Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's argues that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless — reasons fall on deaf ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power.
TRUMP'S APPEAL TO THE COGNITIVELY CHALLENGED:
During the 2016 election, Donald Trump famously proclaimed "I love the poorly educated!" Well, if "poorly educated" is a euphemism for "cognitively challenged," new research finds they loved him right back.
It reports Trump voters, on average, performed more poorly than Hillary Clinton supporters on a standard test widely regarded as a good indicator of intellectual ability.
"Intellectual factors played an important role in the 2016 election," writes a research team led by Yoav Ganzach of Tel Aviv University. "These results suggest that the 2016 U.S. presidential election had less to do with party affiliation, income, or education, and more to do with basic cognitive ability."
What’s the average IQ of Trump voters?
Trump IQ test results were reportedly found in a former NYC armchair staff. A paper found in May 2019 states that Donald Trump’s secondary school IQ was evaluated at 73. (Placing it in the category ‘far below normal’). An article appeared in 2017 claiming iq of trump 156.
Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump.
An Analysis of Trump Supporters Has Identified 5 Key Traits: A new report sheds light on the psychological basis for Trump's support.
Trump Promotes Messiah Complex With Low IQ, Religious Voters
In Donald Trump's America, wrestling is real and politics is fake: Trump Supporters Love a Smackdown: They’re Twice as Likely to Be WWE, MMA Fans
A Twitter analysis finds that the GOP frontrunner’s backers are big followers of boxing and other violent sports
Demographics pro had some other notable findings. Since launching his campaign, Trump has seen a 7.2 percent decline in female followers, from 42.5 percent to 35.3 percent.
And here’s another statistic: Trump’s white followers jumped from 87.3 percent before his campaign to 90.1 percent after he started running for president.
New study identifies a psychological factor linked to Trump supporters’ vindictiveness
The desire to matter and feel significant among Donald Trump supporters is associated with support for hostile and vindictive actions against the president’s political rivals, according to new research published in the journal Political Psychology. In a series of studies conducted immediately before and after the 2016 election in the United States, the researchers examined how the quest for personal significance was related to confrontational intergroup behaviors.
“Our team studies what motivates people to support and engage in radical political actions. In the past we focused on actions — both peaceful and violent — that were aimed against the political system such as protesting, donating money for a cause, or using politically motivated violence,” explained study author Katarzyna Jaśko, an associate professor at Jagiellonian University in Poland.
Trump’s obsession with WrestleMania and fake drama
A business deal brought Trump and the WWE together. But an enduring love soon developed.
Pro Wrestling Explains Why Trump Wins Every Battle With The Media
While it may be indisputable that the media can’t win a cage match against the president, it’s certainly worth exploring why.
“Don’t let President Trump bait you into a fight that you can’t win.” This has been the refrain of Matthew Ingram, Jon Stewart, me, and everyone else laboring under the delusion that we can resurrect the corpse of civility after it drew its last breath in the tar pits of Election Day 2016. While it may be indisputable that the media can’t win this kind of fight against the president, it’s certainly worth exploring why.
Back in August, Jonah Goldberg scratched the surface of this question but didn’t dig quite deeply enough. Goldberg framed the fight between Trump and the media in pro-wrestling terms, asserting that Trump likes to set up WWE-style matches where he plays the character of Super Successful President Man and forces the media to play his hapless foe. The media lose this game, Goldberg argues, because Trump wrote the rules in his favor.
The truth, however, is that these WWE-inspired rules aren’t Trump’s. They’re ours. As long as the media fail to fight according to those rules, the president will always win. To understand this more fully, let’s have a little crash course on professional wrestling terminology and WWE history.
Some Key Pro Wrestling Terms: Kayfabe is the illusion that what happens in the wrestling universe is real. It’s pretending, for example, that the punches are genuine and that two feuding wrestlers legitimately hate each other.
A gimmick is a wrestler’s persona or character. For example, Ted DiBiase’s gimmick was that of “the Million Dollar Man,” a wealthy villain who stuffed dollar bills down the throats of felled opponents and tried to buy off fellow wrestlers.
A babyface, or simply a face, is a wrestler whom fans generally consider to be a good guy. A heel, on the other hand, is a bad guy. A monster heel is a terrifying baddie who actually poses a threat to the face, unlike the average pathetic, only-win-by-cheating regular heel.
Did the WWE and wrestling help get Donald Trump elected?
Trump was right at home in world of professional wrestling, but to what extent did the WWE and its owner Vince McMahon make his prejudices acceptable?
Kayfabe... President Donald Trump's demonization of the media as the "enemy of the people" is mostly kayfabe.
A professional wrestling term, "kayfabe" means presenting staged events as if they're real. Pro wrestling is theater, not sport. But it thrives on the illusion that it is the latter, not the former.
In his Aug. 9 Register-Guard column, Jonah Goldberg claims that Donald Trump’s inflammatory tweets and speeches are nothing more than “kayfabe,” that chest-pounding, testosterone-driven nonsense that professional wrestlers spout on stage as part of their performance.
Trump Supporters and Wrestling Mania
Taking a break from the usual television news broadcasts on CNN and BBC, I happened upon an emission of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) called WrestleMania. While the modern-day gladiators were performing in the ring, I started following the crowd, which was thoroughly energized. Hooting and yelling for one of their heroes or vilifying the obvious villains, they held up signs of love and hate. It was a binary moment of raw emotions.
In one of those gottcha epiphanies, I realized that the wrestling supporters I was watching were the same people whom I had just seen hooting, yelling and vilifying at Trump midterm rallies. Same type of dress, same visceral reactions to the performance they were witnessing. While one group was screaming “Lock her up,” the other was raising posters that read “Die Rocky Die” or “Unleash the Fury.” The screams at Trump rallies – where posters are carefully screened – are similar to the violent signs at WWE events. Only the scrupulous mis-en-scene of Trump events stopped the followers from expressing themselves with angry slogans.
Not being an avid fan of wrestling and not having listened to all of Trump’s speeches during the midterm campaign, I had lost focus on the key to Trump’s success – his supporters. By focusing on the President himself, I had lost touch with his base. Rather than thinking about the “deplorables,” I had chosen to ignore them. Rather than concentrating on swing voters, like suburban white women, I had forgotten about Trump’s loyal followers.
Now you may think my gottcha moment was ill conceived. You may think Trump and the WWE are like apples and oranges. But there is some history to back me up. Pre-politician Trump and the creator of WWE, Vince McMahon, went through several performances about which of their favorite fighters could beat the other. Trump and McMahon played the crowds, just as President Trump plays the same crowds at his rallies. In the end, Trump’s fighter won, and Trump physically attacked McMahon. In that infamous 2007 Battle of the Billionaires, McMahon’s head was shaven by Trump before 80,000 spectators in the culmination of a successful crowd-pleasing campaign.
The relationship between Trump and the wrestling impresario has continued. Trump named Linda Marie McMahon, Vince’s wife, to be the Administrator of the Small Business Administration in the Trump Administration. There is obviously some complementarity here.
Is there a counter to the wrestling mentality? When at the 2016 Democratic National Convention Michelle Obama said; “When they go low we go high,” the question is how low the wrestling crowd can go. Watching the video of the Trump/McMahon phenomenon, it is inconceivable to imagine that the man wrestling McMahon to the ground outside the ring would one day be president of the United States.
How could it happen? The answer is not to focus on Trump or to try to psychoanalyze him, but to focus on his crowds. Whatever one says about him – he did receive 40 million votes in 2016 and remains above 40% in approval ratings – his base is not just the television fans who followed him on The Apprentice. Sitting in one’s living room waiting for the punch line “You’re fired” is not the same as actively attending a wrestling extravaganza with a hand-made sign yelling and screaming for some muscle-bound brute clobbering another brute performing in the ring before a powerless referee. (The rule of law is no more respected in the WWE ring than it is in the Oval Office.)
I hesitate to suggest that you watch the WWE on television. However, there is a fascination with the orchestrated nature of the costumes, heroes and villains as well as the dialogue between the wrestlers/actors. There are speech narratives between the performers that sometime harken back to the villains and heroes of the Cold War. Television wrestling has become a big business conceived and produced to appeal to the audience’s basest instincts.
And the fact that it is a big business reflects the success of President Trump. He, like the WWE, has touched on something that appeals to millions of Americans. Not that all his supporters watch WWE, but there is an energizing effect in his appearances and the wrestling events that recalls crowds in the Roman Colosseum where the Emperor gave re-assurances against the invading hordes. The artificiality of the wrestling, like the artificiality of Trump’s hair and pronouncements, recharges the batteries. Amidst confusion over globalisation and diminishing U.S. prestige in an interdependent world, there is something re-assuring about a childish picture of good and evil with all the accompanying paraphernalia to guarantee that the good (we) will triumph.
It’s all about performance. It’s all about appealing to the audience. Vince and Donald have found a formula that resonates. Is there any formula to “flip” their fans?
Why nothing matters to Trump voters
This Is How Reading Rewires Your Brain, According to Neuroscience. (and makes you a target for hungry ZOMBIES...)
Reading doesn't just cram information into your brain. It changes how your brain works. Reading isn't just a way to cram facts into your brain. It's a way to rewire how your brain works in general. It strengthens your ability to imagine alternative paths, remember details, picture detailed scenes, and think through complex problems. Feb. 22, 2021 https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/reading-books-brain-chemistry.html. HOW MUCH A PERSON READS IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF ANY GIVEN SUBJECT MATTER.. Importance of Reading Comprehension Although many adults' can read, the act of reading and the act of comprehending what you read are two very different things. Reading requires the fluent parsing and blending various phonetic sounds to create words. Reading Comprehension, on the other hand, involves thinking about the words that were just read and deriving a meaning, for just those words and the text as a whole! In simpler terms, reading comprehension is the ability to read, understand, process, and recall what was just read. https://www.mathgenie.com/blog/importance-of-reading-comprehension Why is Reading Important? https://www.worksheetcloud.com/blog/why-is-reading-important/ The Purpose of Reading. The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers: 7516324 This is hard to read and remember. 751-6324 This is easier because of chunking. 123-4567 This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and structure. Similarly, if you like sports, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information. Improving Comprehension. Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques. Here are some suggestions. Develop a broad background. Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Become interested in world events. https://www.iwu.edu/advising/students/reading_comprehension.pdf What Is the Importance of Reading Comprehension After School? https://greatspeech.com/what-is-the-importance-of-reading-comprehension-after-school/ The Reading Brain: How Your Brain Helps You Read, and Why it Matters BY MARTHA BURNS, PHD Reading can be your superpower. If you’re reading this, you’re probably an accomplished reader. In fact, you’ve most likely forgotten by now how much work it took you to learn to read in the first place. And you probably never think about what is happening in your brain when you’re reading that email from your boss or this month’s book club selection. And yet, there’s nothing that plays a greater role in learning to read than a reading-ready brain. As complex a task as reading is, thanks to developments in neuroscience and technology we are now able to target key learning centers in the brain and identify the areas and neural pathways the brain employs for reading. We not only understand why strong readers read well and struggling readers struggle, but we are also able to assist every kind of reader on the journey from early language acquisition to reading and comprehension—a journey that happens in the brain. We begin to develop the language skills required for reading right from the first gurgles we make as babies. The sounds we encounter in our immediate environment as infants set language acquisition skills in motion, readying the brain for the structure of language-based communication, including reading. Every time a baby hears speech, the brain is learning the rules of language that generalize, later, to reading. Even a simple nursery rhyme can help a baby's brain begin to make sound differentiations and create phonemic awareness, an essential building block for reading readiness. By the time a child is ready to read effectively, the brain has done a lot of work coordinating sounds to language, and is fully prepared to coordinate language to reading, and reading to comprehension. The reading brain can be likened to the real-time collaborative effort of a symphony orchestra, with various parts of the brain working together, like sections of instruments, to maximize our ability to decode the written text in front of us: The temporal lobe is responsible for phonological awareness and decoding/discriminating sounds. The frontal lobe handles speech production, reading fluency, grammatical usage, and comprehension, making it possible to understand simple and complex grammar in our native language.
The angular and supramarginal gyrus serve as a "reading integrator" a conductor of sorts, linking the different parts of the brain together to execute the action of reading. These areas of the brain connect the letters c, a, and t to the word cat that we can then read aloud.
Emerging readers can build strong reading skills through focused, repetitive practice, preferably with exercises like those provided by the Fast ForWord program.
Independent research conducted at Stanford and Harvard demonstrated that Fast ForWord creates physical changes in the brain as it builds new connections and strengthens the neural pathways, specifically in the areas of reading. After just eight weeks of use, weak readers developed the brain activity patterns that resemble those of strong readers. And, as brain patterns changed, significant improvements for word reading, decoding, reading comprehension and language functions were also observed.
It’s never too early to set a child on the pathway to becoming a strong reader. And it’s never too late to help a struggling reader strengthen his or her brain to read more successfully and with greater enjoyment.
It’s all about the brain. Have you hugged your brain today?
https://www.scilearn.com/the-reading-brain/
What Research Tells Us About Reading, Comprehension, and Comprehension Instruction
The purpose of reading is comprehension — getting meaning from written text. Find out what else research tells us about the active process of constructing meaning, and how good readers consciously employing comprehension strategies.
Without comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise in word calling. It is no exaggeration to say that how well students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives.1 A major goal of reading comprehension instruction, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.
Cognitive science: Over the past few decades, research has revealed a great deal of information about how readers get meaning from what they read and about the kinds of instructional activities and procedures that are most successful in helping students to become good readers.
For many years, reading instruction was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as identifying words, finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting and sequencing. Comprehension was viewed as the mastery of these skills.
One important classroom study conducted during the 1970s found that typical comprehension instruction followed what the study called a mentioning, practicing, and assessing procedure. That is, teachers mentioned a specific skill that students were to apply, had students practice the skill by completing workbook pages, then assessed them to find out if they could use the skill correctly.2 Such instruction did little to help students learn how or when to use the skills, nor was it ever established that this particular set of skills enabled comprehension.
At about this time, a group of psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists began to focus research attention on how the mind works — how people think and learn. A goal of this new research movement, called cognitive science, was to produce an applied science of learning.
In the field of reading, a number of cognitive scientists focused their attention on how readers construct meaning as they read. Specifically, they studied the mental activities that good readers engage in to achieve comprehension. From these studies an entirely new concept emerged about what reading is. According to the new concept, reading is a complex, active process of constructing meaning — not skill application.3
The act of constructing meaning is:
Interactive — it involves not just the reader but also the text and the context in which reading takes place
Strategic — readers have purposes for their reading and use a variety of strategies and skills as they construct meaning
Adaptable — readers change the strategies they use as they read different kinds of text or as they read for different purposes
While cognitive science research was producing valuable information about comprehension processes, reading education researchers were reporting important findings about what comprehension instruction looks like in the most effective reading classrooms.
The convergence of these strands of research has provided a wealth of information about what good readers do as they read, about how good and poor readers differ, and about the kind of instruction that is needed to help students to become good readers.
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-research-tells-us-about-reading-comprehension-and-comprehension-instruction
The Simple View of Reading By: Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, Marcia Davidson, Tina Osenga
Teacher assessing student's reading skills: The Simple View of Reading is a formula demonstrating the widely accepted view that reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. Research studies show that a student’s reading comprehension score can be predicted if decoding skills and language comprehension abilities are known.
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/simple-view-reading
10 Reasons Why People Who Read A Lot Are More Likely To Be Successful
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-reasons-people-read-lot-likely-successful.html
How Do Kids Learn to Read? What the Science Says
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-do-kids-learn-to-read-what-the-science-says/2019/10
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition
First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning.
Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods—to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb.
How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system.
Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain.
How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn.
What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach.
The amazing learning potential of infants.
The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace.
Learning needs and opportunities for teachers.
A realistic look at the role of technology in education.
Download Free PDF here:
https://www.nap.edu/download/9853
https://www.nap.edu/read/9853/chapter/6
The Neurobiology of Imagination: Possible Role of Interaction-Dominant Dynamics and Default Mode Network.
This work aims at presenting some hypotheses about the potential neurobiological substrate of imagery and imagination. For the present purposes, we will define imagery as the production of mental images associated with previous percepts, and imagination as the faculty of forming mental images of a novel character relating to something that has never been actually experienced by the subject but at a great extent emerges from his inner world. The two processes appear intimately related and imagery can arguably be considered as one of the main components of imagination. In this proposal, we argue that exaptation and redeployment, two basic concepts capturing important aspects of the evolution of biological structures and functions (Anderson, 2007), could also be useful in explaining imagery and imagination. As far as imagery is concerned it is proposed that neural structures originally implicated in performing certain functions, e.g., motor actions, can be reused for the imagery of the virtual execution of that function. As far as imagination is concerned we speculate that it can be the result of a “tinkering” that combines and modifies stored perceptual information and concepts leading to the creation of novel “mental objects” that are shaped by the subject peculiar inner world. Hence it is related to his self-awareness. The neurobiological substrate of the tinkering process could be found in a hierarchical model of the brain characterized by a multiplicity of functional modules (FMs) that can be assembled according to different spatial and temporal scales. Thus, it is surmised that a possible mechanism for the emergence of imagination could be represented by modulatory mechanisms controlling the perviousness of “modifiers” along the communication channels within and between FMs leading to their dynamically reassembling into novel configurations.
Keywords: imagination, imagery neural systems, functional module, volume transmission, wiring transmission, modifiers, astrocyte networks, exaptation/mis-exaptation
Introduction: General premises
The main topic of the present paper concerns the possible neurobiological substrate of imagery and imagination. Imagery and imagination are commonly conflated concepts and indeed the term imagination is often used to name the general faculty of image production (Thomas, 1999). Despite the two terms sharing obviously many semantic features, imagination usually indicates the faculty of creating mental images and constructs of a novel character, a capability that appears to be especially developed in humans. In this view, the more basic faculty of producing mental images of previously experienced material, i.e., imagery, provides elements necessary for imagination and is arguably present also in other species together with a primitive form of imagination, namely a rudimentary form of prospection, i.e., the faculty of creating a mental picture of a future or anticipated event.
For the present purposes, we will adopt the following provisional definition of the two terms, based on a standard language reference (Webster’s Dictionary, second edition, Prentice Hall Press, NY, 1972) and the extant scientific literature:
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Imagery: the production of explicit and implicit mental pictures or images. Implicit mental imagery occurs when perceptual information is accessed from memory (Kosslyn et al., 2001), giving rise to the experience of “seeing with the mind’s eye,” “hearing with the mind’s ear,” and so on. By contrast, perception (explicit mental image) occurs as a result of a form of energy impacting directly on the sensory surfaces of the organism, generally via a constructive process (see e.g., Thomas, 1999)1
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Imagination: the act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present or has never been actually directly experienced. Notably, imagination not only has the potential to enrich the meaning of an experience and deepen understanding, by multiplying and expanding the perspectives from which a phenomenon can be considered, but it also allows anticipating the outcome of an action without actually performing it via a “simulation” process. At its peak, imagination is the very mental faculty underlying visionary and creative thought.
The distinctive feature of imagination, therefore, rests on its capacity of creating new mental images by combining and modifying stored perceptual information in novel ways and by inserting this information in a subjective view of the world: hence it is related to his self-awareness. In other words, imagination is not simply the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment but rather a constructive process that builds on a repertoire of images, concepts, and autobiographical memories and leads to the creation (and continuous update) of a personal view of the world, which in turn provides the basis for interpreting future information. Summing up it could be proposed that imagination represents the ability by the human subjects of creating novel “mental objects” that are shaped by their own peculiar inner world2. Given the above general considerations, we would like now to turn more specifically to neurobiology with the following distinction:
Article continues:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662866/
IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, MARVEL COMICS' STAN LEE PROBABLY TRICKED MORE CHILDREN INTO LEARNING TO READ THAN ANYONE ELSE EVER HAS..
5 Astonishing Ways Reading Changes Your Brain
Since you were a child, you've probably been told to read because "it's good for you." Parents and doctors, teachers and librarians — even me on this very site — have touted the many health and wellness benefits of books, but has anyone every told you what reading does to your brain? You might be surprised to find out exactly what happens in your head when you crack open a book.
Reading is perhaps one of the best hobbies in the world, and one of the healthiest. Whether you're reading fiction or nonfiction, a newspaper or a poem, reading is not only educational and informative, it's entertaining and relaxing, too. And, although it is still a widely unexplored area, research on reading has shown its many benefits.
Over the years, doctors, scientists, and researchers have confirmed that reading is a stress-reducing activity that can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. It's been proven to improve people's memories, increase brain power, and even enhance empathic skills. Reading has even been linked to longer life spans.
So how exactly does reading do all that? Like so many other human phenomenons, it all starts with the brain. It may not feel like it, but when we are looking at words on the page, our brain is running several simultaneous processes, from word analysis and auditory detection to vocalization and visualization, to the experience we know and love called reading.
https://www.bustle.com/p/what-does-reading-do-to-your-brain-these-5-effects-are-pretty-astounding-74676
Is reading comprehension related to intelligence?
A new study published in the journal Child Development finds that having strong reading skills as a child is a predictor for higher intelligence levels as a young adult. In previous studies, reading ability has been associated with improved health, education, socioeconomic status and creativity .Jul. 26, 2014.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280193
The reading comprehension performance was correlated to total IQ score, Verbal and Performance IQ scores; in addition the contribution of each subtests for reading comprehension was considered. Results suggested that poor reading comprehension performance could be associated to low general cognitive abilities.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286308895_The_relationship_between_reading_comprehension_and_IQ_measured_with_WISC-R_and_WISC_III_in_a_clinical_population
Knowing how to understand a text can help boost your knowledge in certain areas and help you learn new skills and information faster. Additional benefits of good reading comprehension skills include: Being able to understand, analyze and respond to documents and written communication in the workplace. Jun. 9, 2021.
https://www.tsc.nsw.edu.au/how-to-develop-good-comprehension-skills/
8 Science-Backed Reasons to Read a (Real) Book
Bookworms can see some serious perks to their health and happiness. Want to really reap the benefits of reading? Reach for an old-fashioned, printed book.
https://www.realsimple.com/health/preventative-health/benefits-of-reading-real-books
Most of us don’t think twice about the fact that we can read.
In fact, reading is a highly complex process that involves an intricate series of neural responses inside the brain. Understanding exactly what happens in the brain when we read can help us better understand how to help people who have issues with language.
Scientists are still struggling to understand why humans are able to read and write, despite the fact that we have only been doing it for the last five millennia—far too brief a period for any major evolutionary developments to occur. It is now widely believed that our ability to read and understand written symbols is an accidental offshoot of traits that evolved for different reasons, such as the ability to speak.
When you read letters on a page, the left occipito-temporal cortex of your brain immediately links each written word to its spoken equivalent. One part of your brain analyzes the word’s meaning, while another part makes it possible to automatically recognize words. The stronger these two brain functions are, the faster and more efficiently a person can read. Often, learning to read very early in development causes the reading regions of your brain to be stronger than other parts—people who are reading at a young age may have more trouble than other people in recognizing faces, for example.
Common language issues such as dyslexia happen when the brain develops in a different way, making it difficult for the reading functions of the left occipito-temporal cortex to coordinate and process words. In order to compensate for this deficiency, many people with learning differences come to depend more on other parts of the brain. This means that they may be more visually oriented, and may learn better from pictures, reading aloud, or listening than from silent reading.
https://literacyandlanguagecenter.com/what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-read/
Building trust through effective science communication.
Barbara shares ideas on effective science communication. She explains why we should be interested, based on her own observations of emerging movements such as Flat Earthers and climate change deniers in the US and Brazil. How can we build trust in science?
I would like to make an invitation to all my fellow scientists. Let’s make our research accessible! Use social media, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, create games, podcasts, music, choreography, videoclips, whatever. Find your talent! Share, inspire and engage your friends to do the same!
Here are some online free resources for effective science communication:
https://blogs.egu.eu/network/gfgd/2020/04/14/building-trust-through-effective-science-communication/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/03/12/alan-alda-would-like-your-attention/
https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2019/05/29/alda/
Actor Alan Alda referred to flat earth when he was expressing his views that one can be polite and listen to what one is saying and try to understand why they think the way they do.
(Of course the Flatties responded by accusing Alan Alda of being a paid conspirator.)
https://youtu.be/l7EJFqW3ctM
The Illusion Only Some People Can See
Ames window illusion illustrates how we don't directly perceive external reality.
https://youtu.be/dBap_Lp-0oc
How Lying Affects The Human Brain: Telling Lies Desensitizes Amygdala To Dishonesty; Increases Chances Of Being A Pathological Liar
We've all told the occasional white lie: We fake sick to get out of a pity date; pass takeout as our culinary creation; or lie on our resume to get the job. Although some fibs are smaller than others, constantly lying can take a toll on our brain health
Nature Neuroscience found habitual lying can desensitize our brains from “feeling bad,” and may even encourage us to tell bigger lies in the future.
"When we lie for personal gain, our amygdala produces a negative feeling that limits the extent to which we are prepared to lie," said Dr. Tali Sharot, senior author of the study, director of the Affective Brain Lab at the University College of London and a faculty member of the department of Experimental Psychology, in a statement.
However, as we continue to lie, this response fades, which may lead to a “slippery slope” where small acts of dishonesty can evolve into more significant lies. In other words, lies breed lies as the brain gets desensitized to dishonesty.
This is particularly troubling since the average American tells one to two lies a day. Those who tend to be insecure or have an anxious or avoidant attachment style are more likely to be dishonest to avoid being criticized, rejected, or left with less than someone else has, according to a 2010 study. Also, those who believe lying will give them monetary or social recognition are more likely to continue being dishonest.
Sharot and her team of researchers know when we deceive someone, the amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates emotion, is activated, and we tend to feel shame or guilt. This part of the brain also reacts when we see cute pictures of puppies or very sad photos. The amygdala becomes more desensitized when it’s continually exposed to these same photos. The researchers wanted to know if the same could apply to lying.
The team recruited participants and paired them to work with another person they didn't know. The participants were put into a brain-imaging scanner where they were shown images of a glass jar with pennies and asked to tell their partners — who had a blurry image, and were helping the researchers — about the amount of money in the jar. At the end, both participants would get paid, but sometime the participants would get more money if they lied. For example, they could lie to help themselves, help their partners, help both etc.
READ MORE: https://www.medicaldaily.com/how-lying-affects-human-brain-telling-lies-desensitizes-amygdala-dishonesty-402310
The Fascinating Reason Why Liars Keep On Lying
Once a liar, always a liar, the old saying goes. Turns out there’s some scientific truth to that: researchers have tracked down how the brain makes lying easier as the untruths build up, providing some biological evidence for why small lies often balloon into ever larger ones.
In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, Tali Sharot from the department of experimental psychology at University College London and her colleagues devised a clever study to test people’s dishonest tendencies while scanning their brains in an fMRI machine. The 80 people in the study were shown pennies in a glass jar and given different incentives to guide whether they lied or told the truth to a fellow partner about how much money was contained in the jar. In some conditions, both the participant and the partner benefited if the participant lied; in others, just the participant benefited from his fib, or just the partner benefited (with no cost to either). In another set of scenarios, either the participant or partner benefited, but at the expense of the other if the participant lied. In each case, Sharot documented the changes in the people’s brains as they made their decisions.
They found that when people were dishonest, activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala—the hub of emotional processing and arousal—changed. With each scenario, the more dishonestly the participant advised his partner, the less activated the amygdala was on the fMRI. That may be because lying triggers emotional arousal and activates the amygdala, but with each additional lie, the arousal and conflict of telling an untruth diminishes, making it easier to lie.
Sharot also found that the amygdala became less active mostly when people lied to benefit themselves. In other words, self-interest seems to fuel dishonesty.
“Part of the emotional arousal we see when people lie is because of the conflict between how people see themselves and their actions,” Sharot said during a briefing discussing the results. “So I lie for self-benefit, but at the same time it doesn’t fit the way I want to view myself, which is as an honest person. It’s possible that we learn from the arousal signal…with less emotional arousal, perhaps I’m less likely to see the act as incongruent with my own self perception.”
The researchers were even able to map out how each lie led to less amygdala activation and found that the decrease could predict how much the person’s dishonesty would escalate in the next trial. Biology seems to back up the warnings parents give to their kids: that one lie just leads to another.
https://time.com/4540707/lying-lies-brain/
What Happens to the Brain When We Lie.
Lying Changes the Brain: Now, Scientific American is telling us what else happens when we lie. They say a new study has found lying gets easier for humans the more they lie, because lying changes the brain!
Nature Neuroscience reported a study of the amygdala, the part of the brain dealing with emotional responses. The researchers said the amygdala shows up less and less, as we lie more and more. Essentially, our guilt feelings tend to weaken and shrink.
Also lies that helped the person telling the lie may draw even less response from the amygdala. Other researchers point out how much we dislike thinking of ourselves as liars.
I have seen people do this, inventing elaborate justifications explaining why lying was the only way to handle a difficult situation. In the long run, it would have been better to just avoid lying in the first place.
Pitfalls of Lying: The fact that there seems to be less emotional response with repeat lies reinforces the statement, “once a liar always a liar.” If you think about it, the people you know who lie often fit that pattern. In work situations, it often becomes quickly known who can be counted on to tell it as it is, and who will waffle or outright lie when push comes to shove.
But the real issue of what lies do to relationships may be the reason we should all understand the process and make every effort to not lie. Essentially, lies can turn a relationship into quicksand very quickly. If someone cannot believe you, why would they want to invest time and effort in building a relationship only to have it sabotaged by lying?
So if you are tempted to lie, consider what you might be doing to relationships that you value. Or, if you realize someone is lying to you, you may want to question how much that relationship is really worth.
It’s also important to carry this over into our dealings with our kids, making the point early that lies never work.
https://www.thejoint.com/california/chula-vista/eastlake-31125/202872-what-happens-to-brain-when-we-lie
Lying sets up a liar’s brain to lie more
Activity in a brain region called the amygdala may explain how small lies escalate
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/lying-sets-liars-brain-lie-more
How Lying Affects the Brain and Causes Chronic Deception
https://www.cvsa1.com/science/how-lying-affects-the-brain-and-causes-chronic-deception/
How Lying Changes Your Brain In Just A Short Period Of Time: Acting dishonestly can prime your brain for bigger whoppers in the future.
We all tell little fibs now and then to help us get through awkward social situations or stressful workweeks. But the more lies you tell, the easier it becomes to tell them. And although the fibs may start off small, don’t be surprised if you find yourself easily telling big whoppers.
A new study claims to provide the first empirical evidence showing that dishonesty gradually increases over time. By using scans that measured the brain’s response to lying, researchers saw that each new lie resulted in smaller and smaller neurological reactions ― especially in the amygdala, which is the brain’s emotional core.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/small-fibs-lead-to-big-lies_n_580e95e7e4b000d0b1584348
The Art of Lying: Lying has gotten a bad rap. In fact, it is among the most sophisticated accomplishments of the human mind. But how can one tell if a person is fibbing?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-art-of-lying/
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-science-of-lying-more-you-do-it-easier-it-gets.html
When You Lie, Your Brain Is Actually Suffering
Ever hear this: “Don’t lie, your nose will grow!” or “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”? One of the basic lessons of our childhood was to never tell a lie. We all know we shouldn’t lie, yet we seem to do it anyway. In fact, you’ve probably already lied today. Shaking your head “no”? Could be another lie. Research shows that most people tell 1 to 2 lies a day![1]
We always make excuses for our lies, too. “It’s not pathological lying, it’s a simple white lie.” “I said it so I wouldn’t hurt their feelings.” “I didn’t want to get in trouble.” So, what’s the big deal if everybody else is doing it? Well, as it turns out, lying could be affecting your brain and body.
When you lie, your brain is overwhelmed
Lots of research has been conducted about the health effects of pathological lying and guess what? It could be detrimental to your health.
According to Arthur Markman, Ph.D., the very second that lie leaves your lips, your body releases cortisol into your brain. Just a few minutes later and your memory goes into overdrive trying to remember both the lie and the truth. Decision making becomes more difficult and you could even project your discomfort as anger. This is all in the first 10 minutes!
When you lie, your stress increases: After these initial reactions, you may start to feel worried about your lie – or about being caught lying. To deal with this feeling, you might try to make up for the lie by treating the other person more kindly than normal. Or, the reverse could happen and you convince yourself it was their fault that you had to lie.
The day after the lie, one of two things might happen. If you are used to pathological lying, you may begin to believe the lie. If you are not used to pathological lying, you may still feel bad and try to avoid seeing the person you lied to. Continuing to feel guilty over your lie could lead to disrupted sleep patterns over a few days.[3]
All of this additional stress has negative consequences on your health as well. It can increase your blood pressure, cause headaches and lower back pain, and reduce your white blood cell count (you need these to fight illness).[4] A lot of mental energy goes into telling and keeping up a lie, giving you anxiety and in some cases, depression. It doesn’t stop there. These feelings go on to affect your digestion, resulting in diarrhea, upset stomach, nausea, and cramps.
A Notre Dame research project looked into the effects of pathological lying. The study involved 110 volunteers, half of whom agreed to stop lying and the other half who received no instructions. At the end of 10 weeks, the group that lied less often had 54% fewer mental complaints (like stress or anxiety) and 56% fewer physical health issues (like headaches or digestive issues).[5]
Stop Your Pathological Lying! If lying is part of your daily routine (and let’s be honest, it probably is), then it’s going to be hard to simply stop. You can tell yourself you just won’t lie today, but you’ll probably end up doing it anyway. Just think about your best friend asking you if they have a good singing voice. Can you tell them the truth? I didn’t think so.
Stopping pathological lying takes time. Tell yourself you want to be more honest and make a conscious effort to cut down on your lying. Think twice before responding to a question. Can you avoid answering it? Is there a way to answer it and omit the truth?
Another great way to control pathological lying is to spend time with people who value the truth. Having friends who prefer to hear the truth and who encourage you to tell the truth can be really motivating. And if all else fails… think of your health!
https://www.lifehack.org/589959/how-harmful-lying-can-be-to-our-health
The development of scientific knowledge of the Earth.
Investigation of children's knowledge of the Earth can reveal much about the origins, content and structure of scientific knowledge, and the processes of conceptual change and development. Vosniadou and Brewer (1992, claim that children construct coherent mental models of a flat, flattened, or hollow Earth based on a framework theory and intuitive...
Diana Ross -- Upside Down.
https://youtu.be/F1ehMxQdCtQ
The world is filled with mysteries, and even in the modern age, much of the planet remains unexplored. The depths of the oceans and the intricate and extensive cave systems that honeycomb some parts of the Earth are still largely unknown. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to this terra incognita, people have projected all sorts of ideas. Tales of sunken cities or lost civilizations are just some of the fanciful theories, and those could even be considered tame in comparison to the idea that Earth is flat and/or hollow.
Despite this notion being rejected by the scientific community for millennia, and despite the fact that geology, volcanology, oceanography, and physics have all proven that the planet is not flat, the idea of a hollow Earth continues to intrigue people and gain eager and sincere adherents. This is made all the more remarkable by the fact that space programs are more than 60 years old, and people can fly around the world on planes in a matter of hours.
Taken at face value, the ideas are patently ridiculous, but they provoke strong emotions in some people, sincere people who have thought extensively about their beliefs. These people feel they are privy to a hidden truth, and that the rest of the world is wrong and ignorant, but this feeling of mental superiority isn’t the only appeal in clinging to radical notions. There is also the thrill of adventure, the feeling that one is part of a dangerous minority attempting to overthrow the dominant paradigm. It is far better, some would feel, to live in a world full of mystery and hope than a decaying, “rational” world where everything can be explained but nothing solved.
Flat Earth and Hollow Earth Theories: A History of Strange Tales and Bizarre Beliefs about the Planet offers a sampling of the many strange stories and theories regarding the planet’s surface and interior. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the theories like never before.
Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood. Macmillian, 2007. 400 pp., 20.00 [pounds sterling] ISBN: 978-1-4050-4702-9
Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface by David Standish. Da Cape Press, 2006. 300 pp, $16.95. ISBN: 978-0-306-81373-3
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229462102_The_development_of_scientific_knowledge_of_the_Earth/download
Flat Earth vs Hollow Earth vs Solid Earth vs Concave Earth - Red Pilled... (Old and discredited ideas, like zombies, don't stay dead.)
In the conspiracy world, everyone has their own predilections. Conspiracies aren’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing; a theory that sounds preposterous to one, might be absolutely convincing to the next person. And recently there have been two conspiracies spreading across the internet, both at odds with each other, but which have convinced many, much to the chagrin of those pesky “normies.” That’s right, we’re talking about the hollow earth vs. flat earth theory.
https://youtu.be/nyBsrJ5RSTw
Whether you ascribe to one of these alternative geological machinations or think both of them are absurd, there is at the very least, some interesting history behind both theories, each with their own unique drama. Not to mention the meta psy-op conspiracies some have presented to explain both trains of thought.
Who will win in the battle for the Hollow Earth vs. Flat Earth?
https://www.gaia.com/article/hollow-earth-vs-flat-earth-theory-where-does-one-draw-the-line
AFICIONADOS OF ESOTERIC history will be overjoyed that two books have appeared nearly simultaneously that tell the history of two eccentric and incompatible views of the shape of the earth.
Science has forged a picture of the universe and its operations that is impressive in its power and scope. We complacently think of this as a picture of the "real" world. But the logical and experimental foundations of this scientific picture are beyond the grasp of most people, who must be content to take most of science "on faith," trusting scientists to "get it right."
https://external-preview.redd.it/ajQqLExIfFP_vVl2myA_E8mBaxsKEZ03x2A22sAsgkU.jpg?auto=webp&s=6bfb123687c451f67183b54c6b6fb1f0dc805a12
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA174058996&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10639330&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee8d5d045
There's a 'hollow Earth' conspiracy theory and it makes flat Earthers seem smart
https://www.indy100.com/tech/hollow-earth-conspiracy-theory-flat-earth-society-aliens-rodney-cluff-8213776
Life in hollow Earth: Is Earth inside the Universe, or vice versa? Since we can grasp only a model of reality, how do we know what’s real?
n 1869, the Baptist fundamentalist Cyrus Reed Teed reported his divine revelation that the Earth was hollow. At first glance, nothing novel. Jules Verne had explored a similar concept five years prior in his science-fiction adventure Journey to the Centre of the Earth. But while Verne imagined a subterranean cavern of fantastic creatures, Teed declared in earnest that we were literally living inside the sphere. In this strange cosmology, the Sun, planets, stars and galaxies all occupy the Earth’s interior. The Earth’s crust is an infinitely thick layer of rock encasing the entire Universe.
Motivated by his new cosmology, Teed published a book, started a new religion, amassed disciples, and founded a new town in Florida. To many, Teed’s ideas sound like snake oil so thick only the most gullible could imbibe. Yet his influence was not limited to the United States, nor to the 19th century. Anti-intellectual sentiment within the Nazi party embraced concave hollow-Earth theory – or Hohlwelttheorie as it is called in German. According to the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, elements of the Nazi military might have even advocated looking up through the sky to spy on the Allies on the other side of the world. After all, there’s no place to hide inside a globe.
How did Teed’s ideas gain a foothold in the upper echelons of the Third Reich?
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-hollow-earth-hypothesis-illuminates-falsifiable-science
Conspiracy theorists convinced Earth is hollow and filled with aliens
The Hollow Earth Theory: June 03, 1985 / Larry Gedney
One can never be sure just how serious they are about it, but there does exist a group of people who call themselves the "Flat-Earth Society" (remember the news item about the old gentleman who was invited to Cape Kennedy to watch an Apollo moon launch, but came away convinced that it was all a hoax?). There is another group, equally vocal, who believe that the earth is hollow. Several years ago, a group of "believers" informed a member of the Geophysical Institute staff that there was an opening to the center of the earth in the Alaska Range, and that this was an entry and exit point for flying saucers.
Modern-day proponents of the hollow earth theory can refer nonbelievers to the book The Hollow Earth (Bell Publishing Company, 1979) by Raymond Bernard. Bernard, judging from the initials he lists behind his name, holds just about every advanced academic degree, but is apparently somewhat of a recluse. As a spokesman for the publisher states in a foreword to the book, "I will not enter into any correspondence regarding this book--or the author. Whether you accept or reject the content of this book is your privilege. No one cares."
The crux of the hollow earth theory is that the earth is a shell with walls about 800 miles thick. In the polar regions there are holes 1400 miles across, with edges that curve smoothly from the outside of the shell around to the inside. A sea or surface traveler could proceed over an edge of the hole, like an ant crawling over the lip of a coffee mug from the outside to the inside, and not be aware that he was actually entering the interior of the earth. Bernard explains that the holes have never been seen from the air because pilots are fooled by their compasses into believing that they are crossing the pole, when they are actually following the hole's "magnetic rim". Thus aircraft never really fly over the geographic poles, which naturally mark the centers of the holes themselves. As irrefutable proof of his claim, he cites Admiral Byrd's statement, "I'd like to see that land beyond the Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Great Unknown."
The hollow earth theory actually seems to have been originated in the early 1800s by John Symmes, an earnest American who devoted the greater part of his later life to convincing the world that the earth was formed by a series of concentric shells.
Symmes believed that there were miles of wondrous unclaimed domain beneath our feet, with lush vegetation and fish and game for the taking. Apparently, there were those who took him seriously. As reported in the October 1882 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a Mr. Howgate had recently been in the news, proposing that an expedition be made to discover "Symmes' Hole." His plan was to have a number of men acclimate themselves to higher and higher latitudes, moving further north each year. They were to observe the animals that presumably wintered over within the earth each year and emerged during the spring to bear young. Eventually, the colony of men were to follow the animals in the fall to find where they entered into that marvelous land at the center of the earth.
Sadly for this romantic concept, if today's believers are correct, the only thing that they would find there now are flying saucers.
https://nypost.com/2017/12/26/conspiracy-theorists-convinced-earth-is-hollow-and-filled-with-aliens/
https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/morrow.htm
https://www.amazon.ca/Flat-Earth-Hollow-Theories-History-ebook/dp/B07ZPGHCLF
Fantastically Wrong: The Legendary Scientist Who Swore Our Planet Is Hollow
In 1869 an American physician named Cyrus Reed Teed, whose very own brand of medicine combined alchemy with zaps of electricity and doses of magnetism, electrocuted himself so badly that he passed out. Which is just as well, for when he came to, he realized he was the living incarnation of Jesus Christ.
https://www.wired.com/2014/07/fantastically-wrong-hollow-earth/
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/elon-musk-tweet-conspiracy-theorists-godzilla-kong-movie-hollow-earth-flat-earth-theory-3613133.html
Science Reference Guides
Hollow-Earth Theories: A List of References
Bernard, Raymond W. The hollow earth, the greatest geographical discovery in history made by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the mysterious land beyond the poles--the true origin of the flying saucers. [New ed.] New York, Distributed by Fieldcrest Pub. Co. [1964] 116 p. illus., ports.
QE509.B47
https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/SciRefGuides/hollowearth.Html
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