User: rjpcal

Re:Interesting...

On: Cellphone Drivers Drive Like Drunks

I shall have to see if I can acquire these reports. However, I would feel better about the conclusions if they came from more than one source: D. L. Strayer and W. A. Johnston appear to have done the bulk of the work [in both reports] collaboratively. A second report from a wholly different group would help validate Strayer & Johnston's work.

1. Treffner, PJ; Barrett, R Hands-free mobile phone speech while driving degrades coordination and control TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH PART F-TRAFFIC PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR, 7 (4-5): 229-246 JUL-SEP 2004
2. McCarley, JS; Vais, MJ; Pringle, H; et al. Conversation disrupts change detection in complex traffic scenes HUMAN FACTORS, 46 (3): 424-436 FAL 2004
3. Rakauskas, ME; Gugerty, LJ; Ward, NJ Effects of naturalistic cell phone conversations on driving performance JOURNAL OF SAFETY RESEARCH, 35 (4): 453-464 2004
4. Gugerty, L; Rakauskas, M; Brooks, J Effects of remote and in-person verbal interactions on verbalization rates and attention to dynamic spatial scenes ACCIDENT ANALYSIS AND PREVENTION, 36 (6): 1029-1043 NOV 2004
5. Golden, C; Golden, CJ; Schneider, B Cell phone use and visual attention PERCEPTUAL AND MOTOR SKILLS, 97 (2): 385-389 OCT 2003
6. Spence, C; Read, L Speech shadowing while driving: On the difficulty of splitting attention between eye and ear PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 14 (3): 251-256 MAY 2003

Re:Nueron theory is consciousness is nice, but...

On: DNA Pioneer Francis Crick Passes Away

How about getting a definition of consciousness first -- and then trying to find what neurons are responsible for them.

This is one of the issues that Crick and Koch are always quick to address both in writing and in public talks. E.g. from http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97 .html:

(1) Everyone has a rough idea of what is meant by being conscious. For now, it is better to avoid a precise definition of consciousness because of the dangers of premature definition. Until the problem is understood much better, any attempt at a formal definition is likely to be either misleading or overly restrictive, or both. If this seems evasive, try defining the word "gene." So much is now known about genes that any simple definition is likely to be inadequate. How much more difficult, then, to define a biological term when rather little is known about it.

Disclaimer: I work in the Caltech lab of Christof Koch, who has been Francis Crick's primary collaborator in the neuroscientific study of consciousness.

Re:Not a disease

On: Neural Feedback Training as Therapy for ADHD?

I have to agree with the previous poster. Anything that affects the better part of 20% of the world's population isn't properly classified as a disorder.

The prevalence of myopia is about 25% among the adult population in the USA.

Does that mean it's not a disorder, that instead of wearing glasses we should have the other 75% be restricted to a minimum font size of 48pt (or preferably 96pt given my own ability to read my CRT from inches)?

Sure, one can argue whether it's better to view the ADHD or myopic population as falling inside one tail of a bell curve rather than having a qualitatively different 'disorder', but either way -- if there are treatments to improve the quality of life for those people, where's the problem in that?