Picking your Brain

[gentle field]

Opening this post to welcome any questions and discussions regarding the sciences studying human behaviour and cognition, as well as mental health.

What this post is about

• Sharing the latest findings in fields such as psychology, neuroscience, cognitive sciences, neuroengineering and other fields related to the human brain and the behaviour it exerts.

• Raising awareness about mental health: it's causes, it's nature and what can be done in order to overcome it.

• A place where these topics are discussed with academic rigour. Personal experiences are valid and appreciated but always understanding that these may be counterintuitive to what research and scientific evidence suggests. Naturally, always treat each other with respect.

• A place where it is encouraged to discuss and analyse how knowledge from this field may be combined into open source research, leading to more accurate analysis and novel techniques and interpretations

• A place where people can ask their questions about these topics, so they get reliable answers.

What this post is not about

• A place to seek professional mental health attention or advice, or to be therapised. Even if I expect many of us to be more active here to have a degree of qualifications on the field, this would not be the place to find any professional advice on the field.

• This is however not a blanket to go easy with providing tips and advices with no validity, or to instantly disregard issues. This is not the place to seek advice, but we should still stick with factuality. This is not the place to find help but that should not discourage from helping how to find help correctly.

• A place for taking a necessary break from stressful situations and research, that's the role of #mental-health-and-rest

It's alive @hybrid stone

[gentle field]

Also, should I rename this to BellingCortex?

[hybrid stone]

finally

[weary bloom]

Eyyy

[rancid pecan]

only once it achieves channel status

then we can fight with #bellingcook

[limpid narwhal]

The moment I saw the title, I knew who started the thing.

That being said, I'll just remain an observer

[quiet harbor]

Is this channel for everything about behavioral science? Would topics about structured analytic techniques, epistemology or social psychology fit in here, or is this more mental health focused topics?

[rancid pecan]

SATs would be okay I presume if they fit within the context of psychology, cognition, etc

[gentle field]

All of them welcome, just that MH will probably be a more discussed topic because of the interest it has

But I personally would love to see social psychology or even sociology being discussed here

And something I forgot to add and should is, if possible, also discuss how knowledge on these fields can complement open source research, which is something that I'd say social psychology can absolutely contribute to

[quiet harbor]

Graphic: Trauma and Meaning in our Online Lives
I swear I saw someone else that already shouted out this book in the server, but going to recommend it again. https://www.graphicthebook.com/

I met the authors of this book IRL, both are super connected to human rights OSINT field. The authors have done the best job of articulating the effects of graphic media on researchers and organizations that I have ever heard.

Their explanations do a great job of mixing the scientific and empathetic, and this book is likely a great read (despite the title) to people who are very skeptical of mental health effects of graphic content and see mental health as a very wooo wooo topic.

Plus the book has an Eliot Higgins endorsement

Comes out in September, and might be a good #1082266004366827571 nominee for later in the year.

[gentle field]

What if we frame it as a way to improve your personal communication skills?

I personally really appreciate your input and I get to learn from them, so I think the whole server benefits from it

[hybrid stone]

In this “Careers in OSINT” interview, psychologist Christina Lekati describes how she uses her knowledge for providing intelligence on the human side of open research topics. Transferable knowledge for anyone with a background in social sciences, incl. communications or media studies:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ju9WmsVUA&pp=ygUaTXlvc2ludCBzb2NpYWwgZW5naW5lZXJpbmc%3D

[hybrid stone]

Also interesting for open source researchers as firefighters of the Internet: Posttraumatic growth as the potential other side of the coin that is Posttraumatic Stress. This literature review summarizes what’s needed to make that happen:

“People who experience major life crises often report post-traumatic stress. However, the literature suggests that traumatic experiences can also be ”catalysts" for positive change (ie, posttraumatic growth; PTG).

PTG (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006) can include improved relationships, new possibilities for one’s life, a greater appreciation for life, a greater sense of personal strength, and spiritual development.

While the general population isn’t confronted with traumatic events regularly, individuals such as firefighters, policemen, and EMTs are. But what factors foster the emergence of PTG?”

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Didier-Truchot/publication/348084475_What_Promotes_Post_Traumatic_Growth_A_Systematic_Review/links/606de26d92851c8a7baf1ae3/What-Promotes-Post-Traumatic-Growth-A-Systematic-Review.pdf

[hybrid stone]

Your suggestion is brilliant as it builds on Richard Heuer’s Psychology of Intelligence and by subverting the #1082266004366827571 we can beat #bellingcook 🔥.

[quiet harbor]

I joined the server after that particular book club, so I’m completely up for beating #bellingcook with our own much cooler offshoot 🙂

[hybrid stone]

Excellent food is to be respected. Can’t compete with Magic Potions (epistemology/SATs) though, of course.

What are your/anyone’s fav books/resources on both?

[covert jolt]

A psychological mystery defying explanation.

Anke Precht, a psychologist, told Bild that it was possible the driver received the sandwich from someone else, perhaps a loved one, though they actually did not enjoy the snack. The driver might have missed the chance to tell the other person they did not like the sandwich, and now they have to live with the consequences of that misunderstanding.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/09/20/germans-are-baffled-over-the-mystery-of-a-highway-serial-sandwich-thrower

[outer moat]

This needs to go to one of the osint channels. We have to crack this

[gentle field]

Yeah, there isn't much psychology here. Person doing this could simply be bored 😅

[limpid narwhal]

lp;ooi999

[covert jolt]

Good point.

[limpid narwhal]

Oh crap, cats went loose again.

There's no single day these guys wouldn't run over my keyboard several times a day. Once they even managed to google some marijuana trader by putting seamingly random characters.
I usually remember to lock the keyboard, but cannot be vigilant all the time ;)

[bitter cobalt]

Sure, blame the cats for that one!

[limpid narwhal]

Ha! I've got evidence!
(I know it doesn't count since it's a different occurance)

But please, I know it's an OSInt related server, just please, do not dig metadata, I sent it right from my phone.

[bitter cobalt]

I don't think Discord saves any (?)

[limpid narwhal]

Well, excuse my lack of knowledge on the matter.

[bitter cobalt]

Hehe, I'm only repeating what I heard/read.

[dire pawn]

But also just

For example yesterday i felt like i had to arrange all of my clothes in categories and order them by exact colour they occur in a “rainbow” scheme

Or cant handle stuff being even a fraction off place/wrong angle

Its much less now than as a kid

But stuff like that

Random persistent intrusive thoughts (some more violent and morally reprehensible than others)

And a list of other things

[gentle field]

That honestly is more about ASD 😅

[dire pawn]

Hmm interesting, maybe i missed some new developments in the last few years

Cause this all used to be considered very stereotypically OCD behaviours

At least according to the few qualified people i spoke about this with when i was younger

[gentle field]

That can happen easily to anyone, it's not necessarily a sign of any condition alone

OCD is extraordinarily misunderstood

[dire pawn]

Intrusive thoughts yes

Of course

[gentle field]

Or rather misrepresented

[dire pawn]

But all of it combined and in the way i have them… getting a bit more questionable

Stuff like irrationally checking the oven 20 times before leaving

[gentle field]

It's possible to see OCD more frequently on neurodiverse people because neurodiverse people are much likelier to develop anxiety disorders (simply because our world is not designed for neurodiverse people)

[dire pawn]

Even when i know its not on but i just have to

[gentle field]

That suits more OCD tbh

But well, like any other anxiety condition it's about habituating to the anxious stimuli and learning more adaptive behaviours and coping mechanisms

[dire pawn]

Yeah i mean i wont say that all of what i have is OCD stuff cause its definitely not (sometimes especially to my only enthusiast amateur knowledge unclear what counts as what), but i’m pretty sure i’d also get an OCD diagnosis if i went to a psych

Yeah

Just irrational compulsions i guess

But much less now than as a kid

Stuff like pulling out hair as a response to (?, cant remember) i’ve long gotten rid of with some help

[gentle field]

Well, these things can perfectly affect children and we may learn strategies behind

Anxious conditions are not proper "diseases", they're more about learnt maladaptive responses, so it's a question to change these responses

[dire pawn]

Yeah

[gentle field]

That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any therapeutic action on it, although I'm personally not a fan of tranquillisers, they can be useful under certain circumstances

[dire pawn]

Just never thought about my compartmentalisation much before so no clue (also havent read up on it specifically)

[gentle field]

Mhm, it is an anxious response, just that it's not exactly OCD, it's a behaviour that arises from someone neurodiverse in a specific environment that triggers an anxious response

[dire pawn]

Yeah fair enough, just that its one of those things that at least to me when experiencing it kinda feels like the same

Unlike some of my more stereotypically ADHD behaviours which definitely feel less related to the ocd compulsions

[gentle field]

Well it doesn't exclude one or the other

[dire pawn]

Yeah ofc

Just since it started with like the general question of “is it ocd or more asd or something else” worth mentioning

[gentle field]

The thing about mental health issues is that the diagnosis model we use for medical conditions doesn't apply that much, as there's plenty of overlapping and the symptomatology, to call it somehow, is non lineal

[dire pawn]

Yeah i figured that out too sadly lol

[gentle field]

That's why you get so much comorbidity and plenty of diagnoses aren't precisely textbook examples

[dire pawn]

Yeah also a reason why i havent bothered to properly get diagnosed myself, with that in mind the main benefit would be access to medication but i’ve never felt particularly attracted to that

[gentle field]

I mean, it still helps

But it has to be accompanied with a psychotherapeutic approach

Meds alone rarely do enough long term, and can even be harmful when we talk about anxious disorders

[dire pawn]

I mean yeah definitely, but i’ve learned how to work on my unhealthy coping mechanisms myself and for my more adhd problems like it might help, but i’ve managed to live with those issues in a more useful way so dont really feel like i need it

[gentle field]

(Again, long term, of course the occasional tranquiliser in a prescribed dose is fine)

[dire pawn]

Like would adhd meds help me focus, probably, would it really be worth it compared to how i currently work, maybe not worth the effort

[gentle field]

Sure! This is something that one does on their own after all

[dire pawn]

Weaponised adhd symptoms

[gentle field]

At the end of the day what a good therapist does is not "try to change you" to say it somehow, they will provide you with tools that you then implement

[dire pawn]

Yeah definitely

But like f.ex CBT i’ve managed to decently figure out myself

[gentle field]

And using ADHD for your advantage is the way to go tbh

[dire pawn]

Would it have been quicker with professional help as a kid, maybe, but right now probably not as much anymore

[gentle field]

Hmm, interesting how did you do that?

[dire pawn]

Honestly not sure about the how right now, will see if i can come up with a decent explanation based on what i remember but might take a bit lol

[dire pawn]

Definitely would not have ended up here if i hadnt used geolocation as a useful procrastination mechanism lol

[dire pawn]

Hard to describe cause its such a long process and i dont remember much of it, but essentially it was pretty clear that i reacted to/in certain situations differently than others. And once i figured out for (something) that the way i reacted was irrational/effecting me/others negatively i simply figured that i’d try and analyse how other people acted in those situations (how when and why) and then try to sort of “co-opt” the alternative for myself

[gentle field]

I mean if you learnt some tools to identify your own behavioural patterns and belief schemata

Identifying cognitive distortions and so on

[dire pawn]

And while it’s hard at first after a while you figure out that it becomes more and more natural to act in the alternative way

[gentle field]

That's great

[dire pawn]

And by now i’ve done it enough that it’s a pretty standardised process i guess

[gentle field]

That's fantastic, but I still would recommend the assistance of a therapist if you felt you needed it, because there's always more to learn and polish, especially when self taught

Good news are you have the hardest job done lol

[dire pawn]

Yeah if there ever is a harder to work through issue then that’s definitely on the list of options

[gentle field]

Cool (:

[dire pawn]

Also on a side note re this (#mental-health-and-rest message ) i think it also depends a lot on why there’s an obsession for order

Like one thing i’ve noticed (a bit in myself but i dont usually have it that severe) in others is that its a method for them of coping with anxiety by trying to have control over something in their life (also why a lot of those people have suffered from EDs, which while i think usually considered separate is also sometimes considered a subset of OCD with the same line of reasoning) even when they dont seem autistic by any other standards

Which at least from what i know makes it sound very OCD-y

[hybrid stone]

yes, controlling behavior of that kind does track with self-determined anxiety management. not by any means a conclusive trait, but they to go together.

@gentle field if i'm not wrong, it's also (wrt autism) possible to have that in abscence of any underlying anxiety.

[gentle field]

I mean, we have to remember that anxiety is an emotion like any other, and anxiety disorders are merely maladaptive anxious responses that disrupt our life

[gentle field]

With ED you mean eating disorder?

[dire pawn]

Yeah

[gentle field]

Yeah, EDs precisely are the "least" textbook condition, as most cases aren't precisely textbook anorexia or bulimia, and very often cited as very highly comorbid with depression and/or an anxiety disorder

Not my area of expertise tbh, but I personally see them as a subset of anxious and mood disorders that lead to the eating disorder (be due to beliefs or poor coping mechanisms for instance)

[covert jolt]

I hope you know what the other meaning of ED is

[bitter cobalt]

Don't be a dick to him.

[covert jolt]

Come on, that was a relatively limp insult.

[gentle field]

Energy Differential, right? 😇

[covert jolt]

Yikes, we going Bell Curve here?

[hybrid stone]

The guy is not Charles Murray

Ok maybe this question is not very appropriate here

I will ask in a psychology server

[covert jolt]

@gentle field, you around?

[gentle field]

I am

But seems some messages were deleted

[hybrid stone]

I moved the question here #355359654999490570 message

I don't want to cause controversy on this server

[gentle field]

I am in that server too so I can see it, in any case I will reply here to that

But simply put, the role of genetics in behaviour is very limited. There is temperament, which is behavioural tendencies a newborn baby has, which is determined by genetics as where else it could come from. Depending on how the world reacts to such temperament it will start to mould their personality in one way or the other, but as time passes the role of temperament and previous learning coming from it will be more and more diluted

This however cannot be used to explain racial differences, as after all race is a construct and not something determined by genetics (there are more genetic differences within a population of a "race" than between "races"). So no, any differences in academic performance and so on between "races" is determined by environmental factors.

[hybrid stone]

I appreciate the input

I could send you the whole article of that person if you are interested because there were a lot of things mentioned and I hope I have not misrepresented the main point

[gentle field]

Sure

Feel free to DM it to me (:

[fickle nest]

What sorts of maths are useful in modeling neurological systems?

[gentle field]

Depends on what you want to model lol

We can go from psychophysics, which establish very simple formulae for some perceptual systems, to very complex models involving deep learning

[fickle nest]

I guess I'm thinking larger networks

[dire pawn]

A bit late but i wonder how this changes if you take into account genetic defects/mutations that cause developmental disorders

Wouldnt it be reasonable to say that in those cases there’s a pretty strong role of genetics in behaviour

Even if it’s somewhat hard to predict the exact (or even general) effect on behaviour in a lot of cases

[gentle field]

I mean, yes? Genetics matter the most in the earliest in life, the tendencies of behaviour resulting from it is defined as temperament

Thing is that as we grow, that effect dilutes

[dire pawn]

Ah i didnt realise temperament was defined that broadly

Interesting

[gentle field]

Of course, if there's something heavily impacting like a genetic condition, then of course it's going to matter more

Temperament is the tendencies of behaviour at early stages of life

It's the precursor to personality

[dire pawn]

Makes sense i suppose

No experiences + genetics = 100% genetics. More experiences + genetics = lower % genetics

[gentle field]

Yep

[dire pawn]

Heavy oversimplification but i suppose not technically wrong

Thanks, learned a new term i guess

[fickle nest]

Tons of critical periods in utero

Experiences start when the cells start dividing. Makes it even harder to discern the whole nature vs nurture question

[dire pawn]

Do you happen to have any articles with research on experiences at that stage?

Sounds worthwhile reading material to add to my ever longer growing list of “academia TBR”

Lol

[fickle nest]

Not off the top of my head

Iirc the most interesting one was sexual differentiation and/or identity being highly contingent on in utero testosterone exposure on the fetal brain in the right time of development.

[hybrid stone]

https://youtu.be/osEiblC7Itw?feature=shared
https://web.archive.org/web/20201207140905/https://human.projects.anth.ucsb.edu/epfaq/evpsychfaq_full.html

[gentle field]

Yep, I watched that video before and it's on point

[fickle nest]

shivers evo psych

https://y.yarn.co/d44164df-a0ed-4d48-a055-62856c864350_text.gif

[worn forum]

https://johannamccloy.substack.com/p/what-wavelength-are-you-on

[worn forum]

@gentle field Jumping down here since this is kinda the closest without a dedicated psych and behavior channel, but, yeah basically what you said. I think approaching that from the "OSINT" frame is not going to be helpful either, you'd need to integrate analytical elements from the sciences its actually from

[gentle field]

Yeah, at the end of the day what I find the great success from Bellingcat and its philosophy on open source research is the implementation of scientific methodologies into journalism, which was (and in many instances still is) of the scientific process

[worn forum]

A skip over to the more influence related practices, there's some irony here related to our lack of catered development in these matters in the "west" that allows actors like Russia to act more efficiently

Take PSYOP for example it's only been past 2015ish (give or take a bit for specific actors) that they actually started to fully integrate behavioral sciences, neuroscience etc directly into planning and assessment processes rather than off to the side consulting.

[gentle field]

Yeah, in retrospect it is baffling the gap in mentality on ignoring scientific findings on the matter, or having them as an after thought

I think part of it is the perseverance of myths regarding brain sciences and behaviour coming from psychoanalysis and other pseudoscientific products of the first half of the 20th century.

I'm also thinking of how these processes died out after the US government lost interest in researching these matters past the 70s. Honestly I think there's a lot to be dug into

[worn forum]

I think, at least in the US, there's two big key driving factors to that specific developmental use, and the first one I'll present does have varying levels of influence across a lot of English-speaking and predominately Christian nations - these fields, especially certain applications of them, are seen very malign, even if the use is constructive, due to societal conditioning. Getting closer to the actual science of it is perceived as a greater extent to that malignness. This is something that's historically floated across a lot of Christian nations but English speaking ones have had it pretty strong. It's why people in these fields are also taught to "sell" plans and ideas to their commanders all the same. Most of our nations didn't even accept their standing use until Vietnam and afterwards, before then it was just a rotating "stand up when its needed" (and all the prior institutional knowledge gone besides like 1 guy who stayed around and is about to retire)

Then here in the US, we have a very long history of kind of botched government/military communications, even outside influence matters and more just towards generic gov/mil comms. This puts a lot of perceived red flags up around any sort of communication, especially certain subjects, similar to how old school PR fell into that same issue with focusing on one way vs two way comms. A lot of the "discoveries" about effective means etc since then do come from the sciences or related to their knowledge, although ^^ lot of baggage towards accepting the research into it.

Thankfully since around 2015 the govt has done a lot to step up here, both in general comms and in other uses.

[hybrid stone]

What do you think about Veritasium's video on IQ?

[gentle field]

I still haven't watched it but my understanding from people who have watched it and told me is that it clearly rejects the IQ as a measure of innate intelligence or as a way to identify race (or declare superiority of others as "race realism" claims) but it can be a sensible measurement in order to evaluate the quality of educational institutions

Which, you know, that's pretty much the scientific consensus and I agree with that viewpoint

[gentle field]

This is such a must read article
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/therapy-language-anxiety-mental-health/676325/

Archive link: https://archive.ph/QvtKY

[worn forum]

Something I've found pretty interesting and it'd be interesting to study alongside this, is how this same factor may have impacted the concept of therapy itself

You can find the folks left and right now who can talk to you all day about therapy (only talk therapy) and how everyone needs to go (even if talk therapy doesn't work for you, you're just not trying hard enough), and there is quite a pocket of therapists over here that also promote that idea of it. Kinda skews from the actual point of it and kind of just treats the therapist like a dumpster for MH matters.

That in turn though has led a lot of people to receive MH services that otherwise might not - this in some cases, for the same reasons mentioned in the article above, could act as a pathway that reinforces and amplifies peoples anxiety.

[gentle field]

Yeah, we have a joke in psychology precisely about this, while giving a jab to psychoanalysis:

Two friends meet up after a very long time and they find out they both went through depression. One goes:

Well, I went to a cognitive behavioural therapist. I don't really know what happened to me, but after a few months, I was all good!

And the other one then goes:

Really? Well I went to a psychoanalyst. I know everything that happens to me and after 10 years I'm still going there!

[worn forum]

Going to steal from Stranger Things (pun intended) and we'll call the middle ground everyone views shadily as "The Inbetween"

[gentle field]

I mean, if a therapist is there to just talk, then they're not doing therapy. They're doing the job a friend would do, but a proper therapy is going to involve exercises in order to help people learn the tools they need to overcome their issues since it's them who ultimately has to do that

[worn forum]

yeah thats kinda how I tell how serious a therapist is or how realistically someone views their own therapy

how much onus they put on just talking and not actually on the "providing skills to help manage" part (the actual thing)

this is an interesting debate in itself though cause we've seen at the same time the prevailing narrative there with younger generations is heavily skewing towards "this is the therapists job", not your friend etc

I wonder how much that will impact relationship building with folks who condition that way

[gentle field]

I mean, dealing with someone's mental health can be very taxing, especially when we talk about something severe when there's a detachment from reality

But of course that doesn't mean one cannot help, it's just understanding what your role is

[worn forum]

Oh yeah definitely I mean there's stuff that absolutely shouldn't really cross there

Although we do see it taken to relative extremes (which is understandable since its hard to externally gauge how others will react, or then in turn "weight" what to talk about)

More mean in re the folks who'd avoid talking about more mundane issues, not say, trauma dump on someone they're out to eat with

[gentle field]

Yep, it's important to understand the situation and be clear which are the times for small talk and which for the trauma dump

[worn forum]

Take for example Jane who's maybe having a really stressful week at school with finals, has to work every day too, and their cat died

Like you can absolutely talk to your friend about that

There's a lot of younger folks though that might avoid the more emotional elements of that now and orient it more towards something you talk to your therapist about

At least here in the US, definitely differs in other nations

[jagged night]

As a not-MH-professional, I would like to point out that even friends should not have the obligation to bear the burdens of everyone around them, and that this obligation often falls disproportionately on women. In past eras, such work was undertaken by a spiritual professional, whose full-time job it was to help people in their community with problems we as less orthodox humans now may take to psychotherapists. As a fix for society's shortcomings, it seems efficient and elegant.

I don't know how effective/ineffective it is for actually resolving mental health situations-- that's definitely for you professionals to decide.

[gentle field]

It's quite effective, giving social support is fundamental for overcoming MH issues

[harsh goblet]

Anecdotal: a work colleague of mine told me one day, "I need a girlfriend"
Me: why, you don't have your life together at all (we were able to say this kind of thing to each other lol)
Him: I need someone to tell all my problems to

[gentle field]

Hairdressers also did that job of being a place for people to vent out

But what I'm saying is not against that, quite the opposite: if someone has some MH issues, be supportive and be a good friend (or priest, or hairdresser), but understand that changing that is going to be most likely out of your control and thus it's key to be clear on what are you for and what not

Because those are things that need to be done by a professional

Otherwise you risk straining your relationship and everyone ends worse

But well, that's a bit of a detour of what that article was presenting

[harsh goblet]

Yeah I was just agreeing anecdotally with women being dumped upon

[worn forum]

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21677026231186625
"A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes"

Very interesting conclusions from this that can cross apply out to some other warning based symbolism. They focused on 4 matters; Response affect, avoidance, anticipatory anxiety, and comprehension.

For response affect, across all the studies, they found relatively few specific contexts in which negative emotional reactions were lessened or heightened, rather than remaining neutral predominately, with a slight skew towards heightened over lessened in other non-neutral cases.

For avoidance, they found that avoidance based off warnings itself was generally not present, even within relatively specified contexts.

For anticipatory anxiety, they did find across all the studies that the warnings did increase anticipatory anxiety. Although, contrary to some bits of popular belief, the idea that anticipatory anxiety is a form of "bracing" for the content also is seemingly pretty inaccurate, or at least, if the body does it, its result is ineffective in a lot of cases.

For comprehension, they found basically nothing indicating heightened or lessened comprehension based off the warnings. Although they did theorize based off the data that in specific contexts (ie traumatized individuals in a classroom discussing related trauma), individuals, contradictory to common claims, may actually be left in a less optimal state to interact due to the anticipatory anxiety raising negative emotions.

[fickle nest]

Even The Sopranos touched on this in the early 2000s

[worn forum]

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003556

[fickle nest]

@gentle field was reading an article today that cited Richard Gregory for the notion that "visual perception is more than ninety per cent memory and less than ten per cent sensory nerve signal", with elaboration that the raw data coming from the retina isn't high quality enough (or most of it is discarded... can't recall which) to account for the high level of quality in our vision.

Wondering if that understanding is still the case to your knowledge?

[fickle nest]

Worth knowing that at least two authors of this paper have a very heavy bias in regards to the larger cultural/political debate about trigger warnings, and general bias towards right wing/"skeptic" positions in modern culture war.

Not to say the analysis itself is flawed, just contextual factor to be aware of

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodox_Academy

[worn forum]

Indeed they represent a counter cause, unfortunately there's reasons for it here that make it kinda hard to find more neutral oriented studies of the sort

These fields don't get much catered study here outside folks who tend to align in promoting one view or another

[gentle field]

I'm currently abroad, I'll get back to you once I'm back next week and I have a bit of time to look into this further

[fickle nest]

Appreciate it. I keep seeing references to this but having trouble finding an overview or hard data supporting the hypothesis.

Also for anyone who is interested in the shared mammalian experience of emotion Jaak Panksepp is a great source of information

https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Foundations-Personality-Neurobiological-Evolutionary/dp/0393710572

[hybrid stone]

https://vxtwitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1739771967367192648

[worn forum]

Cool trick but technically still movement

[wintry knoll]

@gentle field I don't think he's found anything new, he just presents what's already known clearly

[hybrid stone]

@weary bloom
just an FYI. I don't use this nor do I know much about them:
https://dylanmaustin.medium.com/an-adhders-honest-review-of-the-quiet-mind-weighted-pillow-4b3c52bc0b56

(original thread: #mental-health-and-rest message)

[weary bloom]

Will look into it!

[gentle field]

Picking your Brain

[hybrid stone]

Sleep deprivation (< 7 hours of sleep) and oversleeping (> 7 hours of sleep) are associated with a higher risk of dementia.

Source:
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.12439

This is because sleep plays a huge role in neural remodeling, plasticity, synaptic pruning, memory integrity and other important neurological processes, as well as clearing neurotoxic products from the brain, such as amyloid-β and phosphorylated tau - both of which have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease pathology.

References:
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/alz.077876

https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/alz.13102

[weary bloom]

Oh shit forgot this exists

[gentle field]

Yep, it is a U shaped curve with 7-8h of sleep with the lowest risk (that study only categorises in hour long intervals)

However what that study fails to match for what I see is cofounding factors

People who sleep very little or too much may have a condition or be in an environment which can contribute

Also sleep disturbance is a sign of dementia (and mental health issues which also increases risk)

[covert jolt]

Anxiety and depressive conditions increased quite a lot during COVID. Both are associated with changes to the sleep cycle.

[gentle field]

They were quite on the rise before covid too

[worn forum]

yeah imo this strides up against the night owl debate too

obv some things are literally impacted but a lot of the stuff pointed out could easily come from variables like inconsistent work hours and your actual rythm being disrupted consistently

[hybrid stone]

have you found any credible studies on cognitive performance for biphasic sleep patterns?

[empty frost]

It crossed my mind to ask this and then I didn't 🙂 Thanks!

[jolly geyser]

This is fantastic and touches on some major significant concerns I have had existing in a sort of digital ecosystem with my work and having other limitations that affect my public interactions.

The diagnosis as identity or even symptom as identity being shared in such a ubiquitous manner makes it difficult for people to understand the nuance that exists within this issue. When addressing trauma it becomes even more concerning as there is a difference between experiencing something traumatic and having PTSD. This seems to cloud the understanding of how people present with trauma and effectively adopting a trauma informed approach.

I picked up on this recently when a YouTuber who I had known to be exploitative, problematic, and harmful began to mislead his audience in a way that was dangerously misleading and was pulling in a large profit from it (5-6k/month on patreon). Not only that but many of those contributing were younger people who trusted him and had expressed some prior experience with trauma on their own.

Honestly knowing how one would even go about addressing these incredibly egregious incidents effectively is a discussion I would love to have. This is where I had initially began picking up on some things and my even brief interactions wound up compromising me largely in part to not having any kind of support or security to mitigate the harassment I received.

[fickle nest]

Most people don't understand the "disorder" aspect of a lot of these labels and diagnosis

And they think of them more as discrete, concrete, almost physical entities vs abstract social creations.

PTSD, ADHD, BPD, ASD, etc have more in common with π and e than they do with like a rock on the ground in that they are things humans have created and defined to help us describe the world around us. They aren't "the things themselves"

[jagged night]

"Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic"

[weary bloom]

One thing that sucks ass about scientific studies is waiting for the fucking studies to be made public!

Some plurality friends of ours were talking about a Standford study they were involved in TWO YEARS AGO and the thing isnt released yet. Dont blame Standford, but at the same time, cmon

[empty frost]

Quality research takes time. So does reviewing it. Fast studies are usually crap

[worn forum]

"humans have created and defined to help us describe the world around us." This can be true if you take it more allegorically but I'd be really cautious about holding that up as a matter of fact thing, a great majority of those actually do come with very distinct differences in your body that would not exist for others. For example, individuals with PTSD and CPTSD can have much higher baselines of cortisol levels that'd really only present as an extreme for the everyday person.

[weary bloom]

It’s understandable but at the same time, the damn anticipation

[fickle nest]

Maybe I wasn't being clear; the point isn't that there aren't real physical things going on, it's that the labels we umbrella over them are constructed based on a bunch of best guesses. The labels aren't the thing in itself, they are labels and descriptors. ADHD isn't a singular concrete entity for example; what we label as ADHD probably has many physical manifestations in many different neural systems with each having unique causes and outcomes.

Even just the qualifier of disorder is made within the context of whether an individual can fulfill certain expectations and norms in modern society in general

[gentle field]

True but it's important to mention that cortisol levels are not a biomarker of an anxiety disorder, as traumatic stress is

[gentle field]

The thing is that the traditional medical labeling that so well works for diseases isn't as effective in mental health, which is what I presume you mean, as mental health conditions are better seen as spectrums of clustered symptoms rather than defined pathologies

I presume that is what you mean?

[fickle nest]

Yeah basically

[worn forum]

Absolutely, there's actually some really interesting studies (albiet small unfortunately) showcasing the cortisol level baselines being higher is more correlated with certain types of trauma, I put "can" in there for that reason rather than "do"

[gentle field]

Got any link to those?

[worn forum]

And I agree with this view I just don't like framing it in the sense there isn't a physical thing. Even if it's a broadly encompassing term, there are still physical things happening that cause it or result in specific impacts. Not that the broadly encompassing term itself is always helpful

[gentle field]

Would love to check them out

[fickle nest]

Again, I am talking about the labels. Not the symptoms themselves. Not saying those symptoms don't have physical correlates

[worn forum]

We could debate the same for a lot of medical conditions and it'd sound pretty odd

[outer moat]

I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that the lines are usually much harder to draw in mental health

[worn forum]

@gentle field
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00797/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3356773/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9048003/
https://www.nature.com/articles/1300226#citeas

[fickle nest]

?? No it wouldn't. There are tons of non mental health medical conditions that don't have clearly defined causes or physical manifestations

[worn forum]

Do agree there

[worn forum]

To say the descriptive term for them though (even if broad) is just to help describe the world around us, the same is pretty much true for every term

[outer moat]

Usually those get labelled syndromes rather than disorders/diseases, no?

[fickle nest]

Like there's a ton of research going on with stuff like Ehlers Danlos, FM, CFS, POTS showing that they are all much more interrelated than previously thought, that they aren't singular strictly defined entities

[worn forum]

The ones for mental health matters tend to be much broader in a lot of cases though and like errdece mentioned take more spectrum forms (don't think thats helpful in every case imo)

[worn forum]

I'm not as well read on those so can't speak to those specific examples, but would it be incorrect to say there is at least some distinctions between them, even if interrelated?

[gentle field]

Yeah, spectrums when seen as unidimensional is not helpful either, I'd rather see it as multidimensional variables tbh

[fickle nest]

I don't really know how to answer this because, again, the syndrome labels are socially constructed/defined umbrellas... Of course they are distinct because that's how they've been defined.

What is being learned is that viewing these bodily systems through that narrow lens obscures the more complicated nature of how all this stuff interrelates.

[worn forum]

The first part of what you mention here kind of hits my point. These are all terms that are just descriptively made, I personally don't see a very strong point to pointing at select ones and calling out the descriptive tags for them in that sense

Vs say there are entirely constructive points behind say, debating their consideration as "disordered" while some can actually be natural responses

[fickle nest]

It's akin to how light and matter used to be viewed as mutually exclusive things... further understanding showed the more fundamental reality behind it all (an understanding that is still incomplete).

So on a broad level it's useful to talk about these things as separate entities, but that isn't the reality of the situation. It's a convenient, arbitrary distinction that people use to make sense of the world.

[outer moat]

I'm not completely sure about the terminology but @gentle field likely knows better. I haven't really seen the word syndrome used much in mental health even in cases where I would feel it's more appropriate of a term than disorder. Is there a reason for this or have I just missed all the syndromes?

[worn forum]

I do agree there I just, again, think singling out specific cases and not considering it for others isn't really constructive imo

[worn forum]

This is a good Q I've noticed that too, I have a hypothesis but not sure if its accurate since I'm not in the fields like that

[fickle nest]

Sorry I'm not following wrt "singling out specifics not considering it for others" part

[gentle field]

Syndrome term is very much outdated tbh, when you see mentions of a "new syndrome" it's merely someone pathologising something or making a distinction on something otherwise existing for some reason, not precisely scientific

[fickle nest]

Yeah a lot of terminology, labels, even ways of thinking about this stuff are present simply because that's what people have used for a long time; artifacts from field's cultural foundations.

[outer moat]

Makes a lot of sense! Huh, "these effects seem to happen together a lot" really isn't very scientific of an observation (especially in the margins)...

Not that the hard categories for disorders are always that much better than the squishier syndrome term

[fickle nest]

And again I'm not saying that say ADHD or autism or whatever "aren't real". They are useful labels we have constructed to help us make sense of a set of mental/physical symptoms that tend to co-occur in certain ways.

These labels are abstractions, they aren't the things themselves, and the fact that they have been defined as disorders is inseparable from the cultural conditions in which that definition was created; in the context of "caveman" era humanity, in these small tight knit communal social groups, how many mental health disorders would be "disorders"?

I was saying this in the context of that article which spoke to how a lot of these labels and tools have been flattened in the public sphere, how people take the abstractions as being reality itself. The tendency evokes how a lot of lay-people end up viewing themselves and the world through the lens of say a Myers Briggs test... because it is a simple narrative that helps people reckon with a complex thing

[weary bloom]

Not sure if its allowed on this # but here’s some stuff to consider if one of your employees/coworkers is openly plural, or otherwise comes out the closet:

1. if a coworker/employee comes out of plural, please take it seriously. Plurality as a whole is misunderstood and stigmatized by the wider layperson community. Due to this, it can be analogous as someone coming about their sexuality/gender. Please treat the system with the same considerations, such as not outing the system, not publicly mentioning it unless permission is granted, and so on. Even if you do not believe them, respecting them will greatly improve the way the system interacts as a whole, and helps maintain a working relationship.

2. pronouns may cause confusion, due to the addition of plural based pronouns (we, you, ya’ll, you&, so on) alongside singular pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them, amongst others). Plural systems may use strictly plural pronouns, or even a combination of plural and singular (“we went to the cafe to get lunch and i bought a coffee” as an example). Plural pronouns tend to refer to all members of a system while singular tends to be for one member of a system, through this isn’t a hard and fast rule. When in doubt, ask the system as to what pronouns to use. Same goes with names. Please use the name(s) the system prefers.

3. Some systems may have significant differences on how to communicate. As an example: one member may highly prefer to send emails, while another in the same system may prefer face to face interaction. This may impact interactions with the system, so please talk to the system in order to help maintain working relations.

4. Amnesia may be of issue, although rare for tulpa systems. Other forms of plurality may have such an issue, so please talk to the system if considerations are needed. Take this on a case by case basis. No two systems are fully alike

[jolly geyser]

hi, neurodivergent here (autodidactic polymath) and staying atop of systemic issues is part of my research which i learn by asking questions. im not familiar with pluralism actually. do you have a pretty succinct reference to link? thanks.

[fickle nest]

Yeah I'm not familiar with it either. They them, alternate pronouns yes but haven't heard "pluralism"

[weary bloom]

Sadly there really isn’t any good links due to how niche this topic is, though we are happy to DM you a Discord where people in the plurality community hang out.

CC to @fickle nest too

There’s a study in the works although that’s been a work in progress for the past 2 years

[fickle nest]

Is this within the queer community or something more outside it? I'm mostly in the former so if it is I'm surprised I haven't heard before

[weary bloom]

Lemme look through the saved links for a sec

[jolly geyser]

At first seeing this I had some confusion but sorted out why. So, for sake of efficient communication i will personally disclose.
I hav AES II (autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome present with hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, and adrenal symptoms). Something that has taken a very long time for me to even begin personally understanding due to abyssmal healthcare options available. There has been a correlation between trauma, activity of the HPA axis, continued stress/trauma response affecting the adrenal response being depleted in combination with the cognitive implications. It appears this might manifest as what has presented as ADHD symptoms and possibly others.

The aforementioned is likely disjointed but there is obv a lot there. Hopefully you can help me organize it a little better and understand what I might be referring to that is more accurate. Thanks. 🙂

[weary bloom]

Would consider it separate, considering that the plurality community consists of multiple (seemingly) sentient individuals inhabiting the same physical mind

Keyword being “seemingly” due to lack of research

Especially for the non-disordered forms of plurality

[jolly geyser]

does this present possibly with disassociative trauma response in any way or is mentioned in it (not implying that when it is it is necessarily accurate)?

[empty frost]

I mean there is this website https://pluralityresource.org/plurality-information/

[weary bloom]

Not sure if I fully understand this question.

Plurality can form with zero trauma

[weary bloom]

Just remembered about this site

https://tulpa.io/what-is-a-tulpa

[jolly geyser]

I was trying to indicate I wasnt presuming or coming into this with one pre-existing established take or view but instead my interest is being receptive to additional information.

[weary bloom]

Ohhhhh ok

[weary bloom]

Since you are receptive to additional information, where would you like us as a system to start?

[jolly geyser]

I am not sure...Id said similar to anything new I look into I take it step by step while ensuring I am mindful of being respectful about the approach.

[weary bloom]

And that’s fair. Would you like us to start with definitions on what a “tulpa” is?

[jolly geyser]

Let me read through the above resources posted and lets see how far I get. Thanks for helping with follow up links btw.

[weary bloom]

Gladly! Do not hesitate to ping

[jolly geyser]

it cool to do so in DMs to keep the channel open for other discussions in case i have several questions?

[weary bloom]

Sure! Accept the friend request first

[weary bloom]

This applies to @empty frost too if you so choose

[outer moat]

I'm not sure if this is the most appropriate place to discuss this. Anyways a study found that long COVID carries similar biomarkers to brain injury. Without a good medical scientific background I can't say how conclusive this sort of a finding is, but the theory makes a lot of sense to me and it was published in Nature proper (which doesn't accept lightweight findings).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42320-4

[gentle field]

Fits here, this looks very interesting 👀

Thanks for sharing, I need to find a time to read this

[fickle nest]

"but it's just a cold"

[dire pawn]

Official in what way? C-ptsd is pretty well established in psychological literature (even showing a difference in optimal treatment compared to “normal” PTSD)

[gentle field]

The physiological changes at the brain's anatomy are consequential of the traumatic stress but are also reversible. This has even been reversed through neurofeedback

[gentle field]

It is not in the DSM-5, it is only in ICD-11

[dire pawn]

Fair

[gentle field]

I cannot judge about Gabor Maté's work (his son is a different story), but I have read van der Kolk's work and I have some caveats with him

Mostly his disregard for modern psychotherapy which is the best tool we have, with a very strong evidence for it

He does dwell into some alternative methods that are promising (EMDR, Neurofeedback) but these should be complementary

[gentle field]

If therapy is retraumatising, then it's not therapy, it's poor practice

Also these rants are making little sense...

[scarlet mantle]

Hi - thanks for wanting to help, but we have access to profesional mental health services when we need them.

If you want to help Bellingcat, please follow the server rules and be respectful and constructive in your engagements. I think that you could lurk more to get a better sense for the kinds of conversations and tone that we value here.

[worn forum]

I would very, very lightly debate some forms of it may not necessarily be bad practice but it's insanely contextual to the individual and very much so could be without proper assessment. There's absolutely times where you may not know the root of a specific trigger for example, or not really know how to control your response when it happens - and without knowing it experientially, you could struggle just as much trying to apply the skills to manage it when it happens. Reaching that point though could accidentally result in retraumatising though, even if practiced "right", I'm not sure there's any for-sure, 100% workarounds to that happening incidentally.

[fickle nest]

https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/traditional-dsm-disorders-dissolve

[worn forum]

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07229-y

[gentle field]

I really despise the use of the word "toxic" to describe behaviours and actions, and it's quite sad it is being increasingly used in academia.

It's too broad and ambiguous of a term and it encourages labelling

That article talks about toxicity and it won't even define it, and I think that's crucial to explain what are you researching, why are you researching it and why it matters

As well as affecting your own methodology

[worn forum]

Full agree there, they do seem to cover some relatively specific categories here that could be better defined rather than blanketed with "toxic". That'd also allow more reflection and follow on study.

[worn forum]

It does also define it, but, it's horribly buried like half way through the page rather than presented earlier on

Even then though the definition they use, as you say, is very broad, and you could sub-categorize it massively based on different types of segmenting (ie intent vs lack of intent, topical or contextual subject, specific behaviors & conversational patterns, etc)

[gentle field]

That's a very vague definition and very questionable

But yeah, better than nothing

[fickle nest]

My fav thing about evopsych

[fallen marsh]

@gentle field I'm seeing nothing but corroboration regarding conservative amygdala and liberal acq/insula. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Republicans-more-strongly-activate-their-right-amygdala-associated-with-orienting_fig1_235636217

The conservative "disgust" behavior is also quite evident. I can't even think of a single contrary example from anything considered conservative.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793824/

https://news.osu.edu/brain-scans-remarkably-good-at-predicting-political-ideology/

[gentle field]

However, although we did find increased neural reactivity to threat associated with conservatism, conservatives did not report greater changes in state anxiety from threat to safety. Given the high face validity of our threat of shock manipulation, it is very likely that participants were aware that the purpose of the manipulation was to induce state anxiety. As such, reports of state anxiety may have been colored by expectation or good-participant effects that may have washed out individual differences in state anxiety associated with conservatism. Alternatively, our small sample size may not have enabled adequate power to detect a relationship between conservatism and self-reported anxiety.

Note that article also mentions that the technique they use may provide higher effect sizes, which I don't see them reported either

Only correlates established with p-values

And the second study also doesn't report effect sizes, and not excluding the psychological traits from the neuroanatomical analysis, and while it is a large study, it also has a very skewed sample:

The number of conservative to liberal participants in the study was unbalanced (49 to 125), and the number of extreme conservatives considered in this study is small (n = 4).

At most you can say that fMRI data can measure some traits that can be predictors of political ideology, but that's it

[worn forum]

oh you guys were already here

🤣

@fallen marsh I entered the wrong part of the convo it seems my apologies coulda started it down here

"ferocious slathering anger circuits firing when a photo of Bill Clinton appears on the screen briefly tells us a lot"
There is no such thing as a "ferocious slathering anger circut". Further, here's an example of an issue with that

You can find plenty of people from any side who have those exact same activations with Bill Clinton, because they'll also consider your personal opinion of that person

Your personal opinion of that person, on a spectrum, could varyingly be influenced by your political beliefs, keeping in mind that's a spectrum of impact that's not entirely quantifiable

So go back to your same studies and see which ones attempt to draw this distinction, because, when speaking about things like neuroscience, psychology, etc, that is a very important distinction to make

To actually get a more refined datapoint to assess there, which, I've not seen any of these fancy public studies attempt to do, you'd have to cross-assess off that spectrum. Which, would require gathering immense amounts of their personal history to place where on that spectrum the political influence has adjusted their belief, and even then it's only a rough "it could have been this much influence"

At that point you would at least have a datapoint, even if shoddy, to corroborate that said reaction was then caused by a political belief (more properly worded as "reaction could accredit greatly to X activation")

[fallen marsh]

Right sure, it was used as an example. You took it out of context and yes, everything can mean anything out of context.

The test I referenced used hundreds of images

[worn forum]

Yes, and it did not take into consideration of the above

[fallen marsh]

and the correlation of different activation states was used

[worn forum]

I'd be more worried about the private sector

At least based off the US

There's companies trying to do wild shit with neuroscience for things like marketing that the govt would not touch to form

Definitely an edge there to speak about ethics and practical applications still though

I know one thing we do a lot in some environments is we'll use eye movement tracking to inform the baseline patterns those audiences showcase

That's then used to formulate how things like keywords and etc are placed on flyers and posters

[worn forum]

This still doesn't assess any of the other things that are important for that, unfortunately

[gentle field]

Yeah, there's a lot of really ethically questionable stuff being done in the name of neuromarketing

[worn forum]

It is presenting the same silo example that other non-neuroscientific studies present

[fallen marsh]

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050092&type=printable

[worn forum]

yeah I get a chuckle out of how neuromarketing over here is actually doing weirder stuff than the govt edge areas

usually its flip lol

[fallen marsh]

Moral Foundations Theory ^

Conservative ingroup-outgroup and disgust can be seen in pretty much every conservative issue

[worn forum]

I actually tried to get my old work to do the eye movement tracking so we could inform product placements but it runs into that ethical issue since there's not really a feasible way to do it with informed consent

[fallen marsh]

Let's start with the one every conservative thought they made up in the 1990s: "The Gay Agenda."

[worn forum]

At least without souring the study (ie if you have people come in during closed hours to test it, its gonna throw it off)

[fallen marsh]

Hatred for LGBT and denial of equal rights for them was a cornerstone of conservative thought, and in some places, still is

[bitter cobalt]

Wake up, get the kids ready for school, etc...

[worn forum]

that has nothing to do with neuroscience

[fallen marsh]

It has to do with Moral Foundations Theory

the 5 bases

[worn forum]

I would not use cultural and social psychologists studies to extract neuroscience beliefs

There's specific ways you have to pair those academically or when doing study, you cant just throw output together

That's why the mixed method studies of the sort get as long as literal books

And yes if you look at studies resting in things like cultural and social psychology and sociology etc, the ways things are used and what it means when assessing belief sets like that is also very different

For example you're looking at a defined group as a system - reflective of a system, not everyone

[fallen marsh]

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506231172330

[worn forum]

A political ideology does not exist within a system, but rather can exist within one, and impact it and the individuals within it

[fallen marsh]

There's nothing which contradicts my assessments.

[worn forum]

What you're presenting here does not back your claim that specific activations in the brain are caused by specific political ideological beliefs

[fallen marsh]

you've reversed cause and effect. I claim the way their brains parsed reality sets their reactions. This is easily proven.

[worn forum]

Both are true

Cognition doesnt just apply in the post-sense

All are constantly working at once

[fallen marsh]

nature vs nurture. In some cases, nature gave them hyperactive amygala; in others, nurture grew it for them. Regardless, it's fear, anger, and disgust which motivate conservatives

[gentle field]

Note that these studies all have similar structures: they correlate psychometric results with neural activation

And psychometric testing is.... let's say far from perfect

[worn forum]

How you are introduced to somethnig sets the baseline for how your brain will set that reaction to such

[fallen marsh]

Not all; Haidt's work is behavioral not neurological

[worn forum]

thats... not a very rigid way to present that

[gentle field]

Fear anger and disgust are motivators for everyone, not an specific ideology

[worn forum]

you realize the same activations in the study you presented could be seen by people who have been victimized and face trauma from situations contextually connected to it?

[fallen marsh]

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241144

[fallen marsh]

Conservatives are the ones who can be made to hate and hurt others because of fear, anger, and disgust, particularly for the Outgroup ("The Gay Agenda," "woke," etc)

This pattern doesn't hold the same across liberal ideologies

[worn forum]

so heres the thing about social cognition, thats part of social psychology

its not looking at neuroscience

its looking at how its hyper specifically applied in societal contexts

any society is a defined system

[gentle field]

That's more of a definition of political extremism and cognitive rigidity (which have an association) rather than exclusively conservatism

[worn forum]

things like "conservatism" is something that can apply in any system and will look different

[fallen marsh]

It's quite telling that there does not exist a single conservative ideology which benefits the general public.

They're all designed to hurt outgroups, and help ingroups

[gentle field]

And even withing cognitive rigidity, we're talking about maladaptive behaviour

[fallen marsh]

So there is no singular society, we have two societies with two different sets of facts, and no Royal "We"

[worn forum]

Yeah imo these fancy studies run into the same ones we see that attempt to look at it from the influence aspect, like look at all the fancy ones you see about disinformation

[fallen marsh]

That's the "nurture" part of the conservative activation circuits being burned in to the youth

[worn forum]

The issue is these are all applied in silos that assess nothing else that would actually take more predominate of a place in actual cases

A lot of the times the people doing that understand, that, the output can be misleading if not accurately presented and explained - a lot of folks dont do a good job at explaining that unfortunately, even if they try.

[fallen marsh]

In Rwanda, they said "Tutsis are cockroaches" long enough and loudly enough that people began believing it.

That's a nurture-based conservatism.

[worn forum]

its social sciences, the whole things inflammatory dont worry 🤣

[fallen marsh]

I have vanishingly few examples of conservatives becoming liberal on any issue. Usually it takes 100 dead bodies at a Las Vegas concert to make one of them consider that gun legislation might be warranted

[worn forum]

oh my friend

let me tell you about how we get conservatives to legalize weed

its actually super simple

[fallen marsh]

Tell them blacks gays and jews hate it? lol

[worn forum]

no you just offer them a path for more perceptive personal benefit

because they're a TA which focuses inward more than outward

[gentle field]

You're going to resurrect the 19th century eugenists 🫣 Nvm, they have been resurrecting for a while

[worn forum]

if you go to them and try to rant about outward benefit it will not resonate with them

and when looking at that inward benefit you need to disconnect what you see as a benefit and instead use what they see as a benefit (even if you dont agree with it)

[covert jolt]

*cough*

[worn forum]

the conservative politicians in our state set up our entire state MMJ program as a cash cow scam but guess what? we have tens of thousands of people who quickly achieved access to alternatives to things like opioids

and now they're no longer punished for accessing their medicine

[worn forum]

I'll make the joke. Why you coughing there bud?

(double pun intended)

[covert jolt]

I plead the fifth.

[worn forum]

Anyways yeah legal MJ at all in predominately red states is a good example of that stuff being a lot more fickle than folks think

These are the same people that if you misword things it reminds them of something they weren't focusing on so they push money the opposite direction

It hits different when you sit and tell them, hey, you don't have to care about MJ itself, you do care about the money it will bring in though. Then consider this, look around the room, people you consider yourself a colleague with here may already or may in the future face a situation where this is an alternative to something that could degrade their quality of living, lead to addiction, or an eventual overdose. Then look out of the building into your families and their friends. Looking this wide you now already know someone in this situation, and you now have the opportunity to act on it.

[fallen marsh]

cannabis prohibition is just like any other conservative ideal: bullshit sold by authoritarians to people who want to be in the ingroup, that's it

Same thing with abortion

Billy Fkn Graham himself hailed Roe V Wade

[worn forum]

If you picked up my reference earlier things like this are exactly what I was referencing in how there's very few studies that take more rigid approaches to the applied influence context there, and outside the shadier neuromarketing esque cases its largely gov/mil/affiliates doing studies for reasons like this or to inform strategic influence campaigning.

[fallen marsh]

Because it was a medical privacy case, and he wanted to handle snakes in peace

Not kidding

It wasn't until the late 70s on a conference call that some GOP strategist suggested abortion as a wedge issue

[worn forum]

Advocacy experience in legal states would debate otherwise

[fallen marsh]

then they sold it to their rubes who now demand women die of ectopic pregnancies because they were told "What God Meant To Say Was, No To Abortion"

[fallen marsh]

Nixon scheduled it because he was being protested, and they often smoked it. That's it.

[worn forum]

You'd be surprised by the amount of conservatives aged 40-60 living in the sticks who still think MJ is the same as crack

if they become a politician their decision is not because "they want to be part of the ingroup"

[fallen marsh]

I wouldn't, because I live in the conservative styx

[worn forum]

It's because they literally do not have the understanding to understand it, and are basing their decision off an inaccurate compraison amplifying the perceptive use result

[fallen marsh]

There are cornfederate flags flying on the street nearby me.

[worn forum]

I also live in the conservative styx and I've done studies exactly like this for the industry

[fallen marsh]

They think what they're told by their leaders. They hate who they're told to hate by their leaders. It's authoritarianism.

[worn forum]

Pretty sure my company is the only one you'll find applying strategic cultural studies and TAAs for the industry

[fallen marsh]

Nobody conservative casts a ballot for cannabis. They cast it to invade Iraq.

[worn forum]

Actually not true there is one other company that does but they're equally as small

yeah im not sure how that example would apply to legalization in any state (all of the examples)

iraq be a bit too old to point out

[fallen marsh]

Do you have evidence to the contrary?

[worn forum]

sir it was your claim

[gentle field]

Also missing out on political trends, conservatives today are very isolationists, especially Trumpists

[worn forum]

youre gonna have to back that one

[fallen marsh]

Never have I ever seen "single issue voter conservatives" on cannabis, in any state

[worn forum]

No one said there was

[fallen marsh]

so what is significant about my mischaracterization?

[worn forum]

Saying they'd only vote yes for a candidate agreeable to cannabis so Iraq could be invaded is equally issued because you're doing the same thing just reversing it

[fallen marsh]

No, I'm saying stuff like cannabis doesn't motivate them

Haidt demonstrated this

[worn forum]

Haidt didnt study anything related to cannabis

[fallen marsh]

the individual-liberty circuit is not present in conservatives anywhere near the ingroup-outgroup distinction

[worn forum]

Also, what you are doing here, is applying your belief to an entire out-group, based off isolated examples of an in-group, which are fine enough to constitute their own group distinct from other in-groups based under the larger banner

[fallen marsh]

I'm characterizing individuals based on their stated beliefs and - more inportantly - their behavior

This is not a novel theory being workshopped at you.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/trump-america-authoritarianism-420681

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/03/1191972835/latest-charges-against-trump-evoke-pattern-used-by-authoritarian-leaders-experts

https://www.vox.com/2023/11/14/23958866/trump-vermin-authoritarian-democracy

When I saw Mike Pence do that thing with the water bottle, it was like a damned Authoritarianism fealty billboard.

[gentle field]

Guys, I think we're steering too far from the purpose of this place which is the discussion of neuroscience and psychology as well as other sciences regarding human behaviour and cognition. We're steering too much into the regular political discourse 🙂

[fallen marsh]

found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjY4vdyBx0Y

[worn forum]

One of the silo issue points with the studies. All those other fun parts impact actual behavior.

[fallen marsh]

They are not individualists, and they do not believe in a shared stake for all Americans. They believe they are in the ingroup, and wish to hurt the outgroup. This is their core motivation.

[fickle nest]

scrolling yep, that's a lot of text

[fallen marsh]

Some people really do need to be told what to think.

[fallen marsh]

sorry, alright I'll stop. Market finally woke up anyway

[fickle nest]

As a person raised neocon who turned very left, I'd say if it happens it mostly will be in teens to early 20s, correlate with attending college/being exposed to different ideas and peoples, coming out as queer, or some kind of specific radicalizing event like you say

[covert jolt]

Yeah, less of the politics please. This is the place we send @gentle field when he doesn't stop talking. So if we push him out of here, he'll start polluting the normal channels again 🫣

[gentle field]

Don't free me from my jail, you don't want that!

[worn forum]

@gentle field I sentence you to helping me with my cannabis industry projects

[fallen marsh]

The difference is that in the US, voters have agency. They can be held to their speech and behavior. That's kind of the basis of the whole libertarian ideal, politically. By contrast, Russians do not have agency except to defy their state, and take their lumps. Many Russian expats also still work for the Russian idealism, as can be found in hundreds of individual incidents of aggression, celebrating Ukrainian deaths, attacking Ukrainians in EU nations, etc

[fallen marsh]

Neuroscience has data on this, as well. Usually by age 25, politics are set for life and do not change. The final myelinization epoch in anyone's life

[fickle nest]

I guess. That's a very general statement though. The risk with making these kinds of statements via neurological arguments is that it has the flavor of "these qualities are inherent" when really we have no idea. Politics, like many aspects of the modern world we consider somewhat fundamental, are a human social invention that is relatively young. Everything we examine has tens of thousands of millennia of the neuro -> social -> neuro feedback loop baked into it.

[fallen marsh]

Yeah but it's not that complex when you have people who want to kill you for simply being who you are. That's millions of years of evolution baked in, too. Chimps do war against each other, for resources and for pure recreation. The trick is knowing which ones want you dead.

And republicans demand homogeneity from society. They need to impose these evils onto others, and take pleasure in hurting others.

Their views are illogical and hurt the general public, and as a result, they should be seen as illogical and hurtful. They are zombies of hate who get their switches flipped, pointed in the direction their leaders want, and they run loose on civil society.

[fickle nest]

I wasn't saying the basic morality of these things isn't straight forward. I was talking about the import of recognizing the bio social context of all this

[fickle nest]

While I agree in a way, having grown up pretty in a pretty neo-con American environment, I don't think this is quite the case

It's Complicated™

[covert jolt]

Can we please stop the politics?

[empty frost]

Yes, lets go back to discussing how to define the word toxicity and its myriad uses (I missed my opportunity to weigh in)

[gentle field]

You have an opportunity now 😈

[weary bloom]

Goddamnit I forgot popcorn

Brb

[empty frost]

From a technical perspective I agree that the word is slippery in its usage and without a clear definition it should probably not be used but I also think that the use of the term has shifted focus and discussions regarding societal responsibility away from minoritised groups toward dominant groups.

which has been something people in various equality and equity movements have been striving for a long time. The word has been a bit of a gamechanger, even without a 'complete' definition

Oh wait, now this may be political as well sigh. It was only meant as an introduction to like, suggest that perhapos this is one case where common parlance precedes academic definition and perhaps the definition will come.

And non-exact definition doesn't necessarily mean not useful?!

[fallen marsh]

Toxicity is a decent metaphor because it does imply dosage matters.

[fickle nest]

Talking about social phenomena that occur within politics =/= a debate over political beliefs

[covert jolt]

I disagree. So let's please not.

[worn forum]

Again noting taking these studies into practice is very different. It'd be super cool if there was more focus on trying to formulate these studies in a way that's more practically applicable.

Ie running into the silo issue neuroscience also runs into, there's definitely ways you can do those studies outside the silos and get more refined, realistic out-in-the-world results. Not sure how much of an issue that'd run into with things like ethics and funding though. You got any thoughts on that? @gentle field

Like I remember mentioning the eye movement tracking part a few times and how I wanted to do that also. Could've done it for near-to-no-cost but the one major issue was getting informed consent for it without souring the study.

[gentle field]

Yeah, studies in neuro are heavily limited by a lot of factors: demographics, sample sizes, high cost, equipment availability, etc

[worn forum]

If we told customers coming in that, that's going on, or there might be recording etc, it'll tip them off to something and raise the chances they go back looking for a camera or etc rather than their eyes naturally acting as they would

[gentle field]

And yes, consent is a huge matter, this is an issue in psychology as a whole, you sometimes need the participant to be unaware of some factors but you also have to inform them clearly

[worn forum]

Yeah I've done the rounds there with an adjusted form of reflexive control

Hilariously gaining consent is easy if the other person has never heard of it but you have to explain even more 😭

[gentle field]

That said, the studies I did back in my Master's we used eye tracking and it wasn't much of an issue (tbh the tracker was just there and participants would clearly know about it, and we would do calibration)

We would then just ask them to focus on the screen, having a dot

[worn forum]

Ah yeah in our case it would've had to been controlled a bit more since it would've been practically applied to product placement

I wanted to see exactly how customers eyes moved once walking onto the sales floor so we could place key products along that path

[gentle field]

Yeah, that's definitely trickier to design

[worn forum]

You could layer it too, to keep folks back longer, by strategically placing items of higher interest along that eye path

[gentle field]

Honestly the solution I think about it, which is definitely expensive, is using a VR headset with a tracker

[worn forum]

Well the good news was it was a dispensary

Every part of that floor is on a camera 🤣

That's why we could've done it with near-to-no-cost

We had plenty of cams angled perfectly for it, just needed some program to do the actual movement tracking

[gentle field]

Ah, I see, yeah, that's the difference, you're not using dedicated trackers but cameras

[worn forum]

Yeah comes with more room for error but we had enough, I'd think, angled to where you could see peoples eyes with an accurate enough angle to assess

[gentle field]

Tbh I know a few fellas who run a startup on that precisely, eye tracking using regular cameras to improve ad placing

[worn forum]

Granted not done one of those studies so not sure what enough cams would be in that context

[worn forum]

yh its a big thing remotely rn and for ads up on billboards and etc

[gentle field]

Yup

[worn forum]

my idea was trying to push that forward a bit

I just ended up having to go back to others studies and pairing them together which, from what I could evaluate did work pretty well

[gentle field]

I may see them in a few weeks, so if I do so I could ask a bit more about their methodology

[worn forum]

Apparently within our society here in the US, and as may also be the case for some other predominately euro-descendent societies, we tend to look at the upper or right visual field

That little nugget is enough to do stuff with

We put our own products in the uppermost, rightermost spots

[gentle field]

Yup, I am aware of that fact too and use that when arranging information (:

[worn forum]

Unironically the branding color was that perfect orange too that's not too loud and aggressive but just enough to catch your eye more than a vibrant blue or red etc

[gentle field]

That's interesting, what about other colours?

[worn forum]

So our larger company did have other business units that did other stuff

The orange was for a grower, there's a light/baby blue for another BU, and then the 3rd product focused BU is predominately black BUT they mix other colors on the packaging (ie writing might be in red, or green, etc)

That 3rd BU I didn't get to do anything fun with cause of how the old store was set up n how we had to place products and going into the new one corporate took a meme turn and went full balls to the wall with greed so I dipped

The light blue/baby blue I did evaluate how we placed but didnt push much intentionally on it, the idea with the orange one was it was our "flagship" type product set for the store

I could also go on for days with how their comms team (which is all corporate) is a massive joke and its baffling cause they've got some dudes on there with records

They failed hard in about every single comm attempt I saw them do, I would also include research support in this but I dont think they actually attempted to research, assess, or evaluate anything, even their own efforts lol

I still lol @ I earned a massive influencer relation that within 3 days surpassed every single one of our channels owned content. They dropped the ball hardcore and killed the relationship opportunity & have been trying to do it again with smaller influencers by giving them free product instead of outright earning it through good relations 🤣

[hybrid stone]

we can chat about this in another space/channel. there's an interesting company whose name I need to recall that innovated in this area.

[hybrid stone]

it's exactly along these lines.

[worn forum]

We able to keep on that in here since that's pretty neuroscience specific?

Unless ur wanting to move off entirely

[hybrid stone]

actually, F-it since the convo is already there: they do gaze tracking on custom digital billboards that replace commercial freezer doors.

all those shitty things that slam closed on you when you reach for a beverage in the cooler? they do that stuff.

and it's pretty remarkable.

they know precisely where the customer looks before they grab an item from the freezer shelves.

[worn forum]

I've always wondered how they do that for billboards

Do they pull in panels like they do for surveys and etc?

[hybrid stone]

so that's the default--it's a digital billboard until a person comes into view and then it does shelf-item gaze tracking.

[worn forum]

Or is it done off live billboards?

[hybrid stone]

yea it's a whole electronic and digtal screen panel replacement.

[worn forum]

That's pretty sick

[hybrid stone]

right?

[worn forum]

I know the straight digital (like over the laptop) forms are easier cause well

[hybrid stone]

that'd be dope on some merchandise counters.

[worn forum]

When they tap your camera you're level with it 99% of the time

Super easy to layer that into a website

[worn forum]

Yeah my only side worry here is that sort of tech becoming widespread ala how places like Walmart do stuff like gait tracking even

[hybrid stone]

Wal-Mart is unscrupulous in a lot of ways. unsurprising there.

[worn forum]

If it takes off like that and places aren't doing their literal best, no hands down, to keep data tight - that's a maaaaassive biometric privacy violation

[worn forum]

yh i mean I'm not entirely against it actually so long as they properly keep the back end tightened up, which, I am sure they do not, we just incidentally have not seen an incident yet

they have a semi-legitimate reason for it

since you know about facial rec and etc you might know actually that gait tracking tech for retail stores and etc took off massively during covid, did a little bit before too but in target environments with more crime

totally legitimate intelligence methodology for approaching retail theft but, very easy to slip up and lead to egrogious privacy violations

I wouldn't be surprised if gait tracking databases that large too, connected to profiles, are actually targets for foreign adversaries

Go ham on walmarts around DC lol

You'd end up with a lot of peoples data but if you could refine to profiles of folks you think are working for intelligence services, official cover or not, you could pull those profiles & port it over to your environment. Places like China would have an easy walk in the park gearing their massive camera nets to watch for that

Tag the gait, feed it into your own system, cross-walk the profile into your own database also then have someone sit watching the embassy-pointed cams

[hybrid stone]

if I can remember their full name. it started with "Cooler" something.

been trying to look it up in my email chains.

[worn forum]

cooler screens?

[hybrid stone]

yes it sure did. in a thunderous and often stupid way.

[hybrid stone]

think so.

[worn forum]

yeah like, you've seen me talk on a lot of this stuff, I'm very neutral on most of the tools, I'm fine with their use in generics even. actors are always the pain point though

[hybrid stone]

fun fact: a lot of thermal cameras we overbought during covid leaving a ton of toxic assets in places.

[worn forum]

take that same tool and give it to two people, someone will use it to do something wildly constructive, the other will use it to do something just as wildly destructive

we'll hear about the destructive form because it sounds cooler to report on unless you're a nerd

in which case you have to find spots like this 🤣

The constructive side of all that, even applied towards influence, is so much more interesting

[hybrid stone]

ambitious wishlist

[worn forum]

heh....

want a mobile kit?

fund the prototype and ill get it done for you

theres actually a contract trying to make something pretty similar and the people on it right now are basically scamming the govt

[hybrid stone]

might want some more deets on that one.

[worn forum]

mfs charging 11k for a prototype backpack, not including anything in it

shits a normal backpack

LOL

[hybrid stone]

yea there's a crazy amount of markup on MIL kit in this space.

[worn forum]

yh tldr what it is though

[hybrid stone]

there's an edge device you can get and equip for around 2k tops and this one competitor was putting a 10k min markup on it.

[worn forum]

mil here is undergoing a massive push to apply IO in non-conflict and more er, non-middle east environments

Even if you're at war with Russia running around in Poland is gonna be a lot different than Afghanistan

[hybrid stone]

100%

[worn forum]

So they're trying to make kits that're a lot more civilian looking

ie backpack comes in

literally its suppose to be a normal backpack

they just made a fancy one for 11k (theres no fancy pockets or EM hardening or anything), instead of going to dicks sporting goods and buying one for like $300

that is also an example of how you steal contracts

[worn forum]

https://www.cttso.gov/Projects/I2C/Expeditionary_MISO_Toolkit.html

its under this project theres 2

[hybrid stone]

tbh this kind of thing would be amazing in dispensaries.

[worn forum]

the literal MISO toolkit then there's another which is the er

i forget the full name

its like information warfare enablement kit or smth

[hybrid stone]

so that screen depicts a few things:

• live digital ads
• for products the customer is looking at
• along with ratings for other products

[worn forum]

I got a list made to literally recreate this entire thing for like 3k is all you'd need lol, and that's not even getting like top of the line cams

[worn forum]

yeah thats a p smart way to do that too

I'd have to see it in person, looking at it that small, I'd say there's too much on there

Cool get up though

ah here

is the company with those contracts rn too

https://ombra.us/product/iwek-d/

if you look on their product page you can see the other cool things they're working on, they put more info and visuals about it than DoD does themselves so you can see what all goes in it etc

that one does come with fancy EM hardened bags

https://ombra.us/product/expeditionary-miso-tool-kit-emtk/
The MISO Toolkit
"EMTK allows for a compact, modular, and standard architecture solution that maintains operability with a high-degree of human factors engineering and obfuscation for optimal interoperability without compromising mission objectives. This kit is operable with local, “dirty” power sources and in degraded/no-power situations using power banks and solar cells until standard power is restored."

running twitter ops from a polish apartment and satellite net (post takes 2 hours to load)

[fickle nest]

Always fun to learn of a new, depressing layer to the world

[worn forum]

It do be like that

[weary bloom]

These bags are cool and all, but you gotta know how to do weight distribution on those damn things for em to feel decent on your back

Hold on, I have a graph somewhere

Alright here yall go

[fallen marsh]

on the subject of neurological intercession to change someone's mind, from 2015: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151014084955.htm

[gentle field]

Uuuuuh, so I have looked into the actual paper this article is based on:

1 - Effect sizes of the experimental conditions are very small (at least kudos for including them instead of just leaving p-values)
2 - Experimental design is not about "changing someone's mind" but rather modulating activity of the premedial frontal cortex (pMFC) which would be involved in ideological responses
3 - There were lots of cofounding factors involved, as well as the role of priming that the authors of the article mention as a limitation. The pre-post averages increase in all conditions, which clearly determines these cofounding effects, the only suggestion of some experimental factor is a reduction of differences between groups. There were no follow up studies, which would be key considering that the effect of TMS is observed to last around 1h.
4 - This is why even the authors present this paper as a "proof of concept" paper and is very wrong to suggest that they were "changing someone's mind"
5 - For "changing someone's mind" we already have far more ethical and effective methods such as cognitive restructuring in psychotherapy, which involves the patient themselves actively participating in the process and being fully conscious, aware and willful of what is going on.

[worn forum]

Also, when it comes to the neuroscience side of applied influence, I don't like framing that neuroscience "changes someones minds" - that's a psychological process enabled/disabled by cognitive processes

What you'd be achieving by targeting the cognition is instead denying, disrupting, degrading, or destroying the capability for the cognition to process said X in a way that results in the psychological output we identify

[fickle nest]

"the pipe made a very convincing argument and changed Phineas' mind"

[fickle nest]

https://x.com/ashleylwatts/status/1796276245698634022 (thread, study link in 1st reply)

Ashley Watts (@ashleylwatts) on X

I’m behind in all aspects of life, so why not tweet? In a new paper for CPS, we critique the concept of general addiction liability, or shared risk for all forms of substance use disorder. This construct is dubious on conceptual and empirical grounds. Take a look!

Twitter · May 30, 2024, 8:23 PM

[hybrid stone]

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/31/phrases-that-are-often-peoples-last-words-says-doctor-what-we-can-learn.html

[bleak star]

Random question: does anyone know what happens in the brain when you're skeptical about something? And is there a difference between the kind of skepticism where you're trying to ascertain the truth and a skepticism focused on simply rejecting certain kinds of information?

[worn forum]

I think, and @gentle field would be the best to answer here, but this is an actual split question. The cognitive decision making process would be/is separate from skepticism, although, when skepticism takes place, there is an added cognitive element(s) at play impacting the process. So the broad answer would be "yes" but in a very non-specific way.

Skepticism trying to ascertain the truth could cognitively appear the exact same as someone thinking in terms of hypothesis rather than pure fact, for example, although, I'd think there'd also maybe be signifiers there to draw distinctions but not sure 100% what.

[gentle field]

I will reply to this when I'm free and rested from a hectic week!

[fallen marsh]

https://www.psypost.org/the-allure-of-the-psychopath-why-some-women-are-attracted-to-dark-personality-traits/

Ayn Rand was one such woman. Interesting that her personal preferences generated a kind of parapolitical movement.

[fickle nest]

Is that an AI generated picture

[gentle field]

I haven't forgotten about this, just another busy week so I'm slowly replying to stuff (I still need to get back to some DMs too) and I want to look up some things before giving an answer here 🙏

[hybrid stone]

https://fixupx.com/LucreSnooker/status/1802405257432949015

[weary bloom]

Must have been a WILD experience for SM. Experiencing such an emotion can easily be overwhelming for anyone, let alone someone experiencing it for the first time.

[empty frost]

I really hope they got ethically informed consent for this

[winged lagoon]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/people-often-overestimate-resilience-failure-research-suggests-rcna156303

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0001610.pdf

[fallen marsh]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32513186/

Don't think this was what the profession meant when they coined "neuroplasticity"

With the recent news about plastics found in genitalia, I just assumed it was in the brain as well. There appears to be no broader social health concerns amongst regulators.

[winged lagoon]

https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/richard-lynn-racist-research-articles-journals-retractions/

[dire pawn]

I guess its kind of impossible to truly get ethically informed consent for this

“This might make you experience fear”
“Can you describe what that is? I’ve heard about it but i’ve never really understood it.”
“It means you’re scared”
“Scared?”

I mean you probably will have some concept of what fear is but still

Its not like asking a normal seeing person
“You might see a green screen appear”

[worn forum]

Entirely right there but IMO there's still some ways you should approach it

They may not understand what they'd feel but they should at least have a rudimentary understanding of whats going on

That's more where it's applied in those cases I think

[dire pawn]

Yeah ofc

[empty frost]

This might be weirdly brain-relevant. The first time I have seen conspiracy theories referred to as an addiction and I'm kind of intrigued by that analysis : >> "The conspiracy theories were working for me just like [drugs do for] a heroin addict or a meth addict. You need a bigger and bigger dose as you form your tolerance. And I remember actively looking [and thinking], 'What's the next conspiracy I can get into?'"<< https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-12/conspiracy-theory-believers-on-how-they-got-out-of-rabbit-hole/103907258

[gentle field]

Anything around the psychology of conspiracy belief definitely fits here (:

And it's an interesting analogy, I can totally see conspiracy belief as a maladaptive coping mechanism for an anxious-depressive state, using those conspiracy beliefs to complement those existing root beliefs that lead to the psychoemotional state.

Yet another thing added to my "I need to dig in deeper" lol

[empty frost]

Yup, when I read it I was like "well, that weirdly fits with what I know of addiction, let me go think on this for a wee while"

[gentle field]

Those factors definitely would matter as they do affect negatively on the incidence of poor psychoemotional state. And education doesn't provide any immunity but it helps against conspiracy belief, so it needs to be taken into account

[winged lagoon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/denver-gave-people-experiencing-homelessness-101802213.html
https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research

[gentle field]

Idk how that fits here, that's more of an economics topic tbh

[winged lagoon]

Do we have an economics thread?

[empty frost]

#money ?

[gentle field]

And if you want to be very specific, I'd suggest opening an offtopic thread for basic income programs

[fickle nest]

Seems more sociology to me

[worn forum]

behavioral economics saunters into the chat sadly

[fickle nest]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2819960

[fallen marsh]

Safety nets always help society. I am fond of reminding interlocutors who are against "handouts" that Rowling was on the dole for years before she wrote a book series that contributed £4 billion to the UK economy in 2016 alone.

[fickle nest]

This isn't my show; @gentle field is the one to ask

[gentle field]

As I did when I opened the thread, it is indeed more oriented towards psychology, neuroscience, cogsci, etc #1146386070263570462 message

But I'm cool with having a cross disciplinary discussion, the reason why I commented that the UBI discussion was out of the scope here was because it's very much an economics discussion even if it has arguments into matters like improving MH

This discussion ties more with social psychology and cognitive sciences, so I'd say it does fit in here

I guess it may be underestimated in some aspects of academia but my personal experience is that most psychologists and therapists are very aware of this and when we talk about environmental factors into MH, ofc socioeconomic status is one that really matters. Antidepressants are not going to help you if you struggle to pay your bills.

I clarify that evidence based therapy however can be helpful as it can provide with more adaptive ways to cope with such difficult situations and to some degree help out, but then therapy is expensive and if you're struggling already to make ends meet, it's very rough

[gentle field]

I wouldn't say psychology looks into internal problems, that is very much a heavy misunderstanding. Behaviourism is all about the environment and it very much is alive in psychology under the current cognitive-behavioural paradigm

Any person who is ignoring or dismissing environmental factors is very much denying any form of scientific and evidence based psychology

[weary bloom]

Sometimes a singular interaction (no matter the duration or immediate apparent significance) can lead to a significant and permanent/long lasting change of mental outcome. Seeing the butterfly effect happen live is always interesting.

[weary bloom]

Oh shit wrong thread. Meant to add in #1091057164510040245

[mint drum]

Back in the days it was hypnosis, and subliminal suggestions introduced caused the patients to claim their families or teachers are satanists

And there was the panic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers

[empty frost]

EMDR is not the same as false memory recovery

[bitter cobalt]

I think the main question us what that has to do with EMDR?

[empty frost]

Although that is also still being done by the woo crowd, most intriguingly by people like Teal Swan

[mint drum]

Sorry

I don't know things a lot

But it sounds similar

[empty frost]

I think 'officially' to be able to enroll in EMDR courses you do have to have a Masters degree in a psychoanalytical/therepeutic field. HOWEVER since it's not a protected title (at least here in nl) anyone can use it.

So lots of people do.

I can probably put it in my email signature tomorrow and there's literally nothing anyone can do about it

dutch language "beware of dangerous practitioners of emdr" : https://www.nporadio1.nl/nieuws/onderzoek/be71f7b4-a0a7-4f62-b206-ea9691e49427/pas-op-voor-gevaarlijke-emdr-behandelaars-zonder-de-juiste-papieren

Anyone fancy telling me about their trauma tomorrow while they follow a laser pointer dot I am pointing at the wall? 🤓

[/cynical]

[gentle field]

This is just part of a more widespread problem you find around where people become "coaches" and provide some form of therapy without the right training and skills to do so

[empty frost]

locally emdr happens to be a vessel for quite a lot of the damage though, hence pet peeve 😉

[gentle field]

Without any real control of the person being prepared to assist someone with a severe MH issue like traumatic stress can be

[gentle field]

Yeah, that's how I feel with mindfulness personally, it can be effective in many circumstances, especially milder cases, but it's not a be all end all technique, one that can be implemented en masse or a substitute for any other therapy

[empty frost]

Oh don't get me started on mindfulness

[gentle field]

And yet a lot of mindfulness advocates kick in preaching without any preparation and knowledge

[empty frost]

Personally, I am waiting for the ketamine thing to also go entirely off the rails soon

Even though

(I think I sent you that thing before @gentle field ?) they actually understand more than with most treatments why that one works. It's just also pretty damn specific.

[gentle field]

I think you did send me something on ketamine yeah

And I'd argue it already got off the rails already

[empty frost]

one of the 100s of random stuff I sent you over time. sorry

[gentle field]

Lol, I don't mind

Quite the opposite

[empty frost]

Was in the news this week actually, how the dutch military had a 'wellness programme' that made personell unwell [dutch lang again, sorry] https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/wellness-programma-defensie-leidde-juist-tot-zieke-militairen

[gentle field]

I haven't seen that, but it can't be worse than the current situation of PTSD in Russia today... https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/09/a-very-dangerous-trend

[worn forum]

ALSO, a very important note here, is that a lot of those "panic" things related to "hypnosis" were, also conducted by relatively... nefarious practicioners

There is a very real chance with some variations that there was a lot less false memory recovery and more, intentional malfeasence (I wouldn't necessarily consider that FMR in entirety)

Like in a little twist from the one above you have those hypnotists and psychologists that did that sort of stuff with a giant group of kids they called "starseeds" and thought were children of ETs. Through the "scientific" processes they did, they also literally taught these children that - so, the false memories were not simply recovered, but actually intentionally implanted.

That's quite a sad example too because there's quite a few of those kids who still exist in those communities and devoutly believe they're demi-gods sent by aliens (thankfully that er, faction within the larger ET/UFO communities is not taken as seriously NOR as large anymore, although, ironically, the "scientists" behind it are still frequently mentioned in positive light as if they didn't basically abuse a bunch of kids)

[gentle field]

I definitely need to read more on that

[worn forum]

Yeah IMO that is, literally the closest example I can think of to "brainwashing"

I am very iffy on that term because, really, nothing we call that is actually "brainwashing"

[mint drum]

So what really came out of MKUltra in the end?

[worn forum]

The only reason its really possible in that context is because it happened to these people when they were so young it became a conditioned part of themselves at root - rather than say, as an adult, where you're shifting away from that

[mint drum]

Pseudoscience don't work right?

[worn forum]

Nothing

[mint drum]

Yeah, drugging people for pseudoscience, that's CIA in reality

[worn forum]

MKUltra had plenty of output but near to none of it was integrated into any of the relevant fields that exist now that could rotate around to it

I say "near to none" considering we don't know everything - but there is no sourcing at all showing ANYTHING ever went to inform actual practice in anything

And that still I would not consider "brainwashing"

A lot of those programs rested on active application of a substance to continue the ability to control their cognition

"brainwashing" would mean your slate is basically cleared and reconditioned

This was an exceedingly rare result even for the Chinese methods the term "brainwashing" came from

[mint drum]

I remember in the 50s there were lots and lots of behavior experiment related to brainwashing

[mint drum]

Actually I'm Chinese

It is not really a big thing even for us

[worn forum]

Indeed, and it's because it's a very loose term that's, relatively disconnected from any actual psychology or neuroscience concepts

I don't like using it for exactly that reason

[mint drum]

The official line is that the POWs just wanted to join China because communism

[worn forum]

99% of what we call "brainwashing" is just attempts at influencing specific issues, in the psychological domain

[mint drum]

In reality, nobody know

[worn forum]

Based off how we reason "brainwashing" the mumbo-jumbo fancy way to reason that would more accurately be achieving direct control over someones cognition

Even "cognitive warfare" seeks indirect control of cognition - not direct control

[mint drum]

The thingg about China in the 50s and 60s and 70s is that we are pretty much ISIS but the Caliphate won

It's never gonna work out

[worn forum]

Or if you want to look at some other specific science-rooted concepts. Reflexive Control, also seeks indirect control over cognition, not direct control over it

[mint drum]

Interesting

Back to lurking mode

[worn forum]

With that said I would be fine throwing "brainwashing" to specific instances where, what's attempted at least, is full control over the cognition (eg the case with the "starseed" kids)

[mint drum]

OK, the obsession with "brainwashing" as a policy tool probably only fits for influencing mass to a limited degree

It is more similar to conditioning

[worn forum]

Kinda

It's a more totalistic form of conditioning

Conditioning itself can be cognitive, psychological, or behavioral

"Brainwashing", based off how we generally reference it, in that more fancy way of explaining it- would be targeting for control of the cognition, to be able to directly influence the psyche into beneficial behavioral output

Conditioning you're more recognizing the cognition but not directly targeting it, you're indirectly targeting it through walking back psychological and behavioral elements

This can appear similar in some cases, I would cede there, but would say the difference is more in intent than in than appearance

With conditioning too you're generally not seeking to control the cognition - you're trying to alter a psychological element that prevents/amplifies a cognitive process that results in a certain behavior

[gentle field]

All psychological processes are either cognitive or behavioural, they're not separate 😅

[worn forum]

sorry comrade dont forget I look at the govt/mil sciences

they split them for, actually a very smart reason

[gentle field]

And conditioning happens at both levels

[worn forum]

the understandings are yah a bit diff than the rest of the fields

they split cognitive and psychological because there's ways you can influence behavior through both distinctly

Granted our part of the world doesn't recognize a lot of the things that errrrrrr, would be relevant in that case

[mint drum]

OK, one individual with a lot of motivation can get dangerous things done

[worn forum]

eg using psychtropics to alter someones cognition to then be able to influence them

rather than say, keying in on a target issue and forming content that raises an emotion

[mint drum]

But usually saying I don't think they can pass screening

[mint drum]

Yeah

[worn forum]

both involve cog and psyche elements but in a bit of a diff way

[mint drum]

Lot's of such cases

One last thing before I sleep

So I have that phenomenon that when I dreams of things that make me feel intense

[worn forum]

in that example case the administration of the psychotropics (from that frame) would be the "cognitive" end - your attempts to patently influence them afterwards would be the psych end (eg while in that state, you then show them your fancy leaflets)

[mint drum]

Be it mi Madre yelling at me (my brain will recycle past arguments to throw at me) or an exam is coming (the exam has been done weeks ago in reality)

I can genuinely feel the emotion even after I'm awake

One time in dream my mother was yelling at me

[worn forum]

Reflexive Control as a concept is actually one that is more cog targeted than psych, technically, if we use the actual Soviet/Russian understanding and concept rather than what's been remade for reference in our nations

[mint drum]

And when I woke up a feeling of anger and rage just went all over me and I started screaming out of rage

[mint drum]

They also researched that?

And there was the time (about a week ago)

[worn forum]

Yeah so, what we read about "Reflexive Control" in english is largely botched to high hell

[mint drum]

When I dreamed of a coming test

I sincerely believes that my chemistry test is tomorrow

[worn forum]

The actual Russian definition has, actually, two forms - what people botch references too is the form of Reflexive Control that comes out of their Military Sciences. RC itself started in civil sciences, the people who brought it into the mil weren't Lefevre and co either it was separate individuals

[mint drum]

It is only through panicked conversation with my mother that convinced me that exam season is over

OK, please answer my dream thing then I go sleep

[worn forum]

Both overlap though in that the actual root definition, is not actually the fancy long ones we give it - it's basically "Giving control to another" (paraphrased)

Although in practice this is done indirectly, so, the person being targeted with it, would not necessarily patently know they are giving the control over

The broader concept, noting it came out of civil sciences, actually has relevancy in normal psychology and etc too

[mint drum]

I got to sleep

Please answer the dream thing

Thank you

[worn forum]

That's also a really interesting area where our understandings and concepts of neuroscience, psychology etc begin to split.
When RC came about, we were already pretty far along the chain of researching cybernetics aligned concepts. The difference though is our cultures considers morality and ethics in ways and means to achieve an end, while the Soviet/Russian culture in that regard disconsidered morality and ethics in ways & means and instead, just the ends itself.
So, Stalin himself, was never a fan of cybernetics aligned research, so, it wasn't until Stalin died that it actually took off. But once it did, unlike in our environment which (while more "developed" in cybernetics) was still relatively split between developing different alignments - the Soviets at the time went full steam ahead on cybernetics.

Outside of broader sociocultural and religious impactors that root a lot more historical ^^^ is the biggest distinction point between both our relevant sciences & their applied use in a govt/military context

[mint drum]

OK, gonna sleep

[gentle field]

@mint drum Dream interpretation is very much pseudoscience, at most all that would say is that you were likely ruminating about exams before sleeping

[empty frost]

You'd never have known Barabara Snow was nefarious, she was licensed. She might have believed herself (not sure). But yes, memories were implanted. I think the ET stuff happened later. Not sure. But the Satanic Panic afaik started with Barbara Snow with collaboration from law enforcement and took off in the media. Now still performed by Teal Snow.

[empty frost]

It's fascinating but really concerning what they did to those communities.

[worn forum]

I think, I could be wrong, but he's more mentioning dream-run on into being awake

Like he woke up from a dream where the test was a thing and for a bit actually was confused

I know there's some interesting studies on that wrt feelings I forget the weird term for it tho, hypno-or hypna- something hallucinations

Not sure if that considers confusing thoughts like that too?

[empty frost]

Regarding the whole 'brainwashing' thing. I think we're starting to realize (ok, am lacking evidence for this rn, so take this as a hypothetical) that many of us actually would like to not be responsible for absolutely every decision in our lives because it's exhausting. We want to know the 'right' way to live and then just stick to that. We also want to be 'special' in some way. So if you create a structure that considers you special and 'righteous', potentially even superior, if you follow x set of rules, there will be people who apply it. Even if the rules say things like sleep and food deprivation which makes you not the best judge of anything and will lower your ability to question anyone in decisionmaking positions.

Plus there's that 'invested so much so you won't leave'-thing which has a name I forgot

[fickle nest]

Human brain is capable of astounding amounts of critical thinking but it really isn't keen on expensing the effort if it doesn't have to.

That's why we evolved mental heuristics. But they were borne out of the environment we evolved to live in; small pre civilization tribes in wild environs. We haven't evolved the mental heuristics required to live in the modern world

But what we have is what we have; we apply our heuristics to our world, ill fitting as they are because it alleviates exhaustion at the sheer complexity of modern life. This combined with the general desire to be a "good person" results in this vague desire to be told what the "right" way to live is.

[woven ether]

EMDR is not woo:
https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand_tx/emdr.asp
https://www.apa.org/topics/psychotherapy/emdr-therapy-ptsd
https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/eye-movement-reprocessing

EMDR should no more be judged by its worst practitioners than should open source journalism.

[mint drum]

Yeah, I'm talking about that

[empty frost]

Sadly right now, here, that's most of the supposed 'practitioners'. And it will remains so until it's a protected title. I know that's not a problem with EMDR itself (though even the real accreditation organisations do tout efficacy for things beyond ptsd where there is a lot less evidence and is therefore kind of dubious) but it's certainly a problem to promote EMDR as a phrase without a lot of caveats surrounding it.

[gentle field]

That's what we were saying here, that it is a valid technique with evidence backing it's effectiveness against traumatic stress on many circumstances, but sadly too many EMDR practitioners don't have the right training to be effective therapists, although that's a problem that goes beyond EMDR

[worn forum]

Yeah EDMR is in that wedge edge area with CBT & DBT where it's uh

Not as rigid in practice

Will never forget being gaslit in a DBT group over DBT by the practicioner, homegirl even presented parts to her own organizations internal training that, she was not following to form - and holding to others "doing it wrong"

Yeah sis the paperwork all says the opposite

[sleek wave]

My understanding is that the addition of eye movement has no additional effectiveness over trauma therapy without eye movements? That was my understanding of the "woo" bit.

Paper comparing emdr with other therapy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358517867_A_pragmatic_randomized_comparison_of_intensive_EMDR_and_intensive_PC_for_victims_of_crime

Not a well researched area, i bet the creators of emdr are making a buck on that

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372413586_PTSD_Symptoms_Comparison_EMDR_and_NFB_with_IPV_Survivors_Ex-Post-Facto_Study_by

[empty frost]

that's bad though.

[sleek wave]

She really did make a lot of money pushing the therapy. Wikipedia has plenty of citations for this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_Shapiro

[empty frost]

She did, that part is pretty likely.

[woven ether]

She made money? That's your criticism?

[sleek wave]

No? Is it not common practice to be suspicious when research is profit focused? It inherently adds bias to results.

A quick glance at available comparison studies suggest that there is a severe lack of them. That sort of pattern indicates a financial motive for not critically appraising how EMDR compares to other similar treatment methods.

And what is available confirms that EMDR is not special compared to other trauma reprocessing methods. So why is so much money being poured into it? I don't have an answer to that, it's just interesting.

I suspect it's associated with whatever grifter's network people have alluded to previously but that might just be my conspiracy brain

[worn forum]

I do agree heavily with primal there. That's true across many fields, and especially social sciences. When things are in an "emerging" state and there's someone making outsized profit off advertising the form itself, rather than through their conduct practicing it (IF the person is straddling both lines), that can be a pretty strong key to look more into. It's one of those few factors that do overlap between more malign parties and not, that, gives you the indicator to look more.

[worn forum]

I would say here though this does get a tiiid bit stretchy

So, one thing that's kinda, evident with a lot of forms of therapy that're popular now - they tend to have overlapping features that are pre-studied and defined as working, and new studies have always come into the issue of proving the efficacy of additions at broad. Eg DBT is found by and large to be more efficient than CBT with groups that deal with higher severity of self harm or suicidality - the specific reasons this is claimed to happen are largely casted with doubt in studies also, but the thing is, it does actually work for a large enough group. That DOES NOT MEAN a more robust/refined understanding wouldn't progress it to an even more efficient state.

EMDR for example, absolutely does "work". The specific debated efficacy is related to the eye movements - which, to be fair, the form itself still has shown success with specific audiences (or, groups in this context, might sound a bit bad to say audiences) where other forms have not. This is an X factor that hasn't really been covered yet, and the specific studies casting doubt on eye movements specifically do not do anything to explain this X factor, rather than cast doubt on how the eye movements may attribute to it. The unfortunate part is, using the EMDR studies for example, they're rarely studied from the frame of that X factor, rather than around the base efficacy of the eye movement portion.

While not a counter to any study either, another issue with them can be the selection of persons they use if not hyper-defined. A lot of these different techniques, just because you have X that it should be used for, DOES NOT MEAN IT WILL WORK, there can be other factors that degrade its efficiency for you. Personally I've only really seen these studies try and take the baseline defined groups that see it more catered - but DO NOT attempt to find indicators for or even weed out folks who it would not end up working with (within that categorization). You could absolutely accidentally end up doing an EMDR study with people that it "should be used for" - but none of them see the returns because of some factor not considered (like say,

As a random aside example, I meet all the boxes for "this person should be in DBT" & places always try to push me into DBT programs again. The issue is I've never had DBT as a process work for me, it's always amplified issues. If I went into one of these studies trying to showcase efficacy, I would be a bad selection, because there are plenty of people who've faced similar/the exact same things as myself - although there's different parts of us that differ (eg how we cognitively process things), something there is what makes it inefficient for me but not the others that see success from it. I would, from the start, present a null result to the study, because it wouldn't work for me at all - even if this wasn't known beforehand. Using me instead would be much better to put into a group looking at correlations and contrasts between things like our cognition, that instead, could explain that X factor.

[woven ether]

Years ago I was talking to my long-time barber and the subject of Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth came up. She said he just did it to make money. I never went back there again.

[sleek wave]

Thank you for providing your perspective, your personal experience with DBT is very interesting.

[gentle field]

Can you please provide with studies that show that EMDR is not better than other methods? I would like to read more on it, thanks!

I would love to be more updated on it

[sleek wave]

You can see the two links I posted above that compared it to two other therapies, but those were just from a quick search of researchgate. I can post more in this chat when I get a chance.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372344952_Preliminary_Comparison_of_CBT_and_EMDR_Interventions_for_Trauma_in_an_IAPT_Service

I remember specifically one that focused on other reprocessing therapy but I can't seem to find it

[gentle field]

This one is interesting because showing that neurofeedback has a similar effectiveness than EMDR can be due to similar mechanisms in both of them (neuroplasticity promotion).

I say this as a first impression just by reading the abstract, I need to dive deeper into the articles

But thanks for sharing, I haven't come across these papers, I haven't really been reading on EMDR that has been published within the last couple years and now I see a lot of work has been done 👀

[empty frost]

I am not sure what the privacy implecations are of diagnosis by phone but am definitely on the fence about it https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-technology-help-us-more-accurately-diagnose-mental-illnesses-180984513/

[gentle field]

I know several startups working on this, and honestly my main concern, beyond privacy (although the people I know are professionals, many of them psychologists and neuroscientists themselves), is the viability of doing this only through patterns in phone

But well, not that off with existing psychometrics tbh

[hybrid stone]

fascinating study.
https://vxtwitter.com/realJoshSiegel/status/1813647390106427458

https://vxtwitter.com/realJoshSiegel/status/1813647405696668119

[worn forum]

This is a big part too IMO

I know when I had to do remote therapy, granted a hyper-specific case - it took like 4 sessions for my therapist to actually identify my body language at all just cause of the cam and how I would sit during the sessions. Definitely makes things take longer.

I do think though it could be a semi-privacy crisis, it kind of already is in a way people don't realize

I'm not sure about the little startups you know Erredece but I've seen a lot of this (though more so on the MH side) and they almost all use Qualtrics to do surveys and some of your other session relevant paperwork.

Qualtrics is uh.... a very issued company with their data practices, pick some nefarious political campaign messaging attempt and Qualtrics was probably behind the data, they don't really care who they sell too. Med info has extra restrictions but given it's all ran off the same site, massive yikes. Also wouldn't put it under Qualtrics to take the hit sharing it.

Since they're not a med company directly they fall under those regulations a bit different, so, they wouldn't get force shut down for doing that, they'd get hit with a hefty fine a single contract can pay for.

They're actually being sued in Washington too rn because they set up a tool for someone and basically siphoned a bunch of confidential data they were not suppose to even have (I think this happened cause of what I mentioned above in re how they run their tools. When your person gives you a sheet to write out symptoms and all, that goes right to Qualtrics main system overall, its not parsed out).
https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/content-library/health-law-weekly/article/32202061-b417-482c-9504-1e2c984dc9b4/u-s-court-in-washington-won-t-nix-action-against-m

And sadly there are quite a few DSPs out there that will even categorize and tag stuff using this data

[fickle nest]

Iirc major integrative pathways of neuronal traffic are diminished during the trip, allowing other pathways to experience traffic. On a basic level makes the conditions right to get out of the mental rut in terms of hard engrained patterns of thought/worldview

[jagged night]

I'm confused why eye tracking when EEG/MEG exist. Maybe cheaper and more accessible.

[gentle field]

It's not that much of a matter of price (you can find cheap EEG headsets in the market) but rather what do they measure.

In any case, for those products there it is more about identifying pattenrs through a phone, using the phone's camera itself. There are other initiatives using the person's voice for instance

[modest arch]

Awesome! I studied cognitive science for me undergrad!

[weary bloom]

Can’t wait to read your contributions over here 😄

[modest arch]

Yay! Will be more than happy to talk about cognition, especially neuroscience, HCI (Human-computer interaction), and cognitive science as a whole

bc it's so fun!

[weary bloom]

The human mind is a fascinating thing that doesn’t cease to amaze

[gentle field]

A fellow BCI nerd I see, welcome!

[modest arch]

Hello fellow BCI nerd! 😄

[weary bloom]

There two????

HELL YEA

[worn forum]

Soon our channel will grow enough to create another Human Terrain System and pretend it's not -INT related because spooky

(sorry scientists wasnt trying to scare you)

[modest arch]

yay brainwave scanning ftw

[worn forum]

applied neuroscience for comms is hilariously fun

still trying to find a company that'll bankroll me to do eye movement tracking for product placement

😭

[fickle nest]

Please don't

[worn forum]

Don't worry my friend informed consent slips will be given

This isn't a big ad agency out of Chicago doing it on billboards (cough)

[fickle nest]

I just hate ads being more and more invasive and psychologically trailored

[weary bloom]

That’s the algorithms at work. Its scary how accurate those damn things are

There was an event with Target where the company realized that a lady was pregnant before the dad knew

[fickle nest]

Corporations having this degree of power is fine. No downsides there

[weary bloom]

totally

[worn forum]

Mine was more in product placement, not ads

Eg you get folks consent and track where they look entering your salesfloor

You can use that to drive placement for key products like your own or primary partners etc

I agree the ad form atm is... not very proper, my joke there was a real example 🤣 they're not out of Chicago but there's a company that places eye trackers in billboards and vending machines. There's 0 informed consent with that, major issue.

[sleek wave]

Isn't this cyberpunk dystopia we live in rad 🥲 /s

[gentle field]

Nah, a lot of neuromarketing stuff is overblown, there is no such thing as a "buy" button in your brain that can be manipulated

[modest arch]

what i find fascinating about this paper is that, by using AI based algorithms i.e. Machine learning models, BCI interfaces had an improved performance when it came to decoding neural signals

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327323/

"Neuroscientists cannot unambiguously discern a person’s intentions from the background electrical activity recorded in the brain and match it to the actions of robotic arm (10). The reason for this limitation is that the neural correlates of psychological phenomena are inexact and poorly understood (11). Fortunately, recent advances in AI methodologies have made great strides, verifying that AI outperforms humans in decoding and encoding neural signals (12). This provides AI a great opportunity to be to an ideal helper in processing signals from the brain before they reach the prostheses."

[gentle field]

Wait until you look into using ML for mental health diagnosis 😛

From neuroimaging data

[modest arch]

oooh that is a whole another story and sphagetti mess to untangle

[gentle field]

It is not published yet and probably not for a while, but I have been on a project of detecting maladaptive anxiety and depression in EEG data and with some models we're getting some very good metrics

[weary bloom]

Wonder what it’ll look like for those with DID and other related stuff

[modest arch]

that actually sounds really good! @gentle field

[modest arch]

thats a very good question all things considered

[weary bloom]

Will the brain activity be noticeably different with different headmates in control?

[modest arch]

it is a mystery

[weary bloom]

There’s so much we as a human species outright DO NOT KNOW at the moment about the brain

[modest arch]

the brain is already a noisy blackbox so DID would most certainly complicate the box

[hybrid stone]

and once we do, we'll wish we didn't.

[modest arch]

cyberbrain hijacking anyone?

[weary bloom]

Sometimes the best way to learn about something is to hit Pandoras Box with a damn hammer

CC to @modest arch too

[modest arch]

haha
our best hammers are electrodes, gels, and scanners

though now I don't think we need the gels for most advanced scanning equipment

[gentle field]

Dry EEG is still not as reliable as wet electrodes but it is getting there, it's good enough now

The issue about dry EEG is that most of them are uncomfortable af

[weary bloom]

Yep!

Really curious on if headmates are really distinct and seperate from the original, because it sure as hell feels like it :/

[modest arch]

I remember those.

[worn forum]

Pretty much this too though there's some edge areas where that isn't the intent eg product placement. There's some too that do the billboard version for content formulation which is legit. The vending machine examples tho that ones yah very meme it's the whole "buy button" shit, with no consent behind it.

Interestingly don't have many consumer side studies on the content formulation & placement side. You can find it with mil/govts though I can link some later. There was a fun multi functional project a few years back where they did that to wrt posters used in ISIS controlled areas.
They were able to map out general pathways eye movements males of the area make when looking at women. And then used it to tag where exactly to hold a poster, to raise the chances it is actually actively viewed.

Insanely crafty application of that

[weary bloom]

Huh, that’s pretty cool

[weary bloom]

Either way, as long as it works

[modest arch]

yep

[weary bloom]

Thats why im gonna hold off on any brain implants for the time being. Too much potential

[modest arch]

yeah, imagine getting that Neuralink implant and suddenly you're hearing commercial jingles all the damn time bc X found a way to transmit 24 hour ads into your brain

[weary bloom]

Hell, even hacking and releasing zip bombs into your mind, basically frying it on the spot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_bomb

[gentle field]

That would simply not happen since (beyond all the issues that it has) Neuralink's implant is only capable of reading, it is a brain computer interface but not a computer-brain interface

[weary bloom]

Pretty exited thats the place, erredece

[hybrid stone]

Thank goodness for that because it's a 50% chance of correctly plugging in a USB-A drive and it still takes three tries.

[modest arch]

ah, so that's what the implant is capable of

not really familiar with Neuralink factually

only the memes

[modest arch]

how delightfully devilish!

[worn forum]

https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/C-ISIL-Simulation-Whitepaper-Jun2016-Final5.compressed.pdf
Pages 27-29 in the PDF (24-26 in numbered pages) in reference to the eye tracking convo (predictive example so not full eye tracking)

[sleek wave]

You say this, but I've been obsessively listening to Behind The Bastards and now I own a machete. Anectodal? Definitely. /lh

[weary bloom]

All fun and games until you get hit with a “files already exist. Do you want to replace?”

[modest arch]

ghost files!

[winged lagoon]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/change-your-mind/202407/who-supports-political-violence

[weary bloom]

Yea, its one of those "damned if you do, damned if you dont" situations. Would personally say to just open Pandoras Box on the subject, and figure things out from there. IDK what issues we as a species will face, just that I hope we will fix em

[worn forum]

https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/joint-force-quarterly/vol114/iss2/15/
"Cognitive Warfare: The Fight for Gray Matter in the Digital Gray Zone"

Less sciency and more military thought article but touches on the concept of Cognitive Warfare

[weary bloom]

Just remembered this question: Wonder whatll happen if multiple tries to talk at the same time to someone else through Neuralink. Will it come as a jumbled mess? Will the recipient hear multiple distinct voices?

[fallen marsh]

audio signals should sum inside the brain.

[gentle field]

Nothing since, as said, it doesn't transmit any information back to the brain, it's read only

[gentle field]

Not necessarily since first we need to consider how that information is being transferred back. Since Neuralink doesn't transmit any information back, then we're just at the very start

[worn forum]

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/reputational-costs-receptiveness-when-why-being-receptive-opposing

[fallen marsh]

sounds like "transferring back" doesn't matter then, just the person's experience. Audio is represented as-is in the brain well enough that audio signals can be reconstructed from brain activity, so if you have one implant, it's summing the signal before it goes in. If you have two implants, and they both provide coherent audio, they would in fact sum if both activated.

[weary bloom]

Doesn’t really need to be direct transferred to another brain. Just interpreted via some device

[gentle field]

If your purpose is identifying a sound signal reverberating through the brain, then lies however at needing multiple measuring points and having the right algorithms for feature extraction, from the EEG rather than directly from the soundwaves themselves.

Impossible no, but extremely hard

[gentle field]

Neuralink doesn't allow anyone to "talk" telepathically

It requires measurements on the sensorimotor cortex, and it will only pick up any kind of "talk" if there is imagined speech as this activates the muscular tone in the jaws much like if you were talking, so at that point you can just decode with less invasive methods

[weary bloom]

Mostly just wanna see what’ll happen if multiple talks at the same time. Does the brain bounce back and forth, or will there be a steady stream of all?

[gentle field]

Unless you really looked into it, there would be no difference

EEG signals are just the electrical activity of a set of neurons that are pointing towards the measuring electrode. In a surface, non invasive EEG you mainly pick from those in the cortex no more than an inch deep. In an implant you do gather more information as you don't have the skull bone blocking most of the signal, but there's also tons of noise

You would have to gather that signal and then post process it and identify in that signal the sounds you're looking for, which is done using some classifying algorithm

So if you have multiple people, then you would require a way to identify that combined signal of multiple people talking

This is theoretically possible but definitely no easy feat, and probably impractical if achievable today

[weary bloom]

Alright 🙂

[worn forum]

Yeah also I know what you're getting at here brother, this is much more a psych area directly than neuroscience

There'll be some neuroscience impactors and presentations related to it but not that prominent in this regard

Eg how errdece explained in the end it's all signals that'd be coming from the same places

[weary bloom]

Am well aware, so no need to worry 🙂

[worn forum]

It would be super interesting to see how an EEG or something similar popped in that case though, I do feel like some "areas" of the brain could see limited activation due to some of the other "talk" that may happen that others wouldn't

[weary bloom]

The topic is a massive Pandoras Box that people are starting to look into iirc

There’s still plenty that we as a species outright do not know yet

[weary bloom]

The EEG would be a start, and afaik there’s some Stanford study that’s in the works. Would need to double check in some circles im active in for a proper confirm

[worn forum]

I wouldn't be surprised if Stanford is, or if not, is one of the first too

It gets skipped out a lot in public reference but Stanford actually has quite a long history with their centers working on the more emerging sides of neuroscience and psychology

They're one of the universities that pulls a lot of research support for gov/mil comms also

There's a looot of stuff that's come out into private sector comms fields from the mil that, Stanford had a major hand in helping research and develop

[weary bloom]

Yea, hence why I’m asking around

They have a history of being on the frontier of this shit 🙂

[gentle field]

Just don't ask them about a certain experiment involving a prison

[weary bloom]

Oh no

[worn forum]

Every major university formed pre 1960

tbh

[gentle field]

Yeah, but this one is quite iconic to the field lol

You get taught about it in social psychology 101

[worn forum]

If you're referencing what I think that is also the shining wtf example of govt funded private research

At least in the social sciences arena, definitely more wtf stuff elsewhere 🤣

[weary bloom]

It’s borderline t h e study out there

[worn forum]

I think, sadly too, if it is the prison study, that did show us some realities we can see play out actively in some state prison systems

Not every system but there are some edge systems (like California) where the study actually did have output that was able to inform some things

For example it had the finding about the selected guards becoming conditioned to humilitating and etc inmates, this is actually something that does happen, in a few prison systems (obv it happens in every prison system on an isolated scale), because of the dynamics between the inmate groups and COs over decades

[gentle field]

Yeah I'm talking about Zimbardo's study, and it's very much flawed both ethically and scientifically

[worn forum]

But yeah definitely flawed regardless of some relevant output existing, more just run for the course of doing it

The fact they let their research participants literally get abused is baffling

You could monitor the same behavioral and psych traits there without actually letting them harm someone

You'd just skip out on the part where they actually commit the harm (which I mean... thats not a bad thing lmao)

[gentle field]

Also the fact that it's impossible to reproduce, and potential selection bias

[worn forum]

I think it being impossible to reproduce isn't worth focusing on too much for one major reason

The only way to properly do this study is to use actual people in a not set up scenario

There's too many X factors impacting things that skew it from reality

eg these participants know the arrest is fake and that they're going to a fake prison for a research study

This entirely alters the base dynamics that would present from the very start of the entire sequence up to being in prison

And while the output re COs conditioning to abusive behavior and etc is valid output that can be applied, it also has a major flaw in the timeline - for real COs, this is a development that is either there from the start, or that they develop over years/decades. There's very few people who undergo this switch in that quick of a period (like 6 days?)

Even for the people who are agreeable too it from the start, they don't start their job openly abusing people - they see the behavior from others that're willing to do it, integrate into their in-group, and then take on the behaviors they're agreeable to that the in-group hosts (which, includes brutality to the inmates)

I honestly wouldn't be surprised here if, the reason they started doing that so quick, was a result of public perception on COs - not really considering the bit above

[gentle field]

Replicability is a basis in science, and precisely we have come out of the replicability crisis in psy and neuro

So even if the results of that study match with other experiences, it is still very weak evidence

[fickle nest]

"we have come out of the replicability crisis in psy and neuro"?

[gentle field]

Wiki still says it's ongoing, but there has been tons of stuff done about it in the last 10 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

[frank lintel]

enables write mode💀

[fickle nest]

I didn't know they'd taken significant steps to address it. Part of the problem, as I understood it, was that there weren't enough researchers and funding for replication (coupled with pressure to publish original research "or perish")

[worn forum]

I think there's some hedge areas this still exists a lot but maybe a different issue

Something I've noticed with a lot of new public (eg non-govt/mil driven or involved, not necessarily public sector eg public health) study related to things like disinformation and etc, they all come away with contradictory results but present them as near definitive. I don't know if this would fall under that "replication crisis" issue, but it's definitely one that has pretty high correlates with the research being done in a silo vs comparative realistic scenarios.

This does hit the replicability area sometimes in that, you really can't do a similar study and produce similar results without following their exact methodology since it's taking that silo'd form.

[worn forum]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585324000261

"Are narcissists trolls? A cross-sectional study about aggression, trolling behavior, narcissism, and the moderating role of self-esteem"