these are all fine, but throw in a capitalised word for 1/300th of a second, and there’ll be riots!

    Advertisers are throwing the big guns at us, and we’re worried about the little pee-shooter in the corner. I think it’s the feeling of being cheated; that they are not playing by the rules. Manipulate us, sir, but not behind our backs; that would be wrong.

    But is this something we should be worried about? Probably not. In 1992, a review of over 200 studies of subliminal advertising concluded that there is very little evidence to support the idea that subliminal advertising can influence our behaviour. (1)

    But sometimes you’ll hear stories of people that were ‘influenced’. You’ve got to be careful that you’re not seeing what you want to see; adapting your interpretation of your experience to fit your beliefs, rather than the other way around. Vicary publicly announced that he’d run another subliminal message, this time on live TV. He flashed the phase “telephone now” during a program. Call-in rates didn’t increase, however some viewers reported that they had the uncontrollable urge to get a drink or use the toilet. Interesting. Because that never happens when people aren’t flashing subliminal messages at you!

    So how did we start at Vicary’s supposedly fabricated first study, go through the failed second one, the 1992 rebuke, and still end up at, for example, the telegraph, September 2009: “Subliminal advertising really does work, claim scientists.”

    Claim scientists? Hang on a second. Weren’t the scientists the ones saying subliminal messaging in advertising DOESN’T work? What’s going on here?

    Well there’s a difference between subliminal messages changing someone’s behaviour, and the subliminal perception of a message. Very important distinction. The study reported by the telegraph asked people to rate whether the word was positive or negative; it didn’t look into behavioural consequences of that perception.

    We came across a similar study in the priming article. People seem unconsciously aware of whether subliminal messages are positive or negative, but it takes more overt priming to bring behavioural consequences. Not much more; but read the priming article for more information on that. This brings me nicely back to my point: Don’t worry about subliminal messages in advertising, they probably aren’t going to effect you. It’s the very blatant, obvious stuff you should be worrying about!

    Maybe blatant persuasion and propaganda is something we’ll look into another day. I’d cover it now, only I have the strangest urge to go buy some popcorn and coca-cola…

    References:

    (1) Pratkanis, A & Aronson, E. (1992). Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion. NY: W.H. Freeman

  • 6 Strengths of the working memory model

    The working memory model discussed earlier has a lot going for it compared to other memory models. Here are a few things:

    strengths of the working memory model
    The working memory model.

    1) Unlike some other models (eg, the short-term store model), the working memory model explains not only the storage, but also the processing of information.

    2) Specificity. Because the model proposes specific and separate functions and subsystems, new predictions and hypotheses can be drawn up for testing.

    3) It is consistent with records of brain-damaged patients. For example the visuo-spatial sketch pad is said to be made of two parts, the visual cache which stores information about colour and form, and the inner scribe, which processes spatial and movement information. Patient ‘LH’ had more difficulty with visual tasks than spatial tasks, which probably means that there is a different part of the brain controlling these things; just as the model suggests (1). Another example is ‘KF’, whose forgetting of auditory stimuli was higher than visual stimuli. (2) There are quite a few cases like this, which support the model.

    4) The model integrates a large number of research findings. As well as studies on brain damaged patients, there is also experimental evidence which supports the model (eg., Baddeley and his colleagues’ word-length effect (3) supporting the phonological loop), and a number of brain-scan studies have found different brain regions to activate when people carry out tasks involving the different components of working memory (4; this paper and many others are available for download here).

    5) A previous model placed enormous importance on verbal rehearsal for transferring information into long-term memory; this doesn’t match up well with our day-to-day experience. In the working memory model, verbal rehearsal is noted as one way to encode and store information, but there are other routes too (visual stimuli, the episodic buffer, etc). From this point of view, it’s more realistic.

    6) The working memory has a strong role in cognitive psychology and can be used to study other theorised systems and processes in the brain (eg., consciousness), by seeing how they relate to working memory. A perfect example of this, is how the central executive allows researchers to look into how memory relates to attention.

    There you go, six starting points for the evaluation section of any essay or exam you might have on this topic, or more detailed information for people who are just plain interested. By they way, if you’re a psychology student, you may also be interested in my study skills book!

    References:

    (1) Farah, M.J., Hammond, K.H., Levine, D.N. & Calvanio, R. (1988). Visual and spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 439-462.
    (2) Shallice, T., & Warrington, E. K. (1970). Independent functioning of verbal memory store: A neuropsychological study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 22, 261–273.
    (3) Baddeley, A.D. et al. (1975). Word length and the structure of short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 14, 575–589.
    (4) Sala, J.B., Rama, P., & Courtney, S.M. (2003). Functional Topography of a Distributed Neural System for Spatial and Nonspatial Information Maintenance in Working Memory. Neuropsychologia, 41(3), 341-56.


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  • 3 Keys to fantastic memory

    Fantastic memory. I really need this. I’m quite fond of such classic moments as walking into a room without any idea what I’m doing there, forgetting peoples’ names only seconds after I meet them, and once, completely forgetting how old I was (a liberating, if mildly frustrating experience).

    Maybe I need the help of one of the big names in the study of expertise, Dr K. Anders Ericsson. He’s done work on what separates good performers from master performers in a number of different fields, and he consistently found that the main factor in expertise is practice. When he turned his attention to the study of people with a fantastic memory abilities, he reports that not only is practice necessary, it is also sufficient.


    60s pinup memory
    “You’re so forgetful darling! That’s the third time you’ve covered me with suntan lotion!”(credit)

    He goes on to cover what he believes are the three essential requirements for fantastic memory:

    1) Meaningful Encoding

    We looked into what encoding is here. To encode something meaningfully means relating it to existing knowledge – making connections between material.

    2) Retrieval Structure

    Along with the information being stored, cues should be memorised too. This allows for much greater ease of recall later on – the more ‘paths’ to the memory, the more ways it can be accessed and the recalled. This is the principle behind the link system and the peg system of memory.

    3) Speed-up

    This is where practice comes in. People with fantastic memory have extensively practised encoding and recalling information – in a way, this trains the processes involved, so that they function more quickly over time. Eventually, as with many learned skills, the process becomes automatic. For example, if you’ve ever learned to drive, you’ll remember that at first you have to put your full attention on the job; but later, you could switch off while driving and think about whatever comes to mind. According to Ericsson, it’s the same thing with memory.


    fantastic memory

    Bill forgets to pick up his phone once again.

    I find Ericsson’s work quite encouraging. It’s kind of nice to know that given huge amounts of dedicated practice, natural talent doesn’t seem to play much of a role in performance. But does this mean we can do “Anything we set our minds to?” Or should we “Stick to our strengths?” The answer to that is here, and it’s probably not what you’re thinking.

    Either way though, I have to wonder just how much practice it will take for me to stop walking into rooms without knowing why I’m there…

    References:

    Ericsson, K.A. (1988). Analysis of memory performance in terms of memory skill. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence, Vol 4. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

    Ericsson, K.A. & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211-245

  • Change Blindness

    Ever notice a blank wall where a painting used to be, only to find out it had been gone for days? That’s change blindess at work. As we go about our business, our visual scene is changing frequently. We think that we have a clear and accurate view of the world as we move around it; but we’re actually not that great at detecting changes in our visual environment. This is going on all the time – things in your environment change, but you’re none the wiser.

    This even applies to changes that you would think were completely obvious. The classic study on change blindness had a researcher ask participants for help with some written directions. While they were talking, a brief distraction was arranged, during which a confederate switched places with the researcher, and continue the conversation. Amazingly, most of the participants did not even notice the switch, and carried on talking to the completely different person! (1) Here’s a video of a similar study, reporting that 75% of people didn’t notice!

    How is change blindness explained?

    There is still work to be done in this area, but the main theory is based on the idea of mental maps of scenes, which are stored in long-term memory. (2) When we fixate our attention on a particular aspect of our visual environment, it gets added to the mental map. These representations are thought to be fairly detailed, though not wholly accurate, and they stay for some time after they’re formed. Unless a particular aspect of a scene has been indexed in the mental map, there’s nothing to compare it with to realise there has been a change. So the most important factor in change blindness is not memory, but attention. If something hasn’t been fixated on, according to this theory, it doesn’t get added to the map, and changes to it (or its disappearance) won’t be noticed.

    Where to go for more information on change blindness

    For general interest, the You Tube clip linked to above is worth watching, but for academic interest get Hollingworth and Henderson’s 2002 paper (it’s on Andrew Hollingworth’s website for free download), also look up Rensink’s work.

    References:

    (1) Simons, D. J. & Levin, D. T. (1998). Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 5, 644–649

    (2) Hollingworth, A., & Henderson, J. M. (2002). Accurate visual memory for previously attended objects in natural scenes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28, 113-136.

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