Psychologists destroy money for the sake of science

When the British acid house band The KLF videoed the burning of a million pounds in 1994 on the Isle of Jura, they might not have realised it, but they were likely activating the left hemisphere tool network of anyone who watched.

In a splendid case of science imitating one of the quirkier corners of life, Cristina Becchio and her colleagues, including the British husband and wife team Chris and Uta Frith, scanned the brains of twenty people as they watched brief video clips of 100 or 500 Danish Kroner bank notes (worth ten or fifty pounds, respectively) being torn or cut in half*. For comparison, the participants also viewed the same value notes being folded or looked at, and they also viewed valueless notes with scrambled imagery on them being destroyed or folded.

Compared with the other video clips, the sight of bank notes being destroyed led to increased activation in brain regions previously associated with looking at, identifying and using tools - that is, the left fusiform gyrus and the left posterior precuneus. This activation was greater when it was higher value notes being destroyed. Participants also said they felt more aroused and less comfortable when watching the money being destroyed than when watching the other videos.

Why wasn't the inferior parietal lobule, the final part of the so-called left hemisphere tool network, activated? Perhaps because activity here is associated with specific motor skills and hand movements involved in tool use, and the use of money isn't dependent on any particular skilled movements.

The researchers' interpretation of their finding is that the videos showing the cutting and tearing of money prompted participants to focus on the usual function of money as a tool for representing the value of goods and services. '... [T]he fact that the brain does treat money as a tool for tracking exchange on a precise scale suggests that a tool explanation of money is more than just a useful metaphor,' they said.

An alternative explanation for the results is simply that the extra activation during the destructive clips was caused by the emotional effect of seeing money destroyed, in line with the participants' subjective accounts of how they felt. But Becchio and her team doubt this is the true cause of their results - they found no activation in brain regions usually associated with financial loss and there were no correlations between levels of brain activity and the arousal and comfort ratings.

The KLF were unavailable for comment.
_________________________________

Becchio, C., Skewes, J., Lund, T., Frith, U., Frith, C., and Roepstorff, A. (2011). How the brain responds to the destruction of money. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 4 (1), 1-10 DOI: 10.1037/a0022835

*Prior agreement for this was obtained from the Danske Bank of Denmark, to whom damaged notes were returned after the study was completed.

You have read this article Brain / Cognition with the title . You can bookmark this page URL http://psychiatryfun.blogspot.com/2011/04/psychologists-destroy-money-for-sake-of.html. Thanks!

Why you should fill your rooms with rounded, curvy furniture

The principle of Feng shui - to arrange rooms and buildings in ways that are pleasing and health-giving - has popular appeal. Unfortunately, Feng shui's scientific credentials are lacking, being based as it is on the ancient Chinese concept of Ch'i or life-force. The good news is that psychologically informed, evidence-based design is on the increase. Consider this new study by Sibel Dazkir and Marilyn Read, which has compared the effects of curvilinear (rounded) and rectilinear (straight-edged) furniture on people's emotions.

Over one-hundred undergrad participants viewed four computer-generated room interiors via an online survey, and provided ratings about how each one made them feel in terms of pleasure (e.g. how happy, hopeful) and approach (how much time they'd like to spend in the room; how sociable the room made them feel). Two of the rooms contained curvy, rounded furniture arranged in two different ways, whilst in the other two rooms all the furniture had straight edges and sharp angles, arranged in the same two different formations. To control for other influences, the rooms were in grey-scale and devoid of any patterned decor or artwork.

Overall, the students rated the rooms negatively because they found them boring - no surprise given their simplistic form and lack of colour. Crucially, however, the two room versions full of curvilinear furniture provoked significantly higher pleasure and approach ratings from the students. In open-ended questions afterwards the students made comments like 'I like the rounded shapes. They make the furniture look comfortable and inviting.' Another said: 'The rounded furniture seems to give off that calming feel.'

Obviously this is just a preliminary result - future research needs to test cross-cultural samples, check whether the effects apply when people actually enter rooms furnished in these different ways, and check whether or not influences of colour and patterns drown out the effects of furniture shape. It's also worth considering whether rectilinear-themed rooms may have their own benefits for purposes other than relaxing and socialising. In the meantime, the researchers said their results 'can guide designers to design more welcoming and pleasant environments with the use of curvilinear lines in their designs.'
_________________________________

Dazkir, S. and Read, M. (2011). Furniture Forms and Their Influence on Our Emotional Responses Toward Interior Environments. Environment and Behavior DOI: 10.1177/0013916511402063. Image is taken from the paper. 

You have read this article environmental with the title . You can bookmark this page URL http://psychiatryfun.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-you-should-fill-your-rooms-with.html. Thanks!