Article Summary:

Just as the human face can be depicted as feminine or masculine, brain structures are also distinct in a way to determine masculine or feminine structure. Male and female brain structures, however, can be developed in both men and women. This is the reason women with masculine brain structures are at a higher risk to develop autism spectrum disorder. The idea of masculine and feminine brain structures stem from the idea of men having thinner cortex and women having thicker cortex. Due to this, men are more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women because they are more likely to have the masculine brain anatomy.

In addition, when discussing autism, it is important to note that the condition is neurodevelopmental which indicates that symptoms begin during childhood and children are more likely to not achieve typical milestones of maturity. Physicians use the term spectrum to provide a range of symptoms or level of disability to measure different persons. For instance, some autistic patients may not be able to function in social environments but they possess extraordinary math skills. Over time, the condition will allow the individual to function on a higher or lower level – there is a possibility of change in behavior depending on the individual. According to Christine Ecker, professor at Goethe University, autism spectrum disorder is two to five times more common in males. Her research team, however, have not been studying the probability of autism developing in the male population – but more so the male brain structure population.

Moreover, Christine Ecker and her team based their research on the study of brain anatomy differences that could potentially lead to the development of autism spectrum disorder. To test their theory, they evaluated the cortical thickness of the brain in relation to the condition. Ecker notes, “females tend to have a thicker cortex than males in various regions of the brain” and “previous studies have also shown thickness to be significantly altered in people with autism”. To conduct the study, the researchers tested “98 high-functioning adults with autism (49 of them men) and 98 adults without autism (51 of them men). Both groups were roughly within the same age range: mid-20s, on average”. People who had a history of head injuries or abnormities were excluded from the participant pool. To carry out their study, the researchers used a MRI scan to observe cortical thickness or the grey matter across the surface of the cortex. What researchers found, as stated above, is that brain phenotype varies from men to women. Women who had male structured brains were at high risk for the autism spectrum disorder. Why is this? The thicker the matter across the cortex the harder it is for the brain to fully interact as a system.

Furthermore, Ecker explained how her goal consisted of finding a way to start earlier diagnosis of the autism spectrum disorder. This biological approach could show physicians ahead of time if their patients are at risk. In addition, this can also benefit psychologists, who are treating autistic patients in that it will provide concrete proof to their assumptions.  The most important thing to take away would be “Women with male brain anatomy are three times more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women with female brain anatomy”.

Reflection:

I would have to argue that this research project was very informative and interesting. Throughout the project I was able to read many interesting articles that covered autism spectrum disorder and got a grasp of what the disease is and is capable of. Prior to my research, I knew about the neurodevelopmental disease but I did not know the specifics. Since reading about the condition more, I have a firm idea of how the condition can act as a social, physical, and mental burden. Socially, autistic individuals may have a harder time interacting with others when compared to someone living without the condition. Physically, the disease can cause individuals to express little emotion or large amounts of emotions when faced with certain stimuli. Mentally, I believe the disease can be the biggest burden in that it disengages autistic individuals from the rest of their environment.

The disorder may seem as a huge disadvantage because it makes social cues harder to identify from autistic individuals perception and it can also cause one to lack emotion in serious situations. Living with autism spectrum disorder, however, isn’t all that bad. The disorder can come with a few negatives as well as positives. Some autistic individuals are able to focus intensely on specific activities or subjects that allow them to exceed others of that field. For instance, a well known example would be autistic individuals who are math or science geniuses. The idea here is that these individuals are able to see complex things in a much simpler way.

In conclusion, I now have a new perspective on autism spectrum disorder and how it affects the everyday lives of individuals. Moving forward, I would like to continue my research and become more involved with the autism movement.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/health/autism-typical-male-brain-study/index.html

Scutti, Susan. “‘Male Brains’ Linked to Higher Autism Risk in Women, Study Says.” CNN. Cable News Network, 08 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.

Article Summary:

Just as the human face can be depicted as feminine or masculine, brain structures are also distinct in a way to determine masculine or feminine structure. Male and female brain structures, however, can be developed in both men and women. This is the reason women with masculine brain structures are at a higher risk to develop autism spectrum disorder. The idea of masculine and feminine brain structures stem from the idea of men having thinner cortex and women having thicker cortex. Due to this, men are more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women because they are more likely to have the masculine brain anatomy.

In addition, when discussing autism, it is important to note that the condition is neurodevelopmental which indicates that symptoms begin during childhood and children are more likely to not achieve typical milestones of maturity. Physicians use the term spectrum to provide a range of symptoms or level of disability to measure different persons. For instance, some autistic patients may not be able to function in social environments but they possess extraordinary math skills. Over time, the condition will allow the individual to function on a higher or lower level – there is a possibility of change in behavior depending on the individual. According to Christine Ecker, professor at Goethe University, autism spectrum disorder is two to five times more common in males. Her research team, however, have not been studying the probability of autism developing in the male population – but more so the male brain structure population.

Moreover, Christine Ecker and her team based their research on the study of brain anatomy differences that could potentially lead to the development of autism spectrum disorder. To test their theory, they evaluated the cortical thickness of the brain in relation to the condition. Ecker notes, “females tend to have a thicker cortex than males in various regions of the brain” and “previous studies have also shown thickness to be significantly altered in people with autism”. To conduct the study, the researchers tested “98 high-functioning adults with autism (49 of them men) and 98 adults without autism (51 of them men). Both groups were roughly within the same age range: mid-20s, on average”. People who had a history of head injuries or abnormities were excluded from the participant pool. To carry out their study, the researchers used a MRI scan to observe cortical thickness or the grey matter across the surface of the cortex. What researchers found, as stated above, is that brain phenotype varies from men to women. Women who had male structured brains were at high risk for the autism spectrum disorder. Why is this? The thicker the matter across the cortex the harder it is for the brain to fully interact as a system.

Furthermore, Ecker explained how her goal consisted of finding a way to start earlier diagnosis of the autism spectrum disorder. This biological approach could show physicians ahead of time if their patients are at risk. In addition, this can also benefit psychologists, who are treating autistic patients in that it will provide concrete proof to their assumptions.  The most important thing to take away would be “Women with male brain anatomy are three times more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women with female brain anatomy”.

Reflection:

I would have to argue that this research project was very informative and interesting. Throughout the project I was able to read many interesting articles that covered autism spectrum disorder and got a grasp of what the disease is and is capable of. Prior to my research, I knew about the neurodevelopmental disease but I did not know the specifics. Since reading about the condition more, I have a firm idea of how the condition can act as a social, physical, and mental burden. Socially, autistic individuals may have a harder time interacting with others when compared to someone living without the condition. Physically, the disease can cause individuals to express little emotion or large amounts of emotions when faced with certain stimuli. Mentally, I believe the disease can be the biggest burden in that it disengages autistic individuals from the rest of their environment.

The disorder may seem as a huge disadvantage because it makes social cues harder to identify from autistic individuals perception and it can also cause one to lack emotion in serious situations. Living with autism spectrum disorder, however, isn’t all that bad. The disorder can come with a few negatives as well as positives. Some autistic individuals are able to focus intensely on specific activities or subjects that allow them to exceed others of that field. For instance, a well known example would be autistic individuals who are math or science geniuses. The idea here is that these individuals are able to see complex things in a much simpler way.

In conclusion, I now have a new perspective on autism spectrum disorder and how it affects the everyday lives of individuals. Moving forward, I would like to continue my research and become more involved with the autism movement.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/health/autism-typical-male-brain-study/index.html

Scutti, Susan. “‘Male Brains’ Linked to Higher Autism Risk in Women, Study Says.” CNN. Cable News Network, 08 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.

Article Summary:

Just as the human face can be depicted as feminine or masculine, brain structures are also distinct in a way to determine masculine or feminine structure. Male and female brain structures, however, can be developed in both men and women. This is the reason women with masculine brain structures are at a higher risk to develop autism spectrum disorder. The idea of masculine and feminine brain structures stem from the idea of men having thinner cortex and women having thicker cortex. Due to this, men are more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women because they are more likely to have the masculine brain anatomy.

In addition, when discussing autism, it is important to note that the condition is neurodevelopmental which indicates that symptoms begin during childhood and children are more likely to not achieve typical milestones of maturity. Physicians use the term spectrum to provide a range of symptoms or level of disability to measure different persons. For instance, some autistic patients may not be able to function in social environments but they possess extraordinary math skills. Over time, the condition will allow the individual to function on a higher or lower level – there is a possibility of change in behavior depending on the individual. According to Christine Ecker, professor at Goethe University, autism spectrum disorder is two to five times more common in males. Her research team, however, have not been studying the probability of autism developing in the male population – but more so the male brain structure population.

Moreover, Christine Ecker and her team based their research on the study of brain anatomy differences that could potentially lead to the development of autism spectrum disorder. To test their theory, they evaluated the cortical thickness of the brain in relation to the condition. Ecker notes, “females tend to have a thicker cortex than males in various regions of the brain” and “previous studies have also shown thickness to be significantly altered in people with autism”. To conduct the study, the researchers tested “98 high-functioning adults with autism (49 of them men) and 98 adults without autism (51 of them men). Both groups were roughly within the same age range: mid-20s, on average”. People who had a history of head injuries or abnormities were excluded from the participant pool. To carry out their study, the researchers used a MRI scan to observe cortical thickness or the grey matter across the surface of the cortex. What researchers found, as stated above, is that brain phenotype varies from men to women. Women who had male structured brains were at high risk for the autism spectrum disorder. Why is this? The thicker the matter across the cortex the harder it is for the brain to fully interact as a system.

Furthermore, Ecker explained how her goal consisted of finding a way to start earlier diagnosis of the autism spectrum disorder. This biological approach could show physicians ahead of time if their patients are at risk. In addition, this can also benefit psychologists, who are treating autistic patients in that it will provide concrete proof to their assumptions.  The most important thing to take away would be “Women with male brain anatomy are three times more likely to develop the autism spectrum disorder than women with female brain anatomy”.

Reflection:

I would have to argue that this research project was very informative and interesting. Throughout the project I was able to read many interesting articles that covered autism spectrum disorder and got a grasp of what the disease is and is capable of. Prior to my research, I knew about the neurodevelopmental disease but I did not know the specifics. Since reading about the condition more, I have a firm idea of how the condition can act as a social, physical, and mental burden. Socially, autistic individuals may have a harder time interacting with others when compared to someone living without the condition. Physically, the disease can cause individuals to express little emotion or large amounts of emotions when faced with certain stimuli. Mentally, I believe the disease can be the biggest burden in that it disengages autistic individuals from the rest of their environment.

The disorder may seem as a huge disadvantage because it makes social cues harder to identify from autistic individuals perception and it can also cause one to lack emotion in serious situations. Living with autism spectrum disorder, however, isn’t all that bad. The disorder can come with a few negatives as well as positives. Some autistic individuals are able to focus intensely on specific activities or subjects that allow them to exceed others of that field. For instance, a well known example would be autistic individuals who are math or science geniuses. The idea here is that these individuals are able to see complex things in a much simpler way.

In conclusion, I now have a new perspective on autism spectrum disorder and how it affects the everyday lives of individuals. Moving forward, I would like to continue my research and become more involved with the autism movement.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/health/autism-typical-male-brain-study/index.html

Scutti, Susan. “‘Male Brains’ Linked to Higher Autism Risk in Women, Study Says.” CNN. Cable News Network, 08 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.

The way people take notes is important to the way a person is able to learn in today’s society. In the present and future the advances of technology are increasing leading to students using tablets, or laptops in class to take notes. The number of students who type notes and the students who take notes by hand tend to have differences in the way of how they learn in class and their performance. Researchers believe the use of laptops can distract students because of multitasking and internet browsing. There are two hypothesis having to do with note-taking and those are the encoding hypothesis and the external storage hypothesis. The encoding hypothesis is the process of taking notes and being able to learn and retain from it while the external storage hypothesis is having to look back at the notes to learn.

There were 3 experiments conducted by Pam A. Mueller(Princeton University) and Daniel M. Oppenheimer (University of California,Los Angeles) to help inform the readers about which technique of note-taking is the most effective. The researchers gave the students materials such as the same type of laptops and materials for the longhand note-takers. In the first study there were 67 participants (33 male and 33 female, 1 unknown) and had to learn from 5 TED talks to learn and take notes from the session.Then, from there the students took a distraction task to distract the students from what they learned. After the distraction task students took a test, which resulted with longhand note-takers and typing note-takers were about the same results for factual questions, but for the conceptual questions longhand note-taking was more advantageous than typing note-takers. There was also a use of verbatim in students who type their notes meaning they type everything that is heard or seen while the longhand note-takers had less words because the students picked the information that was important to them.

The second experiment was the same but it had a little twist to it and it was to instruct laptop note takers to not take verbatim notes because this happened in the first experiment and led to poor results for students who type their notes.Students from the University of California, Los Angeles(151 students). There were 2 types of events were laptop and longhand note-takers separated into. Students who type would go to a nonintervention lecture or a lecture with an intervention afterwards. The results for longhand note-takers was better than the students who typed their notes. The laptop note-takers in the intervention lecture did better than the students with no intervention. The use of verbatim was still used and did not reduced the effect even when at the beginning of the study, it was instructed to not use verbatim to take notes resulting with  longhand note-takers also taking the advantage since it had a lesser word count compared to typing note-takers.

The third study had (109) participants from the University of California, Los Angeles  where they had to take notes about four different topics; bread, bats, respiration, and vaccines on individual monitors. The students would then come back a week later to be tested on the material. The researchers (Mueller and Oppenheimer) saw the results from the tests and longhand note-takers still outperformed the students who typed their notes. Students who write their notes by hand are able to process information to their mind when writing it down and are able to only pick the important information from a lecture. Students who type their notes have a difficult time to retain information because they usually type everything they hear or say and have too much information for the brain to process all at once.

These tests conducted how the performance of a note-taker can be affected depending on the note-taking techniques used to learn the material needed. The increasing popularity of laptops these days needs to be carefully evaluated on the learning experience because it could lead to poor performances in education. Long hand note-taking can have shorter word counts on a person’s notes but it will have the important information needed for the lecture. Typing notes in a verbatim manner can lead to excessive notes which are not really important to the lecture. The encoding and external storage of long hand note takers is more beneficial to them than the students who type their notes.

Link to News Article:

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160826

Link to Research Article:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797614524581

Social media use amongst humans can have a great effect on the amount of sleep a person gets every night although its not the main reason for the sleep deprivation. Despite all the variables including certain mental illnesses that can cause insomnia the issue here is that social media is NOT the only problem, it’s the convulsions of people constantly wanting to check their phone.  People with higher frequencies and volume reported from the study had significantly greater odds of sleep disturbances. The online article is misleading because it does not specify the point they are trying to prove by implying that the amount of time people spend on their cell phones or electronic devices is excessive and can be unhealthy to the body. media thats the problem, it is the obsessive behavior that is constantly making people pick up and check their phone.(The online article The research provided by the University of Pittsburgh shows that its the frequency per week in the amount of usage from your phone that is causing the potential sleep deprivation. In my opinion, the research article and the scholarly article are very misleading. In my opinion, the actual reason for sleep deprivation is not social media, but in the two articles the reason is not specific. its not just social media specifically its the overuse addicting behavior . The online post is merely blaming social media. This misleading idea can misinform people to believe that social media is something that is not healthy for us, hinder the ideas from creative electronic engineers, our own innovative desires to always be wanting to discover create and share new ideas. Simply by saying that social media is the problem can mislead people into thinking that social media can have negative effects on your life. Social media is great for communication amongst families, friends, it’s not addressing the matter of fact which is basically that excessive electronic device use is not beneficial to ones sleep. Although i’ve stated the main facts and ideas, everybody is different and some people might be affected way differently than others by the amount of time spent using your phone. But in this case, “social media” since both articles were not clear.

I didnt find this very challenging to summarize because the facts are very clear and to the point. I know this because i am an experienced teenager and a lot of the times the lack of sleep comes from the person i could be texting or a different reason such as anxiety could be causing me to be using my phone. Its not difficult to find the mistakes in the reading when Social media is clearly not the issue here. Journalism is an interesting thing to focus on and I have enjoyed analyzing both of these papers to gain better knowledge of how to properly write an article. Its important to be specific and not vague and use the proper words when talking about research.

My Rewrite

A recent research study revealed despite smoking’s popularity drastically decreasing over the last half decade, the proportion of nicotine addicts exhibiting “externalized” psychologic disorders has done the opposite.

Over 25 000 individuals participated in the study, selected from the National Epidemiological Survey for Alcohol and Related conditions (NESARC) on the terms they had neither been institutionalized or served in the military. From there, researchers divided the individuals into five “birth cohorts”–survey year subtracted from subject’s age–further subdividing them into three different smoking categories: non-smokers, never-dependent smokers, and ever-dependent smokers. (Ever-depedent smokers refer to individuals suffering from nicotine addiction in accordance with the DSM-IV’s criteria.)  Additionally, six mental illnesses were included in the survey. The screenings, performed by the AUSADUS-IV, included major depressive, alcohol-use, drug-use, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, bipolar, and antisocial personality disorder.

Analysis of the data revealed ever-dependent smokers from more recently born birth cohorts had higher rates of all mental illnesses except depression. For instance, ADHD saw a 0.75% increase per decade while bipolar and antisocial personality disorders grew 1.5%, and drug/alcohol-use disorders coincided. Depression rates were not affected.

What could it be?

For one, nicotine is a stimulant. It increases cognitive function and temporarily reduces anxiety. These affects are appealing to those suffering from an otherwise untreated mental disorder, and a fixation with cigarettes offers a form of self-medication. Researchers hypothesize that as society’s attitudes towards smoking began to wean out casual smokers in the 1960’s, those self-medicating individuals overtook the majority. This is supported by the fact that never-dependent smokers showed the same rate of mental illness as non-smokers.

Nevertheless, researchers made it clear the conundrum is extremely multifaceted with a host of other contributing factors. Additionally, it’s possible older smokers may not be accurately reporting their past smoking habits, or that older mentally ill smokers passed away before the surveys were taken. Both of these would result in an underreporting of mental illness rates for earlier birth cohorts, effectively skewing the data.

Despite this, researchers possess confidence in their explanation, proposing smoking should be considered an early indicator of undiagnosed mental illnesses.

Journalism Reflection

This was honestly one of the hardest blogs for me to write because of the word limit–a meager 341 words. I’m naturally a very verbose person at fault for literary styling which doesn’t always mesh well with scientific reporting. In addition, I’m also a very thorough writer. It pained me to have to leave out what I’d consider essential information such as how the other limitations and clarifications confirming while oversampling did occur in the original data collection, it was adjusted for in the analysis. I also chose to leave out the genetic component to the article because it didn’t flow well in what little space I had. Instead, like the news article, it caused my writing to become more confusing than informative. Pity, since I found it a really interesting part and quite telling of the sensationalist way media handles findings. (The news article made it seem a much larger contribution than it statistically is.) Another interesting realization of mine is how difficult an unbiased conclusion is to write. I felt as though I was compelled to include some moral Aesop at the end about the evils of smoking when doing so would’ve resulted in an unnecessary social slant.

Regardless, the exercise told a lot about how difficult this truly is. I have more sympathy for the journalists now.

Sources:

Pop Culture Article:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2016-01-28/mental-disorders-increasing-for-younger-smokers

Research Article:

http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v21/n4/full/mp2015224a.html

Can a person truly be trusted or accurate if they are asked a question and they answer with high confidence? When it comes to the highly assumed positive correlation between high confidence and accuracy in recalling memory, it is believed that animals used this as an adaptive technique to ultimately survive and reproduce. However, it can be argued that there is little to no relationship as often a person can inaccurately recall a memory while still having a high amount of confidence. In this research study, subjects will study semantic words to later recall them and also have their confidence rated during that process. The reason for this study is to analyze just how confidence and memory correlates. Recently many, such as Van Koppen, argue that the relation between the two factors is so weak that it “should never be allowed as evidence for memory accuracy in the courtroom.” and it has been proven amongst several cases that the correlation is not as strong as people assume it is. The following research study will not be the first of study this phenomenon. In the past, like with Tulving’s study, it has been discovered that the likeliness of a high confidence-memory recall error increases if the subject at the time is presented with a similar but different scene material. Furthermore, in Koriat’s research study he found that there was a positive correlation between the two factors when asking people general knowledge questions and a negative correlation whenever asking people consensually incorrect questions or questions that most people normally missed. This means that most people chose the correct answer with high confidence for the general knowledge questions and the incorrect but most popular answer with high confidence for the consensually incorrect ones. For the study, two separate experiments were conducted. For experiment 1, a certain amount of subjects studied items, 15 words, to then recall these words in a test consisting of 4 different types of items. These types of items included the words studied, highly similar words in comparison of the actual words studied, words with little similarity in comparison of the actual words studied, and words of distinct or no similarity to the actual words studied. After each question the subject would then rate their confidence rating. To eliminate bias or misleading data several procedures were put into this experiment. As a result from the experiment the data reveals that as a whole, the more a subject had confidence the more they tended on being accurate in recalling. These results are proven from the multiple positive correlations although there were a few negative correlations which came from subjects choosing a highly similar word, when compared to the actual words studied, with high confidence. A deeper interpreted discussion of the data presented can be found in the article listed below. The second experiment, which was conducted the almost exact same way as experiment one, took place shortly after the first and produced almost identical results as the first experiment. As the study comes to a close, it is stated that it just depends on the situation to know or assume whether or not confidence and accuracy is strongly correlated. “This means that in some circumstances, one can rely on confidence as a proxy for strength of evidence that a memory is correct but in other situations the opposite holds true and caution is warranted.”

Work Cited

Roediger, Henry L., and K. Andrew Desoto. “Confidence and Memory: Assessing Positive and Negative Correlations.” Memory 22.1 (2013): 76­91. Web.

Reflection

When writing a whole new article based on the research study I found it quite difficult. My main problem with this was summarizing the research. As I tried only keeping material that was essential it became very hard to differentiate from what I really needed and what I could leave out of the summary while still keeping the audience informed and without misleading them in anyway. Somehow though I managed to turn seventeen pages of facts and information in about a 600 word article. As a sacrifice for having a short article I did not put in most of the information in the study that discussed the history and findings of past studies of the correlation of confidence and accuracy of memory recall. After rereading the research several times I finally got the hang of it however there was still the problem of interpreting the graphs and data that were involved in the study as well as not plagiarizing. On top of that I could not figure out a way to make my summary more appealing so that the audience will not actually get bored after reading the first two sentences. In comparison with the original news article my article presents itself as a very subpar copycat at best. With that being said I have to say that my perspective has definitely changed for all journalists because this job is no where close to being easy by any means. That is why is better to leave work like this to the experts who actually enjoy doing stuff such as this and know what they are doing.

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=a10ca8a9-1b84-4af0-8fd8-db9bea1a8468%40sessionmgr120&hid=113

For my summary over the news article pertaining to whether or not firstborn children had higher IQ’s then their siblings I decided to be as straight forward as possible. I decided that, because after re-reading the news article after knowing what the research was actually testing I felt like that would be the best way to have readers be interested in it. The study itself was really well done and well thought out so I wanted to portray that it had been, but still keep to the facts and figures that came from what the research discovered. It is true that the results were not very exciting finding that siblings have about the same IQ is not going to re-imagine intelligence as we know it, but I was not going to forge results or stretch key points in the research in an attempt to play on the readers naivety. Now I did try to hook readers with the beginning albeit in a partially sarcastic way, but  felt like it was a necessary comparison  to the up beat but incorrect use that was done in the New York Times article. I did not have any real issues with leaving out data since my word count maximum was very large, so that wasn’t necessary. I did decide to cut straight to the point though, I disliked the original article getting distracted so often or going off on a tangent due to someone stating a quote and giving minimal information about it. I wanted to be very straightforward that way people who were interested in the topic could read and enjoy what was found, whereas those who were not did not have to stick around until the end. Another portion that I decided to avoid was using a lot of quotes from seemingly viable sources, I would have really enjoyed using sources such as that, but when I went to research the people quoted in news article I could not come up with anything sufficient enough to place in my article. Therefore I just decided to leave quotes out of it entirely. All in all it was fun rewriting the article, and while my skill to draw readers in and keep them there is probably insufficient compared to a professional New York Times writer or editor, I did what I believe was right and what the people would enjoy. I gave the truth no stretches or discrepancies, which is what I would have desired if I was the reader.

Birth Order and Intelligence

Breaking News! After eight long years of research over intellectual differences between siblings there is an answer. Children who are raised as the first born child have on average a 1 point difference on IQ tests compared to their siblings. These results come from a study done over a period of 8 years in Norway. In this study children were given IQ tests when they reached the age of 18. To limit any sort of social differences that the children may have had each child was from a Norwegian military family and was raised in fairly similar ways. The families were chosen at random with only one stipulation the family had to have more than one child to be applicable for this test.  However these tests were done with the idea that being a firstborn child is not necessarily due to what order you were born in. There were cases where the technical second born child was tested as a first born child due to complications in the first born child’s life that lead to premature death. The people conducting the test believed that being a firstborn child was more about the psychological standpoint rather than the physical one. In their eyes being the first born child was akin to being the teacher or the protector of your siblings that it was the natural role for the eldest child to fulfill.

Now taking all of that into account the difference does not seem very big, and it is not meant to. The findings here show that it is very unlikely that birth order correlates with intelligence. There was a much bigger difference in the scores of the firstborn children and the second born children then the difference between the two. This test does wonders in proving that it is not the biological difference between siblings that determines intelligence as well as shows that it does not correlate with the psychological viewpoint of being the firstborn child. This finding can continue the search to see what psychological factors do affect in terms of intelligence. If it is not being a firstborn child then where do the differences lie? Perhaps in how or where the children raised, maybe some parts are attributed to a natural affinity for learning that was reinforced at an early age. This research is the first step down a path that could lead to better ways of learning and why the work. This experiment could be the beginning of a journey into how people can become geniuses and use their intelligence to help others.

Resources:

News Article-http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/science/22sibling.html?_r=0

Science Article-http://science.sciencemag.org/content/316/5832/1717.full

Sleep Deprivation has been used in interrogation rooms for decades now, but could the confessions we get from these sleep deprived suspects being interrogated be completely false without them even knowing about it? A study over sleep deprivation by Steven Frenda and his team show that this might not be the best way to go about interrogations after all.  

False memories are when people can take in false information and mistakenly encode it into their memory instead of the original information. Sleep Deprivation has been shown to impair cognitive performance, decrease working memory capacity and interfere with normal learning experiences. 

In one test performed on students chosen randomly from a college in California, participants were asked to confirm and describe the video from the Pennsylvania plane crash on September 11th. Even though there are many pictures following the crash, the is no actual footage of the crash. The study separated the group into two halves randomly. Half were sleep deprived and the other half were well rested, both groups were carefully monitored. The next day when asked about the non-existent plane crash video, the sleep deprived group showed a significant amount of more people that had false memory of seeing this video. Another test Frenda’s team was structured by the first false memory test they did. They found enough information from the previous results that made them believe a few changes and additions could lead them to a serious breakthrough. After several alterations were made, the results once again gave data supporting sleep deprivation correlating with false memories. 

Considering the entire research, however, there were more tests results that showed sleep deprivation might not have too much to do with false memories at all. Other tests done came up with results that weren’t good enough to be deemed significant. Frenda’s and his associates performed a number of different tests but only a few came up as significant data showing that sleep deprivation connects to false memories. Does this mean that we should just back off and let sleep depriving tactics continue? 

Because of how close to “significant” results were from other tests similar to this one, it would make sense for everyone to start taking a closer look at a problem with such a terrible outcome like this one. In the whole experiment about eight different test results came through and only two of them showed connection between deprivation and false memory; that’s one out of four or 25% showing connection. That’s enough data pointed toward a need for more research in this subject. It would be wrong to say that if the majority of the data shows no correlation that the entire project is a bust. Consider how we use sleep deprivation during the questioning process in some very serious crime cases that determine weather a person will live freely or in prison for the rest of his or her life for example. In that situation, knowing that there is significant data out there showing correlation with false memories being formed, would you feel that you could count on a sleep deprived confession to tell you the truth? Is it safe to think that anything someone says or confesses to after a night or even a full day without sleep is valid for certain?  

With the small amount of information we have about sleep deprivation, it is much too early to declare a stance for or against sleep deprivation. What should be encouraged, however, is more research to be done and publicized like Steven Frenda and his team did. With answered questions, results with little to no doubt, and a large supply of test subjects and significant results, the connection between sleep deprivation and false memory can truly be identified, understood, and worked on if need be.

News article: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sleep-deprivation-may-lead-to-false-confessions/

Scholarly article: https://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/Frenda_SleepDep_PsychSci2014.pdf?uniq=-olqi49

Refection 

 Writing this article definitely ended up being a little tougher than I originally thought and planned for. I feel like I now have a further understanding and more sympathy for those who do this as a career. Considering that the full research was 2 different experiment with 3 or 4 tests per experiment, I found it rather challenging to compress all the necessary information down into my 1,000-word maximum. It was somewhat stressful trying to pick and choose which large pieces of information I could and couldn’t include. Naturally I felt the need to get all the necessary information out before I started explaining and stating my claim or opinion, but I ended up being over 650 word in at the end of my “necessary information” portion. I had to stop, delete my work, and start over. I was slightly devastated, but the show must go on. I basically had to rewrite and reformat my entire article using the smallest amount of facts as possible. I had to leave out explanations of most of the experiment they performed as well as some of the definitions, terms, and reasons for different parts of these two experiments they performed. After doing this paper I give credit to any writer who is able to successfully get everything they planned for in such a tight gap of space.

 Over the duration of this project, not only did I develop a new respect for these journalists, but I also found some admiration for people who can handle the criticism and rough feedback that they receive and still want to do that job. I know that the first part of the project I thought, “This article tells me what the author is thinking but I don’t really know too much about what’s going on.” And then I got to the scholarly article portion and thought, “Wow, they left a lot of things out that are very essential to the research.” And finally there was the media production portion, this was where the moment of realization hit me. This is when I realize that everything that I’ve been saying and criticizing are the exact same problems I was having on my project but worse. It is truly an experience where you have to stop and say “Alright, now I get it.”