Well, OK, no. But it looks pretty there, doesn't it?
Rather, I've spent the week doing work for school and continuing to read The Historian (the vampire historical thriller). The protagonist in the book is a history grad student who is travelling around Europe (but not, sadly, the south of France) looking for clues as to where his beloved advisor has been taken (presumably, kidnapped by Vlad Dracula or his minions). I am happy to report that my own advisor is, as of a couple hours ago, alive and well in North Carolina.
Even though he's chasing vampires, the time he demonstrated the most (sustained) fear was on the several days leading up to and the day of his presentation at an eastern European history conference for which he was the "star" speaker, giving a talk on something completely outside his own area of expertise (and which his traveling companion had to write for him). I hear you, man. Fortunately, at the conference I am attending this January, which is the largest and top conference in my field, I am only having to do a poster presentation (i.e., basically, I have a science fair poster that I talk to people about when they stop at my station) so I do not have to share his anxiety. I just found out this week that my submission was accepted, which puts me in the company of approximately 1,000 other people.
Yesterday, we finished collecting additional data for the second experiment in my major area paper, for real this time, damn it. Even though it's only 26 extra participants, it means re-running the entire analysis over again, and because I had generated the previous results in a very piecemeal fashion, I did not have code already written. However, I was able to write the code pretty straightforwardly yesterday and run it this morning. I'm now in the process of updating my paper and hoping that nothing terrible happened. So far, one contrast went from p < .08 to p < .05 and another went from p < .05 to p < .08. One main effect became marginally significant. But overall, I think I'm getting a reasonable (and reasonably similar) pattern of results. I am ready for this sucker to be done.
Tam has characterized my neuroscience class as sounding like a combination of biology and electrical engineering, which seems just about right to me. The textbook clearly assumes that the reader is familiar with first year chemistry and second semester physics, which is probably true of the pre-med students and other physical sciency people who use the book. For example, I was amused by the paragraph describing how action potentials in a neuron work by explaining how the process differs from the function of a battery; I'm sure this would be more useful to people who already know how a battery works than those like me who have to figure out the battery aspect before I can get to the neuron aspect.
The funniest academic journal article I read this week involves a pair of self-regulation studies. Studies examining the self-control strength model have found that if a person performs a task drawing on self-regulatory resources (e.g., resisting the temptation to eat cookies, making themselves continue a boring task, suppressing the thought of a white bear, regulating their emotions), they will demonstrate less self-control on a different subsequent task if it also involves self-control. However (among other factors), the consumption of glucose has been shown to reduce or eliminate the performance deficit on the second task. This result has now been found in ... wait for it ... dogs. (Self-control has been studied in monkeys, of course, but not using this paradigm, to my knowledge.) These results are interesting because they suggest that there need not be a "self" (in the human sense) in order for there to be self-control. I think this adds support to the neuro-cognitive models of self-control that focus on the centrality of brain functions like executive functioning in self-regulation rather than conceptions that focus on the "sense of self." Alternatively, dogs may have a more highly developed sense of self than we think.
[Miller et al. (2010). Self-control without a "self"? Common self-control processes in humans and dogs. Psychological Science, 21, 534-538.]
5 comments:
Does this mean that - even though, try as I might, I cannot expel the image of a white bear from my head - if I drink a glass of Hawaiian Punch when I get home I might be able to lay off internet porn? Or will this only work if I'm a dog? (ok...I might have hope in that case.)
Just wondering.
I will now have nightmares of my advisor having his blood sucked out by vampires. On the other hand, maybe he already is a vampire and is preparing to suck the blood out of me? I'll have to make a habit of packing roasted garlic in my lunch.
So it's not just a rationalization when I eat sugar at work to maintain my sanity while piling on the boring tasks. Or at least it's a better rationalization now. And I'm not even the Miller who made up (ahem, discovered) these results!
It's nice not to have to worry about your adviser becoming undead.
Lee, of course you risk the danger that laying off the porn may deplete your regulatory resources again, thus rationalizing the need to a Snicker's bar (or other source of sugar) before settling down to do work (See Debbie M's comment). Also, if you get in the habit of eating enough garlic without brushing your teeth, it might make your advisor (and others) tend to disappear from your general vicinity, sometimes a desirable outcome.
Debbie, yes, there is some biological justification for it, though the articles I've read on the glucose/self-control link have occasionally pointed out that while these results may on the surface imply that loading up on sugars is a good idea, that avoiding the fluctuations in blood glucose levels associated with large sugar intakes is probably the better route to go. (However, I will refrain from citing the specific research if that helps make this advice seem less credible.)
Sadly, I trust you even without citations. (Please try to use this power only for good!)
Still, resisting sugar temptations also adds to the problem!
So, if you eat more sugar today, you'll be able to exercise more self-regulation at other tasks, but you'll also accustom yourself to eating more sugar, so that in the future, not eating sugar will tax your regulatory capabilities all the more.
It's the usual paradox. Maximizing your potential for one day (by, for instance, eating pizza and ice cream) reduces your potential in the future.
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