Psychology Myths

Time and again in topics related to psychology I keep seeing the same claims that comes up. These are things we've all heard before, and many of us take to be true, and in fact base our arguments on these myths. The only problem is that they aren't true. They are simply the product of popular psychology and faulty research.

Myth 1: The 10% Myth

We've all heard this myth. It can regularly be heard in advertisements and arguments for psychic powers in humans. It's the claim that humans are only capable of using 10% of their latent mental ability. Unfortunately, this is not true. This myth could stem from a number of places. One being a misquote made by Albert Einstein, another is people not understanding research done by William James in the 1890s. It could also stem from the fact that 10% of the brain is composed of glial cells. Despite where it originated, the myth is patently false.

The refutations to this myth are many. First, if 90% of the brain is unused, then these areas should be able to be removed without any damage being done to the brain. In truth, there are very few areas that can be damaged and have no affect on a person's mental functioning. Next are results gained from neuroimaging. PET scans and fMRIs show that at all times every part of the brain has some form of activity, even during sleep. It is only when major brain damage is present that the brain has silent areas. It's also been shown that when neurons are inactive, they die. So, if 90% of our brain was useless, those neurons should no longer exist. (Beyerstein, 1999)

Left Brain/Right Brain Myth

This is another one we've all heard. It basically claims that a person's personality is dependent on which side of their brain is dominant, the left or the right. Once again though this is mainly perpetuated by pop psychologists. This myth most likely stems from split-brain surgeries performed in the 1960s to treat severe epilepsy. In this surgery the corpus callosum, or the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres together, is severed, thus preventing them from communicating back and forth.

The truth is though, that once again most areas of the brain are active for most activities it needs to perform. While certain parts of the brain seem to specialized for things like language, they also work with the rest of the brain to produce the desired effect. In the end, no side of the brain is really dominant over the others. In most people it may appear that the left side is dominant, but this is mainly due to its role in language. Furthermore, the side language is mainly produced on appears to do with handedness, not anything pertaining to personality. (Corballis, 1999).

Myth 3: The Mozart Effect

We've all heard that if you want to make your baby a genius, or that if you listen to Mozart while studying you'll do better on your test. Once again this is rooted in pseudoscience. This myth originates at UC-Irvine. A couple of researchers decided to see what affect classical music had on IQ. Their results found that it increased spatial-reasoning intelligence by 8 points. When the papers heard this they simply reported that it increased general intelligence by 8 points.

At this point in the story a musician by the name of Dan Campbell enters the picture. Without doing any research Campbell has asserted that classical music is pretty much a panacea. It can make you smarter while also making you healthier. Pretty much any benefit you have heard Mozart bestows upon a person was created by Campbell. In fact, not only does Campbell have no scientific evidence to back his claims, the original study has also been unable to be replicated (Pietschnig, Voracek, & Formann, 2010).

Myth 4: Subliminal Advertising

One of our biggest fears is losing control of our own choices. Subliminal advertising is a technique in which words or images are shown to the audience so quickly their conscious mind is unable to perceive that they're there, while their unconscious mind is able to process them. This technique was developed in the 1950s by a market researcher named James Vicary. Vicary claimed that during movies he spliced in words that said Drink Coke and Eat Popcorn. They were shown for 1/300th of a second. Afterwards he reported that Coke sales increased by 18% and popcorn sales increased by 57%.

While this may seem like an iron clad endorsement for the existence of subliminal advertising, there is one slight problem. Vicary lied about his results. Subsequent studies that have attempted to replicate Vicary's claim have all failed to produce significant results (Moore, 2008)

References

Beyerstein, B. L. (1999). Mind Myths: Exploring Popular Assumptions About the Mind and Brain. In S. D. Sala (Ed.), Whence Cometh the Myth that We Only Use 10% of our Brains? (p. 3-24). New York, NY: Wiley.

Corballis, M. C. (1999). Mind myths: Exploring popular assumptions about the mind and brain. In S. D. Sala (Ed.) (p. 25-41). New York, NY: Wiley.

Moore, T. E. (2008). Navigating the mindfield: A user’s guide to distinguishing science from pseudoscience in mental health. (S. O. Lilienfeld, J. Ruscio, & S. J. Lynn, Ed.). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Pietschnig, J., Voracek, M., & Formann, A. K. (2010). Mozart effect–Shmozart effect: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 38(3), 314-323.

These are just a few of the big ones. If anyone else has any feel free to post them. I may also add to this later as more myths come to me.

Nice thread! S & F

As a Psych/Neuro grad, I get sick of hearing these spouted like facts. We covered these in my classes throughout the years, and I love seeing them here.

A note on Myth 3: The Mozart Effect:

One of my profs mention the variable of mood at the time of testing.
The upbeat classical music may simply elevate mood and increase participants' performance.

Well done, and beautiful references section

I almost bypassed this thread, due to *heavy sigh* *what now* kind of thoughts, but you really did a good job with this!!!

Very nice thread! Well done. Some of the points you mention are brought up by me in various threads already, but it is very nice to see them in a thread.
However, I wonder how many people read this, after all, this is not the political forum. So I guess we have to battle these myths 'in the field'

reply to post by JewelFlip


That's the Arousal Hypothesis. The results on that tend to come back 50/50, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I did a study on it in the spring to see if increased pulse rate corresponded to an increase in spatial-reasoning, but didn't get anything significant.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Time and again in topics related to psychology I keep seeing the same claims that comes up. These are things we've all heard before, and many of us take to be true, and in fact base our arguments on these myths.

The only problem is that they aren't true. They are simply the product of popular psychology and faulty research.

Well lets look at the truth behind what you claim and source as the truth against what others have proven to be true to refute your suggested debunking of popular myths.....

As a very famous man one once said

"there are things we know, Known Known's, and things we don't know, etc"

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Myth 1: The 10% Myth

We've all heard this myth.

The refutations to this myth are many. First, if 90% of the brain is unused, then these areas should be able to be removed without any damage being done to the brain. In truth, there are very few areas that can be damaged and have no affect on a person's mental functioning.

FALSE

As shown here in a post from some time ago:1

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
Then make assumptions about long term affects not before.

So much is misunderstood on this topic for example:

Check this out:

Doctors attending a 39-year-old Chinese woman complaining of feeling weak found she had just half a brain!

Moreover, the woman from Wuhan city (eastern China) bears a completely normal life and only visited the hospital when she felt weak and stiff.

But she really misses the left hemisphere of her brain. "On the MRI scans we were surprised to see that she only has grey matter on the right side. Our usual understanding is that the left brain controls language. But this patient has no problem communicating with people.",

said Zhang Linhong, director of Neural Rehabilitation Department at the local hospital, told ANANOVA.

Source

Only one hemisphere present and normal!

This is not the only case to, there are many that may surprise you:

This case comes after in July 2007 a French team discovered a 44-year-old male patient with an unusually tiny brain: just a quarter of the normal size. Still, the man had an entirely normal life.

The man was a married man, father of two children and worked as a civil servant. He went to the hospital after he felt mild weakness in his left leg. While a child, the man has had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away hydrocephalus (water in the brain) and the shunt was removed when he was 14 years old.

The man scored 75 at IQ tests, below the average score of 100 but not classifying him as mentally retarded or disabled. The whole brain was reduced, frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes, on both left and right hemispheres. These areas control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional and cognitive functions. It seems that the brain's plasticity adapted to some damage. The Chinese case just comes to reinforce this idea.

!!!!
Drop your labels and preconceptions against Brain injury all please!

There also was a Case though I can’t find the source I read about years ago. In Victorian London an Autopsy was carried out on an extremely successful Lawyer, he was a high flyer, had his own practise was feared by rivals for his legal ability and knowledge.

He had the entire Right hemisphere of his brain missing since birth. Again married with Kids, infact he was known as the best debater in the local chambers of commerce!

Brain injury, obviously depending on the specific case, is no different to any other injury, some people like me with very serious fractures to their legs are fine afterwards, and some never walk again.

But just because it’s an injury to the brain does not mean that it can’t heal like all injuries, again it specific for each person but not all encompassing.

And not in relation to actual trauma or injury but progressive damage to the brain look at this and be astounded:

Dr. John Lorber, a British neurologist who published a controversial paper

"Is Your Brain Really Necessary?"

back in 1980. Dr. Lorber's work centered on hydrocephalism, where abnormal amounts of fluid cause damage to the brain - sometimes actually replacing the tissue.

One case he presented, for example, involved a young man with an IQ of 126 who had achieved a first-class honors degree in mathematics (a difficult accomplishment indeed) and lived a normal life in spite of the fact that his brain was less than 1/10 normal size.

His cranium was filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid, leaving a layer of brain tissue near the skull only about 4/100 of an inch thick.

Among those whose craniums were 95% filled with cerebrospinal fluid, half had IQs above 100

Source


And further back on truly massive head injuries and recovery:

Ahad Israfil is a gunshot victim from Dayton, Ohio, famous for his remarkable recovery from an injury that led to the loss of almost half his brain (one cerebral hemisphere).

In 1987, aged 14, Ahad was shot in the head at work when his employer accidentally knocked a fire-arm to the floor. Despite the severity of his injuries, he survived the trip to hospital and underwent a 5 hour operation. As he regained consciousness, doctors were amazed when he attempted to speak

The injury destroyed brain tissue and one half of his skull, but the skin of his scalp survived and collapsed inwards when the underlying tissue was removed. As a result, after the hole in his head had been filled in with a silicone block, the flap of skin was pulled over and hair regrew, giving him a fairly normal appearance.

Although he now uses a wheelchair, he has regained most of his faculties and has successfully obtained a degree."

Source

Pop Pyschology 101?

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Left Brain/Right Brain Myth

This is another one we've all heard. It basically claims that a person's personality is dependent on which side of their brain is dominant, the left or the right. Once again though this is mainly perpetuated by pop psychologists. This myth most likely stems from split-brain surgeries performed in the 1960s to treat severe epilepsy.

FALSE

"Most Likely" and again pop psychology? There is certainly is pop psychology on this thread but not in what you refute.

While certain parts of the brain seem to specialized for things like language, they also work with the rest of the brain to produce the desired effect. In the end, no side of the brain is really dominant over the others.

You disagree with your 1 "myth" here below and support the evidence I source and quote! above

In most people it may appear that the left side is dominant, but this is mainly due to its role in language. Furthermore, the side language is mainly produced on appears to do with handedness, not anything pertaining to personality. (Corballis, 1999).

OK false as following proves:

This experiment examined the ability of EEG activity and neuropsychological testing to predict both antisocial personality disorder (ASP) and retrospective self-ratings of early childhood problem behaviors (CPB). Regression analyses found that increased frontal left-hemisphere EEG activation was associated with a decreased likelihood of the diagnosis of ASP or CPB. An association was also found between several motor tests of the Luria-Nebraska and Porteus Maze Test scores and CPB/ASP. The current findings suggest that ASP and CPB are associated with variations in frontal lobe functioning. They further suggest that disturbances in prefrontal functioning may be a common biological ground that links ASP, substance abuse, and biological mechanisms of reinforcement. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

in a magazine I read can be found below:
Deckel, A. W., Hesselbrock, V. and Bauer, L. (1996), Antisocial personality disorder, childhood delinquency, and frontal brain functioning: EEG and neuropsychological findings. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 52: 639–650.
Author Information
University of Connecticut School of Medicine
Also:

Over the last ten years the basic knowledge of brain structure and function has vastly expanded, and its incorporation into the developmental sciences is now allowing for more complex and heuristic models of human infancy. In a continuation of this effort, in this two-part work I integrate current interdisciplinary data from attachment studies on dyadic affective communications, neuroscience on the early developing right brain, psychophysiology on stress systems, and psychiatry on psychopathogenesis to provide a deeper understanding of the psychoneurobiological mechanisms that underlie infant mental health. In this article I detail the neurobiology of a secure attachment, an exemplar of adaptive infant mental health, and focus upon the primary caregiver's psychobiological regulation of the infant's maturing limbic system, the brain areas specialized for adapting to a rapidly changing environment. The infant's early developing right hemisphere has deep connections into the limbic and autonomic nervous systems and is dominant for the human stress response, and in this manner the attachment relationship facilitates the expansion of the child's coping capcities. This model suggests that adaptive infant mental health can be fundamentally defined as the earliest expression of flexible strategies for coping with the novelty and stress that is inherent in human interactions. ....cotd

contd...

This efficient right brain function is a resilience factor for optimal development over the later stages of the life cycle

Another interesting monthly I get can be found in:
Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22: 7–66. 2001 issue of the magazine

This groundbreaking very un pop psychology work was then further researched and expanded upon and the final findings are described as

In the second part of this sequential work, I present interdisciplinary data to more deeply forge the theoretical links between severe attachment failures, impairments of the early development of the right brain's stress coping systems, and maladaptive infant mental health. In the following, I offer thoughts on the negative impact of traumatic attachments on brain development and infant mental health, the neurobiology of infant trauma, the neuropsychology of a disorganized/disoriented attachment pattern associated with abuse and neglect, trauma-induced impairments of a regulatory system in the orbitofrontal cortex, the links between orbitofrontal dysfunction and a predisposition to posttraumatic stress disorders, the neurobiology of the dissociative defense, the etiology of dissociation and body–mind psychopathology, the effects of early relational trauma on enduring right hemispheric function, and some implications for models of early intervention. These findings suggest direct connections between traumatic attachment, inefficient right brain regulatory functions, and both maladaptive infant and adult mental health

The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22: 201–269 2001

Pretty conclusive to me!

There is an very compelling peer reviewed and cross disciplinary cited work done also showing personalities and brain hemisphere functioning in adults as found here: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - Individual Differences in Anterior Brain Asymmetry and Fundemental Dimensions of Emotion PDF

I could go on for pages and pages, please u2u me if you want more info on this proven aspect of human personality.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Myth 3: The Mozart Effect
We've all heard that if you want to make your baby a genius, or that if you listen to Mozart while studying you'll do better on your test. Once again this is rooted in pseudoscience.

FALSE

The Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching Method uses aspects of suggestion and unusual styles of presenting material to accelerate classroom learning. The essence of this technique is the use of a combination of physical relaxation exercises, mental concentration and suggestive principles to strengthen a person's ego and expand his memory capabilities, and the use of relaxing music while material to be learned is presented dynamically. In experiments, students showed improved attitude, faster learning and better retention with this method. Elements of this learning procedure were first integrated by Dr. George Lozanov of Bulgaria. Three phases of this method are described

Full Text Here

It is currently being used to train nurses, in many schools and also by the education dept across the United States.

At this point in the story a musician by the name of Dan Campbell enters the picture. Without doing any research Campbell has asserted that classical music is pretty much a panacea. It can make you smarter while also making you healthier. Pretty much any benefit you have heard Mozart bestows upon a person was created by Campbell. In fact, not only does Campbell have no scientific evidence to back his claims, the original study has also been unable to be replicated (Pietschnig, Voracek, & Formann, 2010).

As my above shows this is false Cambell just looked at work done by Lozanov, and the following papers also back up what the Health board uses to teaches nurse, The edu depts use all across the unnited states, and what anyone who has ever seen the effects of Music Therapy on Mentally Ill children and adults know already!

The Profound effects of Music on The mind

Good Vibrations: How Does Music Affect Plant Growth?

The Effects of Music on Memory

The Effects of Backround Music on Learning

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Myth 4: Subliminal Advertising

While this may seem like an iron clad endorsement for the existence of subliminal advertising, there is one slight problem. Vicary lied about his results. Subsequent studies that have attempted to replicate Vicary's claim have all failed to produce significant results (Moore, 2008)

100% FALSE

Need it in moving pictures to understand?

You need to watch the entire show but it totally proves subliminal suggestions 100% as did his work dressed as an beggar in an shopping centre whilst he changed the displays of the clothes in the stores and the messages advertised.... 100% proven hours of videotapes of real experiments on unsuspecting people have proven this:




Case closed.

Funny I often hear Pop psychology quotes from those who practice it themselves....

Kind Regards,

Elf

[edit on 2-9-2010 by MischeviousElf]

reply to post by MischeviousElf


For the first myth, the examples you are bringing up are cases where these people are born with half a brain. During development and the early years of a child's life the brain is very plastic. This means that the remaining hemisphere is able to take on many of the roles of the missing hemisphere. This has been known for a long time. However, if you were to take their current brain and choose a random spot and lesion it, it would cause noticeable to cognitive functioning.

As for the second myth, you are also telling me things I already know. Just because there are "centers" in the brain doesn't mean that these areas control all aspects of that behavior. Take vision for example. I could remove your occipital lobe, which is the center for vision, or I could simply make a small lesion in your somatosensory cortex and also cause you to go blind. The brain processes things in parallel, the only reason there are "centers" is because it helps with efficiency. It does not matter where a neuron is located that determines a person's personality, but how their neuron's are connected.

As for your problem with the Mozart Effect myth. The information you have provided is not supporting the Mozart Effect, it is simply showing that people who are relaxed learn better, which is true. There are so many variables in that learning method that you cannot point to one part of it being what is causing an increase in learning. If the Mozart Effect were real it would have been detected in one of the thousands of studies that have sought to recreate it. All that has been found is that increased arousal may correspond to an increase in spatial-reasoning. So, as long as a song is up-beat, in a major mode, and something the person enjoys you may find an effect, but it is not the Mozart Effect.

Your argument for the final myth is just flat out weak. It is not controlled at all and there are many confounding variables. This could easily lead to skewed results. furthermore, the fact that it's a show means they could have simply edited it to show what they wanted. Like the Mozart Effect, Subliminal Messages are one of those things that have been studied ad infinitum and no one has been able to produce significant results showing it exists. The very fact that its entire existence is based off of a faulty study should prove conclusively enough that it does not exist.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
reply to post by MischeviousElf

 

For the first myth, the examples you are bringing up are cases where these people are born with half a brain. During development and the early years of a child's life the brain is very plastic. This means that the remaining hemisphere is able to take on many of the roles of the missing hemisphere. This has been known for a long time. However, if you were to take their current brain and choose a random spot and lesion it, it would cause noticeable to cognitive functioning.

FALSE

Not so for encephalitis as sourced and traumatic Barin Injury.

As for the second myth, you are also telling me things I already know. Just because there are "centers" in the brain doesn't mean that these areas control all aspects of that behavior. Take vision for example. I could remove your occipital lobe, which is the center for vision, or I could simply make a small lesion in your somatosensory cortex and also cause you to go blind. The brain processes things in parallel, the only reason there are "centers" is because it helps with efficiency. It does not matter where a neuron is located that determines a person's personality, but how their neuron's are connected.

Exactly as your last sentence shows you refute and negate your original premise, that being that left right brain functioning has no effect on personality, emotion etc, again I show the work that disproves that both in development and adult stages of life.

As for your problem with the Mozart Effect myth. The information you have provided is not supporting the Mozart Effect, it is simply showing that people who are relaxed learn better, which is true. There are so many variables in that learning method that you cannot point to one part of it being what is causing an increase in learning. If the Mozart Effect were real it would have been detected in one of the thousands of studies that have sought to recreate it. All that has been found is that increased arousal may correspond to an increase in spatial-reasoning. So, as long as a song is up-beat, in a major mode, and something the person enjoys you may find an effect, but it is not the Mozart Effect.

First sentence, I don't have a problem lol, well not one ive shared on here!

Please read the linked resources below my response in my original posts all papers created and held in educational research facilities that say otherwise.

Your argument for the final myth is just flat out weak. It is not controlled at all and there are many confounding variables. This could easily lead to skewed results. furthermore, the fact that it's a show means they could have simply edited it to show what they wanted. Like the Mozart Effect, Subliminal Messages are one of those things that have been studied ad infinitum and no one has been able to produce significant results showing it exists. The very fact that its entire existence is based off of a faulty study should prove conclusively enough that it does not exist.

You have obviously not seen the documentary. The proof of blind controls, and such like stringent live recorded interactions/experiments that Channel 4 insisted on.

You obviously have not seen any of Derren Browns work, I suggest you do, you will learn more in one hour doing so than I did I four years at Uni studying mental Health/psychology and being told the "accepted" belief system myself before I woke up.

Kind Regards,

Elf

Originally posted by Xcalibur254

Myth 4: Subliminal Advertising

I wish you had posted this information in the last big thread ATS had about subliminal advertising, I tried to fight against the tide for a while but in the end I just let the huge numbers of people saying "OMG we are all being controlled through subliminal messages" wash over me and retreated

Now we have at least one poster trying to get stars and flags through subliminal messages

Originally posted by MischeviousElf

You need to watch the entire show but it totally proves subliminal suggestions 100% as did his work dressed as an beggar in an shopping centre whilst he changed the displays of the clothes in the stores and the messages advertised.... 100% proven hours of videotapes of real experiments on unsuspecting people have proven this:


[edit on 2-9-2010 by MischeviousElf]

I feel like I have said this about a thousand time on different forums but I guess I will say it again

Derren Brown is a Magician! What you are seeing is a Magic Trick that he is explaining by saying he is using subliminal techniques.

Go and read some interviews that Derren has done concerning NLP he says that for him NLP is a "Dirty Word"

The explanations Derren gives are Magicians patter to distract you from the Trick.

It's a magic show, not a documentary.

I'm going to edit to clarify, Derren Brown is a Mentalist, this is a branch of magic that was very popular in the last century.
Derren happens to be very good at it, but he is no more telling you the truth about how he is achieving his illusions then Cris Angel is when he walks on water


[edit on 2-9-2010 by davespanners]

great thread ... and great discussion

Regarding brain usage, I saw something interesting about the "Human Calculator" (he can do almost any math calculation instantly in his head) guy on the show "Stan Lee's Superhumans".

Before examining him, the doctors assumed that he was using "all" of his brain to do math, unlike most people who instead just use one small area. However they found that they were dead wrong, and this was not the case at all.

Upon examination and testing, fMRI showed that when this guy does math, instead of utilizing the area of the brain that normal people use, instead the area of the brain that is responsible for fast motor movement lights up. So basically, his math area for some reason got mapped to another area of his brain, and as a result works much better (that's an understatement).

Note that he is not a savant or autistic. He is completely normal, including his motor functions despite this area of his brain being rewired to do math.

I find this interesting because it shows that our brains are capable of performing more than normal, simply by utilizing other areas. So, it would seem that, its not how "much" of your brain that you use, but how well the part of the brain you use to do a task performs that task.

[edit on 3-9-2010 by Blazer]

reply to post by Blazer


Exactly. Your motor cortex is going to be much more efficient since being able to move quickly can determine whether one lives or dies, whereas one's life is rarely threatened by a math problem

reply to post by Blazer


Great post. Very interesting indeed. It's amazing to think how much potential there is for us to develop our minds and transcend the boundaries placed on us by modern social structures and political frameworks.

ETA: This reminds me of Memory and the idea of Mnemonics. It's amazing how much information people can store and recall when the stimuli has been organised in an efficient manner.

[edit on 3/9/2010 by Dark Ghost]

The schools of thought at the highest levels in many cases are totally dvided. That is fact.

Like your rebutter did in this thread, there are almost always counter arguments to claims made in the name of science and knowledge.

Should we discuss Nature vs Nurture in this thread. I'm sure we could post excerpts from 100's of books over the years about studies showing how one or the other is correct.

You still deserve a star for a well written paper

[edit on 3-9-2010 by sticky]

Good post. Yes, it is always worthwhile questioning "accepted" beliefs.

How about this one: the chemical imbalance theory of the brain of psychiatry.

Psychiatry pushes the theory that "mental disorders" are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.

Shockingly however -- and it is something no-one ever seems to take them to task for -- there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of this.

Are "chemical imbalances" real? Psychiatrist David Kaiser commented on psychiatry’s promotion of such imbalances to the public in the December, 1996 Psychiatric Times. "Unfortunately what I also see these days are the casualties of this new biologic psychiatry, as patients often come to me with many years of past treatment. Patients having been diagnosed with "chemical imbalances" despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and that there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like."

Additionally, Kaiser points out that "modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness. This does not stop psychiatry from making essentially unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety disorders, alcoholism, and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin, and that it is only a matter of time until all this is proven".

Kaiser is not alone in his opinion. Psychiatrist Loren Mosher resigned from the APA after 35 years of membership stating that "what we are dealing with here is fashion, politics, and money. This level of intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support by my membership". (www.antidepressantsfacts.com...)

Still, the absence of scientific evidence doesn't stop Big Pharma making hundreds of billions of dollars every year out of the chemical imbalance lie

reply to post by Xcalibur254


Myth 5: Schizophrenia = Multiple Personalities

While I haven't seen this mistake made much on ATS, it has certainly pervaded common belief that schizophrenia and multiple personalities are the same thing. This most likely stems from the fact that when schizophrenia is translated from Greek to English it means "split mind." Schizophrenia however is more of a cognitive disorder than anything else. It is characterized by hallucinations, disordered thought patterns, paranoia, catatonia, and what has become known as "word salad," amongst other symptoms. It can bear a resemblance to dementia in the elderly, which is why it was originally called dementia praecox.

Multiple personalities on the other hand is the primary symptom of a disorder known as dissociative identity disorder. While little is known about this disorder due to its rarity, many professionals believe that it manifests after an extremely traumatic event. In order to cope with the trauma the person unconsciously creates a separate personality. However, it usually stops with just one personality, and some people have reported to have dozens (APA, 2000)

Myth 6: Memory is Processed Hierarchically

Pretty much everyone has heard that memory is divided into short term and long term memory, and a few may have even heard the phrase sensory memory. Sensory memory refers to something that is happening now, short term memory refers to memories that were formed recently, and long term are those memories that seem to stay with us for the rest of our lives. The common belief is that memory starts as sensory memory, then becomes short term memory, and if it stays as a short term memory long enough it becomes a long term memory. This is what is called the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968).

Even Intro to Psych students are told this is how memory is processed. The simple reason being because it is easy to teach. In truth though memory doesn't seem to be as hierarchical as this model presents it to be. Recent work into memory by people such as Alan Baddeley (2003) have found that there are many different stores for memory depending on what sense it is based on. This means there is a phonological memory and a visuo-spatial memory, as well as episodic memory and all of this gets processed into working memory by a central executive process.

References
American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (Vol. IV-TR,). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Atkinson, R. C. & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). The psychology of learning and motivation. In K. W. Spence & J. T. Spence (Eds..), Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes (Vol. 2, p. 89-195). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Baddeley, A. (2003). Working memory: looking back and looking forward. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4(10), 829-839.

Originally posted by davespanners

I feel like I have said this about a thousand time on different forums but I guess I will say it again

Derren Brown is a Magician! What you are seeing is a Magic Trick that he is explaining by saying he is using subliminal techniques.

Go and read some interviews that Derren has done concerning NLP he says that for him NLP is a "Dirty Word"

The explanations Derren gives are Magicians patter to distract you from the Trick.

It's a magic show, not a documentary.

I'm going to edit to clarify, Derren Brown is a Mentalist, this is a branch of magic that was very popular in the last century.
Derren happens to be very good at it, but he is no more telling you the truth about how he is achieving his illusions then Cris Angel is when he walks on water

It does not matter how many times you have said it, this does not make it true, except maybe for yourself!

I know What Derren Brown is and does, I have read every piece of work he does, maybe and how would you Know I may also have experience and qualifications in Hypnosis and NLP?

Much of his stage work is indeed of the classic "mentalist" strand, but that is not the same in any way shape or form as Cris Angel.

Angel uses visual trickery, hidden wires and mirrors etc.

Brown uses Suggestion, hypnosis and persuasion.

Brown really did walk on glass, Angel not on water.

Brown really does occasionally hammer nails up his nostrils.

Angel does not.

Brown really does count many objects very quickly when in a state of arousal or pain.

Angel can only count his $

Here is proof of Subliminal images and words on peoples behavior, again if you watch the shopping centre when random people are shopping and due to how he set up the images and words in windows shops dressed as a beggar creates observable, real and amazing change from the norm of peoples behavior.

It can be seen here:

Derren Brown The Beggar Subliminal Episode

Please if someone would like to show, and explain how this is a trick expand on it.

Kind Regards,

Elf.

Interesting stuff of course. Plenty of urban myths float around. I'm curious though:

Vicary claimed that during movies he spliced in words that said Drink Coke and Eat Popcorn. They were shown for 1/300th of a second. Afterwards he reported that Coke sales increased by 18% and popcorn sales increased by 57%.

If you splice-in words directly into the frames, how did they show for 1/300th of a second if movies' rates were presumably no faster than 24fps (might have been 18fps, but not in the 100s of fps)? One possibility: did the projector display each frame of film for only 1/300th of a second and then display nothing for .0383... (1/24 - 1/300) seconds?