Specific maternal brain responses to their own child’s face: An fMRI meta-analysis
Paola Rigo et al. Developmental Review, Volume 51, March 2019, Pages 58-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.001
Highlights
• Own child activates the left hemisphere more than the right hemisphere in mothers.
• Own child activates the left VLPFC, insula, amygdala, bilateral striatum and midbrain.
• These brain regions underlie maternal motivation, salience and emotion processing.
Abstract: How special is her own child to a mother? Research that has focused on mothers’ brain responses to their own child has revealed the involvement of multiple subcortical and cortical brain regions, but less is known about which brain regions are systematically activated across these studies. This meta-analysis aims to identify specific neural regions associated with “own child” compared to “other child”. To ensure the consistency of the types of child stimuli across studies, the analysis focused on studies using neutral to positive visual stimuli of own and other children. Viewing their own child is associated with enhanced cerebral activation in cortical and subcortical regions including the midbrain, amygdala, striatum, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and insula. These regions are involved in reward and maternal motivation and promoting approach behavior as well as caregiving. Interestingly, own child faces activate regions in the left hemisphere more than in the right hemisphere in mothers. The current results may support the better understanding of deviation from expected maternal brain responses to own child, which could further inform neurological markers for innovative parental screening and intervention.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on research productivity measured by citations, journal ranking, & journal impact factor; attractiveness is important even in the absence of face-to-face interactions
Fidrmuc, Jan and Boontarika Paphawasit. “Beautiful Minds : Physical Attractiveness and Research Productivity in Economics.” (2018).https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Beautiful-Minds-%3A-Physical-Attractiveness-and-in-Fidrmuc-Paphawasit/37191c89e4cef72d32edf892b317258bee5412df
Abstract: This study examines the impact of physical attractiveness of on productivity. Previous literature found a strong impact on wages and career progression, which can be either due to discrimination in favour of good-looking people or can reflect an association between attractiveness and productivity. We utilize a context where there is no or limited face-to-face interaction, academic publishing, so that scope for beauty-based discrimination should be limited. Using data on 2,800 authors who published their papers in 16 economics journals in 2012, we find a significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on research productivity measured by citations, journal ranking, and journal impact factor. Other strong predictors of productivity are team size (positive effect on productivity) and work tenure (negative effect). These results are obtained with both OLS and quantile regression. Our results suggest that physical attractiveness has important benefits even in the absence of face-to-face interactions.
Abstract: This study examines the impact of physical attractiveness of on productivity. Previous literature found a strong impact on wages and career progression, which can be either due to discrimination in favour of good-looking people or can reflect an association between attractiveness and productivity. We utilize a context where there is no or limited face-to-face interaction, academic publishing, so that scope for beauty-based discrimination should be limited. Using data on 2,800 authors who published their papers in 16 economics journals in 2012, we find a significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on research productivity measured by citations, journal ranking, and journal impact factor. Other strong predictors of productivity are team size (positive effect on productivity) and work tenure (negative effect). These results are obtained with both OLS and quantile regression. Our results suggest that physical attractiveness has important benefits even in the absence of face-to-face interactions.
False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories
Gruener, Sven. 2019. “Evidence on Internet-based False News Stories and Attitudes Towards Redesigning the Information Ecosystem.” SocArXiv. January 26. doi:10.31235/osf.io/xbez
Abstract: The Internet significantly reduced the marginal costs of generating and disseminating information. With false news stories in mind, some scholars call for a redesign of our information ecosystem. This is important because functioning democracy requires well-informed individuals. The paper addresses the problem awareness of university students about false news stories with the help of a questionnaire. Our study is exploratory. Thus, we seek for interesting correlations and generate hypotheses that can be analyzed in further studies with new data. They read as follows: (i) Facebook users are more likely to be suspicious of false news stories if they are interested in political topics. People are less likely to detect false news stories the stronger they trust in others and the more emphasis they put on the opinions of others. (ii) False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level. (iii) Men more often than women believe to be in touch with false news stories; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories. People who fear false news stories are likely to believe that they could detect such news better than the average. (iv) People see operators of platforms to be responsible against false news stories; people seem to trust less in government.
Abstract: The Internet significantly reduced the marginal costs of generating and disseminating information. With false news stories in mind, some scholars call for a redesign of our information ecosystem. This is important because functioning democracy requires well-informed individuals. The paper addresses the problem awareness of university students about false news stories with the help of a questionnaire. Our study is exploratory. Thus, we seek for interesting correlations and generate hypotheses that can be analyzed in further studies with new data. They read as follows: (i) Facebook users are more likely to be suspicious of false news stories if they are interested in political topics. People are less likely to detect false news stories the stronger they trust in others and the more emphasis they put on the opinions of others. (ii) False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level. (iii) Men more often than women believe to be in touch with false news stories; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories. People who fear false news stories are likely to believe that they could detect such news better than the average. (iv) People see operators of platforms to be responsible against false news stories; people seem to trust less in government.
Is the InterNet killing cultural expression? Seems not.
Is the InterNet killing the movies industry? Do we see progress in
economics but at the same time is cultural expression decaying? Actually, it seems we are doing well:
Growth of US origin features, 2000-2016, as shows by queries to the IMDb. Fig 3.1 [1]
Check also Record Number of Films Produced [2].
Data from UNESCO database shows what the production of quality film was in previous years (I take documentaries as a measure of quality films) [3]. Number of documentary feature films in the UK at the same time the InterNet explodes and cheap cameras make their appearance:
2005 2
2007 9
2008 62
2009 58
2010 55
2011 56
2012 73
2013 44
2014 85
2015 79
To compare, these are the fictional feature films in the UK, according to the same DB:
2005 162
2007 112
2008 215
2009 248
2010 285
2011 239
2012 249
2013 197
2014 253
2015 213
Is greater production worse? Or better? A way to measure quality of all movies, regardless of genre, is Rotten Tomatoes [4]. These are the movies scoring 84+, 1998-2016 (Fig 3.4 [1]):
References
[1] Joel Waldfogel's Digital Reinassance. Princeton: Princeton Univ Press, 2018.
[2] UNESCO, Mar 31 2016, http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/record-number-films-produced
[3] UNESCO data, accessed Jan 2018: data.uis.unesco.org
[4] www.rottentomatoes.com/top
Growth of US origin features, 2000-2016, as shows by queries to the IMDb. Fig 3.1 [1]
Check also Record Number of Films Produced [2].
Data from UNESCO database shows what the production of quality film was in previous years (I take documentaries as a measure of quality films) [3]. Number of documentary feature films in the UK at the same time the InterNet explodes and cheap cameras make their appearance:
2005 2
2007 9
2008 62
2009 58
2010 55
2011 56
2012 73
2013 44
2014 85
2015 79
To compare, these are the fictional feature films in the UK, according to the same DB:
2005 162
2007 112
2008 215
2009 248
2010 285
2011 239
2012 249
2013 197
2014 253
2015 213
Is greater production worse? Or better? A way to measure quality of all movies, regardless of genre, is Rotten Tomatoes [4]. These are the movies scoring 84+, 1998-2016 (Fig 3.4 [1]):
References
[1] Joel Waldfogel's Digital Reinassance. Princeton: Princeton Univ Press, 2018.
[2] UNESCO, Mar 31 2016, http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/record-number-films-produced
[3] UNESCO data, accessed Jan 2018: data.uis.unesco.org
[4] www.rottentomatoes.com/top