Jamieson Kerr: z5059573 PSYC1001, S1, 2016: Psychology in the Media Due: 4pm Thursday 28th April 2016 (Week 8) This assignment is worth 10% of your final mark for PSYC1001 1. Find a suitable article for the exercise (based on a published scientific report) that has clear relevance to the study of psychology and provide the web-link for the media article (2 marks) Title: “Exercise and meditation together help beat depression. Scientists say learning new cognitive skills can help reduce overwhelming negative thoughts” Date: February 10, 2016. Source: Rutgers University. Summary: A mind and body combination of exercise and meditation, done twice a week for only two months, reduced the symptoms for a group of students by 40 percent.” Web-link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160210134834.htm 2. Provide the full APA style reference for the original scientific research report and copy the abstract below verbatim. If more than one article is referenced, provide just one. Upload this article with your assignment. You should upload the article as a separate PDF file in the “article upload” section of the turnitin link (2 marks). Reference: Alderman, B.L., Olson, R.L., Brush, C.J., and Shors, T.J.. (2016). MAP training: combining meditation and aerobic exercise reduces depression and rumination while enhancing synchronized brain activity. Translational Psychiatry, 6(e726), 1-9. doi:10.1038/tp.2015.225. Abstract: “Mental and physical (MAP) training is a novel clinical intervention that combines mental training through meditation and physical training through aerobic exercise. The intervention was translated from neuroscientific studies indicating that MAP training increases neurogenesis in the adult brain. Each session consisted of 30 min of focusedattention (FA) meditation and 30 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. Fifty-two participants completed the 8-week intervention, which consisted of two sessions per week. Following the intervention, individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 22) reported significantly less depressive symptoms and ruminative thoughts. Typical healthy individuals (n = 30) also reported less depressive symptoms at follow-up. Behavioral and event-related potential indices of cognitive control were collected at baseline and follow-up during a modified flanker task. Following MAP training, N2 and P3 component amplitudes increased relative to baseline, especially among individuals with MDD. These data indicate enhanced neural responses during the detection and resolution of conflicting stimuli. Although previous research has supported the individual beneficial effects of aerobic exercise and meditation for depression, these findings indicate that a combination of the two may be particularly effective in increasing cognitive control processes and decreasing ruminative thought patterns.” 3. Discuss whether the media report represents a fair reflection of the scientific research. You should discuss which aspect of the experiment became the focus of the media report and why you think this was chosen as a topic of interest for the public. (200 words maximum; 5 marks) The media report is quite short and succinct to ensure readers with limited knowledge about the more complex concepts in psychology can still easily follow and understand what the study found. The news article manages to represent the results from the scientific research rather well and does so without getting too deep into the technical side of the research. For example, the news article focusses on Rutgers study, in which 22 depressed and 30 mentally healthy people completed an eight-week mental and physical (MAP) training program in order to determine whether or not it was beneficial to mental health. In the scientific research article, the principles behind why this MAP training should prove beneficial for depressed people were fully explained, with the authors talking about regions of the brain and neural activity associated with focused meditation (FA) and aerobic activity. Whereas the news article only briefly mentions some of the concepts “there is a striking improvement in depressive symptoms along with increases in synchronized brain activity" (Lally, R. 2016). The eight-week program was focused on to make it relatable to a broad audience as it was based on real people, though they do also mention animal models “scientists have shown in animal models that aerobic exercise increases the number of new neurons”. 209 words. 4. Give one additional procedural aspect of the research and one additional piece of evidence reported in the scientific article that were not discussed in the media report. What are the implications of these aspects of the scientific study with respect to the theoretical topic in question and why do you think these were not mentioned in the media report? (200 words maximum; 4 marks) An additional procedural aspect within the research paper can be found in the “Participants” section of the article where the participant exclusion criteria is discussed. The men and women selected for the study were “recruited from a university counseling and psychiatric services clinic” and were all diagnosed with nonpsychotic major depressive disorder (MDD). The exclusion criteria included patients that had mental health disorders such as bipolar or psychotic disorders, suicidal behavior, or a history of neurological disorders. This factor serves to minimize discrepancies in the results as these disorders are more extreme than MDD which is the dependent variable. It seems that this was not mentioned in the news article as it could be considered too confronting for a broad audience. There is additional evidence in the “Cognitive Control” section, where participants take part in an Eriksen flanker task, where they respond to a central target flanked by distractors, usually arrows or letters, to assess their capability to suppress a contextually inappropriate response (Stins, J.F et al., 2008). They finished the flanker task at baseline and postintervention to assess changes in behavioral and neurophysiological cognitive control processes. The implication is significant to the hypothesis as it provides quantitative results measuring cognitive aspects of the subjects. It is possible that this information was not discussed in the media report as it contains too much technical jargon. 220 words 5. Find one example of how the researchers sought to test an alternative explanation, or where they controlled for the effect of another variable(s). Describe this aspect of the research design and state how it bolstered the conclusions that they drew from the research. (200 words maximum; 4 marks) Researchers controlled the effect of age and physical capabilities on the experiment in the “Cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity assessment” section. They controlled for physical aptitude and performance by conducting a series of tests on the participants in order to evaluate their baseline cardiovascular fitness and assign them a level of aerobic activity in the intervention period. Their fitness was reviewed after the conclusion of the 8-week intervention using the same procedures. Data was also collected from the participants about their physical fitness prior to the intervention and summarized to report physical activity by weighing their energy expenditure to produce their metabolic equivalent of task (MET) minutes of physical activity (Alderman, B.L et al., 2016). This supported the conclusions made as it molds the level of aerobic activity carried out by participants around age and physical stamina to ensure they are not making older or less physically capable participants exert themselves more and potentially vary the results. For example, if and older, less fit participant was made to do the same intensity of aerobic activity as a young and fit participant, there is the possibility that the older participants unexpected results would be due to that higher level of activity rather than the desired MAP training, therefore not testing correctly for the hypothesis. 208 words. 6. Conduct a literature search to find one additional article that you think might be relevant to this topic. Give the full APA reference and, based on the abstract, state why you think this will be a relevant and important article to read. (100 words maximum; 3 marks) “Mental and Physical (MAP) Training: A neurogenesis-inspired intervention that enhances health in humans” is a highly relevant and important article to read in my opinion due to the scientific foundation it gives to my chosen article discussed above. This article delves into the neuroscientific concepts behind MAP training, providing an understanding of the results in my chosen article and how the brain actually responds to the methods employed in the study. It is also the research article in which the MAP training was developed as a clinical intervention to test affects on mental illness. It even seems that this article would be beneficial to read before the article discussed above. 110 words. Reference: Shors, T.J., Olson, R.L., Bates, M.E., Selby, E.A., Alderman, B.L. (2014). Mental and Physical (MAP) Training: A neurogenesis-inspired intervention that enhances health in humans. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 115, 3-9. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/10.1016/j.nlm.2014.08.012 References: Alderman, B.L., Olson, R.L., Brush, C.J., and Shors, T.J.. (2016). MAP training: combining meditation and aerobic exercise reduces depression and rumination while enhancing synchronized brain activity. Translational Psychiatry, 6(e726), 1-9. doi:10.1038/tp.2015.225. Stins, J.F., Polderman,J.C., Boomsma, D.I., Geus, E.J. (2008). Conditional accuracy in response interference tasks: Evidence from the Eriksen flanker task and the spatial conflict task. Advanced Cognitive Psychology. 3(3): 409–417. doi: 10.2478/v10053-008-0005-4 Shors, T.J., Olson, R.L., Bates, M.E., Selby, E.A., Alderman, B.L. (2014). Mental and Physical (MAP) Training: A neurogenesis-inspired intervention that enhances health in humans. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 115, 3-9. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/10.1016/j.nlm.2014.08.012 Lally, R. (2016, February 10). Rutgers University. Exercise and meditation together help beat depression: Scientists say learning new cognitive skills can help reduce overwhelming negative thoughts. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160210134834.htm
