False positives: fraud and misconduct are threatening scientific research | Science. Dirk Smeesters had spent several years of his career as a social psychologist at Erasmus University in Rotterdam studying how consumers behaved in different situations. Did colour have an effect on what they bought? How did death-related stories in the media affect how people picked products? And was it better to use supermodels in cosmetics adverts than average-looking women? The questions are certainly intriguing, but unfortunately for anyone wanting truthful answers, some of Smeesters' work turned out to be fraudulent. The psychologist, who admitted "massaging" the data in some of his papers, resigned from his position in June after being investigated by his university, which had been tipped off by Uri Simonsohn from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Simonsohn carried out an independent analysis of the data and was suspicious of how perfect many of Smeesters' results seemed when, statistically speaking, there should have been more variation in his measurements. False positives: fraud and misconduct are threatening scientific research | Science.
A prospective, randomised, controlled study exam... [Anaesthesia. 2005. Pre-operative anxiety is common and often significant. Ambulatory surgery challenges our pre-operative goal of an anxiety-free patient by requiring people to be 'street ready' within a brief period of time after surgery. Recently, it has been demonstrated that music can be used successfully to relieve patient anxiety before operations, and that audio embedded with tones that create binaural beats within the brain of the listener decreases subjective levels of anxiety in patients with chronic anxiety states. We measured anxiety with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaire and compared binaural beat audio (Binaural Group) with an identical soundtrack but without these added tones (Audio Group) and with a third group who received no specific intervention (No Intervention Group). Mean [95% confidence intervals] decreases in anxiety scores were 26.3%[19-33%] in the Binaural Group (p = 0.001 vs.
A high-density EEG investigation into steady state ... [PLoS One. 2012. Binaural beats. Digital drugs emergency – paging Dr. Beat. USA Today has an unintentionally hilarious article on the dangers of ‘digital drugs’ that can supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol, marijuana, LSD, crack, heroin, sex, heaven and hell. Woohoo! I hear you shout, before realising the article is actually a woefully misinformed piece about binaural beats, a fascinating but harmless phenomenon when two pure tones of close but differing frequencies are played, one in each ear. This can produce a perception of a pulse or a ‘beat’ which isn’t actually present in the sound but is a result of our brain making sense of the tones. You need headphones to get the effect properly and there’s a couple of examples on the Wikipedia page (ignore the ‘hypothetical effects on brain function’ section though, it’s currently full of drivel and miscited experiments).
Actually, there are a minority of people who can have their state of consciousness altered by flashes of light at certain frequencies. There’s plenty more great entertainment in the article. Binaural beat technology in ... [J Altern Complement Med. 2007 Jan-Feb. Introduction: Binaural beat technology (BBT) products are sold internationally as personal development and health improvement tools. Producers suggest benefit from regular listening to binaural beats including reduced stress and anxiety, and increased focus, concentration, motivation, confidence, and depth in meditation.
Binaural beats are auditory brainstem responses that originate in the superior olivary nucleus as a result of different frequency auditory stimuli provided to each ear. Listeners to binaural beat "hear" a beat at a frequency equal to the difference between the frequencies of the applied tones. Objectives: The objectives of this pilot study were to gather preliminary data on psychologic and physiologic effects of 60 days daily use of BBT for hypothesis generation and to assess compliance, feasibility, and safety for future studies.
Design: Uncontrolled pilot study. Subjects: Eight healthy adults participated in the study. Tracking EEG changes in response to alph... [Int J Psychophysiol. 2012. A binaural beat can be produced by presenting two tones of a differing frequency, one to each ear. Such auditory stimulation has been suggested to influence behaviour and cognition via the process of cortical entrainment. However, research so far has only shown the frequency following responses in the traditional EEG frequency ranges of delta, theta and gamma. Hence a primary aim of this research was to ascertain whether it would be possible to produce clear changes in the EEG in either the alpha or beta frequency ranges. Such changes, if possible, would have a number of important implications as well as potential applications. Keywords: Alpha; Beta; Binaural beat; EEG; Entrainment. What evidence is there, if any, that binaural beat technology is beneficial.