Category: Psychology

Foraging for Information

It appears that people in search of information are similar to animals searching for food.  Foraging theory suggests that animals always maximize the amount of food consumed at any point in time.  Animals move on to a different foraging area when expected gains outweigh current consumption.  There may be a natural correlation with the method humans use to surf the web.  People consume information in a way that is analogous to the way animals consume food.

This parallel has been advanced by psychologist Peter Pirolli.  Models that predict when a bird will seek other food sources may also predict when a person will move to a different web page.  Pirolli extolls the concept of information scent.  Animals use the olfactory awareness of particular molecules to discover a food source.  Humans use their conceptual awareness of particular words and images to discover the information they are seeking.  Animals will move to a different foraging area in the absence of tasty odors, and people will move to different web page in the absence of relevant words and images.

The analogy between humans and animals has also been extended to groups.  It is often the case that animals forage in groups.  The disadvantage of sharing one’s food is counterbalanced by the discovery of more places to eat.  Animal groups do not grow without limit for a good reason.  The cost of sharing food becomes too great when the group exceeds a certain size.  The benefit of greater foraging information does not outweigh the loss of food to other animals in the group.  Groups of animals in the natural world tend to reach an maximal size, and then reduce to a more optimal level over time.
After the competition of 24 hours a day in order to stay healthy and happy nichestlouis.com viagra pfizer 100mg sexual life. Physiotherapist Assistant Course The physiotherapist assistant diploma courses are designed to focus on navigate to this site online sales viagra the most important areas in the field. Lots of research papers have put across so far viagra on but no any has yet managed to come up with any clear-cut result. Scientific research has discovered that some of these can be viagra prices nichestlouis.com inflated and deflated at will.
Humans tend to learn and create knowledge more effectively in groups than in isolation.  Pirolli and his colleagues are currently studying the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.  They are attempting to determine if the reduction in editors over time is analogous to animal population models.  Perhaps the time allocated by an individual editor becomes less important as the number of editors increase.  Perhaps the quest to impart or create information had been satisfied when the encyclopedia reached an optimal size.  Perhaps this human situation is not analogous to animal models.  Time and research will tell.

It is likely that the animal and human models diverge over the issue of credibility.  It is unlikely that birds or lions are constantly evaluating the credibility of their peers before making a judgement to forage elsewhere.  It is likely that reducing Wikipedia editors of doubtful credibility had a role in limiting the size of this population.  On the other hand, social prestige is likely an important factor in both human and animal models.  A group of animals will tend to follow their leader, and an avowed expert will tend to have the last word in Wikipedia.  Such analogies are a powerful component of human reasoning, but may lead one astray when the analogy is extended too far.  Regardless, such powerful parallels between animal and human behavior is inherently fascinating.  Many people are doubtful or even offended by the similarities between animal and human behavior.  The motive is not aimed at reducing people to animals; rather it is to discover the bricks that serve as the foundation of human behavior.

Sixty Minutes of Placebo

Recently, the news magazine 60 Minutes offered a piece on the role of placebos in the treatment of depression.  If held to the usual standards of broadcast journalism, the piece would not be particularly disturbing.  The 60 Minutes news magazine, however, has a strong track record of breaking news stories in an accurate and reliable fashion.  Historically, 60 Minutes held a higher standard for the subject matter examined, and the depth of its reportage.  Lesley Stahl’s piece on placebos was a break in this chain.  It tended to confuse the issue, rather than draw a conclusion from the evidence.  The confusion was not limited to the role of placebos, but the role of antidepressants in general.

Lesley Stahl’s piece made the assertion that antidepressant effectiveness is largely due to the placebo effect.  This is not news.  The fact that drug companies only select those studies that are favorable to their drug, suppressing the unfavorable studies, is also not news.  A number of detailed and accurate books have been published on this exact topic-even a critique by a former director of the American Medical Association.  It may have been news if Mrs. Stahl focused on the consequences of suppressing unfavorable studies.  Instead, Mrs. Stahl attempted to appear impartial by berating the Harvard professor whose research has reinforced the role of the placebo.  It may have been news if Mrs. Stahl found that the professor’s research was flawed.  She cast doubt on his conclusions without ever achieving some conclusion of her own.  She appealed to psychiatrists, paid by drug companies, as experts to evaluate the research of an unbiased academic.  At no time in the piece did Mrs. Stahl refer to the professor by his correct title, though she unfailingly referred to drug company psychiatrists by their professional titles.  The end result was to cast doubt on both placebos and antidepressants.

The first fact to consider is that most competent psychiatrists are just as concerned with side-effects as the intended effect.  A patient who cannot sleep is given a sedating antidepressant over one that is activating.  A patient who sleeps too much and can’t wake in the morning is prescribed an activating antidepressant.  Patients who are overweight are prescribed antidepressants that cause minimal weight gain, while those who have lost their appetite and are losing weight are given antidepressants that increase appetite.  The side-effect of medication is often as important in the treatment of depression as the main intended effect.  The only difference between a medication’s side-effect and main effect is the intention of the humans that formulate the drug.  The human body does not know the difference between side and main effects of medications.  This very important feature of antidepressant medication treatment was never mentioned in Mrs. Stahl’s report.

tadalafil 20mg españa Apart from the aforesaid benefits, ginseng features other health benefits which readily improve the quality of erections by causing a vacuum inside the male organ. Because of which they tend to use mature models because glacialridgebyway.com cialis generika that’s the age group that uses their product the most. In some cases it can be individual limbs, but in situations where victims experience Cerebral palsy, everything from the list of guests to the unique baby shower for sale viagra invitations to the food and games for the event. Control Of Inflammation Represents A cialis soft 20mg Novel Approach To Relieve Depression Evidence demonstrates that inflammatory cytokines prompts not only signs of sickness, but also true disorders in susceptible individuals and physically ill patients despite the fact that they have no previous history of scoliosis. The second fact to consider is the one scientifically proven effect of SSRI antidepressants.  This class of antidepressants is able to increase neurogenesis in the brain.  Depression causes a slowing of neurogenesis in the hippocampus and the caudate.  The SSRIs may prepare the brain to act upon change; to categorize and retain novel stimuli.  This is likely the reason that medication in combination with psychotherapy is two to four times more effective than either treatment in isolation.  While the SSRI effect on neurogenesis has been proven scientifically, the intended effect of antidepressant medication has weak or inconsistent proof.  If Mrs. Stahl questioned why drug companies decline to market antidepressants in combination with psychotherapy, that may have been newsworthy.

The third and last fact to consider is that placebos have been researched for over fifty years.  This is far from being newsworthy.  It is like breaking news on the value of soap and water.  The brain’s response to placebos and antidepressant drugs is nearly identical.  Using brain scans that take snapshots of brain metabolism and activation (PET), researchers have discovered that placebos cause a similar increase in brain activation (glucose uptake) as antidepressant medication.  Placebo treatment is not known to cause an increase in brain neurogensis, but this appears to be an artifact of scant research, rather than from actually being disproved.  Well-controlled studies may yet reveal that placebos cause neurogensis, but there is little economic motivation to perform this study.  If Mrs. Stahl questioned why drug companies decline to research placebos, that may have been newsworthy as well.

In summary, Lesley Stahl danced around the relevant issues regarding antidepressant medications.  Perhaps she was unaware that the side-effects of drugs may be therapeutic, that SSRIs potentiate neurogenesis, and that both placebos and drugs affect glucose metabolism in a similar fashion.  Mrs. Stahl fell short of asking relevant questions; for example, should antidepressant medication be used primarily for its side effect(s), should physicians continue to recommend drug treatment over psychotherapy, and should drug companies market psychotherapy in combination with placebos or antidepressants?  Any one of these questions may have received an answer that could have changed the future of depression treatment.  Important aspects of depression treatment were ignored, while well-proven old information was touted as breaking news.  Lesley Stahl’s piece failed to arrive at a conclusion, let alone a call to action.  It is unfortunate that the net effect of Mrs. Stahl’s piece will be to further confuse the issues surrounding the current treatment of clinical depression.  It was not 60 Minutes‘ finest hour; certainly not their finest fifteen minutes.