Winter sucks

Winter sucks. It has not even truly started and I already have enough of it.

I am not someone who gets cold easily but for some reason I have a feeling that half of our women will not survive this season. Yeah, weather guy please don't tell us how nice it's going to be this weekend because it will get up to 3°C. Because it's not going to be nice. The fucking wind is going to howl and freeze our faces until there is no feeling left in them. 

I would be fine if it was only the cold. What really sucks is going inside and having to peel out of five layers of cloths like we are fucking onions. Summer cloths are also much more comfortable than winter cloths.

The one upside is that Deutsche Bahn, MVG and similar public transit providers will use winter as an excuse for every second train naturally arriving late because something something weather. I imagine the responsible parties sitting in their offices over some hot beverage surfing the interwebs in late January when they distantly glance at their calender and proceed to jump out of their seat realizing they missed the beginning of winter again this year. Following this they most likely surf to Amazon to buy salt for the streets. At least that's the only reasonable explanation for why it's suddenly empty every fucking year.

There will probably be snow at some point. But it will either be too much or not enough or too early or too late or it will be gone too fast or stay too long. Last winter there was barely any snow in most regions. It's kind of a lottery we're always losing: one year nothing, the next too much. In any case, I will get wet socks because I keep wearing my sneakers because random warm days tricked me into thinking spring is approaching.

I reckon complaining is pretty unsexy but I wanted to submit myself to the German stereotype to make you other people feel better. You are welcome.

Short story - Branches

My take on a scary short story with the constraint of maximum 275 words.

I don’t like driving the 20 minutes to David at night. The dark road snakes around rural areas until it reaches the outskirts of Munich. As I drove today, suddenly, there was something on the road. I hit the brakes. Branches. I looked around, nothing else to see. I got out and started removing them. Halfway, a car approached behind me. Headlights flashed. Asshole. Again: flash, flash. The car’s driver door opened and a big shadow started to run towards my car. I panicked. I jumped in my car and hit the gas. In my rear mirror, I saw the car following me. My heart was racing. Flash, flash. 

After what felt like an eternity, I reached David’s house. I jumped out of the car and ran towards the door. There he was. I fell into his arms. Tears ran down my cheeks. “Calm down Sarah. What happened?” “Someone was following me, I-” The doorbell rang. To my horror, David opened. There was a big man, just like the shadow. That’s it. There was a big man, just like the one who was following me and he had a gun. “Is the girl alright?” Was I hearing correctly? Then I saw his badge: “Polizei.” “What happened?” David asked. “When she collected the branches from the street, someone came out of the bushes and climbed on the backseat of her car.” A shiver ran through me. We walked to my car. The door was still open and the lights on. The officer pulled out a flashlight. At first there was nothing. Then the light fell on two guitar strings laying on the backseat.

This story is based on an urban legend which reached me by word of mouth.

Are we in power? The functional neuroanatomy of intentional action

In his talk at the LMU Munich in April 2013, Marcel Brass gives an account of the functional neuroanatomy of intentional control of action. Since he found previous neuroanatomical evidence to be contradictory, he developed a new model decomposing intentional action into what, when and whether components (Brass & Haggard, 2008). Aside from his model, he talks about preconscious determinants of intentional action and discusses the role of free will in it.

The WWW model of intentional action

Marcel Brass starts his talk with showing a video of a patient suffering from the alien hand syndrome. The patient describes that someone was pulling at her hair. After some moments, she realized that it was her own left hand doing it. In general, such involuntary movements don’t seem to be random but rather reactionary to the environment. Among others, Assal et al (2007) have shown that involuntary movements include an activation of the contralateral primary motor cortex, while voluntary movements activate a distributed network implicating not only the contralateral right primary motor cortex and premotor cortex but also the left inferior frontal gyrus and especially the supplementary motor area (SMA) as well as the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA).

In order to map intentional control to more specific brain regions, it is necessary to decompose it in its components. The initiation component is responsible for the timing of the action and the decision component specifies which decision is made. Brass also suggests a third veto component specifying whether an action will actually be performed.

A simple method to investigate the initiation component is the Libet task. Participants sit in front of a computer screen and see a clock hand rotating. They are instructed to press a key at any moment within a given time interval. Afterwards they have to report at which position of the clock hand they decided to press the key, not when they actually pressed the key. The results usually show that the decision to press they key precede the actual pressing by about 200 milliseconds. Interestingly, via EEG recordings it was found that a so-called readiness potential (RP) precedes the time at which the participants reported to have made their decision by about 300ms (e.g. Libet et al, 1983). Brass argues that this RP is related to the SMA and pre-SMA regions. Evidence comes from a microstimulation study by Fried et al (1991). After stimulations of the SMA, participants reported that they felt the “urge” to perform a movement or anticipated that a movement was about to occur. If they were stimulated stronger, they actually performed a movement. 

A problem with empirically investigate the selection component is that in order to select from something external stimuli have to be included. The involvement of external stimuli requires a matching on the perceptual and the motor level between the different conditions. To achieve this, Müller et al (2007) designed a new task. It consists of two conditions: externally triggered and intentional. In the first condition, the participants see a cross on the right or left side of the screen and have to press the corresponding arrow key. In the second condition, they freely choose which key to press and a cross appears on the corresponding side of the screen. The fMRI results show that the rostral cingulate zone (RCZ), which is supposed to be activated during conflict resolution, is differently activated in the intentional as compared to the externally triggered stimuli. The preSMA showed equal activity in both conditions. Since conflict only occurs in the internal condition it suggests that the RCZ is involved in decisions between different response alternatives.

Brass discusses it is arguably plausible that there is a third veto component which determines whether the action will be performed or not. Classical inhibition paradigms like the stop-signal or Go/No-Go paradigm rely on external stimuli to stop an ongoing behavior. In order to investigate intentional inhibition of action Brass and Haggard (2007) developed a variant of the Libet task. Participants sit in front of a computer screen and can freely decide when to press a key. Afterwards, they report when they decided to press the key. Up to now, this is the normal Libet situation. However, in about half of the trials, the participants were asked to form the intention to press the key but at the last possible moment inhibit actually pressing the key. Participants could freely choose on which trial they decided to stop the action. Accordingly they had to report when they intended to act. Interestingly, the fMRI results showed activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in the veto situation. As Brass points out, this region is different from regions, which are activated in situations with different response alternatives, and it is also different from brain regions usually activated in the stop-signal paradigm. This suggests that the intentional inhibition of action can be dissociated from externally triggered inhibition.

Preconscious determinants of intentional action

As already mentioned above, in the Libet experiment, the readiness potential precedes the awareness judgments by roughly 300ms. Libet concluded that the brain decides our conscious intention unconsciously. Many researchers have criticized this. One reason is that it completely relies on the subjective report of the participants’ awareness, which is not necessarily a good measure for intention. In 2008, Soon et al replicated the Libet paradigm and tried to predict intentional action via means of fMRI analyzing the fMRI data with pattern classification. In their variant of the Libet experiment, participants could decide whether they pressed the left or the right key and also when they pressed it. While they are doing this, they see a stream of letters on the screen. Afterwards, they reported which letter they saw on the screen when they decided to press the key. For the analysis, the researchers trained pattern classifiers with their resulting data set. After the training, the classifier is tested against a different data set. Additionally, they were not interested in correctly classifying the motor response so the classifier had to do the classification before the actual motor event. The results reveal, that the decision can be predicted already eight seconds before the action by activity in the lateral frontopolar cortex and about four seconds before the action in the posterior cingulate cortex both with a 60% correctness rate.

In conclusion, this means that simple intentional decisions can be predicted seconds before the participants become aware of their own decision but the prediction rate is relatively low. Also, the brain areas that predict the decisions are different from regions involved in explicit decisions.

The influence of beliefs in free will on intentional action

Some neuroscientists claim that they solved the free will question: it simply doesn’t exist. Others argue that the problem is a philosophical one and can never be answered empirically. As Brass points out, the really interesting question is not whether free will actually exists or not but whether we believe it exists. Does a belief in the non-existence of free will change our intentional actions? Vohs and Schooler (2008) addressed this question by developing a social experiment. Participants were assigned to three groups. The first had to read pro-free will statements, the second pro-determinism statements and the third neutral statements. Afterwards, they had to solve problems and got paid for each problem they solved. While they were doing this, the experimenter excused himself from the room and trusted the participant with paying himself out on his own and afterwards shredding their answer sheet. The results show that the pro-determinism group got paid significantly more than the free will group, the neutral group and experimenter-scored control groups. 

But will this high-level manipulation also be reflected in low-level intentional action? Rigoni, Satori & Brass (2011) did a study in the Libet paradigm in which participants had to read either no-free will texts or unrelated texts. The fMRI results reveal that a few hundred milliseconds before participants reported awareness of their decision, there is a difference in the readiness potential between the groups. In conclusion, this suggests that high-level belief manipulation can in fact influence basic neurophysiological potentials.

In summary, we are able to decompose intentional action in different components that are neurobiologically implemented in different regions of the medial prefrontal cortex. It is further possible to predict decisions from brain activity even seconds before participants become aware of their decision. Additionally, high-level beliefs about free will can influence low-level intentional action.

Brass’s research begs the question whether the manipulation of high-level beliefs can influence the predictability of intentional action from brain activation. In further studies, it will also be interesting to investigate why disbelief in free will can lead to antisocial behavior (cheating, overpaying) and what its neural correlates are. 

References

Assal, F., Schwartz, S. and Vuilleumier, P. (2007), Moving with or without will: functional neural correlates of alien hand syndrome. Ann Neurol., 62: 301–306. doi: 10.1002/ana.21173

Brass, M., & Haggard, P. (2007). To do or not to do: the neural signature of self-control. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(34), 9141-9145.

Brass, M., & Haggard, P. (2008). The what, when, whether model of intentional action. The Neuroscientist, 14(4), 319-325.

Fried, I., Katz, A., McCarthy, G., Sass, K. J., Williamson, P., Spencer, S. S., & Spencer, D. D. (1991). Functional organization of human supplementary motor cortex studied by electrical stimulation. The Journal of neuroscience, 11(11), 3656-3666.

Libet, Benjamin; Gleason, Curtis A.; Wright, Elwood W.; Pearl, Dennis K. (1983). "Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential) - The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act". Brain 106: 623–642.

Rigoni, D., Kühn, S., Sartori, G., & Brass, M. (2011). Inducing Disbelief in Free Will Alters Brain Correlates of Preconscious Motor Preparation The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not. Psychological science, 22(5), 613-618.

Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H. J., & Haynes, J. D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature neuroscience, 11(5), 543-545.

Vohs, K. D., & Schooler, J. W. (2008). The Value of Believing in Free Will Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating. Psychological science, 19(1), 49-54.

Excessive Video Game Playing Indicates Poor Satisfaction With Life

Last year, I did an informal experimental study about Starcraft 2, a highly complex real time strategy game. Your success in Starcraft heavily relies on multitasking (in it's every-day use). Multitasking in this sense means that you need to keep a complex mental loop for actions which need to be performed in a rapid succession. Professional-level players normally perform up two 300 actions per minute (actions = button presses).

The study had two main goals. First, to investigate the relationship between playing Starcraft and multitasking abilities. Since I used a flash game and used self-report measures, the methodolgy in this part could potentially skew the results.

Second, and this part was not announced, I read a lot of complaints from people who play a lot of Stracraft 2 in forums. I wanted to check whether these qualitative statements had some quantitative foundations. In specific, I investigated whether the amount of playing SC2 is correlated with  general satisfaction with life.

In total, 70 participants took part in the study. For investigation of multitask abilities I used the flash game Multitask from Kongregrate. The participants played 10 times and entered their results manually into a google form in which I continued the study. Life satisfaction was measured using the widely employed Satisfaction with Life Scale by Ed Diener. After that, participants filled out questions about their playing behavior, most importantly how many hours per week the play, and additionally demographical data.

RESULTS
From the initial 70 participants, 20 had to be excluded from the study. Three because of missing data and 17 due to outlier detection (mostly because they reported several multitask results below 20 seconds whichmeans that they didn't really play). That means, that 50 participants were included in the final analysis.

Multitasking
The longest time reported was 262 seconds. The average of all participants was 70 seconds. I didn't find any connection between "hours of SC2 played" and multitasking ability. Linear models also revealed no interaction with league (which is an in-game indication of a player's skill). Either, playing more doesn't improve one's multitasking abilities or it improves multitasking abilities which are not measured by the Multitask game I used or the results are skewed because I relied on manipulable self-report measures and participants did not report the correct results.


(Looks messy, doesn't it?)

I found a trend (p = .081) that master's players (the highest in-game league) lasted on average 20 seconds longer in the multitasking game compared to the other leagues. This is an indication that multitasking abilities such as measured by the Multitask game are really reflected in Starcraft 2 skill. As expected, age significantly correlates with multitask ability (p = .003; r = -.400). Those in their early 20s were best. (see What do the numbers mean? below)

Life Satisfaction
Playing Starcraft correlates negatively with general satisfaction with life (p = .001; r = -.441). The more you play, the less satisfied you are. Don't play so much! To give you an idea, most players in my data set played around 15 hours per week (M = 14.60; SD = 11.9), the minimum was around 1 hour and the maximum was around 40 hours. Also, not surprisingly, the older you get, the less time you invest in SC2 in total (p = .006; r = -.465).

What do the numbers mean?
The p-value is the estimated probability of how likely we found a difference between two groups although there is none. For a p-value of .03 this would mean that if we generated results completely random, in 3% of the cases, we would find this "difference".

The r-value is an estimate of how big the correlation between the two things is we measure. In the example above, we look at the variance in the satisfaction with life between the participants. Now we overlay this variance with the variance from the "hours of Starcraft played" and check how much of the variance in the one data set can be explained by the other. A value of .441 means that 44% of the variance in the satisfaction with life scores can be explained by the variance in the "hours of Starcraft played" data. Given that one's satisfaction with life can potentially influenced by thousands of things (like social life, sleep, achievements, job, etc) such a high correlation is astonishing!


I think that the connection between amount of hours of weekly play and life satisfaction is interesting, I don't believe that playing Starcraft causes one to be less satisfied with one's life. The more probable explanation is that, if you are less satisfied with your life, lack social inclusion or have problems at home, you tend to retract yourself from society, because it's the source of your problems, and approach alone-activities such as playing video games extensively.

10 Shitty Life Hacks

1. If your phone gets wet, place it in a bag of rice. The rice will attract asians who will fix it for you.
2. Save money on expensive binoculars by just standing closer to the object you want to look at.
3. Use the metal part of your seat belt to open beers while driving.
4. When using a urinal, pull your pants all the way down to ensure no one uses the urinal next to you.
5. Take a dump in the shower. It washes down the drain and saves time and toilet paper.
6. Get almost anything for free by simply running away.
7. Shoot yourself with small calibre bullets so you can gain an immunity to larger ones. Helpful in the event of a home invasion!
8. If you have dry skin, use steel wool to scrub it off easily.
9. Microwave your spoon to cut right through that rock hard ice cream!
10. If you're drowning, pretend you're dead. The water will think you're a corpse and you'll float to the top!

Damals, als wir noch nostalgisch waren

Lied des Moments: Die Toten Hosen - Alles was war

Ich erinnere mich noch gut an die alten Zeiten, in denen wir noch wirklich nostalgisch wurden und uns zurück erinnerten an Dinge, die uns bewegten. Wir saßen draußen unter den Sternen, schwelgten in Erinnerungen, Stunden um Stunden. Dachten an all die Dinge die wir liebten, all die guten Zeiten, all den Spaß den wir hatten, dachten an Zeiten, in denen das Eis noch billiger und das Leben einfacher war. Es schleuderte unsere Zeit mit voller Wucht zurück. Nostalgie war doch was feines.

Doch heutzutage ist das anders. Wir werden nicht mehr nostalgisch. Wir denken nicht mehr an alles was mal war. Wir finden ja kaum die Zeit zurückzublicken und daran zu denken, wie früher alles besser war. Nostalgie wie wir sie damals erlebten, gibt es nicht mehr. Das einzig nostalgische wird uns auferzwungen durch das Internet. Durch Seiten, die sich daran laben, alte Witze zu recyclen, uns an alte Lieben zu erinnern und alte Wunden aufzureißen. Damals musste man erstmal wen finden, um sich zusammen zu erinnern. Heute reicht ein Facebook Eintrag „Hey, wisst ihr noch, wie’s damals war?“ In Minuten füllt sich die Seite mit Geschichten der Vergangenheit. Praktisch ist das, ohne Frage. Aber wo ist die Wärme, dieser Sinn gemeinsam erlebter Dinge, der zwei Menschen bindet?

Ich erinnere mich noch gut an die Jahre nach dem Abitur. Wir trafen uns mit ein paar Schulfreunden am See und dachten an die alten Zeiten. In unseren Köpfen drehten sich Gedankenspiele. Was wär gewesen wenn, wo würden wir heut' stehen? Den ganzen Tag verbrachten wir einfach damit, in Erinnerungen zu schwelgen. Das mit der Nostalgie wurde schlimmer, je älter wir wurden. Es ist anders als es war, als wir anfingen nostalgisch zu werden. Die Kinder heutzutage werden nie wissen, wie es ist, wirklich nostalgisch zu sein.

Your country's history in 20 words or less

This land is your land? This land is my land - USA

Empire. Gone. Tried to conquer with force. Bad. Again.  Really bad. Conquer with money. - Germany

We were once really important but now we make pasta and shoes. – Italy

Glowing in the dark since 1986. – Ukraine

All is fine. No more questions. Eternal President will lead us to victory. – North Korea

Looks like the sea wants to kill us again. – The Netherlands

We love you England, but get out, please. – Canada

Two world wars, one cup – England

Sure we'll take your money. – Switzerland

Sure we'll go for a walk. - Navajo Nation

Criminals placed on an island that is repeatedly trying to kill them. – Australia

Proud back to back World War avoiders. – Sweden

Thanks so much, Sweden. First you fight Novgorod over us, and then you leave us out in the cold. – Finland

Went to war with everyone for centuries, surrender once, are called a country of pussies forever. - France

We are one of the oldest and wisest cultures. Welcome to Dell technical support, my name is Steve. – India

Vodka, monarchs, oppression, space, hockey, new flag, Putin, vodka. – Russia

Muslims in India hated Hindus. Created new country for muslims. No hindus. Hate each other. – Pakistan

Maori come and kill birds. Whites come and kill Maori. Lord of the Rings filmed. – New Zealand

We had a huge empire, now everyone thinks we're Spain. – Portugal

No potatoes. Potatoes. No potatoes. Fine, thanks. – Ireland

No potatoes. – Latvia

Stuff frozen. Stuff slightly less frozen. – Antarctica

We did a bunch of shit for mankind like 10000 years ago, now we're bankrupt. – Greece

Raped, looted and pillaged our way to being the most content people in the world. – Denmark

Viking glory. Ruled by others. Oil. – Norway

Digest with re-edit from here.