July 2014 - Geoff Ferguson

Maybe we’re not so bad after all.

Interesting piece from the BPS Research Digest about the Stanford Prison Experiment. That was the 1971 experiment in which a group of students was divided into jailers and inmates. The ‘jailers’ eventually became so brutal in their treatment of their ‘inmate’ peers that the experiment had to be abandoned. The lead investigator, Philip Zimbardo, used this result to argue that even good people will turn bad in certain situations.

I’d always accepted the results of this experiment at face value and it’s been used to explain, amongst other things, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. What I hadn’t realised was the range of criticisms leveled at the experiment’s methodology and conclusions. These culminated in the 2002 BBC Prison Study, in which a similar experiment led to a far more nuanced and interesting outcome. Read more ‘Stanford Prison’ and our capacity for cruelty ›

Geoff Ferguson – July 19^th 2014

Brain activity in babies as young as seven months show that they are preparing to begin to speak.

Researchers from the University of Washington found that areas of the brain responsible for planning the motor movements associated with speech were activated when 7- and 11-month old babies heard speech sounds.

“Most babies babble by 7 months, but don’t utter their first words until after their first birthdays,” said lead author Patricia Kuhl, who is the co-director of the UW’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. “Finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start and suggests that 7-month-olds’ brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words.”

Monthly Archives: July 2014

‘Stanford Prison’ and our capacity for cruelty

Brain activity shows babies rehearsing speech months before first words