Neuroscience
...tell it to Lynndie England!!
All right, let's start at the beginning. My sound-byte-worthy headline was derived from a paper published this week in Nature:
Singer T, Seymour B, O'doherty JP, Stephan KE, Dolan RJ, Frith CD.
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others.
Nature. 2006 Jan 26; 439:466-9.
The neural processes underlying empathy are a subject of intense interest within the social neurosciences. However, very little is known about how brain empathic responses are modulated by the affective link between individuals. We show here that empathic responses are modulated by learned preferences, a result consistent with economic models of social preferences. We engaged male and female volunteers in an economic game, in which two confederates played fairly or unfairly, and then measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while these same volunteers observed the confederates receiving pain. Both sexes exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas (fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices) towards fair players. However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in males when observing an unfair person receiving pain. This effect was accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas, correlated with an expressed desire for revenge. We conclude that in men (at least) empathic responses are shaped by valuation of other people's social behaviour, such that they empathize with fair opponents while favouring the physical punishment of unfair opponents, a finding that echoes recent evidence for altruistic punishment.
Unfortunately, this article has unleased an avalanche of what is called "BAD Neuro-Journalism" by the James S. McDonnell foundation, starting with the Editor's Summary :
[tell that one to the proverbial "woman scorned"]
...and about 9,490 other hits.
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others
"This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment."
-- Lead researcher Dr Tania Singer
Well then, that explains why the public outrage directed at Lynndie England was so much greater than that directed at the Abu Ghraib ringleader (and father of Ms. England's child), former prison guard Charles A. Graner.
Lyndie England, the Right and Feminism
Equal Opportunity Torture
By BRANDY BAKER
Right wing pundits have been seeking to draw special notice to Private Lynndie England. Though only one of many sadistic individuals involved in the horrific acts at the prison who were photographed, England has been on the receiving end of the most invective. Though her fellow sadists were just as cruel, England is getting all of this extra attention because she is an easier target. England is an easier target because she is a woman.
OK, back to Nature. One of the most serious problems with this article is the extrapolation from a small group of students in London to the evolution of neural machinery that implements differential sex roles.
MORE words of wisdom from Dr. Singer:
"Men expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment.
"This type of behaviour has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest.
"This altruistic behaviour means that people tend to protect each other against being exploited by society's free-loaders, and evolution has probably seeded this sense of justice and moral duty into our brains."
And don't get me started on their methodology -- a priori regions of interest (ROIs) for pain-related empathy in fronto-insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex (like the relationship between those brain regions and "pain-related empathy" are well-established!) -- and on their pink-and-blue color-coded tables!
SUMMARY from The Neurocritic : Ummm, it's nice they can generalize from 16 male undergrads to the evolution of sex differences that are universally valid in all societies.
As you can tell, this one really bothers me...
- Empathy Breeds Altruism, Unless A Person Feels They Have Low Status. A Brain-scan Study With A Lesson For Riot-hit England
In a defining image of the recent English riots, a man helped an injured youngster to his feet while an accomplice stole from the same victim's bag. This sheer lack of empathy on the part of the perpetrators has shaken observers to their core. How...
- Voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience
The end of 2008 brought us the tabloid headline, Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience. As initially reported by Mind Hacks, a new "bombshell of a paper" (Vul et al., 2009) questioned the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies...
- Cost Of The War In Iraq
What is the cost of the war in Iraq? In financial terms, it's... In human terms, how does one even begin to calculate the horrific toll? The New York Times is running A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and...
- I Can't Feel Anything...
...and I can't describe it, either. from Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety (2005) The Neurocritic has just noticed a new neuroimaging paper on empathy in individuals with alexithimia, which is an inability to describe one's own feelings. Coincidentally,...
- Humor, Hot Flashes, And Empathy For Pain
These three phenomena activate the same brain areas (anterior cingulate cortex and frontoinsular cortex), according to recent findings. Any theory about the neural correlates of empathy must take into account the fact that the same brain regions are activated...
Neuroscience
Men are Torturers, Women are Nurturers...
...tell it to Lynndie England!!
All right, let's start at the beginning. My sound-byte-worthy headline was derived from a paper published this week in Nature:
Singer T, Seymour B, O'doherty JP, Stephan KE, Dolan RJ, Frith CD.
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others.
Nature. 2006 Jan 26; 439:466-9.
The neural processes underlying empathy are a subject of intense interest within the social neurosciences. However, very little is known about how brain empathic responses are modulated by the affective link between individuals. We show here that empathic responses are modulated by learned preferences, a result consistent with economic models of social preferences. We engaged male and female volunteers in an economic game, in which two confederates played fairly or unfairly, and then measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while these same volunteers observed the confederates receiving pain. Both sexes exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas (fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices) towards fair players. However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in males when observing an unfair person receiving pain. This effect was accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas, correlated with an expressed desire for revenge. We conclude that in men (at least) empathic responses are shaped by valuation of other people's social behaviour, such that they empathize with fair opponents while favouring the physical punishment of unfair opponents, a finding that echoes recent evidence for altruistic punishment.
Unfortunately, this article has unleased an avalanche of what is called "BAD Neuro-Journalism" by the James S. McDonnell foundation, starting with the Editor's Summary :
I feel your pain
Humans have the capacity to empathize with the pain of others, but we don't empathize in all circumstances. An experiment on human volunteers playing an economic game looked at the conditional nature of our sympathy, and the results show that fairness of social interactions is key to the empathic neural response. Both men and women empathized with the pain of cooperative people. But if people are selfish, empathic responses were absent, at least in men. And it seems that physical harm might even be considered a good outcome — perhaps the first neuroscientific evidence for schadenfreude.
Next, this dish, best served cold:
[tell that one to the proverbial "woman scorned"]
...and about 9,490 other hits.
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others
"This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment."
-- Lead researcher Dr Tania Singer
Well then, that explains why the public outrage directed at Lynndie England was so much greater than that directed at the Abu Ghraib ringleader (and father of Ms. England's child), former prison guard Charles A. Graner.
Lyndie England, the Right and Feminism
Equal Opportunity Torture
By BRANDY BAKER
Right wing pundits have been seeking to draw special notice to Private Lynndie England. Though only one of many sadistic individuals involved in the horrific acts at the prison who were photographed, England has been on the receiving end of the most invective. Though her fellow sadists were just as cruel, England is getting all of this extra attention because she is an easier target. England is an easier target because she is a woman.
OK, back to Nature. One of the most serious problems with this article is the extrapolation from a small group of students in London to the evolution of neural machinery that implements differential sex roles.
MORE words of wisdom from Dr. Singer:
"Men expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment.
"This type of behaviour has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest.
"This altruistic behaviour means that people tend to protect each other against being exploited by society's free-loaders, and evolution has probably seeded this sense of justice and moral duty into our brains."
And don't get me started on their methodology -- a priori regions of interest (ROIs) for pain-related empathy in fronto-insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex (like the relationship between those brain regions and "pain-related empathy" are well-established!) -- and on their pink-and-blue color-coded tables!
SUMMARY from The Neurocritic : Ummm, it's nice they can generalize from 16 male undergrads to the evolution of sex differences that are universally valid in all societies.
As you can tell, this one really bothers me...
- Empathy Breeds Altruism, Unless A Person Feels They Have Low Status. A Brain-scan Study With A Lesson For Riot-hit England
In a defining image of the recent English riots, a man helped an injured youngster to his feet while an accomplice stole from the same victim's bag. This sheer lack of empathy on the part of the perpetrators has shaken observers to their core. How...
- Voodoo Correlations In Social Neuroscience
The end of 2008 brought us the tabloid headline, Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience. As initially reported by Mind Hacks, a new "bombshell of a paper" (Vul et al., 2009) questioned the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies...
- Cost Of The War In Iraq
What is the cost of the war in Iraq? In financial terms, it's... In human terms, how does one even begin to calculate the horrific toll? The New York Times is running A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and...
- I Can't Feel Anything...
...and I can't describe it, either. from Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety (2005) The Neurocritic has just noticed a new neuroimaging paper on empathy in individuals with alexithimia, which is an inability to describe one's own feelings. Coincidentally,...
- Humor, Hot Flashes, And Empathy For Pain
These three phenomena activate the same brain areas (anterior cingulate cortex and frontoinsular cortex), according to recent findings. Any theory about the neural correlates of empathy must take into account the fact that the same brain regions are activated...