In one of Andrew’s recent blog posts, he explained his frustration with students who dropped the course in order to save their GPA. In this class, plenty of students have admitted to quitting a subject because of low grades: many students included in their initial blog posts that they stopped considering being a scientist once they started earning lower grades than they hoped for in science classes. Although this may be an indicator that they really aren’t natural scientists, it might also be a mistake. For instance, students could have learned more material and have been more engaged in science classes than in the classes they earned better grades in, yet focused less on earning a higher grade.

This image came from http://www.artsjournal.com/audience/2012/06/bright-idea-report-card-rewards/report-card/

Unfortunately, as students, it’s difficult to ignore the reality that most schools and employers judge and select students based on their grade point average, especially with more schools becoming test optional. Because of this discouraging setup, most of the time students work towards earning high grades, rather than working in order to learn. Earning a high GPA can be a beneficial incentive that increases student’s motivation and effort, but as students, employers, and schools focus too much on them, they can easily be destructive. Test scores may not be effective way of judging students’ intelligence, but is basing judgements off of GPA really a positive alternative?

College admission officials use high schooler’s GPA and standardized test scores to predict whether or not they will be able to succeed at that college, but is GPA a more useful and accurate indicator? This article explains how GPA shows evidence of soft skills like motivation and attendance. In general, students may be too focused on their grades, but by motivating themselves to earn high grades, they develop skills that can help them succeed in college. In this study, both test scores and GPA were better predictors of college GPA, depending on the level of the first year college GPA. For example, high college grade point averages were unable to be predicted by high school GPA. College Board, although most likely biased in favor of standardized testing, reports that the best determiner of college grade point average is a combination of standardized test scores and high school GPA.

These studies don’t suffer the file drawer problem considering they’ve been published, and college admission officials at colleges everywhere are constantly trying to decide the best method to judge prospective students. The most effective methods are being updated each year, so the first article is a little outdated and therefore does not provide the most reliable information. In conclusion, neither GPA nor test scores are perfect predictors for how well a student will do in college; however, GPA can indicate student’s skills in the day to day classroom, even if it can also corrupt students’ learning and motives.

http://sites.psu.edu/siowreflections/2016/11/14/late-drop/

http://search.proquest.com/docview/225613390?pq-origsite=gscholar

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563202.pdf

As you stroll through the HUB on almost any given morning of the school year, the everlasting Starbucks line is hard to miss. Interestingly enough, the line always seems to be composed of mostly females. While the occasional male or two appears in the line, this drastic gender difference is not something I want to ignore. Since the line is most active in the morning, I assume that the majority of people in line are waiting to buy caffeinated drinks. I noticed a similar pattern at my high school, where it was typical for girls to arrive to first period with a cup of coffee in hand. However, this was not a regular scenario for the opposite gender. Is this because caffeine has a greater or different impact on the female body?

My alternative hypothesis is that caffeine impacts the female body differently than the male body, and my null hypothesis is that caffeine has the same effect on both genders. In this randomized double-blind placebo study, 8 females and 8 males were randomly assigned to either drink caffeinated coffee or a placebo at midnight and 4am, and the placebo group showed more signs of drowsiness. Females reported themselves as drowsier at 5am, and the body temperature of females increased between midnight and 5am, while males’ decreased. Another study again tested drowsiness with a placebo and non placebo, but instead with 9 male and 9 female subjects. In this experiment, effort of performing tasks was increased by caffeine for females, and decreased for males.

This image came from http://www.metronomecoffee.com/#about

Another article points out caffeine’s varying effect on the different genders. Caffeine consumption can decrease the risk of Parkinson’s for males, but for females, estrogen replacement therapy can prevent this. In this observational longitudinal study, changes in cognitive function of coffee drinkers differed slightly between males and females over the course of almost 8 years. However, some results of the study require further investigation. 688 undergraduates volunteered to participate in a randomized double-blind placebo experiment. The researchers only tested the subjects with a small dosage of caffeine (100 mg), but they found that caffeine effected men to a greater extent than women, and the decaffeinated drinks effected women more than men.

This image came from https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-red-cups-2015

Caffeine does effect the male and female body differently, proving my alternative hypothesis. However, caffeine does not necessarily impact females than it impacts males. The differences that caffeine has on the male and female body do not explain the female-flooded Starbucks line. Instead, the line could be due to confounding variables. For example, women could have a higher concern for social appearance, or they could be in line for other non-caffeinated drinks. Also, women might like fruity drinks like iced tea more than men, or they might even be more vulnerable to the seasonal specialties that Starbucks offers.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140139508925157

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/977.full

http://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad110431

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278584608002030

Before doing any research, I believed the rumor that it takes 21 successful attempts of of an action for it to become a habit. In gymnastics, I would respond to my coach’s correction by leaping with straight legs instead of bent legs; I hoped that after 21 leaps with straight legs, I would no longer have to pay specific attention to straightening my legs. After researching this myth I realized why following this technique never seemed to work. The rumor has circulated around for many years, and varies in form because of this. Some people believe that it takes 21 or a different number of days for something to become a habit, rather than 21 tries. In this case, the alternative hypothesis is that there is a certain number of days or repeated actions until a routine becomes a habit, and the null hypothesis is that there is no specific number or timeframe.

According to this article, a plastic surgeon noticed that it took approximately 21 days for people to form habits, and from there the rumor took off without further scientific investigation. Along with other health psychology researchers, Phillippa Lally studied 96 subjects over 12 weeks. In this experimental study, the subjects each chose a habit that they tried to develop, and the researchers studied how long it took them to develop that new habit. They proved the null hypothesis to be true, which is that it does not take 21 days, or any certain amount of time to develop a new habit. Instead, the amount of time needed to form each habit depended on individual variables like the person’s behavior and the habit they were trying to form. Basically, there were too many confounding variables. In general, it took the subjects anywhere from two to eight months to form a new habit. In addition, the article also notes that it was not necessary to perform the task perfectly in order for the habit to form.

This image came from http://www.attunefoods.com/blog/2013/10/30-days-to-kick-bad-habits/

My null hypothesis was proven: there is not one strict, specific formula for how to form a habit. Every person and every habit is different, so forming or breaking a habit must be handled differently in each situation. There is, however, a general framework for how a habit is formed. First there is a cue, which is what tells the brain to start the action. Next is the routine, which is the action itself, and lastly, the person benefits from the routine in some way. As the process of a cue, a routine, and a reward loops over time, the brain ceases to make conscious choices about the pattern. Part of forming a habit is embracing that you are going to be doing that action in the long run, not just for a short 3 week period. This is why the reward part of the cycle is so necessary – people need an incentive to continue the action until it becomes second nature. This process can be short or long, so it is important to be open-minded and committed when trying to form a new habit.

http://home.d47.org/lmfennell/files/2015/03/Unit-5-How-Long-Does-It-Actually-Take-to-Form-a-New-Habit.pdf

https://sivers.org/book/PowerOfHabit

My math professor recently showed my class an exam question made by his Chinese colleague. The question, which the professor included in his class’s previous exam, listed 4 pictures of similar-aged Chinese males and asked the students which professor is theirs. The question was intended to stump the students who did not consistently show up to class, but my professor explained that even those who came to class regularly still struggled with the question. He then went on to discuss his own difficulty as a Chinese man with recognizing the faces of his non-Chinese students. So, why is it so difficult to differentiate people of races different from our own?

This image came from http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/they-all-look-alike-the-other-race-effect

Known to many as the other-race effect or own-race bias, trouble with facial recognition starts as early as infancy. Psychologists explain that in one study, they tested the ability of 3, 6, and 9 month old Caucasian infants to distinguish Caucasian, African, Middle Eastern, and Chinese faces. Having no former visual image of race, the 3-month-olds recognized faces of all races, whereas the 9-month-olds could only recognize Caucasian faces. Recognition accuracy at later ages is due to the infant’s sociocultural exposure and experience, although it is possible for the other-race effect to be prevented or reversed.

An experiment by Sangrigoli and Schonen concluded that in Caucasian infants, the other-race effect is reversed after 2 minute exposure to photographs of people of other races. However, older infants require greater exposure to other races in order to reverse the effect. When considering the effect of adoption on the other-race effect, scientists have found that people’s own-race bias disappears after around 20 years of exposure to another race. These researchers conducted a study which tested the reversibility of the other-race effect in children. The subjects, Korean adults who were adopted into Caucasian families during their childhood, were able to recognize Caucasian faces better than they were able to recognize Asiatic faces. They yielded the same results as Caucasian subjects, whereas another group of Korean subjects yielded the opposite results. This data lead the researchers to conclude that the other-race effect can be reversed, despite childhood exposure.

So why does the other-race effect exist in the first place? According to this article, people base facial differences on dimensions that differ between races. For example, a feature that differs from person to person of one race may not differ much between people of another race. Similarly, this article explains that by familiarizing ourself with others of our own race, we begin to separate faces based on facial features, which are less effective for separating faces of other races. Additionally, people develop scanning techniques for faces of their own race that they generally do not display when looking at people of other races. Because signs of this technique begin around the same time that the other-race effect develops, they are most likely linked.

This image came from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/201208/the-truth-about-they-all-look-alike-me

In conclusion, the other-race effect is significant for a number of reasons, including how it is a flaw in the criminal justice system. In court cases, eyewitnesses can be less accurate, and in general, minorities receive unequal treatment because of inaccurate facial recognition. The other-race effect is a common phenomenon, and is not attributed to an individual’s ignorance or racism, but rather to the way the brain processes features of the face starting as early as infancy.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/12/1084.short

http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/22/3/173.full.pdf+html

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/6/440.full.pdf+html

http://pec.sagepub.com/content/25/6/669.full.pdf+html

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/law/7/1/98/

In high school I consistently went to bed around 3am and woke up for school at 7am. None of my friends understood how I could get so little sleep and yet still function normally in the day. After a summer of changing up my sleep patterns, I can no longer keep my eyes open after getting the amount of sleep that I used to get just a few months ago. What did I do to require so little sleep before? Can we train ourselves to need less sleep?

This image came from http://www.chatelaine.com/the-happiness-plan/be-happier-at-home-with-five-easy-tips/

According to Karen Weintraub of The New York Times, I’m completely wrong about my own ability to function with minimal sleep. Dr. Sigrid Veasy, a professor at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, claims that teenagers don’t function normally with less than the 8 to 10 hour sleep recommendation. She explains that one effect of being deprived of sleep is misjudgment of the amount of sleep we need at the time. Because many students don’t understand how a lack of sleep really affects the mind and body, they are convinced that running on minimal sleep is acceptable. Some benefits of sleep and the drawbacks of sleep deprivation are explained in blogs like The TRUTH Behind Sleep and How much do we really need sleep?, which explain that the closer someone gets to reaching the recommended amount of sleep, the healthier they will be.

However, I couldn’t help but wonder if it is possible to alter your own natural rhythm of sleep, without experiencing the downfalls of sleep deprivation that are discussed in these blog posts. Personally, in the short time that I used to sleep, I slept very well. According to Christie Nicholson from Scientific American, we sleep with greater intensity when we are sleep deprived. Therefore, my sleep deprivation may have caused me to sleep better than if I had consistently slept longer, but it still does not compensate for the lack of sleep. There is no evidence that proves that altering the amount of time that is necessary to sleep for is possible, but evidence does show that it is possible to alter the time of day or night that you feel tired. The National Sleep Foundation explains that our internal circadian biological clocks are responsible for controlling the signals in our brain that determine when we should be awake, and when we should be asleep. In addition, it is also responsible for making us feel more alert during the day even when we are sleep deprived. This effect could factor in to why people feel like they need less sleep than they actually need.

This image came from http://a2levelpsychology.blogspot.com/2015/06/a2-level-circadian-rhythm.html

There are no published studies that specifically examine what happens when people try to beneficially alter the amount of sleep they get. This could mean that if studies were conducted, the researches probably accepted the null hypothesis, which in this case is that it is not possible to train yourself to function normally with less sleep. Therefore, the study might not have escaped the file drawer since these results are not exciting. The lack of specific studies for this topic could also be due to the fact that people accept that knowledge about sleep is enough to determine that the closer to 8 to 10 hours of sleep a teenager gets the better, because there is no way to dodge sleep deprivation. Based on these results, I’m glad that I no longer get such an insufficient amount of sleep. Even though I was not aware of it, I was less productive, as my body was not as charged up as necessary. Although I trained myself to learn to stay awake longer and cope with sleep deprivation, I did not alter the amount of sleep that is necessary for myself to get.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/ask-well-can-you-train-yourself-to-need-less-sleep/?_r=0

The TRUTH Behind Sleep

How much do we really need sleep?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-less-sleep-means-more-dreams/

https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep-drive-and-your-body-clock

http://a2levelpsychology.blogspot.com/2015/06/a2-level-circadian-rhythm.html

The entertainment at a senior event hosted by my high school this past spring included hair stylists, fortune tellers, and most fascinating to me, a graphologist, or handwriting analyst. I have always had good penmanship, so I was interested to see what the graphologist had to say about it. He took one quick glance at my small rounded letters and said “So what type of science are you going to be majoring in?”. Considering my presence in this class, which is specifically structured for non-scientists, he missed the mark quite a bit. However, a future art major, whose handwriting was evaluated before mine, had a different experience. Her messy, scripted letters helped the man to label her as a creative artist. I am an undecided student who is still open to pursuing a variety of majors, so this made me wonder if I should actually take the graphologist’s assumption about me into consideration. Is it possible to figure out personality through the judgement of handwriting?

In this case, the null hypothesis is that handwriting does not determine personal traits, and the alternative hypothesis is that handwriting determines personal traits. There are a large number of confounding variables for this hypothesis, like left-handed versus right-handed people, the fact that some people have multiple handwriting styles, the use of different writing utensils, and physical disabilities like poor eyesight or Parkinson’s Disease.

This image came from http://essaypedia.com/

In one experimental study, a large group of judges individually viewed samples of famous artist’s handwriting, and attempted to match each handwriting sample to each artist. The study claims that if chance played a factor here, they would have matched 33% correctly; instead, they matched 68% correctly. However, the researchers did take into account that these results could be connected to the judges’ previous knowledge of each artist’s artwork and style. In addition, similarity between the handwriting should be taken into account. These samples of handwriting were strikingly different from one another, making it easier to match the artist with the handwriting. A more convincing study would include handwriting samples that are similar, yet indicate different personality traits.

Another scientist conducted an experimental study in which judges rated handwriting according to specific traits, and then compared the results with the traits. The results of trying to determine qualities like intelligence and self confidence through the handwriting were not successful. The researchers in this study point out that the method in which the judges viewed the handwriting could influence the results. Rather than looking at each handwriting sample individually, they looked at them in a group and rated them individually.

These two studies were based on intuition, but there is also another way to study handwriting: analysis. With this method, more detail is taken into account, such as the ratio of spacing between letters. In a study by Pascal, handwriting samples were taken from 22 people, who were studied for 36 hours and then classified into 36 personality variables. Pascal ranked and attempted to connect the handwriting variables with the personality variables, but again, his results did not show a connection between handwriting and personality.

In conclusion, there are some qualities of handwriting which are attributed to certain personality traits, but this does not mean that every person has the qualities that their handwriting shows that they should have. The studies which include matching methods have too many confounding variables to determine successful results, and the last study, which used the analytical method, showed no results. The graphologists were able to match more handwritings than normal judges, but this is because they know what to look for, not because the results are actually true. According to Psychology Today, graphologists continue to argue that handwriting does reflect personality, considering the fact that graphology is used in forensic science to help solve crime cases. However, Psychology Today also points out that there is little evidence of mechanisms that explain the link. In these studies, the null hypothesis was accepted, meaning no link was found. The next time you take a Buzzfeed quiz like this, don’t take your results too seriously.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1949.tb01222.x/epdf

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201605/write-and-wrong-personality-and-handwriting

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adamellis/what-does-your-handwriting-actually-say-about-you?utm_term=.kta55w3yz#.cxp443WYE

http://essaypedia.com/ 

Hi, my name is Marissa Dorros and I’m a freshman from Andover, Massachusetts. I’m in the Division of Undergraduate Studies, and although I’m pretty open-minded about what I want to major in, I don’t think I will end up being a science major. In middle school, science was my favorite subject. Playing sports in high school (gymnastics, cheerleading, and track) sparked my curiosity in the sports science field. However, after struggling to do well in anatomy & physiology and other science courses in high school, I realized the science path is not for me. Though I put in more effort than in other classes through tutors and after school hours, and though I find the show House fascinating, classes like chemistry and physics never really clicked.

Image found here

However, I do appreciate science, and in high school I even took some science classes that I ended up liking; however, I can’t see myself devoting the rest of my life to these subjects. Last year in marine biology, I presented to my class a new marine advancement – the creation of “seabins”. They are trashcans for the water, created by two Australian ex-surfers who intend to clear out waste by the coastal surface of the ocean. Although the seabins are expensive and will not clear out all trash in the ocean, they could increase people’s attention to the problem of pollution, they could save some marine organisms from the negative effects of polluted water, and they have other worthwhile effects. Here, you can discover the creators’ background and why the creation is so necessary, and here, you can read about how pollution is so harmful, and the way the seabins will help to stop it. I thought this topic was relevant because a few of the groups in class this past week revealed that they consider global warming/pollution to be the most important science-related issue.

Some of my favorite high school classes were English and Contemporary World Issues. At NSO, my advisor recommended SC200, and since I appreciate science, enjoy critical thinking, and like to stay updated on current events, I thought it would be a good fit for me. Attending the first few classes confirmed that it’s a good fit, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the semester!