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ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN COMPASSION — Neanderthals had feelings too, researchers say
“Spikins and colleagues have embarked on what they call the “unique challenge” of charting the development of human compassion. They studied archaeological evidence for the way emotions, as they claim, began to emerge in our early ancestors and then developed to more recent humans such as Neanderthals and ourselves. The research by Spikins, Andy Needham and Holly Rutherford is published in the research journal Time and Mind.”
“In modern humans starting 120,000 years ago, compassion was extended to strangers, animals, objects and abstract concepts, according to the Spikins group’s model.
“Compassion is perhaps the most fundamental human emotion. It binds us together and can inspire us but it is also fragile and elusive,” Spikins said. “This apparent fragility makes addressing the evidence for the development of compassion in our most ancient ancestors a unique challenge, yet the archaeological record has an important story to tell.”
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By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
“Neuroscience research has shown that similar brain regions are involved when we think about the behavior of both humans and of nonhuman entities, suggesting that anthropomorphism may be using similar processes as those used for thinking about other people.
Anthropomorphism carries many important implications. For example, thinking of a nonhuman entity in human ways renders it worthy of moral care and consideration. In addition, anthropomorphized entities become responsible for their own actions — that is, they become deserving of punishment and reward.
Although we like to anthropomorphize, we do not assign human qualities to each and every single object we encounter. What accounts for this selectivity? One factor is similarity. An entity is more likely to be anthropomorphized if it appears to have many traits similar to those of humans (for example, through humanlike movements or physical features such as a face).”
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How Much Babies Know
Emily Sohn
“Scientists who specialize in brain development do agree on one thing: The ways in which babies sort objects into groups is a key sign of brain development.”
“Infants are learning how things move around in the world by watching their caretakers do actions and then deciding which things are like those objects, based on having the same parts,” Rakison says. “Then, they model the action.”
Young infants will learn nearly anything, Rakison says. As they get older, they become less likely to accept scenarios that don’t make sense—like cows with wheels or cars that hop.
Certain categories, however, may be so important that even very young infants learn them quickly. In his most recent experiments, Rakison showed spidery images to 5- and 9-month-olds.
The babies looked longer at realistic-looking spiders than at squished or scrambled spiderlike shapes. Babies as young as 10 months were also quicker to respond with fear to fake snakes and spiders than they were to cute stuffed rabbits, even when researchers acted as if they themselves feared the fluffy toys.
The results suggest that babies are born with some sense of what spiders and snakes are. “I’m not saying that they know [these animals are] bad or scary or dangerous,” Rakison says. “They’re simply prepared to learn.”
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Your Brilliant Baby in Week 22: Knowing Which Objects Move Themselves
Baby’s Brain in Week 22
“By now your baby is paying close attention to how people and animals, as compared to objects, move. Baby realizes that animate objects (you, the cat, her big brother) move on their own, and inanimate objects (her binky, chairs, the balls she loves to watch roll) move only when carried, pushed, pulled, or tossed by an external agent. Baby seems driven to understand that animate objects engage in self-motion and that inanimate objects don’t.”
Your Brilliant Baby in Week 33: Discovering Which Objects Bump!
Baby’s Brain in Week 33
“By now, Baby has a firmer grasp on how the world gets around. She understands how people and animals move as compared to balls and toy cars. She’s likely surmised that animate objects don’t necessarily move in straight lines but may change direction without any obvious force acting upon them (although no, she doesn’t get that whole “free will” concept yet). And she seems to understand that a person has the capacity to look like he is going to get a drink or water but then changes course and turns on the computer instead.”
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(Scroll down past the video for the very nice outline of infant brain development!)
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ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2000)
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OXYTOCIN
A natural hormone boosts social skills for autistic patients
By Michael Rosenwald
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‘Cuddle chemical’ could treat mental illness
Maia Szalavitz
“Overall, oxytocin’s role in the brain appears to be to link social contact with pleasure. Without it, social species could not function. This, of course, includes humans. Evidence is emerging that oxytocin plays a central role in many aspects of human life, including romantic and social interactions and parenting. “It’s the glue of society, so simple yet so profound,” says Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies in Claremont, California.”
“Eric Hollander of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York is studying what happens when you give oxytocin to autistic adults. He has found that it improves their ability to recognise emotions like happiness and anger in people’s tone of voice, something autistic people struggle with. A single intravenous infusion produced improvements that lasted two weeks (Biological Psychiatry, vol 61, p 498).
Hollander has also found that oxytocin increases his volunteers’ ability to recognise faces and interpret emotional expressions. Prior studies have already shown that when autistic people see faces, they activate brain areas normally used to recognise inanimate objects. Hollander says his preliminary results show that when given oxytocin intravenously, autistic people are more able to recruit the normal face-recognition area, the fusiform gyrus. Oxytocin also reduced their repetitive behaviours.”
“One argument for starting oxytocin treatment early in a child’s life is that it appears to play a crucial role in brain development during infancy, helping babies learn to associate social contact with calmness and pleasure. For example, rats that receive more grooming from their mothers are better able to manage social stress. “In rats which get lots of attention from mom, there is a higher level of oxytocin in certain parts of the brain than in those that get less. These are systems shaped by early life experience,” says Young.
Zak adds: “We find in animal studies that if the mother neglects the baby, the number of oxytocin receptors atrophies.” Similarly, studies of monkeys raised without mothers find that they have lower oxytocin levels than monkeys reared normally.
The influence of oxytocin on mother-infant attachment can be seen in humans, too. Children who suffer severe early neglect – for example, raised without individual attention in a bare orphanage – often have symptoms indistinguishable from those of autism. A 2005 study found that children who had spent the first few months or years of their lives in a Romanian orphanage had lower than normal oxytocin responses to contact with their adoptive mothers (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 102, p 17237).
As a result of such work, Hollander is interested to see whether oxytocin can help alleviate disorders associated with early neglect. One of these is borderline personality disorder, which is overwhelmingly associated with childhood trauma. People with this disorder have severe relationship problems, find social stress difficult to cope with and rejection unbearable.
If oxytocin can help treat borderline personality disorder, then it could help rescue abused and neglected children from a lifetime of mental health problems. These children are at higher risk of developing virtually every psychiatric illness, from post-traumatic stress disorder to addiction, depression, anxiety disorders, antisocial personality disorder and schizophrenia.”
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‘WILD CHILD’
By Maya Pines
Wild Child Speechless After Tortured Life
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Extinct and Endangered Animals
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Tigers could be extinct in 12 years if unprotected
By IRINA TITOVA, Associated Press Irina Titova, Associated Press – Sun Nov 21, 7:26 pm ET
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching, global wildlife experts told a “tiger summit” Sunday.
The World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild, a dramatic plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.
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Published on Thursday, July 15, 2010 by The Independent/UK
Hudson Bay Polar Bears ‘Could Soon Be Extinct’
by Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
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World Wildlife Fund – Almost a quarter of the world’s animals are in danger of extinction
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Should pandas be left to face extinction?
*UPDATE* – Pandas To Go Extinct (Hopefully!)
— (Not my opinion, obviously!)
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Stop the Storm 