Wait a minute - I'm a liberal and I took an executive function test a lot like that only more complex and got a lousy 108 on it.
And how is being more responsive to a new signal a brain DEFECT? Pat, needs to study to become an idiot savant. http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ ______________________________ "Car title loans get you back on your feet again." >From: William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <brin-l@mccmedia.com> >To: Brin-L <brin-l@mccmedia.com> >Subject: Political affiliation could be all in the brain >Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:54:40 +0100 > >My hunch that political faith is due to a brain defect similar to >that which causes religious faith seems to have got evidence backing it. > > > >http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12614&feedId=online- >news_rss20 > > >"A brain scan might one day predict your voting patterns. That is the >implication of a study that found different brain activity among >liberals and conservatives asked to carry out a simple button-pushing >test. The study implies that our political diversity may be the >result of neurological differences. >Researchers have long known that conservatives and liberals score >differently in psychological profiling tests. Now they are beginning >to gather evidence about why this might be. David Amodio of New York >University, US, and his colleagues recruited 43 subjects for their test. > >They asked the participants to rate their political persuasion on a >scale of -5 to 5, with the lowest number representing the most >liberal extreme and the highest number representing the most >conservative score. > >The participants then had to sit before a computer screen and press >one of two buttons depending on whether they saw an "M" or a "W". >They had half a second to make each response, so there was a great >deal of pressure to react quickly. > >Surprising stimulus > >Out of the 500 trials that each subject completed, he or she was >presented with the same letter 80% of the time. This meant that the >participants felt compelled to press the same button repeatedly. > >"You keep seeing the same stimulus over and over, so when the >opposite stimulus comes on it's always a surprise," says Amodio. > >When the less common letter did appear on the screen, the people who >identified themselves as more conservative (rating themselves >somewhere between 1 and 5 on the initial questionnaire) pressed the >"usual" button 47% of the time instead of switching to the correct >button. > >By comparison, the "liberals" who placed themselves between -5 and -1 >on the questionnaire responded more readily to the new signal and >achieved the slightly lower error rate of 37%. > >Brain recordings taken using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology >showed that liberals had twice as much activity in a deep region >called the anterior cingulate cortex. This area of the brain is >thought to act as a mental brake by helping the mind recognize "no- >go" situations where it must refrain from the usual course of action. > >Voting prediction > >The new findings are "interesting and provocative" because they could >perhaps help enable researchers to predict a person's voting >behaviour based on brain scans, says Jordan Grafman, chief of the >cognitive neuroscience section at National Institute of Neurological >Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, US. > >Amodio explains that the fact that liberals achieved higher accuracy >on the button-pressing task does not make them "better" than >conservatives. "There might be other tasks or situations where a less >sensitive or more persistent response might be more adaptive," such >as when new stimuli are distracting, he says. > >He also speculates that differences in brain responses might >contribute to differences in political views or vice versa. > >"Conservatives tend to say that liberals spend too much time thinking >and not enough time acting," comments Matt Newman at Arizona State >University in Phoenix, Arizona, US. But "it would be a leap if >researchers claim that there is an underlying biological difference >that leads you to a particular political orientation." > >He adds, however, that the new finding that conservatives stick with >habit is still interesting given that previous studies have found >they are more likely to resist change than their liberal counterparts >(Psychological Bulletin, DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339). > >Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1038/nn1979)" > >-- >William T Goodall >Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk >Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ > >I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great >evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. - >Richard Dawkins > > > >_______________________________________________ >http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
