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Can Electric Current Make People Better At Math?
cold fjord sends this excerpt from the Wall Street Journal: "In a lab in Oxford University's experimental psychology department, researcher Roi Cohen Kadosh is testing an intriguing treatment: He is sending low-dose electric current through the brains of adults and children as young as 8 to make them better at math. A relatively new brain-stimulation technique called transcranial electrical stimulation may help people learn and improve their understanding of math concepts. The electrodes are placed in a tightly fitted cap and worn around the head. ... The mild current reduces the risk of side effects, which has opened up possibilities about using it, even in individuals without a disorder, as a general cognitive enhancer. Scientists also are investigating its use to treat mood disorders and other conditions. ... Up to 6% of the population is estimated to have a math-learning disability called developmental dyscalculia, similar to dyslexia but with numerals instead of letters. [In an earlier experiment, Kadosh] found that he could temporarily turn off regions of the brain known to be important for cognitive skills. When the parietal lobe of the brain was stimulated using that technique, he found that the basic arithmetic skills of doctoral students who were normally very good with numbers were reduced to a level similar to those with developmental dyscalculia. That led to his next inquiry: If current could turn off regions of the brain making people temporarily math-challenged, could a different type of stimulation improve math performance?"
It's called negative feedback. Up the amps.
The next logical step, of course, is increasing the voltage whenever someone gets an answer wrong.
What could possibly go wrong?
This signature is false.
"Use more honey! Find out what she knows!"
- John W.
'better at math' seems a bit vague. Better at algebra, maybe, but many who suffer from dyscalculia excel at higher math, example string theory. We don't need more individuals that are ok w/algebra, so the value here is more about trying to better understand the brain than about helping people get jobs working the register at a food truck.
That led to his next inquiry: If current could turn off regions of the brain making people temporarily math-challenged, could a different type of stimulation improve math performance?
Here's one. What's the long-term effect of using TCMS during development? Strengthening of the affected areas or weakening thereof / dependency on the stimulation?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If this is possible can we call it a "thinking cap" then my grade 3 teacher will have sounded a little less crazy!
[In an earlier experiment, Kadosh] found that he could temporarily turn off regions of the brain known to be important for cognitive skills. When the parietal lobe of the brain was stimulated using that technique, he found that the basic arithmetic skills of doctoral students who were normally very good with numbers were reduced to a level similar to those with developmental dyscalculia. That led to his next inquiry: If current could turn off regions of the brain making people temporarily math-challenged, could a different type of stimulation improve math performance?"
In another earlier experiment, he found that blowing an air raid horn at random intervals duing the math test made students perform weaker. He's now investigating if other sounds can make students perform better.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I read "...and improve their understanding of math concepts" with a lot of skepticism. I think that schools love to teach computation skills because they are easy to teach and because success there is very easy to measure. But this skill is relatively unimportant compared with what I would consider "math concepts": How you apply mathematical abstractions to real-world situations (beyond making correct change at a cash register). How you break down a hard problem into less-hard pieces. How to visualize quantitative relationships, develop and use algebraic systems, and so on. These are rarely taught in schools because they are relatively difficult to teach and difficult to measure gains. So computation skills are taught instead, regardless of the fact that cheap computers are billions or trillions of times faster than any human.
Can electric current apply to this kind of conceptual learning? If so, it would have application to nearly all kinds of education, not just math.
I want to be hit with a stun gun before every math exam... like Calculus next Wednesday.
^-- Words I'll regret later.
You can build this yourself. For around 15 dolars in parts from radioshack. It's just a constant current circuit that limits current between .5 and 3 milliamps. The military has been using it for a while now.
I am a teacher, and find that student can also learn math if they put their phones down, read the book, concentrate and study.
check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron, hint: there is also a film adaption
The next logical step, of course, is increasing the voltage whenever someone gets an answer wrong.
Do you work for them?
Oh, and fuck beta!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron, hint: there is also a film adaption
Really. "developmental dyscalculia." Really?!!!
Pretty sure I know people who've put their battery in backwards and are now stupider...
Maybe. Maybe not. Discussion of it probably won't lead to any insights.
Alexander Fleming had the idea of eliminating diseases by having kids drink a pink liquid extracted from fungus.
Who would have thought drinking fungus-juice would kill pathogens?
The brain offers many mysteries we need to unravel, many of them are probably very counter-intuitive and defy present day "logic".
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Hold on. Let me plug in my brain so I can add up these numbers.
Damn I wish they'd let us use calculators instead...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I threw a monkey wrench into the engine of my car, and it ran slower. Maybe if throw something different into it, it will run faster
news at seventy three. Whoops, time for my jolt.
Of course it can. How else could my calculator work.
No. [BZZZZZT!] Ouch! I mean, Yes. [Bling!]
so here we are back at 18th century stupidity levels, passing currents through parts of people's bodies and trying to cause or attributing all manner of health improvements to it. snake oil futures are looking good
It's an electronium hat which harnesses the power of sunspots to produce cognitive radiation.
It worked for teaching chimps to fly
Who cares about Math, can it make you better at programming?
TDCS is not a new subject, There's a whole subreddit dedicated to it, not to mention hundreds of studies using TDCS for everything from curing Tinnitus to increasing general memory and cognitive function.
If disabling a brain area makes people better at maths, one can wonder what this area is doing? It There must be some function assoicated with it. In other word: what do we win to be bad at maths?
I have the parts on order, It's called TDCS and there's a ton of research about it. This "discovery" is nothing new.
Technically, this is possible. With TDCS, the negative end of the electrode will have reduced brain activity around it and the positive electrode will have increased activity. In most TDCS regimes, the negative electrode goes somewhere on your torso or arm, thus only making your biceps dumb.
Some regimes call for negative feedback to reduce activity such as those for tinnitus or some depression montages.
If you want to get shocked for science, there are tons of studies that use this technique for all kinds of stuff. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/...
No, but drinking beer can make you smarter.
It made Bud wiser!!
No joke like an old joke.
...and you'll never make another math error.
A ten year old public school boy was finding fifth grade math to be the challenge of his life. His mom and dad did everything and anything to help their son...private tutors, peer assistance, CD-ROMs, Textbooks, even HYPNOSIS! Nothing worked.
Finally, giving up they enrolled him into a small Catholic school to await another destiny.
At the end of the first day of school the boy walked in with a stern expression on his face, and walked right past the parents and went straight to his room -and quietly closed the door. For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room -with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He only emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, he went straight back to his room, closed the door, and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.
The parents were not sure if they should comment on the boys extra efforts for fear of him losing this new found fervor, so they seemingly ignored it. This pattern continued ceaselessly.
One day the first quarter report card came out. Unopened, he dropped the envelope on the family dinner table and went straight to his room.
His parents were petrified. What lay inside the envelope? Cautiously the mother opened the letter, and to her amazement she saw a bright red "A" under the subject, MATH.
Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at the remarkable progress of their young son!
"Was it the nuns that did it?", the father asked. The boy only shook his head and said, "No." "Was it the one-on-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?", asked the mother. Again, the boy shrugged, "No." "The textbooks? The teacher? The curriculum?", asked the father. "Nope," said the son. "It was all very clear to me from the very first day of Catholic school."
"How so?", asked his mom.
"When I walked into the lobby, and I saw that guy they'd nailed to the plus sign, I knew those people took their math seriously!"
Have gnu, will travel.
It is called tDCS or transcranial direct current stimulation. There is a ton of research on tDCS. It modulates brain activity by making neurons fire faster or slower. It is used for all kinds of things, improving learning, depression etc. You can make your own primitive device with a current regulator, or get one of the commercial devices. The best one, quality vs price is probably this one: http://www.trans-cranial.com
Of course it doesn't make you better at math. I know this because when I was in the military, I was electrocuted more times than I can ...count.
Then their Id took over and killed them all.
They've been experimenting with this for a while, and it's just like trashdot to try to amp it up like it's something revolutionary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
I have hooked mine up to moderation
Oooh yeah. MOD me more!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
the teacher who gave her students oral sex for good achievement on their math tests (in the novel "Cocksure" by Mordecai Richler).
"developmental dyscalculia, similar to dyslexia but with numerals instead of letters"
Yes, that'll be it, there's something physically wrong with their BRAINS, of course...
It couldn't be that some people were taught the wrong way, or need to be taught a different way, to learn things... can't be that, much better to tell them they have a PHYSICAL problem...
I had a current bun every day, and I'm plenty good at maths. I'm also quite good as a door stop.
Frantzesco Kangaris for The Wall Street Journal
Oxford, England
In England, where the article is referring to, we call it Maths.
Lets put some electricity through someone's head and see what happens, or, drink a Red Bull for the same effect. Mmm, hard choice :P
http://www.foc.us/
Why don't try ? now you know what you must do before starting your homework!
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