Thread: Research Shows that LDers Brains Differ from the Regularly Unaware

Bah. No hyperlink.
Oh well, just copy paste.

Edit: Just kidding, I got it to work! Enjoy!

Hi Hedwig! The title of your thread intrigued me, so I tried the link. I got to the page but wasn't able to see the article. I clicked the reply to article button, and found that from there I was able to click and see the contents! Maybe this is useful for someone else.

Although I think my English is good enough this stuff is quite difficult to read, but then maybe it would even be complicated enough in my native language. I find it very interesting so I'm going to try to "struggle" my way through it anyway. Thanks for posting!

Ya, sometimes scientists get a little unnecessarily pretentious in their writing

Sorry about the link; glad you could find it.

I read the abstract (about as far into such papers as I go: I'm not a fan of intentionally dense academic writing, either), and honestly wasn't surprised.

I'm not sure about our frontal cortex's being bigger (though that is sort of cool), but it does make sense that LDers' general metacognition would be higher than non-LDers. Since metacognition is essentially self-awareness, and LDers must have higher levels of self-awareness during dreams (obviously) and tend to have higher levels of self-awareness during waking-life as they prepare themselves to have their LD's, it would make sense that studies would register an overall increase of self-awareness/metacognition in LDers.

Also, the tail can wag the dog here as well, I think: if you LD often, your sense of self will very likely be stronger during the day because you've recognized its value during your LD's.

Here's a thread that links to a similar article Zoth uncovered a couple of years ago; you might want to check it out.

Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Here's a thread that links to a similar article Zoth uncovered a couple of years ago; you might want to check it out.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for linking me to this, that's some pretty interesting stuff as well.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I read the abstract (about as far into such papers as I go: I'm not a fan of intentionally dense academic writing, either), and honestly wasn't surprised.

I got a bit further. I read far enough to learn that the study had just 69 subjects, reduced to 63 who participated all the way. My opinion on a lot of "studies" is that they are probably just research theses for grad students. They don't really mean anything and the conclusions are dubious. Just training wheels to let them demonstrate their skills and get their degree from the education-industrial complex factory.

I think it was interesting that they mentioned that all the subjects were right-handed. Firstly, why would that matter? I suppose it's worth noting for statistics. But doesn't reveal a possible failure in random sampling? Shouldn't there be at least a couple southpaws in the mix? Maybe I have a chip on my left-handed shoulder.

The reason for choosing only right-handed people is actually a good one that is used universally in science. It's easiest explained through an example.

Say there's a research being done to find out whether eating chocolate improves memory. We use 100 people. 50 eat chocolate, 50 don't (randomly assigned) and we test their memories. Now we find that most of the chocolate eaters have better memory compared to the non-eater group, but we also find that most of the non-eaters are left-handed.

Now we cannot draw any conclusions at all, since there are two variables that possibly explain our results. For this reason, right-handed males are most commonly used as subjects (since females are less hormonally stable and lefties are just uncommon).

Also I would like to add that 63 subjects is not such a small group compared to other neurological papers. Keep in mind that these are clinical trials with strictly controlled conditions and the means for carrying out such trials with huge groups (hundreds or thousands of people) are extremely expensive. The validity lost by the smaller group weighs less than the accuracy lost by population (uncontrolled) studies.

I agree with you on that the conclusions in this example are a little dubious though

Thanks EddieDean, for the explanation (about the two variables), I was wondering about that, but now it makes sense!

The question is: is it a practicing of LD that leads to higher volume ov frontal cortex, or the higher volume of frontal cortex makes practicing easier and more successfull and just make people want to keep on practicing?
Good thread, thx.