Colorado Part 2 - why your brain hates heights

You didn't think I'd forgotten that I hadn't shared every last one of my vacation pictures with you yet, did you??
And yet, that'll have to come later, because this post is going to be exclusively about how weird the brain is, and why it doesn't want you to jump to your death.


(remember how scary it was when Jenny is about to jump to her death in Forrest Gump, then panics and climbs down??)

Colorado changed my perspective on the United States -- I really do think it's one of the most beautiful places in the country and I would be so lucky to get to live out there for a while (I hear Boulder actually has some important cognitive research currently going on right now :)..just kidding...for now).

Speaking of cognition, the brain is an extremely interesting organ, which if you read this blog I'm sure you already knew.
Have you ever tried to navigate a frightening or difficult scenario and noticed that even if you can rationalize it, your body still has a visceral reaction to the event? It's easy to delineate the feelings -- the visceral reaction is felt in your body (heart racing/sweaty palms) while the rational part is clearly taking place in your head. However, if you've ever taken bio or anatomy 101, you know that the panic and fear you feel during in a haunted house, or a horror movie is still coming from the same organ that rationalizes why you shouldn't have the fear in the first place. Weird!


seems a little two-faced, really...

A particular event in Colorado caused me to think about this a little more.
Our gang found ourselves rafting in the Arkansas River on the second day of our trip. About half way through the journey, we stopped at a spot where the river was a bit slower than it had been so far. This was our "break", where we were given a chance to swim across the river and climb up the rock formation on the other side. I was unaware of the rules associated with this rock climbing, so it came as a bit of a shock when I prepared to climb down and was prevented from doing so by the rafting instructor, who was yelling up to me that in fact, to exit the rock formation in a safe manner, we were all going to need to jump off. Into the swirling, churning river below.

Two things are happening at this point in my mind. The first is happening in the more "primitive" non-rational part of my brain: it's telling me that I'm 15 feet (or more) above the surface of the river, and really NOT interested in jumping. This is the part of my brain responsible for making sure that I don't perform motor actions that will kill me cannot be any clearer in its strong "anti-jump" chemical signals rushing to the rest of my bodily organs. However, the rational frontal cortex doesn't want me to hurt myself climbing down slippery rocks, which the messages from my visual cortex are telling me look fine, and not that unsafe. The rational part, however, understands that sometimes you need to trust the people with the best opinion (i.e. the instructor in this case). Needless to say, a mental battle is raging inside my head, with serious physiological consequences (mostly panicked crying and the strong desire to throw up and/or curl up in a ball).

The place where the instructor is pointing me to jump is an area of relatively calm water right next to the rocky place where we climbed out. This is where some of my experience shaped my more primitive brain's panic about jumping. I grew up in Michigan around lakes. Everyone knows that when you jump in a lake, you need to jump off of a dock or boat. Why? because the water is typically most shallow where it meets land (the shoreline), and jumping from any height to 1 inch of water is going to hurt. Years of experience have shaped my own visual perception and what certain images mean for the decisions my brain will allow me to make. In other words, we aren't born with a fear of heights, or a fear of jumping next to dry land, but after experience our non-rational brain learns to make associations with visual images and danger (among other things), and this results in the unease that we feel in these situations.

My personal experience with the world drives an instinct is to jump to the middle of the river, where I "think" the water will be deepest (and therefore most safe). Our instructor assures me that the place he is indicating is safest in this river because the entire thing is all roughly the same depth, including the parts where water meets land, but this area is the calmest. The tissues initially responsible for dealing with signals coming from the visual cortex are not convinced. So who wins?

Well, eventually the rational side wins. I jump to what part of my brain is convinced is my death. Which is why, I imagine, its panicked protests are silenced as soon as my feet leave the cliff. It was really amazing, as soon as I leapt off the rock and began plummeting toward the water, all the fear brewing in my mind was gone. It felt like flying.

And naturally, I landed safely in the very deep and safe river, surfacing almost instantly to find Eric helping me into the boat.

The visceral reactions you feel in your body are there for a reason. Your mind has a vested interest in keeping you alive -- but sometimes, a rare scenario comes along in which it's ok for the reasonable side to win the fight every once in a while.
It leads to come cool experiences :)

Adventures in Indiana

Some of my "adventures in grad school" have involved attending my friends' weddings.
I can't believe how fast time flies! One minute I was going to football games with my college friends and the next minute they're walking down the aisle.

Crazy.

That being said, I have sincerely enjoyed attending the weddings of my friends (and even playing roles in them -- like wedding singer!).

A good friend of mine from college (ALLIE!) got married in July and promptly moved to Indiana with her new husband. Naturally, by September I was due for a visit, so this weekend I hit the open road and drove to their new home for a weekend of fun and relaxation.

Right when I arrived, the Bernards had a delicious lunch waiting for me, as well as a tour of their new place (although it was severely lacking in hot tubs, a major change from the old house where we were previously hosting our girly nights. hehe step it up guys! just kidding).

After walking around and getting a chance to explore their band new "home town' (and grab some Dairy Queen), the three of us headed out to Indianapolis for dinner at Scotty's Brewhouse -- which I highly recommend for anyone finding themselves looking for a fun place to grab a burger and craft beer (which is pretty much everyone, right?? haha Grand Rapids will forever spoil me where those are concerned).

My burger choice was an award winner called the confused buffalo. The buffalo was clearly so confused because it couldn't focus on anything besides how spicy it was...this burger was crazy delicious but probably the spiciest thing I've ever ordered at a restaurant (including the time I had "medium" Indian food when I was in England). At one point I actually had to order a glass of milk, which I KNOW looked weird but what else could I do?? I couldn't feel my lower lip half way through dinner.

After our meal we got a chance to wander around the city, which is beautiful, especially at night...

When we got home, Allie and I tried to stay up long enough for a movie, but only lasted about 15 minutes before totally crashing.

On Sunday morning we got a chance to ride bikes after breakfast, and I got to see more of the new town. There seems to be a lot to do outside, and I am a little jealous of the access their new place has to a bike trail (I can't ride a bike anywhere in DeKalb without taking it on the highway for a significantly long distance which probably isn't the safest idea ever).
All in all it was a wonderful departure from my busy grad school life (although here we are, Sunday night, and back to the grind).

Love these guys :) and their gracious hospitality for the weekend...

Hopefully the next time I see them, we'll all be back in the mitten again!

Colorado part 1

It's tuesday night. After an intense day of teaching, reading, writing about said reading, and home improvement projects (I fixed my shower!), I found myself at 9pm with some *gasp* time on my hands before bed! I settled into bed and started perusing Netflix for free time options, and came across what is in my opinion, one of the best films of all time...

"There Will Be Blood"

As the movie opened upon the rocky western landscape I was reminded of my recent trip to Colorado and suddenly realized that I still needed to write an entry about it! So as I sit in my bed enjoying these well deserved moments of relaxation, I will use this time to share the first part of our trip to the Rockies and report on some of our adventures while the infamous Daniel Plainview offers the Sunday family "quail prices" in the background.

As soon as I was out of the "second year exam woods", five of my very best friends came to rescue me for a week. We rented a brand new Ford Expedition, and headed west toward the Mississippi River.

After a couple of hours, we stopped for gas, and splashed our feet in the Mississippi!

Piling back into the car, we settled into another 12 hours into the car. Most of us slept.

But we stopped for dinner in Des Moines, Iowa for some German food (and refreshment!)

Before we knew it, those of us snoozing in the back of the car were waking up at around 6am to the sweet smell of mountain air and the most beautiful red rock canyons any of us had ever seen.

Our family owned campsite was beautiful and quick to give us all the information we needed to set up our home away from home. By the time we'd set the tents up, it was time for a brief nap and then some midday hiking (you know, so we could adjust to the elevation). 

In the early afternoon we decided to go hiking at "Seven Falls". As you've probably guessed from the name, this park had seven waterfalls. A 200 step staircase followed the falls. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, a wooded trail began, which led to the top of the canyon. 

There was a good photo op at the top of the falls, so we took it :)

The next morning, we went horseback riding through the Garden of the Gods.

Garden of the Gods is probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. Everything is colorful: the bright red rocks, and red dirt, the dark green trees. We rode the horses over a stretch of about five miles, and even galloped UP a rock formation (like a cowboy). I promise you, this vacation could not have been any more amazing, and it was only the first day.

The next day we went to the Arkansas River for some white water rafting. Naturally, cameras were unwise on this adventure, but it too was an incredible experience. Our group actually went over a class 5 rapid! Luckily we work well as a team and everyone managed to stay in the boat...

We did have some professional pictures taken, and those will hopeful be up soon. In the meantime, I'm starting to feel my long day. Part 2 is coming soon!

Moving

It seems that lately there has been a lot of moving in my life...which seems a little ridiculous for not having changed my own personal address lately (I'm still in the middle of the corn, worry not).

However, two very important people in my life have moved recently, and they both needed my help! One of which was my own mother. It involved a lot of driving and a lot of hard decisions, but  I was rewarded handsomely with some extravagant furniture that almost looks out of place in my "good-will/salvation-army chic" bedroom.

By the way, do you think my mom has enough photo albums?

On friday, Eric and I picked up a u-haul in Michigan and headed over to my former home town to help my mom pack up some important belongings, and take some of said belongings with us.

Packing a u haul is like playing Tetris.... it involves maneuvering awkward shapes around until they fit together, and after about 20 minutes it's really boring.
We had a few minor moving casualties (jammed finger, blood blister, and snagged clothing), but now that all is said and done, I have a large bed and gorgeous dining room table at my place in the corn fields. Pictures to follow.

I'm actually pretty psyched about the table. It seats eight. Stay posted for a dinner party invite!

Milestone Moment: The Second Year Exam

As far as I know, every graduate program pretty much everywhere has a competency exam of some kind. They are big tests that (in addition to your own research and graduate coursework) bring you one step closer to your masters and eventual doctoral degree. For the Cognitive Psychology program here at NIU, those competency exams are referred to as the dreaded "second year exam".

This is how the SYE game is played...

At the beginning of the summer you get a big long reading list, which is segmented into four groups. Each segment on the reading list contains readings that will be helpful to answering a question on the exam. You are to pick three of the four segments on the list, and read all the publications and books throughout the summer, along the way finding other academic papers that seem relevant. However, while you have this reading list, you do NOT have the questions you need to answer. The strategy is to pay close attention to each reading, take careful notes, and try to find other related publications (and hope for the best).

It's a harrowing summer journey through scientific literature, and much like any other journey of epic proportions, requires a journal to record findings along the way.

 Lewis and Clark's Journal

My SYE journal...

Journals, it turns out, don't change very much.

Part of what makes summer reading hard, is that it requires you to have a high level of self-regulation and goal directed behavior without the support of intermediary deadlines...while the sun is shining and I'd rather go swimming. In other words, I had to approach the reading list like I was teaching my own course to myself. Two weeks would cover certain readings, another two weeks focused on something else. The goals were hard to stick to. Mostly because I had no pressure to stick to them. Furthermore, by August I was having a hard time remembering what I had read in June!
Needless to say, the week before the exams were distributed, I was feeling on-edge.

After getting the reading list for the summer, the faculty of the cognitive program distribute the second year exams. These are four essay questions, of which you are to select the three that match the segments of the reading list you covered. From there, you get 7 days to address the questions, each of which warrant anywhere from 12-15 pages each, and encompass both the readings you did during the summer AND the readings you were supposed to find independently. If you don't address the question adequately, you have to edit heavily, and sometimes even rewrite one, two, or all three in order to pass the exam.

I'll be honest, it's the worst and best week ever. Psychology is lucky that I like it so much, or that would have been the end of my time here. I learned much more than I ever have in those 7 days of wrestling with the material and organizing it coherently. Furthermore, in order to really focus, the idea is that you lock yourself away like a hermit for the full 7 days as to not be distracted by the outside world and focus as much as possible on the task at hand.
For me, this is physically and emotionally impossible. So I cheated, and took a couple of walks...

Got some Chinese food, called Eric, and even wrote one of the papers in a Starbucks by my house. Did all of these things make me feel guilty? Yep. But I don't regret these little distractions, because two AMAZING things happened after that week of exam writing! The first was that when it was all over, my five best friends in the world came and picked me up in a giant SUV, and we went camping in Colorado Springs for a week.

P.S I cannot WAIT to write all about our trip, and be that annoying blogger that shares all the vacation pictures. Be warned. Here's a preview -- this is us at Seven Falls.

The second was that two weeks after coming back from Colorado, I found out that I PASSED!! AND I DON'T HAVE TO REWRITE ANY OF THEM!

which is a massive relief, because I have a lot to do, and rewriting 15 page papers just wasn't going to fit very well into my schedule of teaching, research, and coursework...and full nights of sleep :)

 ...ok full nights of sleep for now.

Milestone Moment: First International Conference

I realize this is a month late, but my life has started to pick up a more natural pace again and I found a little evening relaxation time to report my awesome latest milestone moment!

So here is yet another self entry into this little "academic baby book" of mine.

I've written a couple of posts about this project but just to refresh your memory, I've been working on a study all about reading comprehension at NIU. Back in the winter semester when I was freezing my toes off writing crouched over a heating vent, I submitted a proposal for a poster to the Society for Text and Discourse. What's that you ask? It's a society of researchers who all investigate questions related to discourse processes (what are those? -- just think anything related to reading comprehension, understanding arguments, etc.).

This research has a lot of implications for education (mostly improving education), which makes it both exciting and pretty important! After all, understanding how people learn, and studying the memories they form while reading text informs all kinds of important decisions that have to be made about approaches to teaching certain kinds of material, what kinds of test questions to ask, and what kinds of texts to give students so they can maximize retention of the material.

Anyway, as you know, the experiment was successful!! The poster proposal was accepted, and I was off to Spain in July for my first international conference. And let me tell you, the hours spent collecting and coding data as well as the agony of writing and rewriting the poster was WORTH IT.  (I'm only a perfectionist because I know that whatever I think is perfect is just going to get ripped apart anyway, so why not have the best thing I've got ripped to shreds of critical agony? Thats what real learning is.)

My journey started the day before my 23rd birthday at O'Hare. I love airports, I've always viewed them as a magical gateway to adventure and I honestly don't mind sitting (or sleeping) in them for hours at a time. But on this particular day, it just so happened that my own graduate advisor was leaving to visit some relatives from the gate right next to mine! So we played Yahtzee and talked a little shop while waiting for our planes.
I flew out in the late afternoon and quickly discovered that I could have complementary beverages to my heart's content (very classy, Lufthansa...yes, I will have a red wine, and that'll put me to sleep in about five minutes, don't wake me up.) The seat next to mine was empty. SCORE. So as soon as I was finished with dinner, a movie, and some ice-cream, I settled into my very large and luxurious 2-seat space and slept the rest of the way there. In the morning, I was 23, in Germany, and Lufthansa congratulated me with cookies and fruit for breakfast.

After a layover and a brief connecting flight, I was in SPAIN!! I quickly found my hotel, but not before running into a few lab friends in this pretty Valencia square.

  I was down for the count after a few short hours however, and was ready to rest up for the following day. On the first day of the conference, I had a few things to get ready for. My poster would be presented that evening, so I practiced answering questions I anticipated and explaining figures and diagrams. I also got a little sight seeing done as the sun came up over the city.

Pretty Spanish sunrise :)

ST&D was similar to being at Psychonomics, and once again, little me was given a rare and coveted opportunity to talk with some of the brilliant minds in the field.

One of the traditions of the conference is a dinner held with all who attend, organized by the host University...a dinner that more than lived up to the hype instilled by a friend and fellow student, who had attended the conference previously.

Easily one of the best meals I have ever had.

And enjoyed with fellow research peers (yeah huskies!)

Easily the best part of the week were the lecture series and following discussions.
I really enjoy learning about some of the research happening in the field of text and discourse. And I have to say that own project went over fairly well!  I got some very insightful comments we are in the midst of addressing currently.
While I won't go into TOO much detail here, our experiment asked participants to answer questions as they read a text. This gives us (the researchers) an idea of what people are thinking about as they read. However, this is what we like to call an "explicit" measure. That is, we aren't necessarily finding out what's going on in their minds when they read, but when they are ASKED something related to the reading (which captures an entirely different state of mind!). And while this is an interesting and informative strategy in its own right, it is usually best to find a way to follow the findings up with a measure that reveals what is going on "behind the scenes" so to speak. What is happening during this same reading task that the person isn't even consciously aware of?
And if they aren't aware, how do we measure it? In the past one way "implicit" measures (measures of processing from moment to moment) have been examined is by looking at response times. The faster a person responds to a stimulus, the more likely it is that the presented stimulus they responded to was already represented in their mind, so the theory goes. Finding a way to measure what is going on behind the scenes takes a LOT of thought and some serious design work. But I think with some help I'll be up for the strategic challenge. Wish me luck...

In the meantime, my mind still finds ways to wander to beautiful Valencia, and I am reminded of all the awesome perks of research, not the least of which is seeing the world outside the lab from time to time.

However, as the summer draws to a quick close and fall classes begin it is time to think about lectures, readings, and of course, my ever elusive thesis. Back to the grind!