Posted on 10/14/2019 10:45:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
In the 1950s, researchers stumbled upon a new class of drugs that provided relief for those suffering from schizophrenia. These drugs were known as antipsychotics and, as the name suggests, they reduced symptoms like hallucinations and delusions — primarily by reducing the levels of dopamine in the brain. This led clinicians and scientists to argue that dopamine was linked to the experiences of psychotic symptoms, and a concerted research effort ensued, seeking to solve the puzzle of why excess dopamine might produce hallucinations.
Although it was later shown that increasing dopamine could produce hallucinations, establishing a consistent link between them, it has not been clear why.
They achieved this by taking advantage of a simple fact: Your brain is lazy. It makes shortcuts to understand the deluge of information that bombards it daily. If you’re presented with consistent information, consistently, your brain adjust its expectations of reality in turn. This is the basis of Bayesian theories of how we perceive the world – that is, the brain makes inferences about the world around us based on statistics and probabilities on what is likely to occur.
[I]ncreasing dopamine made it more difficult for participants to adjust their perception — an effect comparable to how the hallucinators had struggled. Moreover, the extent to which participants struggled was strongly associated with the severity of hallucinations — but not with any diagnosis of schizophrenia. In other words, the difficulty appeared to be associated with a symptom, not a diagnosis.
Using brain imaging, the researchers also showed that an increased capacity for dopamine release, from a part of the brain known as the striatum (an area involved in schizophrenia), was associated with the severity of hallucinations. Together, these experiments showed that excess dopamine was associated with difficulty in accurately predicting reality.
(Excerpt) Read more at inverse.com ...
Not entirely true that cursive is no longer being taught, as T-c should be able to confirm for her area.
Among other things, it may be that students with dyslexia may benefit from the hand-eye coordination that cursive writing employs.
That alone may not be sufficient reason to continue its use and instruction, but I would note that among the first things we teach children in school is to “try to stay within the lines”, and other rules which appear to be related to being able to draft messages to other human beings.
I think it would be cool to be able to “pass a note” to your friend that, even if intercepted, could not be deciphered. (A really clever teacher might use this ploy as a tool to interest children in retaining a lost art.)
When I was in junior high, my friends and I could write in Tolkien’s basic elf-runes.
I particularly enjoyed learning a version of shorthand. It’s an amazing speedup of note-taking, but it is designed to make written notes of verbal sounds; spelling is tossed aside!
On the other hand, it should be relatively easy to use (shorthand) written notes with an electronic device to be able to read back those notes through an (artificial) voice.
Our friend Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, often used shorthand notes on his panels to indicate “secretarial” skills in action. They were accurate and amusing!
Back when I was a Clerk-Typist in the Civil Service, a much more impressive level of administrative employee was Secretary-Steno. You would think that converting a standard shorthand form into speech would be a fairly basic piece of programming. If you can do it with Japanese ...
Recent research has shown that students taking notes on a computer retain significantly less information and have worse comprehension than those who take notes by hand (either print or cursive). I wonder if that would be the same with shorthand. The very fastest typists don’t remember what they’ve typed.
"Recent research has shown that students taking notes on a computer retain significantly less information and have worse comprehension than those who take notes by hand (either print or cursive)."
I noted the same finding in my research prior to posting my comments about cursive writing. It was found that writing in cursive allowed better retention of notated information than directly typing it into a database of some kind.
This would indicate that there is a heirarchy of task-performance operating here; one can be busy translating information from one form to another, or one can be busy trying to record information being presented verbally, but it is difficult to do both at the same time.
That makes sense. A problem with typing directly from speech is that you don’t know where a sentence is going until it gets there, so it’s extremely difficult to punctuate on the fly.
This is true, but I was a good dictator, back in the day.
I could have typed the letter myself, but I didn’t have access to a typewriter in that office.
In a later office, with a different secretarial staff, sending out my own letters became a necessity, if I wanted them to look right.
Case in point, I tried pointing out to one of the new secretaries that using ten-point type on twelve-point spacing made a word like “book” into a word that was spelled “w-infinity-k”.
;o]
If I’m going to recall something later, I need to write it down. Such as grocery items. Then, if I forget the list, I can get most of the things on it. Compared to pre-CFIDS when I could get everything on it...
I got the point.
Look at the new Floof!!
Good morning.
I just sorted the clothes so I’m on my way to the laundry room. See you in about 40 minutes. :o]
Good morning. Kitteh is Alarmed!
Good luck with the wash. Walk carefully!
No ice this morning. Rain is expected later this week, but none today or tomorrow.
The laundry is done, except for hanging up, of course, and I can’t do that just yet. I have to wait for my back muscles to relax a bit.
I have some filing to do, about three months worth. I set the stuff aside, thinking I’d do it as soon as all the bills were paid, and so, the pile just got bigger... *sigh* At least I can sit while I’m doing it. ;o]
Happy Monday. It’s not raining here right now.
It felt rather mild when I walked over to the clubhouse, but it will be freezing by the time the sun comes up. I think we’re in a “sink” here, because we’re colder than any other part of Hurricane.
Unnngh.
Yep, that’s what I said, too, when I finally realized it.
But — it is what it is and I will deal with it!
Congratulations to Vlad and his excellent educational system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.