Up and Down

This is an important week. I have a self-imposed deadline to notify my current employer of my final decision about Australia by Friday. On Monday my good friend and Chair of the department pulled out all the stops to try to get me to stay. But the following day, in a rebuttal of sorts to those persuasive attempts, a senior colleague told me a version of events he had heard about why I am leaving, which included a load of crap that stirred up all sorts of lousy memories of the past seven years. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law has been visiting from England. I had to make a very early morning trip to the airport so that she could fly to Jamaica...twice. She missed her first flight on Tuesday so I had to roll out of bed the next day at 4:30 to try again. She will be coming back to Atlanta in two weeks. Yesterday I spent three hours getting our application for our permanent residency visas ready and sent it off by Global Express. In addition, a moving company came to the house to give an official estimate for The Big Move we plan to make in a month. So far this week we have had one viewing of the house by a potential buyer that probably lasted 5 minutes tops! But, we did receive some very good news this week... our temporary visas were approved on Monday night, so that means we can start working once we have landed.

As things get finalized (or "finalised," as they spell it Down Under!), the bouts of anxiety, sadness, and regret have become more frequent. Fortunately, we found a great website about Australian tourism that has a wonderful (but controversial) ad called "So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?" Both Vikki and I are finding it to be the perfect booster shot for morale...

A Wondrously Venomous and Toothy Country

We are about to leave Atlanta with its troublesome squirrels and gentle deer to go to a place with a few more natural challenges.

I was re-reading Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburnt Country" last night when I came upon this vivid description of the "delicate and diaphanous" box jellyfish, which lives along the shores of Queensland during the summer:

In 1992 a young man in Cairns, ignoring all the warning signs, went swimming in the Pacific waters at a place called Holloways Beach. He swam and dove, taunting his friends on the beach for their prudent cowardice, and then began to scream with an inhuman sound. It is said that there is no pain to compare with it. The young man staggered from the water, covered in livid whiplike stripes wherever the jellyfish's tentacles had brushed across him, and collapsed in quivering shock. Soon afterward emergency crews arrived, inflated him with morphine, and took him away for treatment. And here's the thing. Even unconscious and sedated, he was still screaming.

Good news! This will not be the only jellyfish to worry about in our new land. The Irukandji jellyfish, a highly venomous creature only about an inch long, was recently spotted in Hervey Bay (near Brisbane), forcing the filming of a new movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson to move to a safer location. I also found this story about a recent stinging by one of these little critters in a pool in Townsville. I like how the story reports that the teenage girl was "severely stung," but there is no other word about her condition. I guess "still alive" is considered good enough.

And then there are the pythons. Apparently they are commonly found around Brisbane, although pythons are not one of the 14 species of Australian snakes that are poisonous. When I was at a group dinner last October, one of the staff at UQ told me about the python that once slithered up on his veranda while everyone was enjoying the sun, including his cat. A few minutes later there was a muffled scream--his cat was being crushed by the snake. The End. Everyone at my table (all Australians) chuckled at this story and then went on sipping their wine.

The Promise of Something Better

As I write this we have about as many days to go before The Big Move as the characters on "Lost" have been wandering around that enormous island with those scary spiders and beautiful beaches.

I was recently asked on the Yanks Down Under forum to elaborate about a comment I made. I had stated that we are moving to Brisbane because of "the promise of something better." What does this mean? Well, first there is the job at UQ. It certainly is better for me both professionally and personally. Professionally, it's going to reconnect me to my research interests and give me much more time to concentrate on my lab, write articles, and maybe even read! Personally, this job should give me some more time to spend with my wife and son as well.

Besides the job, there is the promise of many other things too...the adventure that includes experiencing a different culture and country (for at least a few years), being near the ocean once again, the relative safety and better quality of life in Brisbane (compared to most major cities in the U.S.), being able to have a short commute to work (I am hoping that I can walk to my office from home), a slower pace of life, a more family-centric society, the possibility of traveling to other places "nearby," the shedding of all the junk we have accumuated back in the States, a chance to re-energize our lives, and a place where Victoria can reconnect with her British roots.

Besides, it will be a real treat to hear Will say one day, "No worries, mate!"

Split Personality Blogging

I have had a hard time trying to write this next blog entry, although I have thought of dozens of things to write about in the past week. I believe the problem is that I don't have a strong enough focus for this blog. Currently it's devoted to talking about social neuroscience and related academic issues, but I'm more inclined to write about other things that catch my fancy, such as our move to Oz in a few months. And then there's the issue of my intended "audience." Do I really want to talk to other academics exclusively, or am I more interested in having my family and friends read these entires? Or, do I have any intention of attracting a regular audience of any type?!

The answers to these questions will be sorted out in the coming weeks. I think at present I am going to make it a more personal blog, and leave the more academic aspects to my lab website , which has its own blog about journal articles, etc. I also want to invite my close friends and family to this blog after a few more entries, so that I can bring them along in our travels. Thanks to "Tori" for this suggestion!

Acting Out

One of the expat blogs in Oz I enjoy reading is kittenDownUnder, which is authored by a woman who has written some honest, from-the-gut entries about what it's like to migrate to the other side of the Pacific. In her most recent entry she laments how little her friends and family have corresponded with her since she moved, and that gets me a bit worried. You see, I can already sense how my own friends and family are starting to "act out" about our impending move. Some have reacted as if I told them I have a terminal disease. Others have expressed how happy they are for us, but also admit they are feeling angry about our decision. One friend disclosed to another some confidential information I had shared, presumably because it won't matter because I will be gone in a few months anyway. Another friend is holding me personally responsible for her lack of sleep and loss of happiness over all this. Gawd! Is it any wonder that Australia is looking more appealing now? But honestly, as "kitten" indicates, I know that I am going to have some bouts of the blues once I get there and realize that this part of my life, including my current batch of friends and maybe even some relationships with relatives, is over. I am already starting to miss all of this, and I haven't packed a box yet.

For Your Reading Pleasure

Despite its original intent, this blog hasn't had much to say about social neuroscience (SN) lately. Perhaps it's because I have been a little preoccupied with plans to move to the other side of the planet?! Anyway, three SN-relevant books have recently found their way to my home, and I hope to write complete reviews of them in the next six months (what a weak promise!).

The first is co-edited by the granddaddy of SN himself, John Cacioppo, as well as Penny Visser and Cindy Pickett : Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People, published by MIT Press. Despite the corny title, this one contains original chapters by many of the leaders of contemporary social neuroscience.

The second represents a more "junior" group of social neuroscientists: Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and Piotr Winkielman. There is quite a bit of overlap in the list of authors and chapters between this book and the Cacioppo, Visser, and Pickett one. I am more excited about this one, however, as it has a broader coverage of topics and includes some people who appear to have been overlooked by Cacioppo et al.

The third book every budding social neuroscientist should own is the third edition of the classic Handbook of Psychophysiology, edited by Cacioppo, Tassinary, and Berntson. My complimentary copy arrived just this week (check out the chapter on facial EMG--I'm a co-author!). My first impressions are that this one is going to be much easier to carry around, as opposed to that 12-pound monolith that was the second edition...

The Secret That Got Away

Well, it's no longer a secret to the people that matter most to me here in the States. I have told nearly everyone that would be affected that we are moving to Oz, and it's quite a relief. Today's big reveal was to my six graduate students, who, while very supportive of my decision, looked quite stunned as they walked away. You see, my current dean will not allow me to stay on in an unpaid capacity for the coming year so that I could direct them while they finish off their dissertations and theses. Instead, the most I can hope for is to play the role of "consultant" or "external committee member" on their projects. They are left trying to figure out who will be their next mentor, and, more importantly, what they will do once our Social Neuroscience lab is shut down in '08.

On a more positive note, our son Will has started pointing to objects when asked about where they are. He can now identify a plastic butterfly, the lights, the TV, the clock, and each of his parents when prompted. How can such simply activities appear to be so miraculous? I guess only parents can really appreciate "the little stuff!"

Psyched Down Under

That's a picture of my new workplace (in about three months) taken last October at the University of Queensland. The School of Psychology is huge compared to my current department at Georgia State. My new position will be in biological psychology, but it will have clear connections to the social psych folks, making this a truly "social neuroscience" position. I'm excited about all the new colleagues I'm going to have, although I will be leaving some great ones behind in Atlanta.

I got a lot accomplished this week towards our move, including telling most of my family members about what's about to take place. I also discovered that the wait time for an employer-sponsored permanent working visa could be as long as 5 months, so I'm simultaneously applying for a temporary visa (processing time=2 months). I also began the many steps in getting our cat, Sammy, ready for the move. Yesterday she was microchipped (a chip about the size of a grain of rice was injected between her shoulder blades) and given her rabies and other vaccinations. We go back in 30 days for rabies titre test that will then need to be approved by a USDA official in Conyers, GA.

In the meantime I worry about getting the house sold and timing everything just right in terms of the shipping dates, selling our stuff, and flying to Oz. Thank goodness I have our little family as a source of comfort!

Brisbane, Here We Come!

It's official! We are moving to Brisbane, Australia this summer. In case you have never moved to another country before (like my wife has), you need to know that there is a freaking huge amount of things to do:
-sell the house in 3 months
-sell nearly everything we own, as we don't have much of a budget to move things
-get rid of nearly all the electrical appliances
-apply for visas (which begins with fingerprinting and FBI background checks)
-get quotes from different international moving companies
-figure out how to transfer money and maintain U.S. accounts after we leave
-get our cat ready for the quarantine process
-enjoying our last chances of eating good Tex-Mex (but looking forward to an abundance of excellent Indian food)
-telling everyone we know that we are going to the other side of the planet, and then waving them all goodbye
and trying to "smell the roses" along the way.
Oh my!!

*I took the picture above in Oct 2006 from a cafe in South Bank, along the Brisbane river. Australia is incredibly caffeine-friendly...

Back in the Saddle...

After a six month absence, I'm gearing up to revitalize this blog. The next few months are going to involve a lot of transition (more details very soon!), and what a great place for me to document it!

-Eric

I want one of those!

Watching Rocketboom(2.0) the other day, I was intrigued about a new device that must be debuting at Siggraph in Boston right now. It's kind of like a pair of roller skates that can be used in immersive virtual environments. One current limitation to IVET is that people are confined to walking the dimensions of the physical room in which the technology resides. Until now, the best solution has been to have people move to a treadmill to walk the distances, but this isn't very natural and limits the direction where one wants to go. While I was at the New Scientist article about the Japanese skates, I also found a link to a large virtual reality lab in Switzerland. This place is cool...

Explaining the Middle East

Dan Gilbert, a social psychologist at Harvard, had an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday. Using the childhood example of punching his brother in the backseat, Gilbert hypothesized about two basic principles of retaliatory behavior. First, in a typical hit-for-tat, the number of hits should be an even number (e.g., you hit me three times, so I hit you three times). Second, as Gilbert puts it, "an even-numbered punch may be no more forceful than the odd-numbered punch that preceded it." However, people often ignore this second principle. He illustrates this point by reporting the results of a study by Shergill et al. (2003) in Science. Titled "Two Eyes for an Eye: The Neuroscience of Force Escalation," in this study twelve participants took turns applying pressure to a partner's finger. They were instructed to apply the same pressure that their partner gave them, but an analysis of the force pressure they produced showed otherwise. Soon the pair would escalate the pressure each member would give the other, apparently believing that they were exerting less force than they actually were (as an aside, I wonder what makes this a "neuroscience" study--I guess it's just a sexy word that Science can't resist). Gilbert applies this finding to explain why Israel (and I guess, Hezbollah) has responded "disproportionately" with its heavy bombing. Of course, real world situations are far more complicated that the controlled conditions of a laboratory, but I appreciate Gilbert's attempt to show the relevance of social psychological thinking to current events.

Virtual Life

OK, I confess. I watch "Big Brother" on CBS every summer. And with this summer's "All-Star" edition, I won't be giving up this nasty little habit this year either. I always tell my students that it's the perfect environment for a social psychologist--people trapped together for several days with only miminal contact from the outside world. Occasionally something interesting happens on the show that is unpredictable and not under the control of the producers. My colleagues in behavioral neuroscience get to do this kind of thing with their rats and hamsters all the time. In addition, I like reading the TVClubhouse bulletin board, in which fans of the show discuss every aspect of the social drama going on inside the house. (By the way, I'm rooting for Chicken George, who is from one of my hometowns).

The relatively controlled social environment of shows like this is also what attracts me to new developments in virtual environments and other computer simulations. That's why PhD student Alecks Krotoski's Social Sim blog is right up my alley. Among his activities, Alecks is collecting data about social networks formed in Second Life. What is Second Life? A good answer is posted at the website: "Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by 321,127 people from around the globe." I have spent a couple of hours on Second Life, but have severely limited my time on there (after all, I already waste three hours a week watching "BB," right?). It's really the next Big Thing in social interaction, and it's ripe with interesting questions to study as a social scientist. It certainly has the capacity to create experimental situations that could be manipulated with random assignment. Someone just has to figure out how to get informed consent from subjects and, of course, IRB approval.

In the meantime my lab group is starting a program of research in immersive virtual environment technology (IVET). Jim Blascovich at UCSB ran an NSF-sponsored summer training program in IVET for three years at his RecVEB, sowing the seeds for what could be an exciting chapter in social psychology. For some great examples of what can be done with this, check out Jeremy Bailenson's lab at Stanford. I'll be reporting on our own lab's work with IVET as it progresses, or you can check out our lab's web site throughout the next few months.

Sex in Social Neuroscience Sells Too

As one of my earlier posts pointed out, "social neuroscience" is as sexy to some social scientists as Amanda Congdon is to some vlogophiles. Personally, I've been studying the relationship of human social behavior to bodily processes since the days when Martha Quinn was the hottest VJ on MTV. The topic was sexy then, but it was all about using Grass polygraphs in the laboratory to measure cardiac activity, EEG, and facial EMG. Those were heady days in Cacioppo's lab at the University of Iowa, which even included getting our Apple II protocols to run on IBM PCs. I still think the research of that era had more scientific bang for the buck than today's expensive fMRI studies.

With two journals now devoted exclusively to social neuroscience (or "social cognitive neuroscience" as the Lieberman crowd likes to call it!), and still plenty of other prestigious outlets (e.g., Nature Neuroscience, JPSP, Science, etc.) available, can our plucky little field really produce enough good research to fill all those pages? Of course not. But that doesn't stop people from putting out a press release each time they conduct a study with blinking lights and powerful magnets. Some researchers are especially notorious for their press releases, so I was relieved to see that there are bloggers out there ready to give those flashy studies a thorough review (even if the journal's reviewers did not!). A great recent example is the critique by Chris at Mixing Memory of a new study on person perception by Jason Mitchell, Neil Macrae and Mahzarin Banaji in the May issue of Neuron. I have to admit that I have not read the study yet, but this critique makes some excellent points that could apply to other human imaging studies in social psychology as well (a new study from Susan Fiske's lab at Princeton comes to mind!). You should also read the discussion of this study in BRAINETHICS as well. When I get a chance to read the Mitchell et al. study, I'll write an update. This post is simply to express my gratitude for the development of science blogs and the willingness of intelligent bloggers to write such critiques.

Scooter

See that blur there?! That's the newest addition to our family! I have maintained acquariums on and off since I was a teen, but have never successfully bred and raised a fish. Most of the time I can't tell when a fish is pregnant (let alone what sex it is!), and therefore the "fry" are usually eaten up by the time I discover anything happened. Well, this time I was lucky. One of the fry must have been sucked up the filtering tube and was living in the external filter basket where I discovered him on a recent cleaning. He's a little zebrafish (Danio rerio) now living safely in a breeding container that floats at the top of the aquarium. As far as I can tell, it looks like he'll have to be there about a month. There are three possible parents in the tank. None appears ready for parenthood.

The Seduction of Social Neuroscience

Seedmagazine.com has an interesting story about Elizabeth Gould at Princeton University. Her work with marmosets suggests that poverty and stress cause such profound changes during neurogenesis that the brain doesn’t have much of a chance to recover later in life. Of course, one should be careful not to overinterpret this kind of work as far humans go, but it is thought-provoking nevertheless.

In a more recent Seed article, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom writes about how fMRI images are seducing scientists, grant committees, and the public. On why fMRI is so seductive, Bloom writes, “It has all the trappings of work with great lab-cred: big, expensive, and potentially dangerous machines, hospitals and medical centers, and a lot of people in white coats.“ He also mentions a study by one of his graduate students, Deena Skolnick, who found that both neuroscience novices and cognitive neuroscientists rated otherwise bad scientific explanations as more satisfactory when a little neuroscience jargon was thrown in. Bloom sounds like such a sensible guy, and I noticed that he's recently written a book with an intriguing title: Descartes' baby: How the science of child development explains what makes us human (New York: Basic Books). He also mentions that his approach to social cognition assumes that humans are natural dualists...seeing the world the way Descartes did (i.e., bodies are physical things separate from souls). I must look for more of his stuff.

Dan Rather and MOG

This past Saturday the New York Times ran a sad story about Dan Rather. It seems that Dan, the millionaire anchor for CBS news for over two decades, now spends his days going to movies by himself and reminiscing about the glory days of news. Today CBS announced that it was releasing him from his contract six months early. Dan will most likely end up on some sort of HDTV network this fall with just a mere tens of thousands of viewers. I always thought Dan was just a little over the top with his hyperbolic and folksy off-the-cuff insights, but he was my favorite anchor after Grandpa Walter retired. The beginning of the end of Dan's career was with that National Guard story on "60 Minutes II." Dan's leaving CBS is like having a favorite restaurant close. I guess it's just another reminder that all things do pass.

Between Will's micro-naps, I registered on mog.com today. I am pretty addicted to music, and even with 18GB's (17.8 days) worth of files on my iPod and iTunes, I am still looking for the next new fix. Mog is a free service that uploads the listings of your music library to the site and then allows you to search for "matches" with other people with similar music tastes. I remember a few years ago talking to my friend Scott about how we ought to develop a way to assess musical tastes as a sort of personality profile. This is the closest thing I've seen to that idea. My computer has already spent over 12 hours MOGifying my music files, and it's still not finished. I'm looking forward to discovering the musical tastes of others who can introduce me to a few good artists. You can check out my MOG profile at http://mog.com/SocialPrimate.

Hot Summer in the City

Last week I finally finished teaching my fourth course since January. It was a three-week, intensive course in social psychology. I actually enjoy teaching it, but it always seems to come at me when I'm feeling the most exhausted.

Vikki and I are currently working out a nice tag-team schedule with the baby. On most days I go to GSU early in the morning, returning mid-afternoon. V. then heads off to the practice to see some patients until after 7. On Tuesdays (today), I spend the entire day at home with Will, and Thursdays V. does the same so that I can spend the day at work. I get absolutely NOTHING done when I'm taking care of Will by myself. He's really a great baby--never really cries, unless he's hungry or tired. It's just that he does need interaction. After about 10 minutes alone on the playmat or the bouncy chair he's had enough!

I turn in my first packet of tenure materials this week. This will comprise a packet that is sent to six external reviews who will comment on my career to date. I turn in the full "dossier" in September.

Well, just as I get started on this blog again, I can hear Will waking up from his nap!

-EJV

The Red Crab

We are in the midst of spring break at GSU, which means that I am getting to spend a lot more time with our son this week. Last night he was awake from 11 to 2, trying his mother's patience, until I moved him into the bed next to me. Despite the risk of SIDS, he sleeps a lot better pressed up against one of us, so we do indulge in this practice from time to time. Anyway, he then slept until 7, when I fed him, changed his diapers a couple of times, and kept him entertained for the rest of the morning. V. fed him at 11, and then I took care of him until about 3:30 while she and her mother went off shopping at the International Farmer's Market. Well, during that time, little Will just wasn't satisfied with anything that I offered him. I used a variety of tricks that I have been collecting, but none would do the job of calming him for more than a few minutes, including giving him a bottle that he wolfed down in no time flat. Finally, his mother fed him again when she returned home and that did the trick. I then took a nap for three hours!

In the midst of all this, I was surprised by my own reactions. Strangely, I don't get upset with him when he gets upset. I feel a little frustrated that I can't help him find relief right away, but an overwhelming sense of caring and fatherly love are really what characterizes my emotions--even in his most difficult moments. I was rewarded for this patience today when I watched Will "discover" a red crab that is part of the apparatus (his grandma bought him) that hangs on the side of his crib. His hand happened to hit it once accidentally, causing the crab to spin. He seemed to notice that. In fact, for the next few minutes he continued hitting the crab, clearly intending to keep it spinning. That was an utterly wonderful moment. Such a simple thing, but it's a rare instance when I was able to witness another person becoming aware of his environment.

Four Weeks That Changed My Life

Yes, it was four weeks ago tomorrow that our son arrived. I feel like I haven't done much in the past month except drink lots of coffee, hold our little baby, and try to figure out what I need to lecture about next. I'm poorly functioning in all spheres of my life--as a researcher, teacher, husband, son, and friend. Most of this is due to sleep deprivation, but it doesn't help that I'm not exercising and I'm consuming way too much caffeine.

I have made a couple of important decisions: (1) I'm going to delay applying tenure for another year, and (2) I'm going to take a family leave during the fall semester, which means I won't have to teach. I'll use that time to spend with Will, but I'll also travel to some meetings and working on grant proposals with my grad students. This means that I just have to make it to early June, and then I'll have about six months away from having to teach--my longest break in nearly 14 years!