The tech of torture
Though electric shock experiments have been outlawed for 40 years, the study of the human psyche under extreme conditions has a new playground: virtual reality. Researchers at University College of London have recreated the studies set up in the sixties by Stanley Milgram, who found that people would give what they understood as lethal shocks to others if persuaded by an authority figure. In the virtual experiments, some participants saw and heard a female avatar in virtual reality while others communicated with her through text. The virtual female was given a series of tests and if she answered incorrectly, the participants were encouraged by an authority figure to punish her with an electric shock which increased in intensity with each erroneous answer. All participants that communicated with her through text gave the maximum number of 20 shocks while a small number of participants seeing and hearing the virtual female gave less than 19 shocks. Despite knowing that the experiment was not real, the participant’s behaviour was consistent with Milgram’s finding that people will often inflict horrific punishment on another if sanctioned by an authority figure. The UCL researchers see virtual reality as an encouraging opportunity to study human behavioural psychology in situations that cannot be created in reality.
Source: CBC News
-Sandy Huen
Seeing back to see forward
New brain-imaging data from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that imagining the future may have much to do with our ability to recall the past. Researchers studied the brain activity of college students that were given ten seconds to either recall an event from their own past, envision themselves experiencing an event in the future, or picture a celebrity participating in an event they may have experienced in their own past, like getting lost or attending a birthday party. The team found complete overlap in the regions of the brain used for remembering one’s past and envisioning one’s future. They suggested this overlap explains the subjects’ tendency to place future-oriented images in the context of familiar places and people. Subjects reported that scenarios with celebrities were less vivid in their imaginations, and researchers found that fewer overlapping networks were activated in these scenarios, centering on the brain’s semantic area, responsible for context-free general knowledge of the world. Scientists say the findings support the theories explaining cognitive anomalies in people with severe depression or amnesia. For example, amnesiac patients can usually understand the future in an abstract sense (e.g. the threat of global warming), but not envision themselves in specific scenarios (e.g. riding a bike).
Source: Washington University in St. Louis news service
-Abigail Slinger
