Lie to Me - Facial Recognition and Emotion Detection

Do you have trouble reading others' emotions? Can you not see into their soul through their eyes. Well worry no more. Lie to Me, based on the fundamental work of Paul Eckman, recognizes facial expressions and emotions and even tells you whether the emotion on the face matches their emotion that their feeling with over 50% accuracy. This technology will revolutionize the business world, the dating scene and everything in between. Don't get lost in emotions again and dare people to Lie to Me.


Disclaimer: This is a work of satire. In the tradition of A Prairie Home Companion, this ad, among others, will form the backbone of the underwriting and sponsorship of my podcast.

PC - Pocket Computer

PC you ask, personal computer? No one uses those any more with phones, phablets, tablets, 2 in 1s, and laptop. Well, the pocket computer is all of those and none of those. Its an AI in your pocket and in your ear. Pocket computer is constantly listening and remembering. "Do you remember what we're doing on Friday?" You don't, but PC does and it lets you know instantaneously! Do you need help speaking with someone in another language, PC translates their speech and tells you how to speak back to them! Who needs a brain in your head, when you have one in your pocket, the PC, pocket computer.

Disclaimer: This is a work of satire. In the tradition of A Prairie Home Companion, this ad, among others, will form the backbone of the underwriting and sponsorship of my podcast.

Dopa-MINE

Do you feel down or maybe blue, then this drug is for you. Don't waste your time with traditional anti-depressants, because this isn't one. This the the happy pill for everyone, everyday. Think of your happiest moments in life. How often do they occur? Every few weeks, months, maybe years. Well take those times and make them everyday. Targeting your brain's hedonic and eudaimonic networks, out pill makes everyday a happy day.

Disclaimer: This is a work of satire. In the tradition of A Prairie Home Companion, this ad, among others, will form the backbone of the underwriting and sponsorship of my podcast.

Viral and Translational Neuroscience

As my classes work continues to be shared across the internet we have to ponder what we've done. What is the role of science communication? Are we making something that is both entertaining and educational or are we losing one at the cost of the other? In the few days since we started sharing our posts the videos, infographics and buzzfeed materials have been accessed and shared hundreds of times. Probably our biggest lesson is that these creations are not static, on part of our job as scientists and creators is to continue to interact with those who consume our "viral" infotainment. Below are questions that students are considering as their work continues to be shared.

Do you think that you’ve accurately translated your research for the public? Is there any nuance that was left out or glossed over? In the process of translation, what was easy for you and what was difficult for you?

Did you include citations like you would in a research article or did you link to the research or did you leave off citations completely? Do you think there will be a difference in what is shared between how much “evidence” is included?

How much writing is a part of your project? Did you try to communicate through what you wrote, the media you incorporated or a mixture of both? Do you think the message that you tried to communicate is more easily understood through the media or what you wrote?

The most viral content in neuroscience usually is about a neuromyth (e.g., are you left- or right-brained) or attempting to explain how some part of the brain contributes to an entertaining behavior (e.g., your brain when you look at Facebook). Is your topic something that people want to share? Are we limited in what people want to learn about neuroscience?

Do you think there are any copyright issues we have to be aware of when creating these projects? Falling under the umbrella of education everything should be considered fair use, however by using sites like buzzfeed, imgur, and youtube, if we created truly viral content and sent people to these sites, I would assume they would make advertising money, is that a problem?

Considering how our brain plays a role in almost everything we do, should we require a minimal understanding of neuroscience across all fields? As we’re considering in our debates on education and law, what role does neuroscience play in your topic? Did it feel like a stretch trying to find a neuroscientific explanation?

Viral Neuroscience

This semester in Cognitive Neuroscience at Haverford College we're exploring the role of neuroscience in society. On the first day of class we participated in two experiments that had previously demonstrated that neuroscience can be seductively appealing and affect our perceptions of the quality of the explanation provided. With that as a backdrop, we then explored the history of neuroscience, in particular paying attention to a few of the major revolutions in how we understand brain functioning. These two days together tell us that our current understanding of brain functioning is tenuous and likely ready for revising once we gather more information or develop new measurement techniques. This puts neuroscientists in an odd position of explaining what we know best for now and trying to do so in as understandable or approachable way as possible.

I asked the students this semester to write a term paper on a topic of their choice within cognitive neuroscience, but for a midterm checkin to make sure that they had gathered much of their background research as early as possible, I asked them to produce viral content that took their topic and made it both entertaining and informative. Their projects took the form of Buzzfeed Quizzes, Buzzfeed Listicles, Infographics and Videos and can be found gathered on our Tumblr page. Once we get back from spring break we'll discuss the impact of our work and what it meant or did for the public. In the act of translating research to be entertaining did we lose anything? Is it the responsibility of scientists to make work approachable or the public to work to try to understand science at a high-school or college level?

Help us make neuroscience go viral by sharing our work!

Put a neuro on it!

Put a bird on it, is a sketch from Portlandia commenting on the use of something to the point of over saturation. If The Guardian newspaper is any indicator, neuro- prefixed fields and fads have reached bird trend levels. I've posted about neuroeducation (1 and 2) and written satirical ad copy about marketing (1 and 2) before, and two article about neuromarketing and neuroeducation in The Guardian show that the tides are still raising. As with many design trends, like putting a bird on it, many neuro- trends are more flash than substance. Hastily applied neuroscience used to distract lay audiences does nothing to help further the abilities of real scientists attempting to bridge neuroscience with other fields.

Two quotes, one from each article, summarize the issues of these neuro- (mis)applications:

"Much of commercial neuromarketing EEG uses cheap kit, in poorly controlled, poorly designed experiments, that often produces junk data."

"No one should be looking to neuroscience to provide quick fixes or shortcuts to effective learning..."

I'm all for combining neuroscience with other fields, but looking to do so in a way that is appropriate, measured and well-designed. If people keep trying to use colorful brains to make a quick buck, we're going to soon run into a number of problems with shoddy science meets a scientifically tested end.

 

My first experience with socialized medicine

I spent the previous year in Canada and everyone that I already knew or met asked me the same first question, "How's the healthcare?" For most of the year I couldn't say much other than that even I as a visiting American scholar was provided OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Program) after just three months of residency. Finally, as I was preparing to move I went to say goodbye to some friends and play basketball one last time.

It was the end of May and I was in the middle of training for a 25K trail race about a month away. So instead of biking to the court as I normally did, I decided to run there, with the 7.2 mile roundtrip giving me another 50 mile week. After I arrived at the court, we were down a few players from normal but luckily there was a man who had brought his sons to the park and was interested in playing with his. Vlado and I teamed up in a two on two game against my friends and everything was going well. Vlado seemed to warm up quickly and was a much better player than I first assumed. About 20 minutes into our first, and only game, disaster struck as I drove for a layup and came down on my defender's foot, twisting my right ankle hard to the outside. In immediate pain, I stumbled around, tried to lay down and put my foot up, and then watched as my ankle quickly swelled and started to spill over my running shoes.

At that point Vlado, the man that we had met just 20 minutes earlier offered to give me a ride to the hospital. Within minutes he left his sons in the care of my friends and had me in the front seat of his car going towards the hospital. However, he didn't really know where the hospital was. We were driving from an elementary school in the Junction towards the east, but neither of us really knew where a hospital was, so we started to ask people on the sidewalks before being directed to Toronto Western near downtown. A few minutes later Vlado was pulling up to a turn around and dropping me off with cash to take a cab ride home. I couldn't believe the kindness and generosity of this almost stranger.

As he left, I began to limp towards the emergency room. About 5 minutes of limping later I was in the emergency room and just two minutes after that I was checked in. Over the next four hours, between bouts of waiting, I had an X-Ray, spoke to a doctor and was released with instructions of how to treat want turned out to be a severely sprained ankle. In those four hours I wasn't thinking about how long it was taking or the fact that I was receiving government subsidized healthcare, I was impressed by the fact that over 30 other people with a range of maladies on one Sunday afternoon in a 4 hour window were receiving government subsidized healthcare. Overall, it was a great experience and definitely showed me the benefits of socialized healthcare.