Re: [tips] "Observed & experiential integration therapy"

[Michael Smith]

I think this is the same as one eye integration therapy that was
talked about a little on TIPS before.

I think it's a one-eyed version of Eye Movement Desensitization and
Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy.

The website of two major players is found here:
https://www.sightpsych.com/

--Mike

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 5:23 PM,   wrote:
> On 1 Jan 2011 at 15:53, don allen wrote:
>
>>
>> Second: I just had a call from a psychiatrist friend of mine who is
>> doing an Independent Medical Exam (IME) on a patient who is claiming
>> severe post traumatic stress disorder. The patient is being "treated"
>> by Dr. Paul Swingle (http://www.swingleandassociates.com/)using
>> "Observed & Experiential Integration Therapy". A search of
>> PsychAbstracts turned up no useful hits in the literature.
> 
>
>> So my questions are:
>>
>> Has anyone else heard about this "therapy"?
>> Does it have any standing within the clinical community?
>
> A number of years ago I was asked by a former student to look into
> another therapy carried out by Dr. Swingle, neurofeedback or
> neurotherapy for the alleged hyperactivity (ADD) of my student's
> daughter. It took a supreme effort to locate my reply, which turned
> out to have been sent in 2000.
>
> According to my letter, Dr. Swingle is a former academic psychologist
> (at McMaster, as it happens, when I was a graduate student there)
> whose specialty was social psychology, in particular, game theory. He
> published a number of articles in this field in the 1960's, then
> nothing for about the next 30 years. Then he published a paper
> "Neurofeedback treatment of pseudoseizure disorder (Biological
> Psychiatry, 1998). The paper was a report of three cases of
> "pseudoseizure activity" in which he was able to modify some index of
> their brain activity, with little evidence that this helped their
> seizures. He noted "Due to the rare nature of this disorder, however,
> control groups are difficult to obtain, which in turn limits the
> extent of these findings".
>
> I felt that if this was his best evidence for neurofeedback therapy
> for ADD, it was not impressive. Nor did I find evidence published by
> other authors advocating neurotherapy to be any more convincing. In
> addition, I had reservations concerning the use of brainwaves as a
> means of diagnosing the ADD of my student's daughter's in the first
> place, a method which seemed unorthodox and insufficiently validated.
>
> I suggested to my student that she should be extremely cautious in
> accepting the claims of this controversial therapy. A glance at Dr.
> Swingle's web page  suggests that he continues to be a advocate of
> neurofeedback for a variety of conditions, and  "Observed and
> Experiential Integration Therapy" is likely the same stuff or
> similar. Perhaps he has managed to obtain better evidence since I
> last looked at the matter.
>
> Stephen
>
> 
> Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
> Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
> Bishop's University
> Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
> e-mail:  sblack at
> ubishops.ca
> -
>
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-- 
-- Mike

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.
(Hemingway)

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Re: [tips] "Observed & experiential integration therapy"

[don allen]

Thanks Stephen & Scott!

I strongly suspected that this was psychobabble and this information makes me 
even more convinced that this is the case.

Once again, TIPS proves to be an invaluable resource.

Many thanks!

-Don.

- Original Message -
From: sbl...@ubishops.ca
Date: Sunday, January 2, 2011 3:23 pm
Subject: Re: [tips] "Observed & experiential integration therapy"
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 

> On 1 Jan 2011 at 15:53, don allen wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Second: I just had a call from a psychiatrist friend of mine 
> who is 
> > doing an Independent Medical Exam (IME) on a patient who is 
> claiming 
> > severe post traumatic stress disorder. The patient is being 
> "treated" 
> > by Dr. Paul Swingle 
> (http://www.swingleandassociates.com/)using 
> > "Observed & Experiential Integration Therapy". A search of 
> > PsychAbstracts turned up no useful hits in the literature. 
> 
> 
> > So my questions are:
> > 
> > Has anyone else heard about this "therapy"?
> > Does it have any standing within the clinical community?
> 
> A number of years ago I was asked by a former student to look 
> into 
> another therapy carried out by Dr. Swingle, neurofeedback or 
> neurotherapy for the alleged hyperactivity (ADD) of my student's 
> daughter. It took a supreme effort to locate my reply, which 
> turned 
> out to have been sent in 2000.
> 
> According to my letter, Dr. Swingle is a former academic 
> psychologist 
> (at McMaster, as it happens, when I was a graduate student 
> there) 
> whose specialty was social psychology, in particular, game 
> theory. He 
> published a number of articles in this field in the 1960's, then 
> nothing for about the next 30 years. Then he published a paper 
> "Neurofeedback treatment of pseudoseizure disorder (Biological 
> Psychiatry, 1998). The paper was a report of three cases of 
> "pseudoseizure activity" in which he was able to modify some 
> index of 
> their brain activity, with little evidence that this helped 
> their 
> seizures. He noted "Due to the rare nature of this disorder, 
> however, 
> control groups are difficult to obtain, which in turn limits the 
> extent of these findings". 
> 
> I felt that if this was his best evidence for neurofeedback 
> therapy 
> for ADD, it was not impressive. Nor did I find evidence 
> published by 
> other authors advocating neurotherapy to be any more convincing. 
> In 
> addition, I had reservations concerning the use of brainwaves as 
> a 
> means of diagnosing the ADD of my student's daughter's in the 
> first 
> place, a method which seemed unorthodox and insufficiently validated.
> 
> I suggested to my student that she should be extremely cautious 
> in 
> accepting the claims of this controversial therapy. A glance at 
> Dr. 
> Swingle's web page  suggests that he continues to be a 
> advocate of 
> neurofeedback for a variety of conditions, and  "Observed 
> and 
> Experiential Integration Therapy" is likely the same stuff or 
> similar. Perhaps he has managed to obtain better evidence since 
> I 
> last looked at the matter.
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> Stephen L. Black, 
> Ph.D.  
> Professor of Psychology, Emeritus   
> Bishop's University
> Sherbrooke, Quebec, 
> Canada   
> e-mail:  sblack at 
> ubishops.ca
> -
> 
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to tips as: dap...@shaw.ca.
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Don Allen
Retired professor
Langara College



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[tips] The popularity of Fox News

[Michael Britt]

Like all of us I usually try to avoid politics, but...

So there I was strolling through Barnes and Noble looking for something 
interesting.  For some reason B&N is giving Glenn Beck's books front row 
exposure - I assume this is because his books sell. The other day I was 
watching a YouTube video in which Richard Dawkins was being interviewed by Bill 
O'Reilly.  Now, I'm no atheist, and O'Reilly seems to be a reasonably 
intelligent man, but O'Reilly's sheer arrogance and the illogic in what he was 
saying was astounding.  No wonder Dawkins won't give any more interviews.  I 
don't blame him.  Now, admittedly, I don't watch Fox News - I just catch 
glimpses of it here and there (mostly from the Daily Show, so take that for 
what it's worth) - but if arrogance is personified by O'Reilly, then 
self-rightousness is owned by Chris Wallace.

I've also always wondered why the National Inquirer existed, but I assumed it 
was because even some though people read it they probably didn't take it all 
seriously and maybe it was good for a laugh now and then and perhaps, just 
perhaps, there was an occasional "truth nugget" to be found somewhere in those 
pages.  In any case, I didn't see it as too dangerous.

Fox News, on the other hand, is hard to ignore and to pass off as not 
dangerous.  So what's the appeal?  Here's my guess: we live in an age where 
congress seems incapable of accomplishing anything, where government officials 
don't tell the truth and are less than respectable individuals, and where 
corporations regularly obfuscate, where things are just plain complicated, and 
where critical thinking just isn't one of our strengths, so why not turn to 
people (i.e., Fox News) who seem to be so darn sure of themselves?  Confidence 
is an attractive personal quality, so I'll throw that in the mix.  I'll bet 
Cialdini would have a lot to say about this.

While I would still like journalists to be "objective" or "neutral" or whatever 
we want to call it, maybe our times call for a different approach. 

Michael A. Britt, Ph.D.
mich...@thepsychfiles.com
http://www.ThePsychFiles.com
Twitter: mbritt






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[tips] Beethoven (or Mozart) reincarnated

[roig-reardon]

Speaking of people with amazing abilities, c heck out this kid: 



Bluejay: the mind of a child prodigy: 
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7186319n . 



Miguel 



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RE: [tips] "Observed & experiential integration therapy"

[Lilienfeld, Scott O]

Re: neurofeedback for ADHD and related conditions: Although now a bit dated, my 
distinct impression is that the basic conclusions of this review still stand:

http://www.srmhp.org/archives/neurotherapy.html

...Scott

According to my letter, Dr. Swingle is a former academic psychologist
(at McMaster, as it happens, when I was a graduate student there)
whose specialty was social psychology, in particular, game theory. He
published a number of articles in this field in the 1960's, then
nothing for about the next 30 years. Then he published a paper
"Neurofeedback treatment of pseudoseizure disorder (Biological
Psychiatry, 1998). The paper was a report of three cases of
"pseudoseizure activity" in which he was able to modify some index of
their brain activity, with little evidence that this helped their
seizures. He noted "Due to the rare nature of this disorder, however,
control groups are difficult to obtain, which in turn limits the
extent of these findings".

I felt that if this was his best evidence for neurofeedback therapy
for ADD, it was not impressive. Nor did I find evidence published by
other authors advocating neurotherapy to be any more convincing. In
addition, I had reservations concerning the use of brainwaves as a
means of diagnosing the ADD of my student's daughter's in the first
place, a method which seemed unorthodox and insufficiently validated.

I suggested to my student that she should be extremely cautious in
accepting the claims of this controversial therapy. A glance at Dr.
Swingle's web page  suggests that he continues to be a advocate of
neurofeedback for a variety of conditions, and  "Observed and
Experiential Integration Therapy" is likely the same stuff or
similar. Perhaps he has managed to obtain better evidence since I
last looked at the matter.

Stephen


Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
e-mail:  sblack at
ubishops.ca
-

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Re: [tips] "Observed & experiential integration therapy"

[sblack]

On 1 Jan 2011 at 15:53, don allen wrote:

> 
> Second: I just had a call from a psychiatrist friend of mine who is 
> doing an Independent Medical Exam (IME) on a patient who is claiming 
> severe post traumatic stress disorder. The patient is being "treated" 
> by Dr. Paul Swingle (http://www.swingleandassociates.com/)using 
> "Observed & Experiential Integration Therapy". A search of 
> PsychAbstracts turned up no useful hits in the literature. 


> So my questions are:
> 
> Has anyone else heard about this "therapy"?
> Does it have any standing within the clinical community?

A number of years ago I was asked by a former student to look into 
another therapy carried out by Dr. Swingle, neurofeedback or 
neurotherapy for the alleged hyperactivity (ADD) of my student's 
daughter. It took a supreme effort to locate my reply, which turned 
out to have been sent in 2000.

According to my letter, Dr. Swingle is a former academic psychologist 
(at McMaster, as it happens, when I was a graduate student there) 
whose specialty was social psychology, in particular, game theory. He 
published a number of articles in this field in the 1960's, then 
nothing for about the next 30 years. Then he published a paper 
"Neurofeedback treatment of pseudoseizure disorder (Biological 
Psychiatry, 1998). The paper was a report of three cases of 
"pseudoseizure activity" in which he was able to modify some index of 
their brain activity, with little evidence that this helped their 
seizures. He noted "Due to the rare nature of this disorder, however, 
control groups are difficult to obtain, which in turn limits the 
extent of these findings". 

I felt that if this was his best evidence for neurofeedback therapy 
for ADD, it was not impressive. Nor did I find evidence published by 
other authors advocating neurotherapy to be any more convincing. In 
addition, I had reservations concerning the use of brainwaves as a 
means of diagnosing the ADD of my student's daughter's in the first 
place, a method which seemed unorthodox and insufficiently validated.

I suggested to my student that she should be extremely cautious in 
accepting the claims of this controversial therapy. A glance at Dr. 
Swingle's web page  suggests that he continues to be a advocate of 
neurofeedback for a variety of conditions, and  "Observed and 
Experiential Integration Therapy" is likely the same stuff or 
similar. Perhaps he has managed to obtain better evidence since I 
last looked at the matter.

Stephen


Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.  
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus   
Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada   
e-mail:  sblack at 
ubishops.ca
-

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Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Mike Palij]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:07:33 -0800, Michael Sylvester wrote:
>There was an interview with one subject who is blind.In this regard.I contend 
>that there s a lack of proactive and retoractive interference in those people 
>lives.In fact there may be more of proactive and retroactive enhancement Here 
>is something you can try in class-have one group of students listen to a 
>lecture with eyes closed.The closed eye group will remember more of the 
>lecture 
>materials.

Not if they're snoring.

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu



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Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[michael sylvester]

There was an interview with one subject who is blind.In this regard.I contend 
that there s a lack of proactive and retoractive interference in those people 
lives.In fact there may be more of proactive and retroactive enhancement Here 
is something you can try in class-have one group of students listen to a 
lecture with eyes closed.The closed eye group will remember more of the lecture 
materials.

Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
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Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[sblack]

On 2 Jan 2011 at 5:30, Allen Esterson wrote:

> Another example of this mnemonist's extraordinary abilities, from
> Luria's records:
>
> "Would you like to see me raise the temperature of my right hand and
> lower that of my left?"
> 
> "No, there's nothing to be amazed at. I saw myself put my right hand on
> a hot stove... Oi, was it hot! So, naturally, the temperature of my hand
> increased. But I was holding a piece of ice in my left hand. I could
> see it there and began to squeeze it. And, of course, my hand got
> colder..."
>

A paper just published in _Science_ takes this feat of using
imagination to produce real effects to another level. The title says
it all:

Morewedge, C. et al (2010, December 10). Thought for Food: Imagined
Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption. Science  Vol. 330 no. 6010
pp. 1530-1533

Imagining pigging out on M&M's, or on cheese, specifically reduced
consumption of M&M's and cheese, respectively. Oy, was I full!

...which in turn reminds me of this classic Jewish joke:

Old man sitting on the crowded bus starts complaining audibly every
few seconds:

Oy, am I toisty... I am _so_ toisty... I am very, very toisty... Oy,
if I only had a drink of vasser!

Irritated bystander: Here, old man, have my bottle of water! [He
drinks].

Lovely silence descends. Then...

Oy! Vas I toisty!... I vas so toisty...

Stephen


Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
e-mail:  sblack at ubishops.ca
-

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[tips] The "proven" science

[Michael Britt]

I heard it again on TV just now, "The proven science"

It's like those "proven facts".

I hate those unproven ones...


Michael A. Britt, Ph.D.
michael.br...@thepsychfiles.com
http://www.ThePsychFiles.com
Twitter: mbritt





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Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Allen Esterson]

Rick Stevens writes:
>Neisser's *Memory Observed* has a selection from
>Luria's book and a bit on a mnemonist who had a
>different, but amazingly good, memory. It makes
>an interesting contrast since the second mnemonist
>seems to have come to his abilities through (uggh!)
>practice and hard work, not some genetic abnormality.

The introductory paragraph to the chapter in question (by Earl Hunt and 
Tom Love) says that the subject VP's "performance on tests of memory 
seem to be as good as S's" (S being Luria's subject). But this is 
belied by a comparison of the results obtained in the two cases. For 
instance, the authors report that using Hebb's test of short-term 
memory and learning capacity, VP recalled correctly 18 percent of 
nonrepeating strings of 25 digits and 63% percent of repeating strings. 
This is greatly superior to the test results of controls, and justify 
the authors conclusion from all their tests that they were "dealing 
with a man with a superior memory". But S's memory feats (including 
recalling on such tests with one hundred percent accuracy many years 
late) were in a totally different category (and, of course, were for 
the most part completely spontaneous – he couldn't not remember just 
about everything that happened in his life).

I haven't looked closely at the people in the documentary cited by 
Stephen, but again their memory feats (without any deliberate efforts 
to memorise) seem to be of a different order to VP's:
http://tinyurl.com/2594p8z

In VP's case he was able to train himself to recall things that 
produced results far superior to controls. In the case of S, his 
ability for recall was nothing short of phenomenal, far beyond anything 
recorded in the chapter by Hunt and Earl.

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
allenester...@compuserve.com
http://www.esterson.org

--
Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists
Rick Stevens
Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:34:24 -0800
I often read some of the descriptions of synesthesia (to pure tones) 
from
the *Mind of the Mnemonist *in class.  Neisser's *Memory Observed* has a
selection from Luria's book and a bit on a mnemonist who had a 
different,
but amazingly good, memory.  It makes an interesting contrast since the
second mnemonist seems to have come to his abilities through (uggh!)
practice and hard work, not some genetic abnormality.

Rick Stevens
Psychology Department
University of Louisiana at Monroe
stevens.r...@gmail.com
SL - Evert Snook



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Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Beth Benoit]

I thought it was of particular interest that none of the subjects
interviewed had ever been married, except for Marilu Henner, who had been
married three times.  The point was made that perhaps not being able to
forget (arguments, hurt feelings, etc.) may make a long-term relationship
more difficult.

So perhaps my deeply flawed memory may get some credit for my husband's and
my recent celebration of our 42nd anniversary?

Beth Benoit
Granite State College
Plymouth State University
New Hampshire

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 12:33 PM, Annette Taylor  wrote:

>
>
> What I recall, and it may be a false memory, is that Luria's subject (S)
> was vastly bothered by his inability to turn off his superior memory--that
> so many memories competed constantly for retrieval that this was difficult
> for him to manage.
>
> On the other hand, based on the 60 minutes piece, each of the people
> interviewed said that it did not bother them and tht they found a way to
> compartmentalize their vast autobiographical memories. Of note, in some of
> the retrievals clearly it was NOT merely autobiographical as they were able
> to recall many semantic memory type details of events and not just their own
> personal connection to the events.
>
> I thought this was an interesting discrepancy and I wonder how much of S's
> perceptions, which were only his, versus McGaugh's group's
> perceptions reflect the influence of the group members influencing one
> another. Clearly some people in the group (Henner in particular) were more
> outspoken during the taped television segments.
>
> Annette
>
>  Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D.
> Professor, Psychological Sciences
> University of San Diego
> 5998 Alcala Park
> San Diego, CA 92110
> tay...@sandiego.edu
>  --
> *From:* Rick Stevens [stevens.r...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, January 02, 2011 7:34 AM
> *To:* Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
> *Subject:* Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists
>
>
> I often read some of the descriptions of synesthesia (to pure tones) from
> the *Mind of the Mnemonist *in class.  Neisser's *Memory Observed* has a
> selection from Luria's book and a bit on a mnemonist who had a different,
> but amazingly good, memory.  It makes an interesting contrast since the
> second mnemonist seems to have come to his abilities through (uggh!)
> practice and hard work, not some genetic abnormality.
>
> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 4:30 AM, Allen Esterson <
> allenester...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>> Stephen's subject for this thread immediately brought forth from the
>> depths of my memory the title of a book, *Mind of a Mnemonist* by
>> Alexander Luria, based on a thirty year systematic observation of a
>> mnemonist, starting in the 1920s in the USSR. In his Foreword to the
>> 1968 English translation Jerome Bruner writes: "As a contribution to
>> the clinical literature on memory pathology, this book will surely rank
>> as a classic."
>>
>> The whole book is online at
>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/12983496/Alexander-Luria-The-Mind-of-a-Mnemonist
>>
>> Luria reports that "some of these experiments [fifty or more random
>> words or numbers read out] designed to test his retention were
>> performed (without his being given any warning) fifteen or sixteen
>> years after the session in which he had originally recalled the words.
>> Yet invariably they were successful."
>>
>> Another example of this mnemonist's extraordinary abilities, from
>> Luria's records:
>>
>> "Would you like to see me raise the temperature of my right hand and
>> lower that of my left?"
>>
>> We used a skin thermometer to check the temperature of both hands and
>> found they were the same. After a minute had passed, then another, he
>> said: "All right, begin!"  We attached the thermometer to the skin on
>> his right hand and found that the temperature had risen two degrees. As
>> for his left hand, after S. paused for a minute and then announced he
>> was ready, the reading showed that the temperature of his left hand had
>> dropped one and a half degrees.
>>
>> What could this mean? How was it possible for him to control the
>> temperature of his body at will?
>>
>> "No, there's nothing to be amazed at. I saw myself put my right hand on
>> a hot stove… Oi, was it hot! So, naturally, the temperature of my hand
>> increased. But I was holding a piece of ice in my left hand. I could
>> see it there and began to squeeze it. And, of course, my hand got
>> colder…"
>>
>> Allen Esterson
>> Former lecturer, Science Department
>> Southwark College, London
>> allenester...@compuserve.com
>> http://www.esterson.org
>>
>> ---
>> From:   sbl...@ubishops.ca
>> Subject:Minds of Mnemonists
>> Date:   Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:44:33 -0500
>> I've been meaning to recommend this remarkable recent segment on the
>> the USA TV programme "60 Minutes". It concerns a small group of
>> adults who have what is being called, with understat

RE: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Annette Taylor]

What I recall, and it may be a false memory, is that Luria's subject (S) was 
vastly bothered by his inability to turn off his superior memory--that so many 
memories competed constantly for retrieval that this was difficult for him to 
manage.

On the other hand, based on the 60 minutes piece, each of the people 
interviewed said that it did not bother them and tht they found a way to 
compartmentalize their vast autobiographical memories. Of note, in some of the 
retrievals clearly it was NOT merely autobiographical as they were able to 
recall many semantic memory type details of events and not just their own 
personal connection to the events.

I thought this was an interesting discrepancy and I wonder how much of S's 
perceptions, which were only his, versus McGaugh's group's perceptions reflect 
the influence of the group members influencing one another. Clearly some people 
in the group (Henner in particular) were more outspoken during the taped 
television segments.

Annette

Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D.
Professor, Psychological Sciences
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
tay...@sandiego.edu

From: Rick Stevens [stevens.r...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 7:34 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists




I often read some of the descriptions of synesthesia (to pure tones) from the 
Mind of the Mnemonist in class.  Neisser's Memory Observed has a selection from 
Luria's book and a bit on a mnemonist who had a different, but amazingly good, 
memory.  It makes an interesting contrast since the second mnemonist seems to 
have come to his abilities through (uggh!) practice and hard work, not some 
genetic abnormality.

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 4:30 AM, Allen Esterson 
mailto:allenester...@compuserve.com>> wrote:
Stephen's subject for this thread immediately brought forth from the
depths of my memory the title of a book, *Mind of a Mnemonist* by
Alexander Luria, based on a thirty year systematic observation of a
mnemonist, starting in the 1920s in the USSR. In his Foreword to the
1968 English translation Jerome Bruner writes: "As a contribution to
the clinical literature on memory pathology, this book will surely rank
as a classic."

The whole book is online at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12983496/Alexander-Luria-The-Mind-of-a-Mnemonist

Luria reports that "some of these experiments [fifty or more random
words or numbers read out] designed to test his retention were
performed (without his being given any warning) fifteen or sixteen
years after the session in which he had originally recalled the words.
Yet invariably they were successful."

Another example of this mnemonist's extraordinary abilities, from
Luria's records:

"Would you like to see me raise the temperature of my right hand and
lower that of my left?"

We used a skin thermometer to check the temperature of both hands and
found they were the same. After a minute had passed, then another, he
said: "All right, begin!"  We attached the thermometer to the skin on
his right hand and found that the temperature had risen two degrees. As
for his left hand, after S. paused for a minute and then announced he
was ready, the reading showed that the temperature of his left hand had
dropped one and a half degrees.

What could this mean? How was it possible for him to control the
temperature of his body at will?

"No, there's nothing to be amazed at. I saw myself put my right hand on
a hot stove… Oi, was it hot! So, naturally, the temperature of my hand
increased. But I was holding a piece of ice in my left hand. I could
see it there and began to squeeze it. And, of course, my hand got
colder…"

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
allenester...@compuserve.com
http://www.esterson.org

---
From:   sbl...@ubishops.ca
Subject:Minds of Mnemonists
Date:   Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:44:33 -0500
I've been meaning to recommend this remarkable recent segment on the
the USA TV programme "60 Minutes". It concerns a small group of
adults who have what is being called, with understatement, "superior
autobiographical memory". The segment is called "The Gift of Endless
Memory" and it's at  http://tinyurl.com/2594p8z (videos and
trascript).

The researcher involved is the eminent James McGaugh, professor of
neurobiology at the University of California Irvine. Their apparently
effortless ability to remember life events (calendar dates and what
happened on them) is astounding, rivaling that of autistic
calculators (which these people are not). And the memories have been
documented.

As a bonus, the 60 Minutes interviewer, Lesley Stahl, was able to add
to McGaugh's small group of such people her friend, the actress
Marilu Henner, fondly

Re: [tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Rick Stevens]

I often read some of the descriptions of synesthesia (to pure tones) from
the *Mind of the Mnemonist *in class.  Neisser's *Memory Observed* has a
selection from Luria's book and a bit on a mnemonist who had a different,
but amazingly good, memory.  It makes an interesting contrast since the
second mnemonist seems to have come to his abilities through (uggh!)
practice and hard work, not some genetic abnormality.

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 4:30 AM, Allen Esterson  wrote:

> Stephen's subject for this thread immediately brought forth from the
> depths of my memory the title of a book, *Mind of a Mnemonist* by
> Alexander Luria, based on a thirty year systematic observation of a
> mnemonist, starting in the 1920s in the USSR. In his Foreword to the
> 1968 English translation Jerome Bruner writes: "As a contribution to
> the clinical literature on memory pathology, this book will surely rank
> as a classic."
>
> The whole book is online at
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/12983496/Alexander-Luria-The-Mind-of-a-Mnemonist
>
> Luria reports that "some of these experiments [fifty or more random
> words or numbers read out] designed to test his retention were
> performed (without his being given any warning) fifteen or sixteen
> years after the session in which he had originally recalled the words.
> Yet invariably they were successful."
>
> Another example of this mnemonist's extraordinary abilities, from
> Luria's records:
>
> "Would you like to see me raise the temperature of my right hand and
> lower that of my left?"
>
> We used a skin thermometer to check the temperature of both hands and
> found they were the same. After a minute had passed, then another, he
> said: "All right, begin!"  We attached the thermometer to the skin on
> his right hand and found that the temperature had risen two degrees. As
> for his left hand, after S. paused for a minute and then announced he
> was ready, the reading showed that the temperature of his left hand had
> dropped one and a half degrees.
>
> What could this mean? How was it possible for him to control the
> temperature of his body at will?
>
> "No, there's nothing to be amazed at. I saw myself put my right hand on
> a hot stove… Oi, was it hot! So, naturally, the temperature of my hand
> increased. But I was holding a piece of ice in my left hand. I could
> see it there and began to squeeze it. And, of course, my hand got
> colder…"
>
> Allen Esterson
> Former lecturer, Science Department
> Southwark College, London
> allenester...@compuserve.com
> http://www.esterson.org
>
> ---
> From:   sbl...@ubishops.ca
> Subject:Minds of Mnemonists
> Date:   Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:44:33 -0500
> I've been meaning to recommend this remarkable recent segment on the
> the USA TV programme "60 Minutes". It concerns a small group of
> adults who have what is being called, with understatement, "superior
> autobiographical memory". The segment is called "The Gift of Endless
> Memory" and it's at  http://tinyurl.com/2594p8z (videos and
> trascript).
>
> The researcher involved is the eminent James McGaugh, professor of
> neurobiology at the University of California Irvine. Their apparently
> effortless ability to remember life events (calendar dates and what
> happened on them) is astounding, rivaling that of autistic
> calculators (which these people are not). And the memories have been
> documented.
>
> As a bonus, the 60 Minutes interviewer, Lesley Stahl, was able to add
> to McGaugh's small group of such people her friend, the actress
> Marilu Henner, fondly remembered by many for her work in the sitcom
> "Taxi" which ran between 1978 and 1983.  She's pretty good, too (in
> memory, as in sit-com).
>
> Stephen
> 
> Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
> Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
> Bishop's University
> Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
> e-mail:  sblack at ubishops.ca
>
>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to tips as: stevens.r...@gmail.com.
> To unsubscribe click here:
> http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13526.d532f8e870faf8a0d8f6433b7952f38d&n=T&l=tips&o=7596
> or send a blank email to
> leave-7596-13526.d532f8e870faf8a0d8f6433b7952f...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
>



-- 
Rick Stevens
Psychology Department
University of Louisiana at Monroe
stevens.r...@gmail.com
SL - Evert Snook

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[tips] Mnemonist/Khan

[michael sylvester]

No big deal to me.This autobiographical memory stuff should not be 
surprising.There are cultures where folks can memorize the 
whole Koran and the researchers talked about a select group of people that did 
not include the traditions of African-Americans.Hispanics,or Vietnamese 
Ameriacans.
I read Luria at a time when the West did not take Russian research findings 
seriously.Even today Vigotsky developmental
theory is still looked upon as secondary.The Khan academy is not surprising 
:.Asian and Pacific rim students are used to a co-opereative learning paradigm 
where students help and teach one another,so with this background teaching a 
class of students almost become individualized.It should also be noted that in 
some of those countries students are not allowed to raise their hands to ask 
questions during the lecture as they do here in the U.S. Students wait toward 
the end of the class to ask questions hence providing opportunities for 
teachers to reiterate.
Allen should have been aware that during the British rule in India,they must 
have come across people who can exert control over
their autunomic system.

Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
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Re:[tips] Khan Academy

[Allen Esterson]

Re the Khan Academy:
http://www.khanacademy.org/

When Carol posted on this I checked out the clips on basic algebra and 
was immediately impressed by Khan's presentational skills and 
methodology. And as Stephen writes,
>It's an staggering body of work for one person
>to create, and he seems to be a gifted teacher.

I've now checked out some more of his lessons in mathematics and 
physics. His voice and teaching style is immediately attractive and 
attention-holding, with a sense of spontaneity one gets from a good 
teacher. One aspect I particularly liked was his tendency to reiterate 
a concept whenever it came up in the course of later stages in the 
topic.

I admit a prejudice in that his approach struck me as what nowadays 
would probably be called "traditional", and in the lessons I viewed it 
was very similar to the way I introduced topics in my teaching days. 
This even applied to a mnemonic I used to use for introductory 
trigonometry, "soh cah toa"! (See first lesson in Trigonometry if you 
need an explanation. -:) )

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
allenester...@compuserve.com
http://www.esterson.org



From:   sbl...@ubishops.ca
Subject:Re: Khan Academy
Date:   Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:27:17 -0500

On 31 Dec 2010 at 12:26, DeVolder Carol L wrote:
>My son told me about this site. Maybe I'm the last person to
>discover it, but I thought I'd share it just in case. It seems
>to be a useful resource. So far I've only looked at the anatomy
>of a neuron and sodium-potassium pumps. I'd be interested in
>others' opinions.
> http://www.khanacademy.org/

I'm mightily impressed. It's an staggering body of work for one
person to create, and he seems to be a gifted teacher. PBS, among
others, has taken note of his contribution, and if PBS (The USA
television equivalent of the BBC) cares, it must be important (Allen
Esterson would disagree about PBS, but that's another story).
(See http://tinyurl.com/27qo5mr for the PBS report on Khan).

It also seems to me to be revolutionary, opening up high school and
university-level tutoring to millions who are without easy access to
such education.  As the truly cheap laptop becomes a reality and is
made available around the world, all any bright third-world person
would need is one of those, and the url to Khan's academy. How many
more potential Ramanujans are out there who could be kick-started
with something like this?

I checked out the "anatomy of a neuron" lesson, expecting the
standard misconception about this topic. I thought my fear about to
comfirmed when he used as his drawn example a motoneuron.  I was
instead pleasantly surprised.

He did not define a dendrite according to the incorrect but widely-
used definition as the part of the neuron which conducts a signal
_towards_ the soma. Instead, he defined it correctly as the part of
the neuron which _receives_ a signal, a definition first advcated by
Bodian in a classic paper in _Science_.  The problem with the
standard incorrect definition is that it only works out for one type
of neuron--the motoneuron--and leads to contradictions when applied
to others, notably the myelinated bipolar neuron. Focusing on
direction of travel in relation to the soma is also of no
physiological significance, while a definition in terms of receiving
and sending information is.

He might have said a bit more about these definitions, perhaps noted
that the myelin is provided by oligodendrocytes, not Schwann cells,
in the CNS, and given some examples of other types of neuron. But
within the limits of the short lesson on YouTube which he set
himself, it's a pretty good presentation. Bravo, Sal Khan! And thank
you, Carol, for pointing it out.

As for Miguel's post asking about the Lin theory of the sodium pump.
I haven't heard anything about this, and a Google search seems to
turn up mostly Lin himself promoting his work. One exception I found
is a 1985 (or so) book review in _New Scientist_ by a chemist, who
calls Lin's work "soft science", but says it's still good to have
such dissenters.

The topic is too difficult for me to evaluate. However, given the
great acceptance of the sodium-potassium pump idea, its evident
success in understanding and predicting neuronal function,  and the
total absence of Lin's claims in textbooks, I'd be very cautious
about Lin. It sounds to me as though it could be another case of an
off-the-wall dissenter, such as Peter Duesberg, who claims that HIV
doesn't cause AIDS.

Stephen

Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
e-mail:  sblack at
ubishops.ca
-



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Re:[tips] Minds of Mnemonists

[Allen Esterson]

Stephen's subject for this thread immediately brought forth from the 
depths of my memory the title of a book, *Mind of a Mnemonist* by 
Alexander Luria, based on a thirty year systematic observation of a 
mnemonist, starting in the 1920s in the USSR. In his Foreword to the 
1968 English translation Jerome Bruner writes: "As a contribution to 
the clinical literature on memory pathology, this book will surely rank 
as a classic."

The whole book is online at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12983496/Alexander-Luria-The-Mind-of-a-Mnemonist

Luria reports that "some of these experiments [fifty or more random 
words or numbers read out] designed to test his retention were 
performed (without his being given any warning) fifteen or sixteen 
years after the session in which he had originally recalled the words. 
Yet invariably they were successful."

Another example of this mnemonist's extraordinary abilities, from 
Luria's records:

"Would you like to see me raise the temperature of my right hand and 
lower that of my left?"

We used a skin thermometer to check the temperature of both hands and 
found they were the same. After a minute had passed, then another, he 
said: "All right, begin!"  We attached the thermometer to the skin on 
his right hand and found that the temperature had risen two degrees. As 
for his left hand, after S. paused for a minute and then announced he 
was ready, the reading showed that the temperature of his left hand had 
dropped one and a half degrees.

What could this mean? How was it possible for him to control the 
temperature of his body at will?

"No, there's nothing to be amazed at. I saw myself put my right hand on 
a hot stove… Oi, was it hot! So, naturally, the temperature of my hand 
increased. But I was holding a piece of ice in my left hand. I could 
see it there and began to squeeze it. And, of course, my hand got 
colder…"

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
allenester...@compuserve.com
http://www.esterson.org

---
From:   sbl...@ubishops.ca
Subject:Minds of Mnemonists
Date:   Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:44:33 -0500
I've been meaning to recommend this remarkable recent segment on the
the USA TV programme "60 Minutes". It concerns a small group of
adults who have what is being called, with understatement, "superior
autobiographical memory". The segment is called "The Gift of Endless
Memory" and it's at  http://tinyurl.com/2594p8z (videos and
trascript).

The researcher involved is the eminent James McGaugh, professor of
neurobiology at the University of California Irvine. Their apparently
effortless ability to remember life events (calendar dates and what
happened on them) is astounding, rivaling that of autistic
calculators (which these people are not). And the memories have been
documented.

As a bonus, the 60 Minutes interviewer, Lesley Stahl, was able to add
to McGaugh's small group of such people her friend, the actress
Marilu Henner, fondly remembered by many for her work in the sitcom
"Taxi" which ran between 1978 and 1983.  She's pretty good, too (in
memory, as in sit-com).

Stephen

Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
e-mail:  sblack at ubishops.ca



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