Survey says . . . let the participant decide

Describe your current level of pain using the scale below. Use the scale below to indicate your current level of happiness. Rate your degree of agreement for the following statement using either a 4-, 6-, or 11-point scale of your choosing from strongly disagree to strongly agree. “I lead a purposeful and meaningful life.” From […]

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The quest for “statistical truth” – The guidelines to the meta-analysis galaxy

Quests A quest is a journey or mission to some goal, usually fraught with obstacles, twists and turns, and hopefully, some epiphanies along the way. Neil Armstrong. Harry Potter. Indiana Jones. Katniss Everdeen. Merida. Dorothy. Each individual had their individual quests for exploration, peace, facts, freedom, home, or truth, while others, like myself, sought education […]

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Keeping an eye on it. The importance of standardized guidelines

Does anyone remember how to write a check these days? I imagine some people reading this post might be scratching their heads and wondering what a check is. In today’s world, where paper and hard currency are quickly being replaced with credit cards, and checks are mostly obsolete due to Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal, one […]

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Color me happy: Helping visuospatial abilities develop

Imagine A Paradise Every other year, students join my co-instructor and me on a research-oriented field study down to Roatán, Honduras, in collaboration with the Dolphin Communication Project and its director, Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski. During this field-based research course, students learn about dolphin biology and behavior, the conservation of coral and sea turtles, and the […]

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Where science fiction meets science. Looking inside the brain during social interactions

Jules Verne, considered a Father of Science Fiction, pioneered the idea of space travel, along with air and water travel, long before the advent of rocket ships and space shuttles, airplanes, and submarines. Ray Bradbury wrote about electronic devices considered prototypes for Bluetooth and Airpods in Farenheit 451. Neuromancer by William Gibson brings to life […]

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Gaming the 1-back reinforcement task: Birds vs humans

Sports have been part of my life since I was a kid, with team sports like basketball, volleyball, and softball being some of my favorites. When I no longer played competitively, I stayed with my favorite sports by refereeing – youth, high school, collegiate, and even a brief foray into professional leagues. And when my […]

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Mother, Ma, Madre, Mutter, or Mère. Does maternal brain activity vary by race? We aren’t sure.

According to Google, there are approximately 2.2 billion mothers in the world. On average, a woman of reproductive age is likely to have 2.5 children across her lifetime. According to ourworldindata.org, the global fertility rate varies substantially across countries as seen in the graphic below. Mothers, Madres, Mamas Women account for 49.5% of our world’s […]

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Stress, what stress? It’s only online research

How stressed do you feel right now? To find out, take this assessment. I scored an 8, which puts me in the “you are stressed” category. I am not too surprised with my result given my own midlife status with two emerging adult children and too many responsibilities while attempting to return to “normal” in […]

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Is it a bird or a plane or maybe Superman? Can we measure the moment this decision was made?

Let’s set the stage with a series of images.       Each of these pictorial examples represents a different aspect of decision-making, which requires the ability to compare incoming stimuli quickly to behave appropriately. In the case of the flying stimuli in the first set of images, a human might be asked to categorize […]

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