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2005-11-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

Perceptual Learning of Reading?

2005-08-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Charles Lim, Director of the Institute of Perceptual Learning, an Austrilia start-up, is promoting "Perceptual Reading":

Reading is the most cost effective way of learning. Independent reading means independent learning. Reading enables a child, from a very young age, to learn from the stories and life experiences of others.
Perceptual Reading™ introduces the children to the wonderful world of reading by exposing them to the text representation of spoken words that they are familiar with. Over an 18-month period they are exposed to and thus given the experience with text that will be invaluable to their reading career. By the end of the program your child will be able to confidently read children's books on his or her own. He/she will be able to sound out unfamiliar words.

His idea of "Perceptual Learning" sounds like this.

Perceptual learning in humans occurs when a person is repeatedly exposed to specific stimuli (information). Perceptual learning involves long lasting and amazing changes to the human perceptual system that incredibly improve one’s ability to respond to the environment. The mechanisms of perceptual learning include attention weighting, imprinting, differentiation, and unitization. With attention weighting, perception becomes adapted to tasks by increasing the attention paid to important dimensions and features. With imprinting, special receptors are developed that are specialized for specific stimuli. With differentiation, stimuli that were once indistinguishable become psychologically separated. With unitization, tasks that originally required detection of several components are accomplished by detecting a single construct. Because dramatic changes to human perceptual systems occur within the first six years of life (and the younger the more dramatic), your child’s training in perceptual learning in reading and maths must occur during this period in order to achieve effortless learning for success and happiness in school and life
...

Whole Stimulus Imprinting

As more instances of maths and reading materials are stored, performance improves because more relevant instances can be retrieved, and the time required for retrieving them decreases. Your child’s performance in perceptual tasks is dependent on the amount of their experience with a particular stimulus. Performance is better on frequently presented items than rare items. Perceptual Maths™ and Perceptual Reading™ expose relevant materials that improve their performance in maths and reading. As your child gets older they will be better able to perceptually identify unclear or quickly presented maths and reading materials because they will have already been exposed to them during a period of perceptual plasticity.

Claims about Brain-based Education are rarely materialized, and if they do, they often have little to do with the brain part of the hype. What matters is what you do to the child and what the child does. And I can't see how Mr. Lim could fulfull his guarantees.

something useful

2005-08-08T01:47:00.000-07:00

Web Chi Square Calculator

Chi Square Tutorial | Run a demo | Jeff's demo | Begin chi square | Feedback

This page allows you to perform the chi square test for statistical significance. Enter the number of rows and columns for your test, and a table will be generated in which you can enter your data. For more information, select one of the options above.

Dylslexia Japan

2005-08-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

Met with Taeko Wydell and Colin Phillips today at RIKEN. Together we visited the MEG lab at RIKEn BSI and spent the afternoon with Andreas A. Ioannides. Taeko-san and I talked about dyslexia in Japanese and Chinese as well as general reading development across languages and orthographies.

Found the following background piece about dyslexia in Japan last night.

International Book on Dyslexia
Japan
Ms Eiko TODO, Chairperson, NPO EDGE ﾐ Japan Dyslexia Society
2-31-7-1002 Jigumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan
Email: todo@todoplan.co.jp

1. Context
In Japan dyslexia is considered as one of main symptoms of LD (learning disabilities). It was not until 10 years ago that the true movement towards recognition of LD started under the leadership of *Professor Kazuhiko Ueno. Parentsﾕ groups were formed to gather information and to investigate the possibilities. The notion of LD is still confused although the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Ministry of Education have come up with the definition respectively in 1997 and 1999. Many other symptoms such as ADHD, autism, and mentally retarded are still included at the level of LD Gakkai (Japanese Academy of Learning Disabilities) or Parentsﾕ Association.
Recently in October 2002, the Ministry of Education has undertaken a comprehensive survey on the incidence of dyslexia and other learning difficulties, and announced that there could be 6.3% incidence of children in the ordinary elementary schools having severe difficulties in learning despite of their level of intelligence. Unfortunately the survey was based on questionnaires which were answered by classroom teachers who are not necessarily aware of dyslexia or learning difficulties.
Lack of information and knowledge, the complex structure of Japanese language with Kana letters and Kanji, social environment where it is difficult be different from others, and educational system which forces you to learn things through rote repetition, and above all lack of assessment designed to identify dyslexia, all these combined together contributes in making it difficult to detect dyslexia in Japan.
The Japanese written language structure is not as clear as many researchers believe it to be. It is true that Kana is very clear form of sound letter correspondence where as when Kanji comes into play the situation becomes more complex. Origin of Kanji is from China so we have both Japanese way and Chinese way of reading for the same Kanji. For some Kanji you can figure out what is means from the shape but is impossible to learn how it is pronounced unless you are really good at guessing. And you are supposed to learn how to read and write about 1000 Kanji by the time you finish the elementary school.

2. Legislations and policies
There is no legislation as to dyslexia or LD in Japan yet. But there are positive move to start a SEN (special educational needs) within the framework of regular classes. Unfortunately the main focuses are for physically disabled, blind and partially sighted, deaf and hard of hearing and for the mentally retarded and so forth. This is intended only for the elementary school and lower secondary school (i.e. up to 15).
In the year 2001, the budget was allotted to the research of LD in all 47 prefectures in Japan. The purpose of the research is to designate a school per prefecture and investigate the number of LDs in each school and look for teaching method.
In the year 2002, consideration about educational support for ADHD and autism has been discussed at Researchers and Collaborators Conference. As for LD, model project were deployed in 47 prefectures in Japan, and the report will due very soon.

3. Definition and Terminology
The word dyslexia in Japan is purely used for acquired dyslexia in medical term. In educational term, LD is widely used in Japan. The definition for LD in Japan as defined by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health and Welfare include dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. We try to use the term developmental dyslexia in order to differentiate from dyslexia which is caused by accident or illness and LD which in Japan includes sometimes retarded, autism, ADHD and epilepsy.
DSM-III (American criteria for diagnosis) and ICD-10(WHO criteria for diagnosis) are well known amongst the medical doctors and psychologists. Reading, writing and calculation difficulties are listed as Learning Disorders but actually they rarely are diagnosed as such in medical institutions as there are no criteria for diagnosis. Also now ADHD and autism are attracting more attention which could be another reason for not having children being diagnosed as being dyslexic.

4. Identification and Assessment
Most local educational authorities rely only on psychological tests such as WISC III to measure the difference of verbal IQ and performance IQ, and sometimes to see the short term memory through digital span. In case of a pediatric neurologist specialized in dyslexia, WISC-III, diagram tracing of Gesell, Anomia, vocabulary test and phonetic recognition by speech therapist, clinical diagnosis such as hand writing, language comprehension are undertaken. Somewhat it is similar to Bangor test in UK. In short there is no standardized assessment for dyslexia in Japan yet.

5. Intervention and Resources
For children with special educational needs there are classes outside ordinary classes for the speech impaired and emotionally disturbed. These children commute to these classes once a week. Some LD children are included. Class for emotionally disturbed was designed to deal with children with autism (Asperger) and ADHD in order to train them in social skills in group of 3 to 4 children. There are some dyslexic children in speech impaired classes but are usually not taught correctly unless the teacher in charge is really experienced.

6. Teacher Training
Teachers from ordinary classes are one day assigned to these SEN classes. They have a brief training on how to operate the hearing aid and to undertake some hearing test. The new teachers have a training session for SEN before joining the schools in the form of lecture.
National Institute for Special Education and Education Centers located in prefectures undertake teachers training on LD. The curriculum includes understanding of LD, ADHD and other learning difficulties, how to instruct children with special needs, and creation of IEP. These teachers who have finished the course are expected to go back to their regions and be the leading figure on LD education in the area.
The Japan Dyslexia Society is now introducing a project for teacher training for dyslexic children with special emphasis on reading and writing in Japanese. Once this method is set up, the Society aims to spread the method through out Japan in collaboration with the Ministry of Educaton.

7. Advocacy Groups
LD Gakkai (Japanese Academy of Learning Disabilities),
Chairperson Professor Kazuhiko Ueno
Tokyo Gakugei Daigaku
http://www.u-gakugei.ac.jp/index.html (In Japanese only)

Parents Association,
National Parentsﾕ Association of Learning Disabilities in Japan
http://www.normanet.ne.jp/~zenkokld/index.html (In Japanese only)

Tokyo Area ﾔKeyakiﾕ
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hp/keyaki/HTML/ENG/E_00.html

NPO EDGE (Japan Dyslexia Society)
http://www.npo-edge.jp
e-mail:info@npo-edge.jp

8. Exams and Curriculum Provisions
None. There are some cases where private high schools allowed students to take oral exam but actually none of these students were allowed in. According to the survey done to Universities concerning acceptance of disabled students, there were several universities that say ﾔwe do not exclude LDs from taking the entrance examinationsﾕ or ﾔdepends on casesﾕ. When we investigated further asking which kind of provisions they offered their answer was ﾔthere are none because we never had this happen in the pastﾕ.

9. Adult Provisions
None

10. The way ahead
NPO EDGE (Japan Dyslexia Society) has been approved to undertake various supporting tasks for dyslexic children and adults. The aim of this NPO is to facilitate the living of dyslexic people and their priority task is to prepare a system which is affordable and manageable. First thing the NPO has to cope with is to prepare a check list, screening test and assessment test, followed by educational materials and now-how for teachers and parents to use at school and home. Next step would be to consider English teaching method for children who would be diagnosed at junior high school. Prepare the provision for the exams. Work with private schools to include dyslexic children in their schools. Prepare working environment for dyslexic people.
Collaboration between the parties involved is another area to be exploited. Education, health and welfare, employment and other administrative bodies should all get together to work out a practical system for dyslexic people.
Diet members are forming a parliamentary group over the parties to discuss policies concerning SEN and dyslexia.
Media coverage is increasing. A famous actress who is proven to be very clever has written in her new publication that she has dyscalculia. This is the first time someone has admitted being an LD in Japan.
*Dr Junko KATO, *Dr Akira UNO are preparing a research group for developmental dyslexia together with *Dr Taeko Wydell.

References: Junko KATO, M.D., member of LD Gakkai (Japanese Academy of Learning Disabilities) and IDA（International Dyslexia Association）, Clinic Kato
Masayoshi TSUGE, Ph.D., Senior Specialist, Special Support Education Division, Ministry of Education
Taeko N. WYDELL, BA (Hons), Ph.D., Reader in Psychology, Department of Human Sciences, Brunel University
Akira UNO, Ph.D., Head, Therapeutic Division, National Institute of Mental Health

info@npo-edge.jp

SnagIt: screen to movie capture

2005-08-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

The ClearView program that comes with the Tobii eye tracker uses SnagIt from TechSmith.com for creating AVI movies of eye movements. There are some positive reviews of the program, which costs about $40, but I still like the freeware CamStudio 2.1 (by the eHelp Corporation old HomePage now taken over by Macromedia under the name of RoboDemo or Captivate) that saves screen changes to Flash movies. It generates much smaller screen sizes and does not loose screen resolution. vnc2swf is another interesting possibility.

A new paper on Extreme Groups Approach

2005-07-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

-----Original Message-----
From: Preacher, Kristopher J.; Rucker, Derek D.; MacCallum, Robert C.; Nicewander, W. Alan
Posted At: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 5:45 AM
Posted To: APA: Psy Method
Conversation: Use of the Extreme Groups Approach: A Critical Reexamination and New Recommendations.
Subject: Use of the Extreme Groups Approach: A Critical Reexamination and New Recommendations.

http://content.apa.org/journals/met/10/2/178

Analysis of continuous variables sometimes proceeds by selecting individuals on the basis of extreme scores of a sample distribution and submitting only those extreme scores to further analysis. This sampling method is known as the extreme groups approach (EGA). EGA is often used to achieve greater statistical power in subsequent hypothesis tests. However, there are several largely unrecognized costs associated with EGA that must be considered. The authors illustrate the effects EGA can have on power, standardized effect size, reliability, model specification, and the interpretability of results. Finally, the authors discuss alternative procedures, as well as possible legitimate uses of EGA. The authors urge researchers, editors, reviewers, and consumers to carefully assess the extent to which EGA is an appropriate tool in their own research and in that of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Edson Miyamoto

2005-07-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

I met Edson Miyamoto ( ミヤモト・エジソン) during my poster presentation at the JCSS2005 meeting. A very impressive sharp thinker, he is interested in Japanese sentence parsing in reading as well. Some of his questions implied that syntactic processes would guide eye movements in reading Japanese, which I doubt (in most cases during normal reading). It was one of the highlights at Kyoto. I felt sorry not being able to attend his Japanese Language Processing Workshop.

Prince Hotel Kyoto

2005-07-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

We are back to Tokyo now, having spend 3 wonderful days at Kyoto. We stayed at the Prince Hotel Kyoto. Jessie didn't want to come back.

Japanese Cog Sci Soc conference

2005-07-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

2005年度の大会のお知らせ

2005年度の大会を、以下の要領にて京都大学で開催するはこびとなりました。多数の皆様のご参加をお待ち申し上げております。

会期

：

2005年7月29日(金)、7月30日(土)、7月31日(日)の3日間

会場

：

京都大学時計台記念館(京都市左京区吉田本町)
http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/top2/11-top.htm
京都大学へのアクセスについては
http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/access/kmap/map6r_y.htm
をご参照ください。

大会委員長	乾敏郎(京都大学)
実行委員長	齋木潤(京都大学)

大会の最新情報は以下の大会ホームページをご参照ください。
http://www.cog.ist.i.kyoto-u.ac.jp/JCSS2005/

大会日程

From ``Logographic'' to Normal Reading: The Case of a Deaf beginning reader

2005-07-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

From ``Logographic'' to Normal Reading: The Case of a Deaf beginning reader (by Tatjana A. Nazir et al.) is a paper that I managed to miss. It's an eye-tracking study of a deaf girl, who after 5 weeks of intensive training, had changed oculomotor behaviors in reading. It has some interesting theoretical discussions.

Should be relevant to my developmental model of reading eye movements.

Michal Lavidor

2005-07-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Natsumi Kajii (梶井夏実), a former student of Naoyuki Osaka (苧阪直行), coauthored a paper with Tatjana A. Nazir in 2001. Jajii was involved in a project on the split-fovea reading model with Michal Lavidor, who is the herone of this post.

Dr Michal Lavidor

Reader in Psychology

Contact Details:
Tel: 01482-466697
Fax: 01482-465599
Email: M.Lavidor@hull.ac.uk

Publications and in press (2001 onward):
Whitney, C. & Lavidor, M . (in press). Facilitative orthographic neighborhood effects: The SERIOL model account . Cognitive Psychology .
Lavidor, M., & Bailey, P. (in press). Dissociations between serial position and number of letters effects in lateralized visual word recognition. Journal of Research in Reading .
Lavidor, M., Johnston, R. S., & Snowling, M. S. (in press). When phonology fails: orthographic neighbourhood effects in dyslexia. Brain and Language .
Lavidor, M., & Whitney, C. (2005). Word length effects in Hebrew. Cognitive Brain Research, 24, 127-132 .
Ellis, A. W., Brooks, J., & Lavidor, M . (2005). Evaluating a split fovea model of visual word recognition: Effects of case alternation in the two visual fields and in the left and right halves of words presented at the fovea. Neuropsychologia, 43 , 1128-1137.

Colin Phillips

2005-07-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Colin Phillips will be giving a talk at RIKEN next Thursday.

Colin Phillips

Department of Linguistics
University of Maryland
1401 Marie Mount Hall
College Park, MD 20742

301-405-3082 (office)
301-405-7104 (fax)
email: colin @ umd.edu
office: 1413F Marie Mount Hall

I am currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, where I am a co-director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory. Previously, I taught at the University of Delaware, and before that studied at Oxford, Rochester, and MIT. Originally, I am from the flat fen-country of eastern England.

I teach courses on various aspects of language and mind at the graduate and undergraduate level.

My research combines theoretical linguistics with language processing, language acquisition and neurolinguistics, with the primary focus on how the human mind/brain makes rapid and effortless language understanding possible. The ultimate objective is to be able to seamlessly integrate models of language, from high-level theoretical models all the way down to the neurophysiological level.

Hotel Kitcho

2005-07-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Hotel Kitcho “吉晁”, Tokyo. We are staying here for one night, before leaving for Kyoto tomorrow morning. But we wish we could stay here longer -- just look at the beautiful and spacious Japanese-style room

Traditional Japanese architecture, "Sukiyazukuri," is rapidly becoming obsolete. Few carpenters nowadays have been trained in this special craft, and a "Sukiyazukuri" Japanese room in a hotel is far more expensive to maintain than a Western room. The Hotel Kitcho has reproduced a traditional Sukiyazukuri" room using the original construction methods. One feature of this architecture is unsymmetrical beauty: "Sukiya" means both "pleasure" and "odd number (odd things are sometimes fun)," a sense of Japanese aesthetic beauty predating modernization.

CJKE Japanese log

2005-07-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

Tried to use SQL to combine eye movement data and the SEG info (both word-based and char-based). It turned out to be a big mistake. The following request took 18 hours to run, and the result still has errors -- with the Edison stories, the left(trialID,4) is not enough to distinguish the trials. Other trialID's are like "JA04.seg" or simply "JA04". But I wasn't able to find the function to drop everything after the "." There is the LEFT function, but no RIGHT function.

SELECT data.*, seg.char AS charsegid, seg.x1 AS charx1, seg.x2 AS charx2, seg.y1 AS chary1, seg.y2 AS chary2, seg.letter AS chartext, [seg.preceding sequence] AS prevchar, [seg.following sequence] AS nexthar, [seg.charatype] AS chartype, [seg.letterid] AS charid INTO letterWord
FROM Emxml2dat AS data LEFT JOIN LetterSeg AS seg ON (left(ucase(data.trialid),4)=left(ucase(seg.trialid),4)) AND (data.x-58-data.currentCond between seg.x1 and seg.x2) AND (data.y-62 between seg.y1-40 and seg.y2+40);

CJKE Japanese-1 log

2005-07-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

if this does not make sense to you, that's because you are not me. This is a log file of a project I am working on.

1. Nobuyuke and I worked on 14 data files. I am copying the other 20 or so from ilab. They are first zipped. Will need to process them using emxml2dat-char.tcl, to add both the word-based and char-based SEG info.

2. emxml2data-char.tcl is revised. Aside from creating a proc readcharseg{} and adding some items in the $out[] array, the most important things are: (a) make sure the output vars are listed, and (b) the \uFFFE Unicode sign is written in the output file.

3. The tcl script takes charseg.txt as input. The file was basically an export from Nobuyuki's Excel file called all-story-letterseq.xls. Two tricks with this file: (a) I had to go through Word to safe the file with the correct \uFFFE Unicode mark, and (b) the #2 column does not have a name in the header, which took my a long time to realize.

4. Once all the files are processes, the *.dat files will be combined by using DOS copy command (copy /B j??-edited.xml-char.dat temp.txt) to combine as binary files.

氟骗局

2005-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sina has several papers on this topic, all of which links to the source at the end of this post. Who is framing whom?

有一本书叫氟骗局

http://finance.sina.com.cn 2005年07月22日 14:35 瞭望东方周刊

《瞭望东方周刊》记者于达维报道

从16世纪开始，大预言家诺查丹玛斯和药理学家帕拉塞尔苏斯都在著作中提到，有一种矿石可以当作毒药用。1764年，德国化学家马格拉夫发现并制成了可以用来蚀刻玻璃的“萤石酸”。
　　1771年，瑞典化学家舍勒对萤石酸做了系统的研究，但当时很多人并没把它当作一种新酸，而是实验中所用酸的副产品。当盐酸被人们发现是氢和氯的化合物后，人们才意识到萤石酸是氢和另一种新元素组成的。但在分离氟单质的道路上，许多先行者中毒倒下了。

　　制成了无水萤石酸的法国化学家盖-吕萨克和泰纳的身体深受其害，瑞典的化学大师贝采利乌斯对此也是一筹莫展。直到1886年，法国化学家莫瓦桑用老师弗雷密的电解方法终于制取并收集了极为活泼、难以控制的氟气。

　　氟气是一种黄色气体，它是电负性最高的元素，化学性质非常活泼，几乎可以和世界上所有有机和无机物质发生反应，连金和铂都不例外。所以，氟的毒性很大，腐蚀性极强，它的强氧化能力和热效应以及反应生产的氢氟酸(HF，萤石酸)会极大地破坏人体组织和器官。

为了制造原子弹，美国制造了大量氟，作为毒性最强的化学品，氟迅速成为危害工人和工厂周围地区百姓的一个重要威胁。新泽西州南部深水镇的一些农民把当地杜邦公司的一家化工厂告上了法庭，因为这家为美国政府制造氟的工厂释放的烟雾毁掉了他们的桃园、农田和牲畜。

　　作为罗切斯特大学毒物学系的系主任，曼哈顿计划的首席毒物学专家哈罗德-霍奇对氟的毒性做了专门的研究，而他的研究报告早就足够把美国政府，因为氟污染而告上法庭了。但他所做的恰恰相反。为了维护氟在公众心目中的形象，霍奇开始频频在电视上出现，向公众说明氟浓度在1ppm以下是安全的。与此同时，美国公众开始从科学家嘴里听到这样一个消息，“氟保护牙齿”。

　　在霍奇写给曼哈顿计划放射安全顾问斯坦福德-沃伦上校的信里，他提醒美国政府应该开展“氟保护牙齿”的宣传，来抵消氟污染所造成的恐慌。

(美国圣劳伦斯大学化学系保罗-康纳特教授为本文提供大量背景资料）

　　相关报道：

　　氟会破坏所有生命行为刷牙有可能导致氟中毒

　　中国遍布高氟区氟专门欺负穷人

Education reportcard: signs of relief?

2005-07-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

what's my take on the Report Card? ... well, I haven't had a chance to read them yet. But I will...

Now for the good news

Jul 21st 2005
From The Economist print edition

George Bush's education reforms may be working

Get article background

THERE is no shortage of bad news for the White House these days. The Washington press corps is on death watch outside the house of Karl Rove, George Bush's chief adviser, and the car bombs continue to explode across Iraq. Yet last Thursday also saw some rare good news. It is buried in a pretty obscure place, in a report published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But it has some big implications—not only for Mr Bush's much-maligned claim that he is a different sort of conservative, but also for the future health of American society.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has been periodically testing a representative sample of 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds since the early 1970s. This year's report contained two striking results. The first is that America's nine-year-olds posted their best scores in reading and maths since the tests were introduced (in 1971 in reading and 1973 in maths). The second is that the gap between white students and minorities is narrowing. The nine-year-olds who made the biggest gains of all were blacks, traditionally the most educationally deprived group in American society.

Video Game and Sex: GTA in trouble

2005-07-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

Print this article Close This Window

Video game sex scandal stirs US standards debate
Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:53 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An unprecedented move by major stores to stop selling the blockbuster video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" over a hidden sex scene will cost its maker millions of dollars in lost sales and ignited a political firestorm by U.S. critics who want a government crackdown.
But the young industry, already rivaling Hollywood box office in sales, is certain it can and should police itself.
The industry's ratings group slapped an "Adult Only" rating on the game on Wednesday, effectively banning its sale in most mainstream stores, after finding the game's publisher had hidden a "mini-game," unlocked by downloadable software, which allowed players to have virtual sex.
The game had already been a lightning rod for controversy, since it rewards players for committing crimes and what critics see as acts of gratuitous violence.
Retailers immediately pulled the game from shelves across the United States. The game's maker, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. unit Rockstar Games, said the ratings change would cost it about $45 million in lost revenues for three months ending July 31 and plunge it into a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss.

for teaching Psy97 ...

Prayers don't cure

2005-07-19T00:59:00.000-07:00

Distant prayers don't save lifes, something that shouldn't have made the news. It's mostly for the persons who are praying than receiving.

Results of First Multicenter Trial of Intercessory Prayer, Healing Touch in Heart Patients

Co-principal investigators, Suzanne Crater and Dr. Mitchell Krucoff of the MANTRA Project.

More details.

keywords :	Cardiology, prayer research, MANTRA Study, noetic interventions
date :	7/14/2005
media contact :	Tracey Koepke , (919) 684-4148 or (919) 660-1301 koepk002@mc.duke.edu

DURHAM, N.C. – Distant prayer and the bedside use of music, imagery and touch (MIT therapy) did not have a significant effect upon the primary clinical outcome observed in patients undergoing certain heart procedures, researchers at Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), Duke University Medical Center, the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and seven other leading academic medical institutions across the U.S. have found. Therapeutic effects were noted, however, among secondary measures such as emotional distress of patients, re-hospitalization and death rates.

The study marks the first time rigorous scientific protocols have been applied on a large scale to some of the world's most ancient healing traditions, the authors said, and the trends they observed may yield important clues to understanding the role of the human spirit in modern, technology-laden cardiovascular

Method. (I am not interested in the MIT part)

A total of 748 patients with coronary artery disease who were to undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (a type of stenting procedure) or elective cardiac catheterization with possible percutaneous coronary intervention were enrolled at one of nine study sites between May 1999 and Dec. 2002. Patients were randomized equally to each of the two noetic therapies or standard care, creating four treatment groups. One group (189 patients) received both off-site intercessory prayer and MIT therapy; a second group (182 patients) received off-site intercessory prayer only; a third group (185 patients) received MIT therapy only, while the fourth group (192 patients) received neither the intercessory prayer nor the MIT therapy. The interventional heart procedures were all conducted according to each institution's standard practice, and the study called for a six-month period of follow-up.

The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer. Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths. The MIT portion of the study was not blinded, so patients and their care team knew if they were randomized to those groups.

The prayer groups for the study were located throughout the world and included Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and multiple Christianity-based denominations. The researchers noted 89 percent of the patients in this study also knew of someone praying for them outside of the study protocol altogether.

And an opportunistic design:

Following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, enrollment rates in the study fell sharply for approximately three months. During that time, the research team chose to amend the study by adding a two-tiered prayer strategy. Twelve additional "second-tier" prayer groups were added. When new patients were added to groups receiving intercessory prayers as part of the study, the second-tier prayer groups were asked to pray for the primary prayer groups that had been praying for the patients all along. The researchers created this design to simulate a higher dose of prayer for the remaining patients enrolled in the study. Patients treated with "two-tiered" prayer had absolute six-month death and re-hospitalization rates that were about 30 percent lower than control patients, statistically characterized as a suggestive trend.

Now the results:

The researchers found no significant differences among the treatment groups in the primary composite endpoint. However, six-month mortality was lower in patients assigned bedside MIT, with the lowest absolute death rates observed in patients treated with both prayer and bedside MIT. Patients treated with bedside MIT also showed changes in self-rated emotional distress prior to catheterization and stenting.

"The most statistically significant finding of our analyses so far is the relief of pre-procedural distress with the use of music, imagery and touch administered by a trained practitioner at the patient's bedside," said Suzanne Crater, ANP-C, cardiology nurse practitioner at DUMC and Durham VAMC and co-director of the MANTRA study project at the DCRI. "Whether this relief of distress translates into better outcomes will require further analysis but the implications for every bedside practitioner are of great interest."

[with regard to the prayer:] Patients treated with "two-tiered" prayer had absolute six-month death and re-hospitalization rates that were about 30 percent lower than control patients, statistically characterized as a suggestive trend.

Conclusion:

I don't know what to make of it.

emotion before the first sight

2005-07-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

A recent paper on JEP:HPP http://content.apa.org/journals/xhp/31/3/502

Calvo, Manuel G.; Lang, Peter J. (2005). Parafoveal Semantic Processing of Emotional Visual Scenes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

The authors investigated whether emotional pictorial stimuli are especially likely to be processed in parafoveal vision. Pairs of emotional and neutral visual scenes were presented parafoveally (2.1° or 2.5° of visual angle from a central fixation point) for 150-3,000 ms, followed by an immediate recognition test (500-ms delay). Results indicated that (a) the first fixation was more likely to be placed onto the emotional than the neutral scene; (b) recognition sensitivity (A') was generally higher for the emotional than for the neutral scene when the scenes were paired, but there were no differences when presented individually; and (c) the superior sensitivity for emotional scenes survived changes in size, color, and spatial orientation, but not in meaning. The data suggest that semantic analysis of emotional scenes can begin in parafoveal vision in advance of foveal fixation.

Hey, there

2005-07-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

My own blog was taken offline by the tech people of my department ... of course for technical reasions ... while I am travelling in Asia. I will eventually take back my post in the cyber space, but for now, let me borrow a space from Blogger.

The title was take from my old blog, the URL "ruying.blogger.com" is a short for a Chinese saying "如影随行," literally "following like a shadow." Peter Pan's shadow sometime travels farther than Peter himself.

	Colin Phillips
	Department of Linguistics University of Maryland 1401 Marie Mount Hall College Park, MD 20742	301-405-3082 (office) 301-405-7104 (fax) email: colin @ umd.edu office: 1413F Marie Mount Hall

Shadow

Redirect...

Perceptual Learning of Reading?

something useful

Web Chi Square Calculator

Dylslexia Japan

SnagIt: screen to movie capture

A new paper on Extreme Groups Approach

Edson Miyamoto

Prince Hotel Kyoto

Japanese Cog Sci Soc conference

From ``Logographic'' to Normal Reading: The Case of a Deaf beginning reader

Michal Lavidor

Colin Phillips

Colin Phillips

Hotel Kitcho

CJKE Japanese log

CJKE Japanese-1 log

氟骗局

有一本书叫氟骗局

Education reportcard: signs of relief?

Video Game and Sex: GTA in trouble

Prayers don't cure

emotion before the first sight

Hey, there