Anti-smoking ads with strong arguments, not flashy editing, trigger part of brain involving behavior change

Anti-smoking ads with strong arguments, not flashy editing, trigger part of brain involving behavior change

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that an area of the brain that initiates behavioral changes had greater activation in smokers who watched anti-smoking ads with strong arguments versus those with weaker ones, and irrespective of flashy elements, like bright and rapidly changing scenes, loud sounds and unexpected scenario twists. Those smokers also had significantly less nicotine metabolites in their urine when tested a month after viewing those ads, the team reports in a new study published online April 23 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

This is the first time research has shown an association between cognition and brain activity in response to content and format in televised ads and behavior.

In a study of 71 non-treatment-seeking smokers recruited from the Philadelphia area, the team, led by Daniel D. Langleben, M.D., a psychiatrist in the Center for Studies of Addiction at Penn Medicine, identified key brain regions engaged in the processing of persuasive communications using fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging. They found that a part of the brain involved in future behavioral changes?known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC)?had greater activation when smokers watched an anti-smoking ad with a strong argument versus a weak one.

One month after subjects watched the ads, the researchers sampled smokers' urine cotinine levels (metabolite of nicotine) and found that those who watched the strong ads had significantly less cotinine in their urine compared to their baseline versus those who watched weaker ads.

Even ads riddled with attention-grabbing tactics, the research suggests, are not effective at reducing tobacco intake unless their arguments are strong. However, ads with flashy editing and strong arguments, for example, produced better recognition.

"We investigated the two major dimensions of any piece of media, content and format, which are both important here," said Dr. Langleben, who is also an associate professor in the department of Psychiatry. "If you give someone an unconvincing ad, it doesn't matter what format you do on top of that. You can make it sensational. But in terms of effectiveness, content is more important. You're better off adding in more sophisticated editing and other special effects only if it is persuasive."

The paper may enable improved methods of design and evaluation of public health advertising, according to the authors, including first author An-Li Wang, PhD, of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. And it could ultimately influence how producers shape the way ads are constructed, and how ad production budgets are allocated, considering special effects are expensive endeavors versus hiring screenwriters.

A 2009 study by Dr. Langleben and colleagues that looked solely at format found people were more likely to remember low-key, anti-smoking messages versus attention-grabbing messages. This was the first research to show that low-key versus attention-grabbing ads stimulated different patterns of activity, particularly in the frontal cortex and temporal cortex. But it did not address content strength or behavioral changes.

This new study is the first longitudinal investigation of the cognitive, behavioral, and neurophysical response to the content and format of televised anti-smoking ads, according to the authors.

"This sets the stage for science-based evaluation and design of persuasive public health advertising," said Dr. Langleben. "An ad is only as strong as its central argument, which matters more than its audiovisual presentation. Future work should consider supplementing focus groups with more technology-heavy assessments, such as brain responses to these ads, in advance of even putting the ad together in its entirety."

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University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127881/Anti_smoking_ads_with_strong_arguments__not_flashy_editing__trigger_part_of_brain_involving_behavior_change

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'Human computer' who bested the machines dies in India at 83

Vijay Mathur / Reuters file

Math prodigy Shankutala Devi in 2007.

By Haresh Pandya, The New York Times

Shakuntala Devi, an Indian mathematical wizard known as ?the human computer? for her ability to make incredibly swift calculations, died on Sunday in Bangalore, India. She was 83.?

The cause was respiratory and cardiac problems, said D. C. Shivadev, a trustee of the Shakuntala Devi Educational Foundation Public Trust.

Ms. Devi demonstrated her mathematical gifts around the world, at colleges, in theaters and on radio and television. In 1977, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating a Univac computer, which took 62 seconds.

In 1980, she correctly multiplied two 13-digit numbers in only 28 seconds at the Imperial College in London. The feat, which earned her a place in the 1982 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, was even more remarkable because it included the time to recite the 26-digit solution.

The New York Times

Problems solved by Ms. Devi during a demonstration in 1976, as they appeared in The New York Times.

(The numbers, selected at random by a computer, were 7,686,369,774,870 and 2,465,099,745,779. The answer was 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.)

Shakuntala Devi was born in Bangalore on Nov. 4, 1929. Her father was a trapeze artist and lion tamer in a circus. Survivors include a daughter and two grandchildren.

She was about 3 and playing cards with her father when he discovered that she was a mathematical prodigy with an uncanny ability to memorize numbers. By the time she was 5, she had become an expert at solving math problems.

Ms. Devi won fame demonstrating her math skills at the circus, and later in road shows arranged by her father.

?I had become the sole breadwinner of my family, and the responsibility was a huge one for a young child,? she once said. ?At the age of 6, I gave my first major show at the University of Mysore, and this was the beginning of my marathon of public performances.?

She toured Europe in 1950. When she appeared on the BBC, her answer to a difficult calculation was different from the interviewer?s. It turned out that she was right. Similarly, at the University of Rome, one of her answers to a problem was found to be wrong, until the experts re-examined their own calculations.

When Ms. Devi performed in New York in 1976, an article in The New York Times marveled at her abilities: ?She could give you the cube root of 188,132,517 ? or almost any other number ? in the time it took to ask the question. If you gave her any date in the last century, she would tell you what day of the week it fell on.?

In a 1990 journal article about Ms. Devi, Arthur R. Jensen, a researcher on human intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that unlike the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie ?Rain Man,? an autistic savant who was also a mathematical prodigy, ?Devi comes across as alert, extroverted, affable and articulate.?

He posited that for Ms. Devi, ?the manipulation of numbers is apparently like a native language, whereas for most of us arithmetic calculation is at best like the foreign language we learned in school.? But he added that she built on her inherent skills through intense practice as a child.

Ms. Devi was also a successful astrologer, cookbook author and novelist.

More tech and science from NYTimes.com:

This story, "Shakuntala Devi, 'Human Computer,' Dies in India at 83," first appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company.

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Video chat and messaging service Viber is the cause of a recently discovered lock screen vulnerabili

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/pEOKnPE2Hmk/video-chat-and-messaging-service-viber-is-the-cause-of-479867823

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FreedomPop, the free-to-use mobile hotspot that we've talked about before, has begun offering servic

FreedomPop, the free-to-use mobile hotspot that we've talked about before, has begun offering service via Sprint's LTE network. In addition to speed improvements over its current 3G offerings, the shift will also bring much better coverage. See if your location qualifies here. [via AllThingsD]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/fnu9qGatu6Q/freedompop-the-free-to-use-mobile-hotspot-that-weve-ta-479848772

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Texas Senate OKs Rainy Day spending for schools

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas public schools pummeled by historic budget cuts in 2011 would recover nearly 70 percent of that funding under a Senate plan approved late Tuesday and made possible by Republicans softening on a longstanding reluctance to tap the state's Rainy Day Fund for education.

A major part of the bipartisan deal, which emerged during daylong negotiations, is pulling $800 million from the state's emergency piggybank for schools. That component may be at odds with Gov. Rick Perry, who said this month he supports using the Rainy Day Fund for water and road projects but not classrooms.

Under the proposal unanimously passed by the Senate, schools would also get another $1.4 billion thanks to what lawmakers say are freshly revised local property tax estimates from the state comptroller.

Combined with extra education funding the Senate has previously approved, and Texas schools now appear in line under the Senate plan to win back $3.7 billion of the $5.4 billion lost two years ago.

"We are within spitting distance," Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis said.

Voters would ultimately decide in November through a proposed constitutional amendment whether to allow the state to raid the Rainy Day Fund for public schools. The plan sets aside $300 million of the spending for merit raises for teachers in low-income school districts.

"This is going to allow us to put a substantial amount of new money into public education," said Republican state Sen. Tommy Williams, the Senate's chief budget-writer.

Classroom spending is the smallest portion of the Senate's proposed $5.7 billion draw down the Rainy Day Fund, which is projected to reach a nearly $12 billion balance by 2015 if left unspent.

The other withdrawals are $2 billion for water projects and $2.9 billion to improve the state's crumbling and congested roads. Both are less than what Senate budget-writers originally proposed earlier this month, and like the education spending, taking the rainy day money for roads and water would also require voter approval in November.

Perry and fiscally conservative Republicans have fiercely safeguarded the Rainy Day Fund in recent years, even as the balance soared and state budgets were slashed. They have argued that the fund was created for one-time expenses and natural disasters, and not recurring costs such as school funding.

Earlier this month, Perry did not waver when asked whether lawmakers should tap the Rainy Day Fund for schools.

"The dollars for education are there in our regular general revenue," Perry said following an appearance at an Austin transportation summit on April 12.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was not in the Senate for one of the biggest votes passed by the chamber this session. He issued a statement calling the deal a chance that "will allow voters to decide if they want to utilize the resources of our state's savings account to prepare for our future in a meaningful and transparent way."

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-senate-oks-rainy-day-150040890.html

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Utah elementary school evacuated; suspicious device found

(Reuters) - A suburban Utah elementary school was evacuated on Monday and a suspicious device found on the campus, the school said on its website.

Mountain View Elementary School in Layton, south of Ogden, said all students were safely evacuated but would not be returning on Monday. Parents were asked to pick up their children at a nearby Mormon church as soon as possible.

The school did not immediately release further details but the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reported that police had detonated a suspected explosive device that had been found on the roof of the campus by a maintenance worker.

"The employee said it looked like a pipe bomb. He took it off the roof ? not too sure why he did that ? but police were then notified," Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams told the Tribune.

The newspaper said a Davis County Sheriff's Department bomb squad was on the scene in addition to police and firefighters.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Dale Hudson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/utah-elementary-school-evacuated-suspicious-device-found-200631553.html

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Wyden Primed to Take Finance Gavel : Roll Call News

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Wyden could take over as chairman of the Finance Committee, now that Baucus has announced his retirement.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is next in line to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee upon the reported retirement of current Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., at the end of next year.

Wyden is No. 3 in seniority on the panel, but Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who would be in line to take over, has already announced his retirement.

Democrats hold fairly true to their succession rules, particularly given that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is a believer in observing informal seniority rules. Wyden is currently the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the powerful Finance gavel would be his to turn down.

On Tuesday, Wyden declined to comment.

?I?m not up on any press reports,? Wyden told reporters after an Energy hearing. ?I just heard these press reports, and I?m not going to comment on them in any way. All I?ve heard are press reports. I am not going to comment in any way this morning.?

Over the years, Baucus and Wyden have clashed on the Finance panel. The Oregon senator has a history of freelancing bipartisan bills with Republicans that Democrats often find unhelpful for their overall message. That was true last year, when Wyden teamed up with House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., on Medicare, but later distanced himself from the bill when the then-GOP vice presidential nominee it to burnish his bipartisan chops.

The next Democratic senator in line after Wyden is Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. As it stands, Schumer is also high in the order to assume the Senate Banking Committee gavel, just behind Jack Reed of Rhode Island, after Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., announced his retirement last month. Reed is expected to assume the chairmanship of the Armed Services panel.

Lauren Gardner contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.rollcall.com/news/wyden_primed_to_take_finance_gavel-224260-1.html

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