In academic circles, we have a half-joking-but-not-really saying: “All Research Is Me-Search,” and Leigh Cowart’s new book has taken that dictum to titanic new heights and visceral, evocative depths.
Cowart is a former ballet dancer, a biologist who researched Pteronotus bats in the sweltering jungles of Costa Rica, and a self-described “high-sensation-seeking masochist.” They wrote this book to explore why they were like this, and whether their reasons matched up with those of so many other people who engage is painful activities of their own volition, whether for the pain itself, or the reward afterward. Full disclosure: Leigh is also my friend, but even if they weren’t, this book would have fascinated and engrossed me.
Hurts So Good is science journalism from a scientist-who-is-also-a-journalist, which means that the text is very careful in who and what it sources, citing its references, and indexing terms to be easily found and cross-referenced, while also bringing that data into clear, accessible focus. In that way, it has something for specialists and non-specialists, alike. But this book is also a memoir, and an interior exploration of one person’s relationship to pain, pleasure, and— not to sound too lofty about it— the whole human race.
The extraordinarily personal grounding of Hurts So Good is what allows this text to be more than merely exploitative voyeurism— though as the text describes, exploitative voyeurism might not necessarily be a deal-breaker for many of its subjects; just so long as they had control over when and how it proceeds and ends. And that is something Cowart makes sure to return to, again and again and again, turning it around to examine its nuances and infinitely fuzzy fractaled edges: The difference between pain that we instigate, pain that we can control, pain we know will end, pain that will have a reward, pain we can stop when and how we want… And pain that is enforced on us.
Despite the tight historical links between science and philosophy, present-day scientists often perceive philosophy as completely different from, and even antagonistic to, science. We argue here that, to the contrary, philosophy can have an important and productive impact on science.
How to Make Your Arguments Stronger (Hint: Longer Is Not the Answer)
Resist the temptation to bury people under a blizzard of evidence, says psychology researcher Niro Sivanathan. He explains why.
By Niro Savanthan
Have you ever been in a heated discussion (Breaking Badvs.The Wire; spring vs. fall; small college vs. large university; carbon offsets vs. renewable energy credits) and wanted so badly to show the other person just how wrong they were? If you’re like most of us, you tried to overwhelm your opponent with sheer quantity, to barrage them with every scrap of evidence you could think up.
“This is a groundbreaking study of normal and atypical brain developmental trajectories from day 0 to 10 years of age in a large sample of about 8,000 families,” Christina Chambers, PhD, MPH, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego.
Whaaaat!?!? An Ethologist science based LIMA trainer actually standing up for *proper* prong collar use!?!
Yes. I’m 99% R+, but have been properly educated (& maintain ongoing training & education) in operant conditioning, classical conditioning, counter conditioning, and other training & behavioral modification methods.
YES I will only use a training tool that I have first tried on myself at MAXIMUM stimulation.
YES I use LIMA methodology and will exhaust / incorporate all other methods of R+, replacement reinforcement, & other B-mod methods before introducing / increaseing tools.
YES I train so that the tools are not needed long term. It is all about teaching the dog how to be set up for communication success! Think scaffolding on a building / sculpture. Eventually you want to see the finished piece in all it’s glory. FADING TOOLS IS IMPORTANT!
ANY Training tools (be it flat collar, harness, martingale, vibration, prong, verbal cue, sign language, body language, food, leash, etc) should be used to promote healthy communication - not punishment or feed frustration - to both ends of the leash!
NOT every training tool is for every dog. The tool is not magic and I get a disturbing number of behavioral cases from humans who thought they could just slap a prong on their dog and “fix them”. THIS IS WHY TRAINING TOOLS GET A BAD RAP!! 1) The dog didnt need fixing, they needed clarity of communication. 2) Now the uneducated but well meaning human made the issue 1000x worse and my job 1000x more difficult vs if they just sought professional help with their dog from the start.
.
Personal snobbery:
@hermsprengerusa are the ONLY prong / necktech collars I’ll use. Rounded tips. High quality strong metal that doesn’t bend, warp, rust, or otherwise deteriorate into a DANGEROUS piece of trash. Dont cheap out on your gear. It isnt worth the risk.
*not sponsored but I should be*
A well fitting collar (regardless of type) and leather* leash makes a world of difference. Toss those retractable leashes and ill fitting collars in the rubbish where they belong!
* I prefer responsibly sourced leather b/c it is better on my hands, ages well & lasts FOREVER, doesn’t give me rope burns, doesn’t dry rot / deteriorate into micro plastics like vegan leather.
I just remembered that apes smile when hostile. This isn’t a happy scene. This monkey has full meter and a full screen projectile in it’s move list. This is an invitation to death.
Humans have this distress response too! If you watch the smaller of their young you will spot the occasional baring of teeth in upsetting situations. You can see this with adult humans as well, but it’s harder to catch because they have a fairly deep somatic vocabulary assigned to smiles; it is probably easiest to recognise after minor injury like stubbing a toe or receiving an injection.
It’s a lot of fun comparing how related species have related behaviours, and also neat to contrast how they have specialised them!
this is interesting but
If you watch the smaller of their young
why did you word it like that
Thanks for the question! My area of expertise is more generally avian than it is mammalian (or primate), so I don’t really know the technical nomenclature for the specific stage of human offspring development I mean to communicate.
With the vocabulary I have the closest I can get semantically is ‘mid-nestling to fledgling fresh-fallen from the nest’ but the concepts don’t quite map to how human offspring develop. Another way to phrase it is able to move around under their own power but still heavily dependent on parental intervention for survival.
Hope this helps clear things up! Have a nice day :)
You studied birds so long you forgot that the word toddler exists and I think that’s just delightful.
So funny thing with primates (especially apes) is that they “smile” in a number of ways. And it’s way more nuanced than you think. (This is what happens when an intelligent social species relies heavily on non-vocal social cues).
1.The play face smile. Here we see the relaxed open mouth with a droopy lower lip exposing the bottom teeth. Often accompanied by low guttural chimp laughter. This face is both an invitation to play and a way for individuals to check in and make sure everyone is still having a good time while playing. You younger siblings out there know how “playing” with your elder brother/sister is all well and good until “it’s Not Funny Anymore Cause That Really Hurt, Twin!!!” (No? Just me? Damn.)
2.Silent bared teeth display which can be an appeasement gesture / sign of submission as they try to avoid possible conflict. Tense mouth and at least partially exposed upper & lower teeth. This is kinda on a spectrum and go from something little like “hey that termite mound snack looks good, can I get in on that too?” all the way up to…
3.The Fear Grimace. It is what is sounds like. “I am afraid and I don’t want to fight. I’m submitting. Please don’t hurt me.” Mouth may be somewhat open, lips are tense and retracted, and teeth very visible (possibly with some partial gum exposure). See the female below on the right who is fear grimacing at her screaming friend.
4.The scream. “I’m upset and I DO NOT LIKE THIS!!!!” Fight or flight is going down and screaming animal is in the thick of it. Lips are completely retracted, full teeth & gum exposure, and mouth is open in a loud scream vocalization. See the female on the Left in the above photo as she screams at something (/someone) off camera.
5.Neutral face. Talk about going from the highest high to the lowest low. This is a chill happy primate at a low arousal state. Casual relaxed face and eyes. Not challenging anyone, but not seeking out a particular grooming/play buddy either. Just watching the world go by for a bit.
This is just a general example of the gorgeously nuanced field of facial communication in primates. If I had to pick (without audio / video / context clues) I would say the bonobo in the OP is doing a silent bared teeth display begging for something towards shore (thus the extended hand) possibly edging more towards a fear grimace. They aren’t exhibiting any overt aggression, but that by no means makes them safe to be around.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Love,
Your friendly neighborhood Ethologist / Primatologist
Sources:
Marina Davila-Ross, Goncalo Jesus, Jade Osborne, Kim A. Bard. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Produce the Same Types of ‘Laugh Faces’ when They Emit Laughter and when They Are Silent. PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (6): e0127337 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127337.
Parr LA, Waller BM. Understanding chimpanzee facial expression: insights into the evolution of communication. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2006;1(3):221-228. doi:10.1093/scan/nsl031.
We couldn’t have language without the brain, but our brains are a bit harder to study than other parts of the body that we use to make languages like our mouths and hands. In this episode of Crash Course Linguistics, we’ll learn about the field that studies where and how language happens in the brain, called psycholinguistics. We’ll cover old and new research in the field, classic studies, and the methods psycholinguists use to uncover the connections between language and the brain.
In academic circles, we have a half-joking-but-not-really saying: “All Research Is Me-Search,” and Leigh Cowart’s new book has taken that dictum to titanic new heights and visceral, evocative depths.
Cowart is a former ballet dancer, a biologist who researched Pteronotus bats in the sweltering jungles of Costa Rica, and a self-described “high-sensation-seeking masochist.” They wrote this book to explore why they were like this, and whether their reasons matched up with those of so many other people who engage is painful activities of their own volition, whether for the pain itself, or the reward afterward. Full disclosure: Leigh is also my friend, but even if they weren’t, this book would have fascinated and engrossed me.
Hurts So Good is science journalism from a scientist-who-is-also-a-journalist, which means that the text is very careful in who and what it sources, citing its references, and indexing terms to be easily found and cross-referenced, while also bringing that data into clear, accessible focus. In that way, it has something for specialists and non-specialists, alike. But this book is also a memoir, and an interior exploration of one person’s relationship to pain, pleasure, and— not to sound too lofty about it— the whole human race.
The extraordinarily personal grounding of Hurts So Good is what allows this text to be more than merely exploitative voyeurism— though as the text describes, exploitative voyeurism might not necessarily be a deal-breaker for many of its subjects; just so long as they had control over when and how it proceeds and ends. And that is something Cowart makes sure to return to, again and again and again, turning it around to examine its nuances and infinitely fuzzy fractaled edges: The difference between pain that we instigate, pain that we can control, pain we know will end, pain that will have a reward, pain we can stop when and how we want… And pain that is enforced on us.
I know it’s been literal years since I posted on here*, but wow, am I glad to be back!
1) Where have you been, man?
Well, basically - I was testing myself and seeing if my theory on procrastination was any good. tl;dr: I’d say so? I finished my BA in English Literature and Linguistics, I founded a Creative Writing Society, I published three anthologies, I got my first real job as a translator and worked at as an independent contractor at a company for three years, I slept a WHOLE lot and I successfully applied for my Masters in Cognitive Science. Right now, I’m enjoying the hell out of my CogSci classes and trying to figure out whether my procrastination thesis holds up not just to personal experience, but also to scientific scrutiny. But most importantly: I had a ball. It’s been a tough few years on a personal level, so I was really grateful to have my productivity and creativity to help me make sense of life in the eye of the storm. And I’d like to help you do the same :)
2) Will you finish your “How to be a good student (again)” series?
I’m certainly planning to! In fact, this is related to the next question.
3) So how about that YouTube channel…?
It’s happening ~ I’ve finally managed to carve out some free time every week for this and I’m very excited about it! I’m thinking old-school, low-budget, cosy-in-your-bedroom YouTube? 1) Because I miss it, 2) because I like it, and 3) because I literally can’t afford anything else.
And this is where you come in!
I’d like to work my way up to the last “How to be a good student (again)” post (in the form of a video), so I’d like to practice my editing, voice-over, etc. skills with smaller, shorter videos on a variety of topics. My head is exploding with ideas, so please let me know which you’d be most interested in - and please suggest topics you think would be cool, as well! This is what I have so far:
Study Advice (obv “How to be a good student (again)”, but also my Notion/Calendar set-up, weekly habits, Building Habits for People Who Hate Habits, balancing work/study & life, Study With Me’s, etc.)
Manga/Anime(An Essay on the Ghibli Generation, Best Detectives in Anime, Best Female-Led Manga/Anime, Best Underrated Manga/Anime (including, but not limited to, Kino’s Journey, Mushishi, Bokurano, Oyasumi Pyun Pyun, the Promised Neverland (WHAT are they doing with the anime??) and the Magic World of Kai), All the Japanese You Learned from Anime, Opinions™ on Detective Conan, etc)
Videogames (Best Otome/Dating Games with Actual Storylines and Fleshed-Out Characters, Underrated Indie Games, On the Magic of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Games/Novels, Best Puzzle Games, Too Many Thoughts on Dragon Age, The Cosiest Games for a Tea and Socks Evening, maybe even Let’s Plays?)
MBTI/Cognitive Functions (Best INTP/INTJ/ISFJ/etc anime/book/series characters, A series on NT characters in anime in general and why they contributed to attracting nerds (like myself) to anime over other art forms, INFP Characters in Anime I Admire And Fear, Why Cognitive Functions Are Superior to MBTI, My Paper on the Scientific Validity of Cognitive Functions, etc)
Cognitive Science (CogSci Concepts that Completely Changed the Way I Look At the World, What Optical Illusions Tell Us About Our Brain, What is Cognitive Science and why is it Detectives?, A novice’s look at Artificial Intelligence, etc)
Books(On the Superiority of Agatha Christie’s Plotlines, Why the Literary Sherlock Holmes is the Best Sherlock Holmes, The Genius Action of Red Rising, Best Underrated Books, Great Books By Marginalised Authors, My Favourite Poems, Opinions™ on Popular Book Series, maybe some of my own poetry/ readings of my bedtime stories for kids, Creative Writing Advice, etc)
Random Info Dumps on Whatever I am Interested in This Week
Artsy Swoosh-Swoosh Whoa Videos
(Oh, and I’d also like to make a video on The Symbolism in “Whisper of the Heart” (where anime study girl below is from) because it’s near and dear to my heart)
And that’s about it! I’d also like to kick things off with a Q&A, so please send me any and all questions (and I mean ANY and ALL questions) to my askbox over here and I’ll get into it on my channel over there.
(That being said, I’ve been gone for a loooong time, so I wouldn’t at all be suprised or offended if only two or three of you are left to look at this post. (…tell me, is the “studyblr” tag even still a thing? Or is it something else now? “studycore”? “quarantisophia”? “Cosy Academia”?) Anyway, to ye veterans that are still around, I’d just like to say: thank you. Thank you for sticking around and for giving this ol’ blog another shot! And to y’all spring chickens - happy to have y’all on board! :D)
Have a good one, Study in Style
*except for the Supernatural rant post which was vital for my continued existence on a three-dimensional plane
I know it’s been literal years since I posted on here*, but wow, am I glad to be back!
1) Where have you been, man?
Well, basically - I was testing myself and seeing if my theory on procrastination was any good. tl;dr: I’d say so? I finished my BA in English Literature and Linguistics, I founded a Creative Writing Society, I published three anthologies, I got my first real job as a translator and worked at as an independent contractor at a company for three years, I slept a WHOLE lot and I successfully applied for my Masters in Cognitive Science. Right now, I’m enjoying the hell out of my CogSci classes and trying to figure out whether my procrastination thesis holds up not just to personal experience, but also to scientific scrutiny. But most importantly: I had a ball. It’s been a tough few years on a personal level, so I was really grateful to have my productivity and creativity to help me make sense of life in the eye of the storm. And I’d like to help you do the same :)
2) Will you finish your “How to be a good student (again)” series?
I’m certainly planning to! In fact, this is related to the next question.
3) So how about that YouTube channel…?
It’s happening ~ I’ve finally managed to carve out some free time every week for this and I’m very excited about it! I’m thinking old-school, low-budget, cosy-in-your-bedroom YouTube? 1) Because I miss it, 2) because I like it, and 3) because I literally can’t afford anything else.
And this is where you come in!
I’d like to work my way up to the last “How to be a good student (again)” post (in the form of a video), so I’d like to practice my editing, voice-over, etc. skills with smaller, shorter videos on a variety of topics. My head is exploding with ideas, so please let me know which you’d be most interested in - and please suggest topics you think would be cool, as well! This is what I have so far:
Study Advice (obv “How to be a good student (again)”, but also my Notion/Calendar set-up, weekly habits, Building Habits for People Who Hate Habits, balancing work/study & life, Study With Me’s, etc.)
Manga/Anime(An Essay on the Ghibli Generation, Best Detectives in Anime, Best Female-Led Manga/Anime, Best Underrated Manga/Anime (including, but not limited to, Kino’s Journey, Mushishi, Bokurano, Oyasumi Pyun Pyun, the Promised Neverland (WHAT are they doing with the anime??) and the Magic World of Kai), All the Japanese You Learned from Anime, Opinions™ on Detective Conan, etc)
Videogames (Best Otome/Dating Games with Actual Storylines and Fleshed-Out Characters, Underrated Indie Games, On the Magic of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Games/Novels, Best Puzzle Games, Too Many Thoughts on Dragon Age, The Cosiest Games for a Tea and Socks Evening, maybe even Let’s Plays?)
MBTI/Cognitive Functions (Best INTP/INTJ/ISFJ/etc anime/book/series characters, A series on NT characters in anime in general and why they contributed to attracting nerds (like myself) to anime over other art forms, INFP Characters in Anime I Admire And Fear, Why Cognitive Functions Are Superior to MBTI, My Paper on the Scientific Validity of Cognitive Functions, etc)
Cognitive Science (CogSci Concepts that Completely Changed the Way I Look At the World, What Optical Illusions Tell Us About Our Brain, What is Cognitive Science and why is it Detectives?, A novice’s look at Artificial Intelligence, etc)
Books(On the Superiority of Agatha Christie’s Plotlines, Why the Literary Sherlock Holmes is the Best Sherlock Holmes, The Genius Action of Red Rising, Best Underrated Books, Great Books By Marginalised Authors, My Favourite Poems, Opinions™ on Popular Book Series, maybe some of my own poetry/ readings of my bedtime stories for kids, Creative Writing Advice, etc)
Random Info Dumps on Whatever I am Interested in This Week
Artsy Swoosh-Swoosh Whoa Videos
(Oh, and I’d also like to make a video on The Symbolism in “Whisper of the Heart” (where anime study girl below is from) because it’s near and dear to my heart)
And that’s about it! I’d also like to kick things off with a Q&A, so please send me any and all questions (and I mean ANY and ALL questions) to my askbox over here and I’ll get into it on my channel over there.
(That being said, I’ve been gone for a loooong time, so I wouldn’t at all be suprised or offended if only two or three of you are left to look at this post. (…tell me, is the “studyblr” tag even still a thing? Or is it something else now? “studycore”? “quarantisophia”? “Cosy Academia”?) Anyway, to ye veterans that are still around, I’d just like to say: thank you. Thank you for sticking around and for giving this ol’ blog another shot! And to y’all spring chickens - happy to have y’all on board! :D)
Have a good one, Study in Style
*except for the Supernatural rant post which was vital for my continued existence on a three-dimensional plane
