Having recently finished my undergraduate degree in psychology, I spent many long hours in the library working side by side other students diligently writing essays and doing practice problems. Here I noticed that it is just as common to see a student working as watching Netflix, or scrolling through Instagram (both of which I have been guilty of). I would like to propose that a simple concept, called Affordance Theory, helps explain this behaviour. I make the case that by being aware of the psychological implications of Affordance Theory, any student can become a more productive studier (just in time for finals).

Affordance Theory, first introduced by 20th century American psychologist James J. Gibson, belongs to the domain of Perception. Gibson’s theory suggests that objects in an environment not only convey perceptual information such as shape, depth, and colour, but also information about possible actions that one can take in such an environment, which he called affordances. Gibson suggested that it is our perception of the environment that thus leads to certain actions. An object’s affordances are processed subliminally, meaning, you don’t need to consciously consider the fact that a button affords pressing, or a cup of water affords drinking — your brain registers such information automatically. I would argue that it is by ignoring, or being unaware of, this beautifully simple idea of environmental affordances that many students ultimately fail when they sit down to study. Whether it’s your cellphone’s delicate buzz emanating from your pocket, or your warm bed just visible in the periphery of your vision, these everyday comforts ultimately become “study hazards.”

In order to help students (or anyone who wants to become more productive) make better use of their time, I have put together this simple list of tips and tricks to “out-smart” your senses and study better.

Avoid studying in your bedroom, especially your bed

If you’re in your bedroom, chances are your mind isn’t focussed on studying. It’ll be distracted by thoughts of sleeping, gaming, or whatever else you do in your bedroom. A closely related idea to affordance theory is the psychological principle “goal priming.” This principle suggests that we are subconsciously prompted by our environment to pursue certain goals. For example, when you cozy into your bed to study, your brain will associate this action with the goal of sleeping: you become drowsy, you rest your eyes for a minute, until all of a sudden, you’re asleep. Typically, this is not a productive mental state when you are trying to write an essay or study. It is also for this exact reason that we are advised not to read, watch TV, or eat in our beds, because then we begin to associate the bed with waking activities rather than with the (arguably) most important goal of a bed: to sleep. For similar reasons, it is advisable not to study in your kitchen or living room because these environments also prompt goals like eating or relaxing.

The idea is simple here  —  take an environment used to engage in a certain, specific range of tasks, and then try to engage in another task unfamiliar to that environment, and it will produce a goal conflict. If studying is already a challenge for you do not add additional conflicts of interest through the environment.

Study in an environment designed for studying

The best way to move beyond these goal-priming conflicts is to consistently study in an environment designed for studying. The most likely environment is probably your university library, but could also be a public library, a quiet café, a group study area, etc. Experiment in order to find the environment that works best for you, but always keep in mind that all environments prompt subconscious goals that may be working for or against your desire to study.

Consider the technological distractions in your environment

Your phone is addictive. Yes, it is. Whether you’re drawn to your Snapchat notifications or YouTube, your phone can be considered a potential source of behavioural addiction. A behavioural addiction may not produce a physical dependance like alcohol, heroin, or many other drugs, whose addiction is characterized by tolerance (acclimation to certain levels of the substance such that more of the substance is needed to produce the same effect) and withdrawal (removal of the substance produces both negative physical and psychological symptoms). Instead, a behavioural addiction is characterized by an addiction to certain behaviours which produce rewards. Hypothetically, any behaviour can become addictive, especially ones with high reward value, such as gambling (winning feels good), eating (food tastes good), or social media (social approval feels good).

Social media interactions provide social feedback which provides us with a wealth of information as to our social approval index and friend network, and also allows us to form relative comparisons between ourselves and others. The danger lies in deriving our own self-value, or self-esteem, from these contrived, virtual interactions. The more we engage with these websites, the more focussed we become on our own relative standing in the social media microcosm.

Where am I going with this? This conversation surrounding social media touches upon the experience of many students who frequent social media websites daily, or hourly. Simply put, it is hard to concentrate on studying when you are thinking about how many likes you may have gotten on your latest Instagram post or whether or not that attractive person has accepted your FB friend request. In order to truly focus on your task at hand you must try to eliminate these cognitive distractors by minimizing their presence in your environment. Accomplish this easily with these tips:

a) Hide your cellphone or set it to “do not disturb” mode.

b) Minimize your engagement with technology when studying by relying on only books, pen, and paper. If you must use your laptop when studying, turn off the internet to minimize incoming distractions.

c) Temporarily deactivate your accounts during intense study periods such as midterms or finals.

By being cognizant of the subtle ways your study habits may be undermining your own academic success, you can shield yourself from their detrimental effects and focus on the task at hand — learning! Despite the drudgery of hauling oneself to McLennan in the freezing cold, and the absolute monotony of writing final exams, with these study tips, I hope you can make better use of the time you put into your work!

The post Tips and tricks to study better appeared first on The McGill Daily.

It is estimated that about one in every 10,000 children will pass testing criteria to be considered “gifted” according to the work of Julian Stanley, the founder of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY). This research initiative, which began in 1971, has been tracking the growth and accomplishments of thousands of intellectually talented individuals over the past 45 years.

The SMPY study defines as those between 12-14 years old scoring within the top 3 per cent to 0.1 per cent of the Standard Aptitude Test’s (SAT) mathematics portion. The SMPY’s reliance on the SAT’s mathematics component as the sole test for picking out remarkable children demonstrates a narrow-minded focus on quantitative ability over any other forms of intelligence. A contrasting but still popular theory of intelligence is Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, which suggests that intelligence can be broken down into distinct and disparate categories; within Gardner’s framework, one can excel musically and struggle mathematically, but the different IQ levels for these two forms of intelligence do not overlap.

The SMPY database was used in a meta-analysis conducted in 2010 by Jonathan Wai, a research scientist at Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, studying the correlation between early cognitive ability and adult achievement. Wai claims, “[that] the kids who test in the top 1 per cent tend to become our eminent scientists and academics, our Fortune 500 CEOs and federal judges, senators and billionaires.” He bluntly concludes that “whether we like it or not, these people really do control our society.”

If that statement leaves you with the feelings of disdain, you’re not alone. Many have taken issue with the conclusion that innate cognitive ability is the greatest predictor of lifetime achievement. In searching for a way to define and measure childhood genius, Stanley and his colleagues zoned in on one aspect of intelligence: mathematical reasoning.

Through history, intelligence has been defined variously and according to different standards. Intelligence testing dates back to the late 19th century, beginning with Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin, a renowned statistician, and the founding father of eugenics. Eugenics is loosely defined as the set of beliefs or practices that aim at improving the perceived quality of the human gene pool. Galton valued intelligence above other traits; his earliest work was on the very subject of greatness and genius, entitled “Hereditary Genius” published in 1869. He attempted to design ways to empirically measure intelligence often relying on physical attributes, such as cranial shape and “colouring,” as well as behavioural characteristics like criminality, and sex workers.

The eugenics movement is the insidious theoretical foundation upon which intelligence testing rests.

It’s plain to say that not all were equal within Galton’s “testing system” although at the time his work was used to aid in the ‘screening’ of potential American immigrants landing on Ellis Island, and later backed regimes dictating and policing which characteristics could remain in society’s gene pool, which included the German Nazi party. In fact, it was the dispersal of eugenics ideals by the Nazis that turned the rest of the world sour to the concept not even a hundred years ago. The eugenics movement is the insidious theoretical foundation upon which intelligence testing rests. This remains a common thread in the study of intelligence as we continuously strive to segregate peoples into different statistically justified groups according to attributes deemed desirable by some.

People possess varied levels of intelligence and capacities for academic pursuits, however it is crucial to acknowledge that other factors such as identity, personality, and social environment play an important role in dictating one’s success. The children selected into the SMPY study have many advantages conferred on them prior to and during the study. During the study these children are provided with personalized education programs that suits and encourages their abilities, which would likely confer success on any child. Moreover, these children likely stem from a homogenous pool of those who have access to early opportunities and advantages, which excludes children from underprivileged or marginalized backgrounds. The influence of early childhood access to academic and extracurricular opportunities cannot be overstated, but too often these opportunities are afforded according to society’s many hierarchical structures: socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexuality, religion, and ability. Access to these advantages helps cultivate ‘gifted’ qualities, contradicting the notion of ‘hereditary genius.’

In considering how to better treat children of different abilities in the classroom, Carol Dweck, a professsor in the psychology departmant at Stanford University, suggests that labelling children can be damaging and counterproductive to their growth. Dweck suggests that labels can interfere with motivation and can contribute to a “fixed mindset” of intelligence, wherein the child believes that their basic qualities, including intelligence, are immobile and unalterable through practice. Instead, she suggests cultivating a “growth mindset” where children believe their inherent abilities are only a starting point that can be cultivated through hard work and intellectual risk-taking.

Labelling children can be damaging and counterproductive to their growth.

The failure to prove the real and lasting differences between children of varied IQ’s was demonstrated in a study by Lewis Terman, whose infamous work on the genetics of genius relied on IQ scores to identify gifted teenagers that were subsequently tracked over their lifetime (began in 1921, it is one of the longest running longitudinal studies ever conducted). Albeit the fact that some of Terman’s subjects, or “Termites” as they came to be known, reached eminence in their fields, sociologist Pitirim Sorokin pointedly found that the “Termites” (with IQs at or above 130) did equally as well over their life course as a random group of individuals from comparable family backgrounds.

Within our complex and layered world requiring talents of all kinds, the glaring focus of Stanley’s study on mathematical intelligence and scientific potential strongly shows that this is what society values among its ‘best and brightest.’ SMPY mutates intelligence into an economic resource upon which to hone in to create the world’s next leading group of leaders and intelligentsia, and the narrow focus on scientific achievement excludes or ignores other forms of achievements. Imagine a world highlighting only the brilliance of Newton and Einstein, but devoid of Maya Angelou, Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, or Yo-Yo Ma.

Essentially, if society was truly determined and crafted at the hands of the “scientists and academics, Fortune 500 CEOs and federal judges, senators and billionaires,” highlighted in SMPY, our world would be far less vibrant, diverse, and interesting. Future research into educational achievement and intelligence should denigrate (or at least acknowledge) classist logic that splits youth into distinct and visible hierarchies according to typologies deemed most ideal by society.

The post Tiering the masses appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Kaspi’s astounding success within astrophysics is evidenced by the long list of awards and distinctions that she has accumulated throughout her relatively short career. Her previous distinctions include the Herzberg Medal of the Canadian Association of Physicists, the Steacie Prize, the Rutherford Memorial Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, and the Prix Marie-Victorin – not to mention being a McGill alumna of ‘89. Also noteable on the list of Kaspi’s accomplishments is the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy, given by the American Astronomical Society, which Kaspi received in 1998.

Like Kaspi, Annie J. Cannon was a great female astronomer who was instrumental in shaping and furthering the way we understand the universe; Cannon is credited with developing the first classification system for stellar bodies. It was another great heroine of astrophysics, Cecilia Payne, who realized that Cannon’s classification system, which was based off the temperature of the stars, also correlated with the stars’ chemical composition. Payne’s doctoral thesis, “Stellar Atmospheres,” which outlined her and Cannon’s finding was disregarded as it went completely against conventional knowledge of the stars. It took four years before her contemporaries realized that Payne had been correct and acknowledged her revolutionary discovery. Like Victoria Kaspi, the story of Cannon and Payne exemplifies the hugely influential role women have had in the field of astrophysics, while also alluding to the dismissal of women in academia.

Even though Cannon and Payne were working nearly a century ago, it remains no secret that there is still gender based discrimination within the upper levels of the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Although these fields often have many women in their ranks at the undergraduate level, female representation drops moving up the educational and professional ladder. The phenomenon is well-known and is often referred to as the “leaky pipeline.” Although there are a number of reasons for why this might be the case, with some blaming innate gender differences, or women’s focus on family over career, these unfounded explanations don’t stack up in reality. The most likely explanation for this leaky pipeline phenomenon is a systematic discrimination against marginalized groups within the STEM fields.

One might assume this bias doesn’t exist within today’s supposedly liberally-minded academic institutions, but a paper published by Corinne Moss-Racusin and associates from Yale titled “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students” provides unsettling evidence for the existence of this discrimination. The researchers recruited a sample of over 150 STEM professors at several top American universities and had them assess two candidates applying for a lab manager position. The faculty were asked to rate the applicant’s competence, perceived hireability, and the likelihood that they would mentor the candidate. The candidates’ resumes were identical, with the exception of their name being gendered.

This subtle tactic produced results overwhelmingly consistent with the leaky pipeline hypothesis. The male candidate was rated significantly higher in all domains – competence, hireability, and mentoring. What is most striking is that the gender of the professor had no effect, meaning even female professors were susceptible to committing this type of discrimination. When asked why they rated the female candidate lower, the professors reported that they perceived those applicants to be less competent.

The results of Moss-Racusin’s study are consistent with the historical and modern perception of women in STEM fields; women consistently have to work harder to prove their worth in this competitive realm. What’s more is that this leaky pipeline does not apply only to women, but extends to other groups discriminated against based on race, age, and other identity factors. In order to overcome this systematic and erroneous prejudice, we must actively create opportunities for their professional and academic development within the STEM fields as well as other white male-dominated sectors such as business and government.

Recognizing that systematic discrimination continues within STEM fields, Victoria Kaspi’s recent award becomes all the more remarkable and a toast to all women in academia. By celebrating prominent female scientists and their contributions, we are simultaneously creating positive role models in science and technology and erasing the sexist notion that women are incompetent. This award has brought Kaspi to the forefront of STEM in Canada, and will be pivotal to improving the representation of women in STEM everywhere.

The post Victoria Kaspi wins Herzberg medal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Natural Math
Maria Droujkova, math educator and curriculum designer, is a vocal part of this mathematical revolution. Droujkova says, in various talks such as at SPARKcon and the Computer-Based Math Education Summit, that the current method of instruction for mathematics “has nothing to do with how people think, how children grow and learn, or how mathematics is built.” The entrenched system of forcing children to execute repetitive and boring computations over and over doesn’t teach them anything about why these numbers actually matter and what they can do. In fact, Droujkova points out that these activities, despite their relative “ease,” are actually harder for children to do because they drain cognitive resources like working memory, attention span, and accuracy. These exercises stress finicky manipulations of numbers as opposed to understanding grand underlying patterns. This misplaced focus can distract students from the true purpose of math – resolving and analyzing patterns – and potentially discourage many potential engineers, statisticians, designers, et cetera, from following that path.

Instead, Droujkova argues in an interview with The Atlantic that mathematics education should reflect the “playful universe” of advanced mathematics. Mathematics is a diverse and creative macrocosm encompassing over sixty disciplines that influence the way that we think about and execute almost everything in life. In order to restore children’s interest in math, Droujkova advocates an alternative method she calls “Natural Math.” Natural Math harnesses a child’s productive and creative instincts and channels them into different games and free play exercises. These games are designed to teach fundamentals of a variety of mathematical principles. Droujkova claims that once children understand underlying concepts foundational to many upper level math disciplines, they begin noticing changes and can engage with mathematical patterns in complex ways. Following this format, math educators should strive to create exercises that are rich and complex (can be interpreted in different ways) but easy (conducive to immediate play). Some example activities Droujkova provides in her talks include constructing with Lego, making origami, and using imaginary tools like a “function box” (which manipulate inputed variables according to an unstated rule that the child must figure out).

“[The current method of instruction for mathematics] has nothing to do with how people think, how children grow and learn, or how mathematics is built.”

A hierarchy of learning
Droujkova states that there are many complex yet easy aspects to all branches of math, but in particular she has zeroed in on calculus and algebra. She emphasizes the importance of calculus and algebra as pattern-drafting tools that can be used in designing and creating. This creative and productive element is thought to allow kids to engage in free play while simultaneously learning. In her book, co-authored with Yelana McManaman, Moebius Noodles: Adventurous Math for the Playground Crowd, she explains the principles of teaching math using her application-based approach and outlines different activities that can be used to introduce complex mathematical concepts to young children. Such activities include making fractals which touches on notions of recursion and infinitesimals, and using “mirror books,” where mirrors reflect upon other mirrors, allowing children to assess concepts of infinity and transformation. Clearly this resembles less of the calculus you did in high school, or are doing here at McGill, but Droujkova argues that it provides the grounded, hands-on fundamentals of the discipline that can be built upon in future years once students move onto the use of abstract words, graphs, and formulas.

Perhaps Droujkova and her like-minded associates are striving toward higher levels of learning in children, using a hierarchy of learning outcomes to measure educaional value as postulated by Bloom’s taxonomy. At the very bottom of the taxonomy is “remembering” – recalling facts and concepts – moving up toward more complex and generative types of learning such as “analyzing” – drawing connections between ideas – “evaluating” – justifying one’s stand – and “creating” – producing new or original work at the pinnacle. Creating teaching material that accesses the top tiers (that is, evaluation and creation) of Bloom’s pyramid is difficult to do at all educational levels. It is even a pervasive issue in college and university, where students learn to memorize and regurgitate facts without truly grasping any of the deeper conceptual or applicable understanding (recall that multiple choice midterm you did last week). In the case of elementary math, it is easy to see how those painful addition and multiplication worksheets we all encountered as children access only the bottom tier of this hierarchy, whereas Droujkova’s alternative may challenge children to analyze and create.

A new door for children
An entertained student is an engaged student, and an engaged student is more likely to stay in school. As it stands, mathematics can turn a lot of children off from schooling, as they find it difficult and boring. Difficulties at school are even greater for disenfranchised populations who may not have the kind of support network and constant supervision that those with higher socioeconomic status, who are largely white, benefit from. Perhaps anticipating this problem, Droujkova, and colleagues have made their material and courses available for free under Creative Commons, and have designed activities that require only easily accessible materials. Furthermore, Droujkova emphasizes the importance of math circles in creating learning communities for students who may otherwise lack this supportive network. Their goal is to empower local school systems to begin teaching in a way that breaks down as many mathematical and financial barriers as possible.

Of course, the Natural Math camp has met resistance from different camps who claim that Natural Math is not a tenable option. Some critics state that this type of math may put undue pressure on children to learn complex concepts at ever younger ages, somehow justifying the behaviour of overly strict parenting (“My 3 year old can design fractals, can yours?”). Others argue that the focus on play will prevent children from learning traditional calculation skills, ultimately setting them behind.

These concerns are justified and important to take into consideration when dealing with the important issue of mathematical literacy. It is optimistic to think that this more generative and pattern-oriented type of math education will result in a more math-literate population. Curriculum reform is indeed a slow-going process, and simply changing math curriculum itself does not address systemic issues such as poverty or social constructs that dictate who can excel at and love math. However, as Droujkova argues in her interiew with The Atlantic, the emphasis in our current education system on precision and replication does not have any true relation to the real world and that instead the logic puzzles and open projects that Natural Math advocates allow kids to explore, innovate, and interact with their world in new and signifiant ways. Thus, different approaches that attempt to fundamentally shift the way our children think and learn will no doubt have a signifiant impact on how they respond to both the challenges of today and tomorrow.

The post Calculus for kindergarteners appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Previous research has shown that subjective happiness is a stable trait. This is the assumption that each person has a baseline level of subjective happiness to which they consistently return despite fluctuation in happiness levels, in the same way that personality largely remains consistent over time. The Kyoto researchers defined the measures of happiness as the combination of both emotionally positive and negative mood states and cognitive self-assessment of life satisfaction, which is also influenced by genetic factors. The team hypothesized that subjective happiness likely maps onto an underlying structure or a neural network within the brain.

To investigate this hypothesis, the Sato team used a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) paired with questionnaires designed to evaluate the levels of subjective happiness as a function of both intensity of emotions and participants’ self-assessment of life satisfaction. MRI is increasingly a staple technology in health and research that provides an image of activity in the brain changing with patterns of increased blood flow in activated brain regions. When certain brain regions are activated during a task, such as answering a question concerning one’s level of happiness, it is presumed that these areas have a direct relationship to the task at hand. In this case the activated region would be tied to happiness.

Sato’s team found one area that particularly stood out: the right precuneus region of the medial parietal cortex. The parietal cortex is important to several large functions of human operation, including motor function, somatosensation (touch), and aspects of language and communication. The parietal lobe is located toward the top back of the head, and within that brain cortex the precuneus is in the middle of the right side.

Sato’s results show a significant relationship between subjective happiness ratings, as measured by the questionnaires, and grey matter volume in the right precuneus. The elevated levels of grey matter indicate a greater number of neurons that are more densely packed in this specific area – this increased number of neurons means more connections in that region, which would imply a better ability to integrate different types of information important to happiness. Indeed, an extensive body of knowledge on the medial parietal cortex has indicated that this region has widespread neural networks throughout the brain, suggesting that it is important for integrating different types of information, such as memory, sensation, cognition, and emotion. Furthermore, other research has found that the medial parietal cortex region is key to the processing of self-referential knowledge: information about one’s inner self that involves both past memories and future plans. Taken in tandem, it is likely that the precuneus forms important links between our emotions, cognitive appraisals of happiness, and self-knowledge in order to temper and mediate our overall happiness.

The Kyoto University team recognizes that the exact neural mechanisms that perform this integration remain unclear, though prospective research may bring about exciting new lines of study.

For example, they have suggested that this work may have implications on the field of public policy. They envisage a future where policymakers may use neuroimaging to provide objective measures of population happiness to better form policy for the people. However, there are multiple reasons why this is unlikely. Not only is MRI expensive and difficult to perform, especially on a large, systematic scale, but the data collected may also not be cross-culturally viable or applicable to certain populations like those living with neural disorders like autism, ADHD, or Down’s syndrome.

Studies have shown that psychological activities like meditation have changed the structure of precuneus grey matter through neural plasticity. Neural plasticity refers to the fact that the human brain is an incredibly dynamic organ capable of reorganizing and shaping itself according to the person’s experiences. This work suggests that meditation and other similar interventions may actually increase overall happiness at a neural level by increasing the amount of precuneus grey matter.

It is important to note that these findings may present a problem of directionality: does a larger precuneus dispose one toward being happy, or do higher happiness levels lead to the development of a larger precuneus? The evidence that meditation increases the size of the precuneus points to the latter, but only further study will shed more light onto this matter.

The precuneus area of the brain is not necessarily the only area involved in happiness either. This line of logic is referred to as “localization of function,” which posits that different parts of the brain have distinct and separate responsibilities. Despite being increasingly popular in psychology and neuroscience, many researchers argue that this view of the brain is reductive and overly simplistic. Localization of function does not fully encapsulate the vast complexity and nuance in the human brain, nor does a purely neurological understanding of happiness fairly represent the range of social, biological, and environmental factors that influence human experience.

Nonetheless, these results are exciting and may influence the future of “happiness therapies” as experts focus on ways to strengthen and enlarge the precuneus via different psychological training techniques such as mindfulness meditation or yoga. Identifying these regions of the brain associated with individual happiness or other emotions could be an important step in opening new doors to understanding and treating mental disorders that affect a person’s emotions such as depression or bipolar disorder.

The post Searching for joy in the brain appeared first on The McGill Daily.