Human Behavior

Male Science Fiction Movies are About Men Having a Romance with Their AI Women: Shalini Kantayya on Coded Bias – Filmmaker Magazine

A.I. and machine learning models can decide who is accepted into college, who gets housing, who gets approved for loans, who gets a job, what advertisements appear on our social media and when. The extent of what A.I. dictates in our lives, and how, is unfathomable to us because it is essentially unregulated, yet we have accepted these invisible systems into our lives with incredible faith and speed. We trust the algorithms, assuming their mathematical functions lack the ability or will to hurt us. But activist and filmmaker Shalini Kantayyas film Coded Bias shows us how these systems will always be, for better and for worse, reflections of the people who made them. Algorithms and A.I., Kantayya reveals to us, are prone to recreating and even automating our worst human biases.

With no government regulation, algorithms and A.I. that discriminate against women and people of color can freely enter the world. When these biases in the system are discovered after theyve already been implemented, programmers and the companies who employed them are not at fault. It is written off as a technical issue the programmer did not intend; there are no legal repercussions. But as is typically the case in many fields, Black women are at the head of the charge for improvements in the tech industry. Computer scientist and poet Joy Bualomwini (who calls herself a poet of code), started the Algorithmic Justice League when she discovered her facial recognition software wasnt recognizing her face because it was biased towards white complexions. She ends the film testifying before Congress and scaring Democrats and Republicans alike with the dangers of unregulated tech.

Another reason these algorithms are so untouchable is because the language surrounding them is abstruse and its functions hardly ever transparent to consumers. Kantayya tells us how she streamlined this technobabble with Coded Bias so that we can understand the havoc A.I. wreaks every day in the background of our lives. In doing so, the algorithms feel much more manageable and maybe a little less horrifying because of that.

Filmmaker: As the election came down to the difference of just thousands or hundreds of votes, it is hard not to think about what Coded Bias shows about social medias potential to sway elections one way or the other.

Shalini Kantayya: Zeynep Tufecki recites this Facebook study that was published in Nature magazine in 2010 that shows the difference between the small, incremental change of showing your friends faces with an I Voted sign that Facebook implemented [versus] not showing their faces. They found out that Facebook could sway in excess of over 300,000 people to the polls. Basically, what that goes to show is how these imperceptible changes in the way the algorithms work can have very real outcomes on human behavior.

Filmmaker: The doc also shows how unregulated tech is a rare mutual fear between Democrats and Republicans.

Kantayya: AOC, left liberal from Queens, is agreeing with Jim Jordan, conservative Republican from Ohio. Theres this scene where Jim Jordan says, Wait a minute. 117 Million people are in a police database that [police] can access without a warrant, and theres no one in elected office overseeing this process? That was a rare moment where I hoped both sides of the aisle could see the issue.

Filmmaker: How do you start into this? Is your shooting schedule the first skeleton of the project?

Kantayya: No. I couldnt talk to people at parties about what I was working on because it was so hard to describe. I think I started with a few core interviews, maybe four, and from that process fell down the rabbit hole, went deeper and deeper into the story and built the arc from that. I think it wasnt until when Joy went to D.C to testify before Congress that I had a documentary. I had a beginning, middle, end and the character had gone on a journey. [laughs]

Filmmaker: Who or what decided when your shoot ended?

Kantayya: I am the person that decides. I think getting to Sundance was a big marker for the film being finished. Im so grateful that we made it in time for the premiere, because it pushed us do so much work in a short amount of time. But I think the film wasnt really finished at Sundance. We were supposed to play at SXSW, which I wish we could have done, but I dont think the film was finished until June when we finished it [for] the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival. This was the directors cut, and I did feel the difference in how that cut of the film was received.

Filmmaker: This film is a brisk hour twenty, and this is the kind of film whose goal is to get in front of many people as it can.

Kantayya: I thought a lot about how to make the film palatable. It has a lot of dense subject matter and it was such a rigorous edit in so many ways. But it was really important that the film was palatable, and we made some really hard choices. There are so many gems on the cutting room floor, and I was one of the editors. I was committed to making a film that you want more of.

Filmmaker: How much or little of an expert do you have to become to facilitate this best to a mainstream audience?

Kantayya: I still have this humility speaking about it. Ive now spoken to Stanfords Human Centered A.I. Institute. Ive spoken to some really astute engineers and its always very humbling to me. [laughs] The cast in Coded Bias are some of the smartest people Ive ever interviewed; I think there are 7 PhDs in the film. They have advanced degrees in mathematics and science. But I hope the film levels the playing field. When I was at Sundance, someone at Google said, Weve been having this conversation internally and your film made it a conversation we can have for everyone. I hope the film makes people feel that they dont need a degree from Stanford to understand the technologies that will impact civil rights and democracy, our lives and opportunities in real ways.

Filmmaker: Because so much of the language in these interviews can be abstruse, how much do your editors also have to become experts to even begin to know what theyre working with and how?

Kantayya: I edited a lot of the scene work and big structural work with the interviews. They were so rigorous and dense, so I did a lot of that work myself. My editors, Zachary Ludescher and Alex Gilwit, effortlessly work between editing and special effects. They have this incredible ability to work between mediums. There were some scenes we werent sure would work until the special effects were roughed in. So, I was really lucky to have two editors that were really astute at special effects as well.

Filmmaker: You highlight hero Joy, the primary subject of the film and part of the Algorithmic Justice League, by sometimes shooting her in slow motion.

Kantayya: I feel like one of the most beautiful things about documentaries is that they make heroes out of real people. I was happy to shoot that in a very stylized way. In a documentary where theres so much beyond your control, Im always grateful when theres a chance for me to control some of the elements.

Filmmaker: Did getting funding for a doc ever feel daunting and undoable to you?

Kantayya: Documentary has had a ladder, I think. Coded Bias is 100% funded by foundations. In the beginning, I went through the front door with applications. Im not a filmmaker that has enough rich friends and access to capital, so I did it through the foundation route.And I did build a career like that, through small grants, always trying to overdeliver until I got the reputation to do bigger grants. I dont think its the easiest path, but it is a path thats open to everyone. Limitations define your creativity, and you have to work with what you have. But Im happy when they compare this film to The Social Dilemma, because it was certainly made at a different scale.

Filmmaker: You were one of the last films to get a proper, theatrical, festival premiere when you premiered Sundance.

Kantayya: Getting to premiere at Sundance is amazing under any circumstances. We didnt know it was going to be the last [in person] film festival for years. [laughs] But Im also grateful because it informed how we reedited the film. Getting to watch the film with an audience, and feel them with the film or feel for moments when I may have lost them, really informed how we reedited Coded Bias. Like every filmmaker, I miss the movie theater, and were just trying to reinvent ourselves in this new environment.

Filmmaker: Early in the film you show a montage of science fiction films to show how the tech industry aims to manifest the tools and futures those films envisage. I realized all of the films you show were directed by white men, so the bulk of the visions of the future we try to manifest is a future predominantly envisaged by white men.

Kantayya: What I learned in the making of Coded Biasis that theres always been this conversation between science fiction writers and technology developers. Marvin Minsky at MIT labs was in conversation with Arthur C. Clarke and was the one who actually made HAL in 2001. What I feel is that both technology developers and science fiction artists have been limited by the white male gaze. Its something we talk about in cinema with Hollywood so White and other movements. I think that can restrict imagination. Joy and I were joking that a lot of these male science fiction movies are about men having a romance with their A.I. women, including some of my favorite films like Blade Runner. [laughs] We also geeked out about what science fiction by women would look like. But I hope Coded Bias unleashes the genius of the other half of the population and stretches our imaginations. I think by recentering the conversation on women and people of color, who happen to be the ones leading the fight on bias in A.I., it shifts our imagination about what these technologies can be.

Filmmaker: Can you talk about building the arc of the A.I. narration that begins the film clean and objective and becomes distorted, more biased, and eventually racist and misogynistic over time?

Kantayya: I was constantly thinking about how to keep a cohesive narrative structure when there are so many storylines and geographies. Through research I discovered Tay, a real chatbot that became an anti-Semitic, racist, sexist nightmare. [Tay was a chatbot designed by Microsoft and released on Twitter, that learned from Twitter users to post inflammatory racist and misogynistic tweets and was shut down within 16 hours of its launch] Half of the film uses the voice of Tay and its actual transcripts from the Taybot. Then, about halfway through the film, the voice of the chatbot morphs. Tay dies and it becomes this other voice, which is a womans voice that eerily sounds a bit like Siri. Thats written narration. The A.I. as a narrator was a device inspired by 2001 that comments on what the HAL of today is. [laughs]

We have to tell people that the A.I. narration is a reference to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it became known to me that a lot of young people have not seen 2001. [laughs] Oh my god! It was only through showing my film to high school kids. I did a hands up to see how many had seen it.

Filmmaker: And there were zero hands up?

Kantayya: Yeah. [laughs] So I was like, basically you didnt get the reference.

Filmmaker: Another idea in the film, is that this tech is just a reflection of us. It is not this separate and magical thing as its been imagined in pop culture, it has inherited all its programmersweaknesses and biases. The difference is that those biases are automated, or that theres no human element where the algorithm questions if its wrong.

Kantayya: Human bias can be coded and we all have it. We often dont realize it. Steve Wozniaks wife got a different credit score than him on the Apple Credit Card and he was like, How can this be? We have all the same money, all the same assets, everything. It could be because women have a shorter history of credit in the US, or a shorter history of having mortgages. But the computer was somehow picking up on historical inequalities, and the programmer didnt know that, so its an example of unconscious bias. A similar thing happened with Amazon. They installed a sorting system for resumes and were like This is great, this is going to undo the human bias that we all have, and lo and behold the A.I. system is picking up on who got hired, who got promoted, who had job retention in the past and it discriminated against any candidate that was a woman. It had the exact opposite impact. It just goes to show that even when the programmers have the best of intentions, the A.I. can pick up on unconscious biases and historic inequalities.

Filmmaker: Finally, I just want to confirm, the working title for this film was Racist Robots?

Kantayya: [laughs] I tested it. I loved that title so much! [laughs] But people wouldnt let me keep it.

See original here:
Male Science Fiction Movies are About Men Having a Romance with Their AI Women: Shalini Kantayya on Coded Bias - Filmmaker Magazine

Neuroscience

Neureka: Playing mind games to expand neuroscience research – Siliconrepublic.com

Our featured start-up for Future Health Week is Neureka, a young company looking to expand the possibilities of neuroscience research.

Neureka is a smartphone app designed to dramatically scale up the number of participants we can recruit for research studies in the area of brain health, explained Neureka founder Dr Claire Gillan.

The app, she said, plays host to gold-standard cognitive neuroscience tests in the form of interactive games users can play on their phone. The data from these gaming experiences is collated with information provided by users on their diet, exercise and mental health, so that a distraction in your downtime can become a useful tool for researchers.

Waiting in line or riding the bus, any time users spend on the app helps basic scientists to power up their research studies a critical step forward for research in this area that has long been plagued by small samples that produce results that cannot be reproduced, said Gillan.

People are very willing to participate in a research app, but they need something in return DR CLAIRE GILLAN

Launched this summer, Neureka attracted 3,000 active users in its first few months. Even with advertising costs we are able to acquire new users at a cost thats rare in academic research, especially given the amount of data we are able to collect per user, said Gillan.

In terms of investment, the start-up has already raised close to 2m in funding. With this backing, Gillan believes that Neureka can make studies more comprehensive by expanding their reach.

Traditional research studies are often confined to one region or, worse yet, one particular class of people like university undergraduates. Moving out of the lab helps us to not just size up our studies, but make them more representative of the population as a whole, she explained.

Because of the nature of the app, anyone can participate in the research from anywhere in the world. To make that an attractive proposition, Neureka has taken what Gillan described as somewhat boring lab-based tests and turned them into fun games that preserve their scientific relevance.

These games are modified versions of clinically validated tests to study memory, mental flexibility and decision-making. Previous research has already established that some of these tests can differentiate people with and without dementia, while others have never been studied in this context before, said Gillan.

Gillan emphasised that Neureka users are not mere guinea pigs. Work is in the early stages, but the app aims to feed back findings to users and educate them on risk factors for dementia and methods to help keep their brains healthier for longer.

This could be hugely valuable to public health as up to 40pc of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed with a combination of lifestyle interventions. Many people remain unaware of all the little things that they can do to reduce their own risk for dementia. Even something simple like wearing a hearing aid can potentially reduce the risk of dementia, said Gillan. Although each activity only reduces the risk by a little bit, collectively they make a big difference.

Providing users with information and feedback also proved essential to improving engagement with the app. People are very willing to participate in a research app, but they need something in return, if even just to understand their progress.

As well as the games, the Neureka app includes a daily mood tracker in order to study networks of depression systems. The data can tell us how specific events set off cascades of symptoms that in some cases may kickstart episodes of serious mental illness, said Gillan.

We are about to launch a new feature that helps the public detect fake news by watching out for tell-tale signs that a finding has been overblown in the media, she added.

Gillans academic journey started at University College Dublin, then the University of Cambridge, followed by New York Universitys Centre for Neural Science. She returned to Dublin in 2017 and became assistant professor of psychology at Trinity College Dublin, where she started her own research lab.

Supported by almost 3m in funding, the Gillan Lab is focused on developing online methods for large-scale research in the areas of mental health and dementia. Gillan herself has published 39 peer-reviewed papers including first-author papers in psychiatric journals, with several thousand citations.

The lab has a central goal of translating basic neuroscience into tools of clinical value and we use large samples and data-driven methods like machine learning to try and achieve those goals, said Gillan. My team has a wide range of backgrounds including marketing, game development, clinical service delivery, psychology and neuroscience.

Next steps for Neureka will include partnering with SciStarter, a citizen science initiative in the US, to increase engagement with the citizen science community there. More features will also be added to the app and Gillan is open to commercialisation.

Although we are currently a non-profit app focused on research applications, if the app proves useful, we foresee a future where Neureka could be better managed as a commercial entity, leaving the science to the scientists and the business to a dedicated team, she said.

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Neureka: Playing mind games to expand neuroscience research - Siliconrepublic.com

Neuroscience

"I’ve noticed a massive improvement in my aiming": How neuroscience can help you get better at Call of Duty – Gamesradar

There remains a woefully prevalent misconception lurking behind the pomp and pageantry of video game shooters, and it's the idea that you're either naturally good at them, or you're not.

Similar to equally false theories that skills such as singing and drawing are innate, and thus unteachable, it's an argument that implies there's no point trying to improve your form with the digital firearm, as you'll never be able to match the talents of the naturally gifted. It's one video game genre where you apparently can't, as they say, 'git gud'.

It's also an idea that is, of course, absolute nonsense, but hopefully you already knew that. What you might not know is the hows and whys of what makes that claim so untrue, especially when it relates to your brain chemistry, and the way in which that lump of fat and tissue lodged between your skull interacts with video games over time.

"Most video games will stimulate your mind to some degree," explains Colin Gardner, a PHD student of neuroscience at the University of Georgia, USA.

"But when it comes to shooters, it will be stimulating areas in your brain such as your visual centers, the pathways on which the visual information then travels to go around your brain, and your primary motor cortex, which plays a major part in getting your body to move."

"As you continually play, it'll strengthen neuronal the cells that make up your nervous system and relay information. This will enhance the connections in your primary motor cortex and allow for faster, better movement with, in this case, your hands and fingers. Although it isn't on the same level as something like playing guitar or the piano, as far as I know, in terms of stimulation it still will provide something for your brain to do and to grow."

Gardner's interests in both video games and science go back to his childhood, but it's only in recent years that he began to explore the connection between the two. He tells me that he enjoys all sorts of games, but when it comes to the subject of neuroscience shooters represent the most interesting genre for study, as their demand for high-speed trigger fingers and pinpoint precision make them the perfect metric "to track improvement in your brain's reaction time and muscle memory".

"The ridiculous amount of information that has to translate from the screen to your eyes through your brain and down to your hand is just such a cool process in my opinion. Not to get too philosophical, I also think that with shooters it's a good way to improve your mindset and the way you see things. You can always just get mad and say 'bad game is bad', but with shooters there's always areas you can see where you need to improve and things you can do better. I think that's a good mindset to have in life."

A few weeks ago, Gardner floated an idea on the official subreddit for one of his current favourite shooters, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Would the COD community be interested in a video that explains "what's going on in your brain as you engage and try to aim onto your opponent"? Within a matter of days, the post had received hundreds of upvotes. Evidently, it seems, a lot of Call of Duty players were keen to unlock the neurological potential behind their K:D ratio.

"With shooters there's always areas you can see where you need to improve and things you can do better."

"It's funny, the idea for this came to me after I had been playing guitar and learning Ozzy Osbourne's Mr. Crowley outro solo," Gardner admits. "I had to practice slowly until my fingers built up the procedural muscle memory to be able to do it. I realised it's almost the same thing with video games, and moving your mouse or joystick to aim."

Ok, so, as someone who regularly plays Call of Duty: Warzone myself, how do I improve my chances at being the last man standing in Verdansk? Let's start with the basics, which if decades of scientific research is to be believed (and it absolutely should be) also happen to resemble the foundation for improving almost everything else in your life: physical health.

Gardner elaborates: "With reaction speeds, you can actually start to see improvements through changes in diet and exercise. For example, Lutein and zeaxanthin [nutrients found in high concentration in many fruits and vegetables] has been shown in studies to cause your brain and visual system to begin to work more quickly and react to things faster. There are other factors that will lower your reaction speeds like lack of sleep, alcohol, and so on."

Beyond what we put in our body, and how much we exercise it, Gardner also points to aim trainers, programs designed to help you practice and track your precision skills, as a reliable tool for improving one's FPS performance.

"Aim trainers help build what's called procedural memory, our ability to perform motor tasks automatically, which, in turn, will cause faster reaction times and more accurate responses. I use Aim Lab for my aim trainer, for example, and have noticed a massive improvement in my aiming, especially it's consistency."

As it happens, Aim Lab's creator Statespace was founded by Dr. Wayne Mackey, a professor of yep, you guessed it neuroscience at NYU. It's just one example of the scientific field's growing interest in video games as a new frontier for uncovering the secrets within our head.

Historically, conversations around the relationship between video games and psychology have been turbulent at best, with tabloid headlines peddling unsubstantiated claims about their harmful effects on the brain. Myriad studies have proven the inverse, of course, while also stressing that we've still only scratched the surface when it comes to our understanding of the cerebral realm, let alone its relationship to external stimuli as involving and ever evolving as video games.

That's not a huge surprise. Whenever someone boots up their console of choice, they're essentially starting an interaction between two supercomputers, one organic, the other man-made, as both speak to each other in a polyphonic dance of audiovisual signals, neuromotor relays, and lightning-speed electrochemistry.

"The amount of detail that our brains work to connect our visual pathways to the rest of our brain is just mind blowing," Gardner tells me, the day after his video goes live on YouTube. "And all of it to improve our Darwinian chances of survival." It's no wonder he finds the whole thing so interesting.

For more, check out the best Call of Duty games to play right now, or watch our full review of Watch Dogs Legion in the video below.

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"I've noticed a massive improvement in my aiming": How neuroscience can help you get better at Call of Duty - Gamesradar

Neuroscience

Global Neuroscience Market 2020 | Know the Companies List Could Potentially Benefit or Loose out From the Impact of COVID-19 | Top Companies: GE…

Neuroscience-MarketOverview of Neuroscience Market 2020-2025:

Global Neuroscience Market 2020 research report presents analysis of market size, share, and growth, trends, cost structure, statistical and comprehensive data of the global market. Research reports analyses the major opportunities, CAGR, yearly growth rates to help the readers to understand the qualitative and quantitative aspects of theGlobal NeuroscienceMarket. The competition landscape, company overview, financials, recent developments and long-term investments related to theGlobal Neuroscience Marketare mentioned in this report.

The key segments covered in this report are geographical segments, end-use/application segments, and competitor segments. The local segment, regional supply, application, and wise demand, major players, prices are also available by 2025. Global Neuroscience Market are mentioned in the competition landscape, company overview, financials, recent developments and long-term investments.

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Market by Type Whole Brain Imaging Neuro-Microscopy Electrophysiology Technologies Neuro-Cellular Manipulation Stereotaxic Surgeries Animal Behavior OthersMarket by Application Hospitals Diagnostic Laboratories Research Institutes Others

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Years Considered to Estimate the Market Size:History Year: 2015-2019Base Year: 2019Estimated Year: 2020Forecast Year: 2020-2025Regions Covered in the Global Neuroscience Market:The Middle East and Africa(GCC Countries and Egypt)North America(the United States, Mexico, and Canada)South America(Brazil etc.)Europe(Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.)Asia-Pacific(Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)

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Detailed TOC of Neuroscience Market Report 2020-2025:Chapter 1: Neuroscience Market OverviewChapter 2: Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3: Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6: Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Neuroscience Market ForecastContinued

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Global Neuroscience Market 2020 | Know the Companies List Could Potentially Benefit or Loose out From the Impact of COVID-19 | Top Companies: GE...

Neuroscience

The True Perception That Moves People – PRovoke Media

Communication is all about changing the perception of target audiences. With the increasing and constantly changing demand of consumers and stakeholders, understanding true perception that motivates and moves people at the most fundamental level, and establishing relevance by building deeper and more meaningful emotional connections with people, can empower organizations to make the right move. This is even more relevant given the global events this year. The publics perception has been reshaped by evolving global contexts, ongoing transformational change, uncertainty, and disruption of systems.

Neuroscience has been used in marketing for an in-depth understanding of consumers for years. Utilizing both non-conscious and conscious data, marketers are able to elicit emotional response to ensure that their messaging impacts both purchasing behavior and brand loyalty. The majority of neuroscience research applications are conducted through stimulus and response testing by exposing participants to certain advertisements and gathering consumer data beyond what is self-reported.

What perceptual neuroscience allows us to do is to go even deeper, by pinpointing with absolute precision the elements, experiences, language, and other stimuli that create interest and action

among audiences. BCWs NeuroLab, a new offering based on an exclusive partnership with the Lab of Misfits (the worlds only neurodesign lab), is focused on discovering true perception and providing deeper insights about audiences, in a bid to create compelling ways to build meaningful connections between brands and their stakeholders. Its designed to help the agency and its clients understand the conscious and unconscious mechanisms that shape audience perception and spark behavior.

Our goal here is to really understand whats driving people's motivations at the most fundamental level and use that information to drive greater connections between brands and audiences," BCW chief innovation officer Chad Latz said to PRovoke. Our solutions use brain science and experiments that enable us to study how people experience a variety of stimuli from language and ideas to images, emotions, and events all in an effort to help find values and connections shared between clients and their stakeholders.

While behavioral science studies outcomes, BCW NeuroLab evaluates the underlying motivators that move people to act and, as a result, provides the opportunity to make communication more engaging. Lets take neuroscience for brand communications strategy, one pillar of BCW NeuroLab, as an example. Advanced technologies can be used to design experiments, in order to generate a holistic understanding of stakeholders thoughts, feelings and the things they value most. This will include a psychographic understanding of the audience, which focuses on factors such as motivations, beliefs, and priorities, which will help to refine brand purpose, marketplace strategy, positioning, and activation.

An example of how we design experiments comes from some work we did with a company that specializes in protecting, repairing and replacing damaged tech products. Through monitoring participants brain waves, heart rates, and galvanic skin responses in a smartly designed environment, the experiment was able to provide a further understanding of how tech frustrations affect a users body and mind. The results showed that, while seemingly small in impact, tech frustrations bring out the worst versions of ourselves and make us feel more distant from those closest to us, more cautious, less creative, delusional, and can even unleash unconscious social biases. What an interesting finding with the potential of leading to a more resonating messaging and positioning of technology with purpose!

This case paints a future scenario of communications practices, where the understanding of stakeholders perception and deep needs allows organizations to further refine their strategy, and even identify ownable territories. We can use perceptual neuroscience to analyze the obstacles and opportunities for organizations to better drive engagement, transformation, and impact.

The new era of communications is here. With the broader application of big data and AI in communication, perceptual neuroscience can be added to better understand stakeholders behavior on modern-day communication channels such as social media. With AI algorithms used to analyze increasingly robust data and neuroscience helping to find values and connections shared between organizations and their stakeholders, communication practitioners will be empowered to further enhance their persuasive messaging and targeting strategies.

While there are concerns around this field when companies exploit blind spots in human psychology to gain an advantage, we advocate for transparency, accountability and supervision to understand stakeholders' subconscious thoughts to provide genuine value for clients and their audiences. Communication practitioners can optimize the story and create more powerful and authentic connections with stakeholders based on neuroscience. Consider too that the effectiveness of public service announcements can be boosted by encouraging society to engage in positive behaviors. As human behavior continues to evolve in response to the world around us, the future of the communication industry will rely on the limitless opportunities through neuroscience and other innovations. By using innovation to build genuine, lasting connections with key stakeholders, communications will play an even more important role in creating value for brands and the consumers they serve.

====

Joe Peng, Regional Managing Director and Head of Digital Innovation, BCW Asia Pacific

To help brands understand the conscious and unconscious mechanisms that shape audience perception and spark behavior, BCW NeuroLab was launched in August 2020 as part of an exclusive partnership with the Lab of Misfits, led by world-renowned neuroscientist R. Beau Lotto, Ph.D.

More here:
The True Perception That Moves People - PRovoke Media

Neuroscience

ST Medical Monday: "Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain" – Public Radio Tulsa

Our guest is Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, a noted expert on both psychology and neuroscience who's also a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University in Boston. She tells us about her new book, "Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain." As was noted of this book in a starred review in Kirkus: "An excellent education in brain science.... [Feldman Barrett] deftly employs metaphor and anecdote to deliver an insightful overview of her favorite subject.... So short and sweet that most readers will continue to the 35-page appendix, in which the author delves more deeply, but with no less clarity, into topics ranging from teleology to the Myers-Briggs personality test to 'Plato's writings about the human psyche.' Outstanding popular science."

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ST Medical Monday: "Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain" - Public Radio Tulsa

Neuroscience

Kelly A. Toth – Hartford Business

Honoree Category: Nurse

Kelly A. Toth, manager of Hartford HealthCares Ayer Neuroscience Institute, has been described as a hidden gem of a leader during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 17, Toth was deployed to support Hartford HealthCares COVID-19 operations, including the regional operations command center and development of the drive-through testing site at MidState Medical Center.

After a five-month deployment, Toth accepted a position as a manager of the Ayer Neuroscience Institute.

She created a team and process at MidState Medical Centers drive-through testing site that is far above any other testing process in the Hartford HealthCare system.

I developed the most efficient testing site resulting in consistent waits of five minutes or less while processing upwards of 300 patients a day, she said.

Toth has been highly regarded by her executive leadership team for her leadership skills and tireless effort to support the COVID-19 initiative, oftentimes working seven days a week.

This experience has been humbling, but from it I have learned to lead by influence, which will only further benefit me as I advance in my career, she said.

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Kelly A. Toth - Hartford Business

Neuroscience

Book review: The BrainCanDo Handbook – TES News

The BrainCanDo Handbook of Teaching and Learning

Edited by: Julia Harrington, Jonathan Beale, Amy Fancourt and Catherine LutzPublisher: RoutledgeDetails: 263pp; 19.99ISBN: 978-0367187057

Prince Harry has reported how he has learned a huge amount about unconscious bias since being married to Meghan Markle. In a moment of honesty, he recalled that he had been raised in a context of luxury and privilege, and it had taken him many years to recognise his own prejudices.

This prejudice, or unconscious bias, creeps in whether we like it or not. We are born with a predisposition to prefer the sorts of people we are familiar with, and this colours our behaviour and attitudes towards others.

What has this got to do with a review of a book about the translation of educational neuroscience into teaching and learning practice?

Just as Prince Harry has come to realise, in order to understand anything with any nuance, it is necessary to become more familiar with the background and context from which it came. Rigorous research always makes strenuous attempts to acknowledge any possible bias that may limit the findings of the study no study is ever perfect, and it is important that we understand that.

One limitation we should always consider is the demographic make-up of the participants. It goes without saying that we would be suspicious of using a new drug that had been tested only in a laboratory in a test tube, under perfect conditions. We would expect the drug to have been applied to a normal, varied group of people, going about their lives in the everyday world before we used it.

The BrainCanDo Research Centre is based at Queen Annes School, a small, selective independent girls school, in Berkshire. In collaboration with other independent schools, including Eton and Westminster, the research centre has embraced the opportunity to run research studies with respected researchers, developing approaches to implementing educational neuroscience. At the same time, it is also challenging the scientism and scepticism they perceive across the education sector.

Undoubtedly, the book is an impressive collection of pieces, written by teachers in partnership with researchers exploring the latest research in educational neuroscience and psychology, and offering practical strategies for its application in secondary schools.

The chapters vary. Some provide careful, scholarly, impressively referenced reviews of the literature, followed by suggestions of how these findings could be translated into practice and evaluated.

In other cases, the weighty and erudite literature review acts as background to the description of a serious, well-funded and systematic research study constructed to document new practices and evaluate impact.

Refreshingly, the book starts with a philosophical exploration of the elusive concept of scientism:the dogmatic excessive belief in the power or value of science. We have, it suggests, a dogmatic assumption that scientific methods or findings can be immediately or straightforwardly applied in education. This is where schools and practitioners are misled.

We are wrong to consider it easy or to be easily swayed by the use of scientific language or concepts. It is perfectly possible to be a good teacher without a deep knowledge of educational neuroscience.

The main finding of this chapter is that we should be cautious,and recognise the limitations of science and how far the findings can be translated into messy, educational contexts. We should be aware of using scientific or quasi-scientific language to try to make work look more impressive.

The bulk of the book explores the familiar canon of educational neuroscience, including subjects such as executive function, cognitive-load theory and working memory, misconceptions and counterintuitive concepts in maths and science, growth-mindset theory and the importance of sleep.

There is a chapter describing a longitudinal study of girls at Queen Annes as they engaged in their high-quality musical learning and instructionover a year, and the impact and importance this may have on cognitive and social and emotional learning.

We read how Eton College developed a curriculum designed to build character in their pupils, including opportunities for the boys to volunteer in the local community to enable them to develop empathy and be more concerned with those not within their social circles (remember Prince Harry?).

Undeniably, the work they have accomplished is deeply impressive. The opportunities they have created for their staff to work on research projects with researchers of international standing is admirable and there is much we can draw from their descriptions of gains in learning their students have made.

But the world they describe is a very distant reality to the one most teachers and leaders face during these dark and challenging times. Perhaps we might consider it a description of the test tube of perfect conditions, where the participants have every available luxury and privilege.

So, whileI recognise their deep commitment to the study of the translation of evidence into practice and their interest and dedication to the subject, I am acknowledging the limitations of their research. In essence, this is not a book for the everyday, workaday, comprehensive teachers and leaders among us.

The takeaway for those of us struggling to secure enough digital equipment to enable all our pupils to access remote learning might just be: look what you could doif you had the money and time to do so.

It is, perhaps, a glimpse into how the others believe they can do these things better with a dose of educational neuroscientism thrown in.

Megan Dixon is director of research and development at the Aspire Educational Trust

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Book review: The BrainCanDo Handbook - TES News

Neuroscience

This Jamaican is now the first Black woman to get PhD in neuroscience from University of Rochester – Face2Face Africa

Monique Mendes, a Jamaican-born scientist, followed her passion for the sciences to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Now, she is the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in that field from the University of Rochester.

The Neuroscience program at the University of Rochester Medical Centers Del Monte Institute was established in 1925 and Mendes, being the first Black woman Ph.D. graduate from the program, is worth celebrating. The only other Black was a man, Dr. Nathan Anthony Smith, in 2013.

I feel empowered, I feel excited, said Mendes. Im just happy that I was able to get a Ph.D. and to show other Black women that it is possible, and they can succeed.

The 27-year-old successfully defended her thesis in July and she started her post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University in September, according toDemocrat & Chronicle. For a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford, Mendes conducts research using novel imaging techniques to better understand how learning and memory are impacted by specific cells called glia.

The journey in the laboratory began in her native country, Jamaica. Her sixth-grade teacher at St. Andrew Preparatory School in Kingston was the only Black woman teaching science at the time. She taught science with passion and always made the lessons fun and interesting. Little Mendes knew then that she wanted to know more.

Interestingly, Mendes realized that none of her professors or teachers as a child were women aside from her sixth-grade teacher. One of the big things I wish I had had over the years was faculty that looked like me, said Mendes. She however acknowledges that Rochester University has put measures in place since she has been there to retain Black women in the sciences.

Mendes earned her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Florida where she was named a McNair Scholar. The award was named after Black physicist Dr. Ronald E. McNair, who died in the Challenger Space shuttle accident in 1986. It is conferred on students from underrepresented backgrounds to increase the number of graduate degrees awarded to people from such backgrounds. It also provides funding for two years of graduate school and four years of postdoctoral training.

The thing that stands out most about Monique is her energy and enthusiasm, said Ania Majewska, Ph.D., a neuroscience professor at the University of Rochester in whose lab Mendes worked for five years conducting research on brain development.

Shes a dynamo. Shes very creative, independent and has incredible ideas. As a mentor, a lot of how youre measured is how well you train your students and Im super excited to see Monique go out in the world.

There is no stopping Mendes. While at the University of Rochester, she became the first URMC graduate student to receive the coveted F99/K00 NIH Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience fellowship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders in Stroke.

Mendes is a decorated scientist and admired for her contributions to the sciences, however, she wanted to be a musician at a point in time. Her love for science tramped her music ambitions but she never left them behind entirely.

According to Mendes, during her studies, she played the violin and was part of the Florida Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Also, while at School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD), she played in the Brighton Symphony Orchestra and even performed in two side-by-side concerts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mendes hopes to become a mentor for young Black girls and people of color in and outside her field. While on campus at Rochester, she created a diverse and inclusive community to mentor new students from diverse backgrounds and occasionally held events to help them have much-needed discussions pertaining to them.

During her Ph.D. program, Mendes was awarded theEdward Curtis Peck Awardfor Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student and theOutstanding Student Mentor award.

Her advice to her mentees is that they should be fearless, be inquisitive and follow their dreams. Advocate for yourself; advocate for others, she advised.

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This Jamaican is now the first Black woman to get PhD in neuroscience from University of Rochester - Face2Face Africa

Neuroscience

So your brain injury case involves diffusion tensor imagingnow what? – JD Supra

Defense attorneys and claims professionals evaluating traumatic brain injury claims are likely to come across a form of advanced neuroimaging known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Diffusion tensor imaging uses data from MRI sequences to measure and patterns of water diffusion throughout brain tissue. It uses that data to map the structure of white matter tracts in the brain and draw broader conclusions about the integrity ofor subtle injuries tothose white matter tracts. The resulting colorful three-dimensional images may make for striking demonstrative evidence, but these often bely the complexity of this neuroimaging modality and what it means for the ultimate questions in a personal injury caseas well as the admissibility of DTI studies and expert opinions derived from them under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.

In a recent column in Nautilus, An Existential Crisis in Neuroscience, writer Grigori Guitchounts discusses how technological advances in neuroscience are outpacing our ability to make sense of the incredible volumes of data researchers are now able to uncover about the brains structure and function. As he notes, Technology has made it easy for us to gather behemoth datasets, but Im not sure understanding the brain has kept pace with the size of the datasets.

The column describes further conversations with researchers involved in the field of connectomics, or attempts to map out brain structures at the level of neurons to create a wiring diagram. Those researchers note the lack of clear understanding of how brain structure relates to psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia, and their attempts to use machine intelligence to understand the relationship between structure and function. Despite decades of progress and access to more detailed data than ever about how the brain is composed, a holistic understanding and ability to apply that data remains elusive. As Guitchounts notes, The machines we have builtthe ones architected after cortical anatomyfall short of capturing the nature of the human brain. But they have no trouble finding patterns in large datasets.

Proponents of diffusion tensor imagings forensic use in litigating traumatic brain injury claims often tout its sensitivity, or ability to identify subtle changes in brain structures, at a degree that was previously unattainable by other structural imaging methods such as computed tomography (CT) or standard MRI sequences like T1, T2, SWI, and FLAIR. But, proponents miss the fact that once a lesionoften described as an area of reduced fractional anisotropy, in neuroradiology parlanceis identified on DTI, its significance in the particular case is not always entirely clear. There is not always a definitive correlation between an identified white matter lesion and neurocognitive complaints, whether identified by neuropsychological testing or not. This is especially true given that white matter lesions have a host of other causes unrelated to traumasuch as hypertension, pre-existing psychiatric conditions, or even the normal aging process. And, in our firms work in litigating traumatic brain injury claims nationally, we have occasionally seen DTI studies that describe a totally normal brain despite the fact that other imaging modalities like MRI have documented obvious structural brain damage in a particular individual. In such cases, the inability of DTIs high-resolution data to identify lesions where they clearly should exist raises questions about the clinical and forensic significance of single, isolated lesions in concussion cases.

In evaluating the strength and admissibility of expert opinions interpreting diffusion tensor imaging, one should be aware of the host of potential issues surrounding DTI and its interpretation in any particular case, including partial volume effects, the multiple comparisons problem, normative datasets, and mapping errors. And, in addressing whether DTI evidence satisfies Daubert and Fed. R. Civ. P. 702 in a case, attorneys should consider whether a DTI study merely finds a pattern in a large dataset without a clear understanding, based on actual science, of how that pattern correlates with an identified neuropsychological deficit or symptom that is at issue in the case. DTI abnormalities are not per se evidence of a TBI, and an expert who opines that they are likely expresses a degree of certainty that goes beyond the current scope of neuroscientists understanding about the relationship between brain structure and function.

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So your brain injury case involves diffusion tensor imagingnow what? - JD Supra