Pointing to Food and Picking Pink

An article in The Economist (August 23, 2007) discusses some recent research in gender differences and the origins of those differences.

Joshua New , Max M. Krasnow, Danielle Truxaw, and Steven J.C. Gaulin conducted a field experiment to investigate whether men or women are better at finding food in a natural environment. They used a nearby farmer's market to test their hypotheses: women will remember the location of previously visited food resources better than will men, and the higher the nutritional value of the food, the better the location will be remembered.

A total of 96 volunteers (41 women and 45 men) each stopped at six of the 90 food stalls in the farmer's market. Later, they pointed (individually) at the six stalls from a location in the center of the market. Women were more accurate, by an average of 9 degrees. Both men and women were more accurate at pointing at the stalls that contained food with higher nutritional value.

These results were originally published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (the first scientific association, you will recall from chapter 12, p. 384).

Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling asked British and Chinese young (early 20s) men and women to pick their favorite colors as they flashed on a computer screen. While most studies like theirs reveal a near universal preference for blue by both genders, they were able to find a preference for reddish to pinkish hues by women. Participants who scored as feminine on the Bem Sex Role Inventory, also showed a preference for reddish to pinkish hues, regardless of their sex. They did not discover any cultural differences.

These results were originally published in Current Biology. Here is a link to a summary of their article.

The article in The Economist links both of these findings to evolutionary psychology. Women being the gatherers in primitive human hunter-gatherer societies and women being the ones most likely to select edible fruits.

Torture

Before 9/11 I used to mention torture off-handedly in my learning class as an example of sensitization . Of course, I never dreamed back then that any psychologists would actually use torture. Like many, I thought that the Nuremberg Trials had shut the door firmly on those who would use the scientific method for less than benign ends. Apparently, I was wrong. I no longer mention torture in class.

Yesterday, the American Psychological Association took an important step when its council voted to affirm an "absolute prohibition against psychologists' knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

More specifically, the council named prohibited actions: "includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;"

The American Psychological Association's action follows similar positions by the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. Yesterday's statement by the American Psychological Association was a compromise from another stronger position which sought to ban psychologists' participation from all interrogations. The council rejected that earlier proposal.

The Psychologists for Social Responsibility recently sponsored a symposium: Rethinking the Psychology of Torture. One of their conclusions was that, "Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations."

At least we now have some operational definitions of what not to do (or teach) with regard to torture.

Sweat equity

I could not resist--research on sweat. It's true, research topics ARE all around us. (Apparently, some of them are even ON us.) Maybe it's the fact that today's temperatures here were well over 100 degrees F that has grabbed my attention.

Again, the New York Times has inspired me to post with an article titled: Sweatology.

There are some interesting facts in that article:

• Humans tolerate cooling more than they tolerate heating
• People show tremendous variation in the number of sweat glands they possess
• Our body temperatures are lower in the morning.
• Thermoregulation in menopausal women goes awry so that they believe they are hotter than they really are and they sweat more.
• The elderly sweat less than they should (physiology again) and thus are more prone to heat related problems.
• Anger, too, makes us sweat.
• Clothing affects sweating. Naked people sweat more than clothed people. (The IRB is going to love that one.)
  
• Heat acclimation is a real phenomenon. After being in the heat for a week or so, people's sweat glands get bigger and produce more sweat.

Here are the researchers mentioned in the article.

Nina Jablonski is an evolutionary anthropologist whose recent book, Skin, compares the cooling strategies of various primate species (among other topics).

Craig Crandall studies human thermoregulation and has a lab in Dallas.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a manikin called Adam, to measure human thermal comfort inside automobiles. Their goal is to decrease fuel consumption by reducing the use of automotive air conditioning.

Edison once said, "Genius is 1% percent inspiration and 99% perspiration." Maybe he was right.

The value of undergraduate research

The Chronicle of Higher Education (August, 17, 2007, by Lila Guterman, ) has two articles : What good is undergraduate research anyway? (p. A12) and Research on undergraduate research (A14) Most teachers assume that having undergraduates conduct research is a good way to teach. So, it's refreshing to see some researchers asking themselves whether that assumption is warranted.

The article, Research on undergraduate research, looks at three separate research projects, one at the University of Colorado at Boulder (N = 76), published in Science Education, another at Grinnell College (N = 1,135), published in Cell Biology Education, and still another at SRI International (N = 8,000+). The report of the SRI research can be found by clicking here.

The longer article, What good is undergraduate research anyway?, provides some analysis and commentary. The results of the study above support the assumption that undergraduate research is a good way to teach. Interestingly, it looks like conducting undergraduate research convinces some, but not many, additional students to change their previous career plans and attend graduate school instead. Some students learn that research does not suit them.

On the other side of the coin, results indicated that "authentic" instead "mundane" undergraduate research experiences were more valuable, educationally. Faculty note that teaching via undergraduate research experiences takes more time than teaching in other ways.

We can agree on both the worth and the cost of supervising undergraduate research. Our text reveals our bias toward undergraduate research (we hope).

Perception and Highway Signs

Martin Pietrucha is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State University. His research focuses on the readability of highway signs. He lists human factors as one of his specialties.

A recent New York Times article highlights his research on a new font, Clearview, with improved readability. The Federal Highway Administration approved Clearview in 2004. Many states are now replacing their older Highway Gothic font signs with Clearview.

Here is a picture of two signs. The left one is in Highway Gothic and the one on the right is in Clearview.
Graphic source

Here is how these data are collected:


Graphic source

Future research of this type will look at negative contrast signs (dark on light).

The research described here and other similar human factors research are examples of how psychologists and other scientists can apply the principles of measurement and research to solve real world problems.