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"The Final Frontiers" podcast discusses the translation of scientific research into daily life, covering topics like language learning and sleep's impact on athletic performance. "Healing Hub Conversations in Medicine" focuses on antibiotic resistance, explaining what it is and how bacteria develop resistance. The podcast also addresses the factors contributing to increased resistance, including overuse of antibiotics, mistrust in the healthcare system, and misinformation. Solutions involve stricter regulations on antibiotic prescriptions, eradicating over-the-counter purchases, and community outreach. "The Healing Hobbies Club" explores neuroticism and its prevalence in the population. It discusses the relationship between social media and neurotic tendencies and the impact of social media on the brain's reward system. The podcast highlights the effects of social media on neuroplasticity and critical thinking, emphasizing the need to understand its influence. You're tuning in to The Final Frontiers, the only podcast of the Frontiers of Science Section 14 of Fall 2023. Our knowledge of the scientific world is ever-growing, but how can this research translate into our daily lives? Here at The Final Frontiers, we'll discuss a vast range of topics including, but not limited to, the secrets behind learning multiple languages and the relationship between sleep and athletic performance. So turn up your device's volume and put your scientific thinking caps on as we learn about how scientific research can reshape the world as we know it. Enjoy this episode of The Final Frontiers. Hello, hello, hello! Hi everyone! What's up? Welcome back to another episode of the Healing Hub Conversations in Medicine. I'm Nicole. I'm Sally. And I'm Sophie. Today we're going to be discussing antibiotic resistance. So Sally, I know that you have a great grasp on the subject. Can you tell us a little more about what antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance is? Of course! First, an antibiotic is a type of drug that treats different types of bacteria by killing or slowing the growth of bacteria down to prevent infection. An antimicrobial is a broader term that describes different types of microbes, which also includes bacteria, but also fungi and viruses. However, these terms are often used interchangeably. When these microbes or other microorganisms evolve to prevent drugs from working, it's called antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance. This means that the viruses and bacteria are preventing the antibiotics from doing their job and instead continue to grow. Wait, so how exactly do bacteria and other microorganisms develop resistance to what seems to be life-saving drugs? Great question! They grow immunity to antimicrobials through resistance mechanisms. One common mechanism involves the bacteria producing enzymes that can break down the antibiotic molecules, making them ineffective. Another is the modification of the target site of an enzyme, preventing the antibiotic from binding and disrupting its vital functions. These are just some examples of how resistance mechanisms can work. What's concerning is that with the repeated use of antibiotics, microbes with resistance can pass on their defenses to other microbes, even ones that haven't faced antibiotics before. I believe that Nicole has information on the larger things at play contributing to this increased resistance. Thanks, Sally! You're spot-on! It's especially important to consider what's contributing to this increased resistance. The way I see it, there are two extremes. We have parts of the population who depend heavily on antibiotics and consume them for every small symptom they're experiencing, decreasing its overall effectiveness on the microbial level Sally was just explaining. The global pharmaceutical industry, commonly referred to as Big Pharma, plays a huge role in this, as well as the many doctors who are so readily and freely prescribing these antibiotics. The other extreme are those who actively resist the consumption of antibiotics and antimicrobials because of two main factors, mistrust and misinformation. Can you elaborate on what you mean by mistrust? Of course! Historically, the health care system has given many marginalized communities reasons to distrust it. We have two very salient examples of acts being committed against Black Americans, particularly with the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and J. Marion Sims' unethical experiments conducted with enslaved Black women. We have linked information regarding these experiments if you would like to expand on this history. However, the main takeaway from these instances is that after atrocities have been committed against certain communities, the health care system has not been efficient in arming them with information and tools they need to overcome the real and perceived barriers they're experiencing. A lot of people want to participate in overcoming this barrier but do not adhere, which is also where misinformation comes in. We saw this play a huge role during the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, although vaccines aren't quite antibiotics. As always, it's one thing to be aware of it and another to do something about it, so we're here to help. Exactly! Combating antibiotic resistance will take a multifaceted approach, spanning from large organizations to individual people. According to a study done by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, creating an antibiotic-free environment would lead to phenotypic reversion, where bacteria revert to a less resistant state when the selective pressure of antibiotics is removed. This can be achieved by regulating our health care systems to become stricter on their prescriptions of these antibiotics and instead encourage them to offer alternative forms of treatment as the first line of defense, such as natural remedies. Secondly, policies would need to be formed that would eradicate over-the-counter antibiotic purchases. Thirdly, incentivizing big pharma on the research and development of new antibiotics through government funding could create an additional cushion as we begin the transition out of an antibiotic-resistant culture. These moves would simultaneously limit the health care system's prescription of those medications and regulate their accessibility to those who have grown subconsciously dependent on them. Lastly, fixing the relationship between marginalized communities and health care systems will be a long road, but it can begin through community outreach initiatives, such as health care systems hosting and volunteering in community events to build doctor, health care worker, and patient relationships on an individual level. While working towards the same goal, addressing these audiences separately will help us strive toward an antibiotic-receptive society. Remember, when it comes to antibiotics, resistance isn't futile. It's a call to action. Stay informed, stay witty, and let's help smart those stubborn microbes together. Subscribe to our podcast and join the Healing Hobbies community. Until next time, this was The Healing Hobbies Club! You have neuroticism, or you have a good chance of having it, as around 30% of the population has these tendencies. Wearing more, being pessimistic, and having a negative interpretation of events and being highly self-critical are key features of the neurotic personality, and perhaps there is some link between social media and neurotic people. Perhaps social media is doing something to all of us, neurotic or not. Hold on, hold on, Matt. Let's backtrack. Hello, it's nice to meet you all. On today's podcast, we'll be discussing the complex and toxic relationship between humans and social media. Many of you may have already experienced your parents calling you a screener here due to the incessant amount of time you spend on your phone. However, there is a lot more to this thing than just that. It's probably no surprise to you that the content on the internet is doing all sorts of things to your brain. An article by Yale Medicine states that many drugs, rather than providing a simple surge of dopamine, flood the reward pathway ten times more than a natural reward. These findings reflect an article by Lee Health, which states that like drugs, dopamine floods the reward pathway and makes us want to experience that surge again. These happy feelings come from seeing loads of content come from your brain's dopamine reward pathway, and they're the same ones that get activated when someone hands you an ice cream sundae or the feeling that you get when you see the levels in a video game. Biologically, our brains are wired to find rewarding things. According to a study by Harvard University, dopamine allows us to pay attention to the critical cues that will help us meet our survival needs for food, shelter, and relationships. Ultimately, dopamine plays a driving force in our minds and behavior. Now that we're reward-seeking behavior, we all have baked into our neurons this translates to a key weakness that can be exploited by everyone from networking platforms to games to marketing companies, and especially by social video platforms. Watching funny TikToks, satisfying aesthetic videos on Instagram, and clever YouTube shorts. According to Trevor Haynes at Harvard, social media microdoses dopamine into your brain all day long until you're compelled to endlessly scroll. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends up to two hours of screen time per day. The TLDR of all this is that the For You page is giving your brain exactly what it craves, which is not a good thing. But the thing is, friends, while it's easy for all of us to collectively point to social media as a thing that's getting us hooked on all these platforms, we aren't really sure about the effects of social media. We all know a little bit about dopamine's role and reward-seeking behaviors, which are scientific common sense. But knowing what social media is doing to us is so important, which is why we've prepared two pieces of evidence to show you social media's effects. Recall that Dr. Xi taught us that the brain's remarkable ability to undergo biological changes is called neuroplasticity. We do apps such as TikTok stimulate our brain every second, changing its neural pathways, which can literally destroy our ability to think critically. Since rapidly changing stimulation contributes to the formation of habits that prioritize quick information, we lose the ability to engage in deeper complex processes as our brain is conditioned on what should be seeked, which is digestible content. There's also the fact that because our brains can be changed biologically, our perception of the world can change without us knowing. Compare the constant novelty provided by digital content to the everyday activities that are way less stimulating. We know that life becomes quite boring without social media. In this sense, we're literally being hacked away from our ability to enjoy the intricacies of day-to-day, while not knowing any of this in comfort by a team of professionals who are designing the app to capitalize on the way we have evolved over time. But Raymond, how does this hacking work? Why are social media platforms so addicting? I'm glad you asked. You see, platforms such as YouTube or TikTok use an algorithmic feed, analyzing users' behavior for a customized feed. That is for the viewer. For the maker of the videos, there are filters, music, and other content creation tools. These app designers capitalize on the high levels of creativity in the neurotic individual and people with neurotic symptoms by giving them a range of tools to work with, keeping them on the platform as well. On another note, in a world where we are more connected than ever, it's quite ironic that loneliness is at all times high. 60% of people feel chronically alone. Maybe there's a correlation between loneliness and social media? You might be onto something. Funnily enough, the thing that allows for this interconnectedness more than anything helps create this form of loneliness. For example, socially anxious people gravitate towards social media as a way to feel interconnectivity because it is more comfortable than in person socializing. Using social media as an alternative, however, to finding interconnectedness is very unhealthy for us because as humans, we need physical interactions in order to be deeply connected. Social media is literally feeding off of our loneliness through making us rely on it more and more as we become antisocial each time we go about our interactions. It preys on our downfall. Sure, it can go with that. It really does. You know, I actually used to be addicted to my phone when I was younger, but for Christmas one year, my dad actually got me a guitar and encouraged me to spend more time playing it rather than the games on my phone. I eventually realized how much happier I became not having to worry about the number of likes on my post or if someone had snapped me back yet. Let's all set up a parameter. Put your phones down and enjoy time with friends and family. Instead of letting social media take control of our lives, let's enjoy life and take advantage of what the world has to offer. What's up everybody? This is episode one of Snooze to Success. My name is Nick Gonzalez. I'm a freshman on the men's heavyweight rowing team. I'm Tomas Lopez and I'm a freshman on the baseball team. And I'm Will Harrigan, also a freshman on the baseball team. During this episode, we will talk about how sleep is directly correlated to a student athlete's performance within their academics and underathletic. So as an athlete myself, I personally believe that sleep is very important. I had a period last year that was during my training that I started getting really poor sleep due to a lot of schoolwork and a lot of things that were going on in my life. And that inevitably led me to get sick and start to feel the effects of overtraining, which really started to stump my performance both in school and athletically. And for myself, I just kind of realized how important sleep is. Being up at the baseball field all day kind of kind of drains you out. And if you don't have, you know, that good quality sleep at night, it's hard to perform and it's also really challenging to like pay attention and kind of just learn new things that we're being taught every day. And socially, I mean, in college you're meeting new people. People are out doing things late at night. And as a student athlete, it's hard to say no sometimes. But the truth is that sometimes you got to stay in and sometimes you got to just get your sleep because it is really important. There's also the added pressure of living with other people in the dorm. So like making sure that your goals align with that of your roommate or your suite mates. It's hard to lock in sometimes and get to sleep when everybody around you is like doing different things or coming back into the room late. The negative effects and problems of getting little sleep are mentioned in what we learned in the mind and brain unit. Sleep plays a crucial role in maintaining neuroplasticity, which is necessary for memory and learning. Insufficient sleep causes alterations in the hippocampus and long-term deprivation may have a massive effect on neuroplasticity in this area of the brain, which may impair cognitive functions. And the skills that we learn in practice and for all athletes in general is important because we're taught new things pretty much every single day. And to be able to carry it on to the next day and kind of just this butterfly effect where things are building up on top of each other, it's challenging because with, like I said before, with little sleep this becomes very very difficult to maintain. A study by Thomas Riley and Mark Pierre at the Center for Sport and Exercise Sciences at John Moores University limited a group of athletes sleep to two hours a night. They performed weightlifting exercises such as bench press, squat, and deadlift every day. What they found was the group had less of an ability to perform on sub-maximal weightlifting exercises showing a decline in their muscular endurance. The limitation in sleep had significantly affected their recovery, studying their aerobic and muscular endurance. I also found a very interesting article from the National Library of Medicine published in 2021. The researchers measured sleep duration, sleep quality, along with measuring mood state, energy levels, academic stress, training quality and quantity, and the frequency of illness and injury in 82 college athletes over a one-year period in 2020. And they concluded that student athletes that regularly got eight or more hours of sleep and have high sleep quality scores are less likely to suffer from problems associated with high stress levels, as well as increased mood levels, energy levels, training quality, improved academic stress, and these students were less likely to suffer from injury. And the main question to ask is how can we get better sleep or what are things we can do to improve our sleep? And some things that we came up with is avoiding late-day caffeine, which will keep you up, winding down before bed, so it's just establishing a bedtime routine like, I don't know, your skincare routine, brushing your teeth, stuff like that. And also, most importantly, in my opinion, just be accountable for your homework and studying. Time management goes a long ways and if you just have things planned out, your life will become so much easier. So what we're asking all of our listeners to do right now is to evaluate how much their sport means to them and how much their performance in their sport and their academics means to them. If it means a lot, then you should really try to be accountable for everything encompassing sleep and achieving more sleep. Because if you hustle hard and you sleep smart, it's the athlete's winning art. Remember, gold medals are earned in the day, but the path starts the night way. And one more thing, fuel your body, ace the race. Bedtimes your secret training space. Yes, finding a partner who speaks a different language will make your kids smarter. Promise, we're not joking, so stay tuned with us to find out why. Welcome to Brilliant Bilinguals, a podcast about uncovering the secrets behind learning multiple languages. Did you know that being bilingual can actually change your brain? It's true. If you're thinking about learning a second language or if you're already bilingual, then this podcast is just for you. We'll explore the latest research on bilingualism, so join us on this journey to discover bilingual powers. A few years ago, scientists Katya Jasinska and Laura Petito published a paper called How Age of Bilingual Exposure Can Change the Neurosystems for Language in the Developing Brain, a functional near infrared spectroscopy investigation of syntactic processing in monolingual and bilingual children. To put things in simpler terms, the research sought to understand if growing up in an environment where children are accustomed to hearing and speaking multiple languages could help develop certain parts of the brain. And the results they found are very interesting. By comparing brain activity of both monolingual and bilingual children and adults, the researchers found that in accordance with their hypothesis, growing up speaking multiple languages does help develop brain neural activity. Bilingual participants seem to use a wider array of brain regions when asked to complete language-related tasks, meaning they are taking advantage of more brain functions compared to monolinguals, who do not make use of everything our brain has to offer. Another interesting phenomenon scientists have been interested in while studying the effects of growing up bilingual is code switching. Wait, what's code switching? I'm glad you asked. In simple terms, code switching, sometimes also known as code mixing, happens when bilingual speakers mix words from different languages in their speech. At first, scientists believed that code switching in children's speech was a sign of confusion or a linguistic difficulty, a sign that children were unable to differentiate between two languages. It turns out that today, scientists are actually rethinking this position, and it might as well be the opposite. A team of researchers conducted a study where they followed English-Mandarin bilingual children aged between five and six in child care and analyzed how often children code switched. The results are fascinating. They found that children who code switch more often tend to have higher Mandarin expressive language competency scores, which are used to measure children's level in Mandarin. As such, code switching could be a measure of children's linguistic competence. Scientists from the study argue that code switching helps children master different languages as it requires a thorough understanding of grammar and syntax rules. Now we're going to talk about becoming bilingual later in life. What are the differences in growing up bilingual versus becoming bilingual later? The degree of the changes in the brain is dependent on the age in which a language is learned, as well as the proficiency of which the second language is achieved. The main difference is that there's a change in brain activation when becoming bilingual later in life. In Kodrajicinska and Laura Petito's study, later-exposed bilinguals were found to have a greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity, which is primarily known for switching attention and working memory. Further, early bilingual exposure leads to high language competence outcomes as compared to later bilingual exposure. Now let's get into how bilingualism actually benefits you both in the short term and the long term. According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are a variety of benefits associated with learning two languages starting from a young age. For example, understanding math concepts and solving word problems, using logic, and decision-making ability can all be improved by learning two languages. Clearly, learning two languages at once can definitely help your child develop crucial cognitive skills. On top of this, bilingualism, according to the Department of Education, helps children develop socially and emotionally as well. More specifically, learning two different languages helps them maintain close relationships with their family and culture, which are essential for developing one's identity. Bilingual children are also more able to form new relationships and friendships using a second language, which is becoming increasingly important in our diverse society. So if you want your children to be smart and have friends, you better meet someone who speaks a different language than you. Thank you for listening to our podcast, Brilliant Bilinguals. Need help finding a partner who's bilingual? Then download and sign up for our dating app at Brilliant Bilingual Dating. That will match you with a partner who knows multiple languages. Hello, my name is Gunnar. My name is Pierre. And my name is Bill. And this is Trust Your Gut. How accurate is your intuition? We have all made a decision based purely on a feeling. Most call this a gut feeling. For example, you might buy a lottery ticket because you feel like it's your lucky day. Or maybe you start walking down an empty street and you decide to turn around because something just seems off. But what is the scientific basis of this feeling? Does it hold precedence over other sources of decision making? We're going to explore these questions and its relevance in modern day society. Decisions under the gut feeling are made every day purely based on our intuition, because it's what we are familiar with. For example, this morning I chose not to get chicken on my salad. Gunnar, can you think of any instances where you went, oh God, today? Well, we had to meet to record our podcast. And I had to cancel other plans because I didn't think I had enough time. Similarly for me in sports and basketball, a lot of the times I don't really think about the decisions I'm making. It's just done in the split second. So it's just going with my intuition. So obviously, the gut feeling is really important in our decision making, but the science of it is something that deserves to be talked about a lot. To understand the gut feeling, it's necessary to acknowledge the logic behind decision making as a whole. The amygdala, the structure in the brain responsible for assessing and recognizing fear, and dopamine release, a chemical reward signal, work together in forming a basis for decision making. For example, a friend gives you a box and when you open it, a monster jumps out and scares you. The next time your friend offers you a box, this experience might influence your decision to accept the item. This fear response pattern is in large part due to the amygdala. If your friend offered you a box that had stacks of $100 bills, the next time they offer you a box, you would likely take the offer. This general principle is due to the role of dopamine in memory. The consequence of these two functions form the foundation for habitual decisions, in that previous experiences shape and influence the decisions to come. Clearly, the gut feeling is so prevalent within modern society as intuitive decisions are made every single day. We often think of gut feeling as something very abstract, but the influence that gut composition has on our brain and behavior has actually been proven. One study called the intestinal microbiota affects central levels of brain derived neurotropic factor and behavior in mice, focused on analyzing mice behavior in response to changing the microbiota composition. Researchers found that changes in the gut's microbiota composition led to the mice being more exploratory. The experiment concluded that the gut and its microbiota are connected with the central nervous system and have a direct line with the brain. So how is the idea of the gut feeling shown in modern society? A recent scientific review article called the intuitive executive understanding and applying gut feel in decision making shows the relevance that intuitive decisions have in modern and contemporary context. It focuses on intuition primarily within the corporate field. Within a fluctuating market economy, executives and those who work in finance must use their intuitions within their work due to the unreliable outcome. Executives use their intuition in sensing a problem, performing pre programmed behavioral patterns, and producing a rational analysis. Therefore, becoming a better decision maker is based on the knowledge of when to rely on intuition. More senior executives are more willing to trust their intuition, while employees are less willing to trust their intuitions and would need to legitimize their decisions with hard data. Similarly, within the field of emergency medicine, emergency medicine must make decisions of a patient's diagnosis using their gut feeling due to the restricted time. Within the observational study, emergency physicians conduct a 30 second examinations of patients utilizing their gut instinct. The physicians learned that their intuitions were somewhat accurate in providing diagnoses. However, using a more deliberative and calculated decision making process, their diagnosis will be more valid. This does demonstrate that intuitive decision making is vital and is very prevalent within emergency medicine. But using a more well reasoned and rational decision making can increase the reliability of the decision that was made using the gut feeling. While there is much evidence to support the existence of the gut brain connection, specific ways in which the gut connects and communicates with the brain and central nervous system still requires a lot more research. Doing so will help us develop a greater understanding of exactly how these two parts are connected and influence each other. But looking forward, the likely existence of a direct line between the gut and the brain has important implications. For instance, such a line that suggests the possibility of probiotics as a potential therapeutic device for certain mood disorders. So there are a lot of exciting things that could be advanced in this area of study. Thank you all so much for listening. Subscribe and please share our podcast Trust Your Gut, How Accurate Is Your Intuition to learn more and download all of our episodes for ease of listening anywhere. You know that scene in every superhero movie where the evil genius has the hero strapped to a chair with wires coming out of their brain? Imagine that. But with light. That's optogenetics. Well, kind of. Optogenetics is a biological method that uses light to control the activity of neurons. We're paying particular attention to the application of this technique in medicine, where it has potential in the fields of treating and understanding brain damage, the development of new drugs, anesthesia and cancer treatment, amongst other things. For such a revolutionary technique, it definitely has its drawbacks. The most significant being the ethical debates surrounding its use in humans. But recent developments in treatment methods may have resolved this issue. So how exactly can optogenetics be used in medicine? To many of us, crossing the road or even grabbing something on the table is an intuitive thing that we take for granted. But for over two million people worldwide, those simple tasks require the assistance of someone. Retinal pigment ulcer is a progressive inherited and blighting disease caused by mutation in more than 71 different genes, which ends up causing gradual loss of vision. Up until recent years, every possible method even to genetically engineer the retinal cells had failed to address the problem. In 2018, in a clinical trial that was happening in France, a man who was blind for four decades partially recovered his sight due to the use of optogenetics. The study showed that inserting light sensitive genes into the retinal cells together with light stimulating goggles could lead to very impressive results. While the method has been successful, it has not been replicated to many patients due to various imperfections. But it still represents a breakthrough that could use optogenetics to treat many genetically related conditions. Actually, optogenetics has been used in developing treatments for all kinds of conditions, and might even be a key component in curing cancer. In 2018, a group of researchers found that they could use blue light exposure to induce cancer metastasis, or the spreading of cancer in the body, in lung cancer cells. Even more interesting, they found that they could reverse the metastatic process that they induced, sort of like hitting the unsend button after you send an email. After introducing the cancer cells to light activated proteins called opsins, they were able to control their levels of anti-metastatic proteins, which are what prevent cancer from spreading. Any amount of blue light exposure reduced anti-metastatic protein levels, but if that exposure was immediately followed by exposure to darkness, protein levels were almost completely restored and metastasis reversed. Optogenetics and chemogenetics are also making great strides in fields of anesthesia. We've already explored what optogenetics is, but chemogenetics is different because it uses designer drugs to modulate neurofiring. Research done in 2018, published in Methods and Enzymology, called Optogenetics and Chemogenetics, explored the use of these methods in anesthesia by targeting specific neural circuits. These are neurons connected by synapse that carry out specific functions when activated. They discovered that these methods could have impacts on the area of the brain where anesthetics act, providing potentially more controlled alternatives to general anesthesia, while also layering the groundwork for future research that explores the manipulation of neural circuits. Ironic how light becomes the thing that puts you to sleep. Like a grown-up invasive nightlight. Currently, optogenetics is further developed to break ground in numerous medical treatment. There are currently research projects looking to use optogenetics in surgical medicine, such as in place of current pacemakers or in treating organ failure. And, if you thought restoring vision to the blind was an impressive feat, just imagine restoring movement to paralysis patients. That's right, optogenetics might be able to help people move paralyzed limbs again. There's also been talk around the development of non-invasive optogenetics treatments over the past few years. One study found a way to use optogenetics without any electrodes. Instead, they administered a virus for their subjects that targets a specific part of the brain and then successfully activated specific neurons just by shining red light on the subject's head. Honestly, this sounds like something straight out of Men in Black, but it works. Overall, the future applications of optogenetics look quite promising and we hope to see the development of even more medical treatment techniques that utilize optogenetics. That's all for today. Thank you for listening. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter, Science for Dummies, so you can become a little less of a dummy. Tune in next week where we discuss aliens, real or not. Bye! Imagine you're a student walking down the steps of Butler Library on a very beautiful unsuspecting morning and suddenly, right in front of you, you witness somebody pickpocket another student. Obviously, you're going to go report this crime immediately and you'll be taken in by the police where you have to conduct an eyewitness identification, most likely using a police lineup. But how accurate really are police lineups? According to the American Psychological Association, a 2008 study found that nearly 80% of cases of eyewitness identification actually included one mistaken eyewitness. Two now in Tukat and four K, a podcast about how research exposes unreliability of police lineups and immerse yourself in a journey of crime and punishment while learning about the psychology that goes behind it. I'm Anna Strypka. I'm Christiane Delix. And I'm Jennifer Fu. You give the NYPD your description of this heinous perpetrator, dutifully recovering all visual details you can remember. But what cognitive functions influence your memory recall of the crime? There are many factors that can play into this. One, witnessing a crime can cause strong emotions. Two, as humans we always have memory reconstruction errors. There's been a lot of research actually that's shown how fear and emotions can actually influence how well you're able to perceive the person. For example, one study mentioned something called a weapon focus effect, where if the witness like perceives a weapon, they'll feel fear and then that will impact their accuracy when they recall the witness or when they recall the person later. Now that you've provided the police with a description of the perpetrator, it's time to construct a police lineup. But how do we choose which subjects are placed in the lineup? So basically a police lineup contains, you know, the suspects that is being accused or is speculated having committed the crime and then five other fillers, you know, which are people who are known to be innocent. Basically the question is when choosing the fillers in a police lineup, do you choose fillers that are similar to the suspect that is at hand or more similar to the witness's description of the perpetrator of the crime? One study actually found that it's the most effective method might be a bit counterintuitive, you know, that choosing fillers that are actively dissimilar to the suspect or similar to the description the witness gave might actually reduce bias, you know, false alarm rates where they identify the innocent and sensibly guilty. That actually might be, this method might actually be more effective. Alright, so now that we've reported the crime and we've given a witness description and we've chosen subjects and fillers for a police lineup that's most likely going to be most effective, how are we going to conduct this lineup? So currently the way police lineups usually work is that the eyewitness is asked to choose one individual out of the lineup that they think is the culprit that they are looking for. However, this might not be the best technique. Some studies found that we have some alternatives to how police lineups should be conducted. One of these alternatives is called the confidence procedure, which means that the eyewitness is asked to give a percentage of how confident they are that each member of the lineup could be the culprit instead of choosing one specific person to identify. So this gives much more nuance to the identification process and the data gathered by researchers shows that it leads to much more accurate results and allows the justice system to consider witness accounts in a wider array of cases. Good job, you're a model Columbia student. You've reported a crime and tried your best to serve your community, but what broader implications do these studies have on the future of police lineups? Basically these studies are exposing our implicit biases. They're showing the holes and the flaws in the way police lineups are currently conducted and what we need to do in the future is one, examine our own implicit biases and two, just on a broader scale, we need to support organizations that are doing this work, you know, to change the face of police lineups. It's important to realize that this is something that is going on both in practice currently, so police signups are used every day, and it's also an active research area and you know it's a bit that makes it a difficult subject. Exactly, especially because these studies they aren't the be-all and end-all, you know, our understanding of the brain is still very elementary and so as we're able to support these organizations, do this work and do this research, you know, we're able to learn more about how we as humans function and we're able to change how police lineups procedures work and ultimately, you know, tip the scales in favor of a more equitable society.
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