CNU Library Blog

Author: Dienstbier, Richard A.

Publication info: Wilmington, Deleware: Vernon Press. 2022. 

Available: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: 'Food for Thought: Nutrition and the Aging Brain' presents and analyzes the research on nutrition's impacts on the aging brain, on possibly-declining cognitive abilities, and on changing emotional dispositions. With 40 pages of references, the depth of coverage of the underlying science makes the book appropriate for scientists in fields such as nutrition, geriatrics, and psychology. However, the book was also designed to be understandable for lay readers wanting a deeper understanding than can be found in typical books on food-brain relationships. To make this book useful for non-scientists and for students, the first three chapters provide background. They sketch relevant brain structure and neurochemistry, and then discuss in only slightly more detail how aging and stress affect neurochemistry, brain structure, cognitive capacities, and resilience. The third chapter introduces basic nutrition research issues, and the extensive Glossary provides additional explanations of scientific concepts. The subsequent 14 chapters consolidate modern research on impacts of nutrition on brain and cognitive capacities. The research shows how much various nutrients can affect cognition in aging people, and then how those impacts are achieved—that is, how genes are affected that in turn have impacts on neural structures and neurochemistry. That series of 14 chapters begins with analyses of general diets such as the Mediterranean and the MIND, but subsequent chapters examine impacts of specific classes of nutrients. Chapter 18 describes nutrition that affects resilience, interpreted as stress tolerance, and resistance to both anxiety and depression. Chapter 19 describes how other types of activities that affect brain and cognition, such as programs of physical exercise and cognitive stimulation, can interact with nutrition to build brain and sharpen cognition. The final chapter summarizes the information on nutrition impacts on brain and cognition, and extends the discussion of interactions of nutrition with other brain-enhancing activities.

Title: Loneliness: Science and Practice. 

Authors: Dilip V. Jeste, Tanya T. Nguyen, Nancy J. Donovan. 

Publication info: American Psychiatric Association Publishing. 2022. 

Available: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: The internet, social media platforms, and digital technology all seem to point to a world of greater interconnectivity and social connection. Yet even against this background of global social networks, loneliness remains a major issue for millions of individuals, and one with tangible consequences: studies have demonstrated that loneliness correlates with to an increased risk of mental illnesses, as well as a 45% increased risk of death.In Loneliness: Science and Practice, experts from the United States and Europe seek to construct a translational framework for recognizing and addressing loneliness in the clinical context. Based on the latest literature on the topic, the book tackles • The theoretical foundations of loneliness and other dimensions of social connection. Readers will benefit from validated rating scales to measure loneliness that account for the varied experiences of, and factors that contribute to, loneliness.• The incidence and presentation of loneliness throughout the life cycle• Loneliness among marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and individuals with mental illnesses• The neurobiological and systemic neuroendocrine and inflammatory mechanisms of loneliness• Interventions for loneliness, from research-based interventions for both younger and older age groups to community-based interventions Throughout this guide, clinical vignettes help ground the theoretical information in real-world applicability. Key points help readers reference each chapter's most salient points quickly, and lists of suggested readings open the door to further exploration.By examining the psychosocial and biological mechanisms of loneliness, as well as the unique social and cultural contexts in which it can occur, Loneliness: Science and Practice offers readers a holistic understanding of loneliness and a framework for addressing it in the distinct communities they serve.

Title: The Encyclopedia of Misinformation: A Compendium of Imitations, Spoofs, Delusions, Simulations, Counterfeits, Impostors, Illusions, Confabulations, Skullduggery, ... Conspiracies & Miscellaneous Fakery. 

Author: Rex Sorgatz. 

Publication info: Abrams Books, 2018. 

Description: “This compendium of misinformation, deception, and self-delusion throughout history examines fakery in the context of science and advertising, humor and law, sports and video games, and beyond. Entries span eclectic topics: Artificial Intelligence, Auto-Tune, Chilean Sea Bass, Clickbait, Cognitive Dissonance, Cryptids, False Flag Operations, Gaslighting, Gerrymandering, Kayfabe, Laugh Tracks, Milli Vanilli, P.T. Barnum, Photoshopping, Potemkin Villages, Ponzi Schemes, Rachel Dolezal, Strategery, Truthiness, and the Uncanny Valley. From A to Z, this is the definitive guide to how we are tricked, and how we trick ourselves. 'Occasional salty language and pop-culture references make this compendium of 300 short entries a delightful mix of high- and lowbrow.' —Booklist."

Title: Graphic Medicine Manifesto.

Published: 2015. 

Available: as an eBook in Academic eBook Collection.

 

Description: "This inaugural volume in the graphic medicine series establishes the principles of graphic medicine and begins to map the field. The volume combines scholarly essays by members of the editorial team with previously unpublished visual narratives by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, and it includes arresting visual work from a wide range of graphic medicine practitioners. The book's first section, featuring essays by Scott Smith and Susan Squier, argues that as a new area of scholarship, research on graphic medicine has the potential to challenge the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines, raise questions about their foundations, and reinvigorate literary scholarship—and the notion of the literary text—for a broader audience. The second section, incorporating essays by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers, demonstrates that graphic medicine narratives can engage members of the health professions with literary and visual representations and symbolic practices that offer patients, family members, physicians, and other caregivers new ways to experience and work with the complex challenges of the medical experience. The final section, by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, focuses on the practice of creating graphic narratives, iconography, drawing as a social practice, and the nature of comics as visual rhetoric. A conclusion (in comics form) testifies to the diverse and growing graphic medicine community. Two valuable bibliographies guide readers to comics and scholarly works relevant to the field."

Article-linking websites online can help you find relevant articles from one article's DOI. Scroll through these slides to learn more about LitMaps, Citation Gecko, and Connected Papers.

Academic research is an ongoing conversation between authors. by Sadie Davenport

Published: 2019, by Regina Snyder.

Available: in our Academic eBook Collection. 

This psychology terminology quick study resource provides an easy-to-browse alphabetical list of psychology terms, theorists, and areas of study. You can select the letter you want to browse through, download specific pages, or download the whole guide. 

Watch these videos for more insight to Charles Henry Turner's life:  

Charles Henry Turner taught high school and college science classes for over 30 years. During this time, he studied insect behavior using his background in biology and psychology. Turner's work changed the way that insect behavior was understood and studied. This quote from Encyclopedia Britannica summarizes this change well: "[in the early 1900s], the study of insect behaviour was dominated by 19th-century concepts of taxis and kinesis, in which social insects are seen to alter their behaviour in specific responses to specific stimuli. Through his observations Turner was able to establish that insects can modify their behaviour as a result of experience."

More on the specific contributions Dr. Turner made to insect behavior research: "During his 33-year career, Turner published more than 70 papers, many of them written while he confronted numerous challenges, including restrictions on his access to laboratories and research libraries and restrictions on his time due to a heavy teaching load at Sumner [High School]. Furthermore, Turner received meagre pay and was not given the opportunity to train research students at either the undergraduate or the graduate level. Despite these challenges, he published several morphological studies of vertebrates and invertebrates. Turner also designed apparatuses (such as mazes for ants and cockroaches and coloured disks and boxes for testing the visual abilities of honeybees), conducted naturalistic observations, and performed experiments on insect navigation, death feigning, and basic problems in invertebrate learning...He developed novel procedures to study pattern and colour recognition in honeybees (Apis), and he discovered that cockroaches trained to avoid a dark chamber in one apparatus retained the behaviour when transferred to a differently shaped apparatus" (Encyclopedia Britannica). 

Read more: 

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Charles Henry Turner
• Oklahoma State University: Charles Henry Turner
• University of Cincinnati: Charles Henry Turner
• CPNAS: Charles Henry Turner image slideshow

In the 1950s, The Seekers, a small doomsday cult (a.k.a. The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays) predicted when the world would end. Festinger, who would study The Seekers with Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, read about the cult leader's predictions in a local newspaper and "saw a made-to-order way of putting his theory [of cognitive dissonance] to the test" (When Prophecy Fails, p. 10). 

The front page of The Chicago Tribune in December, 1954: 

The Seekers believed a flood would destroy the world on December 21, 1954. Their leader, Dorothy Martin, claimed she received this information from "the Guardians," who lived on a planet called Clarion. After the world did not end as predicted, Martin made a new prediction: a UFO would come on Christmas Eve to save the Seekers.

After both predictions failed, Festinger and his team observed the cult members' behavior: some members of the cult left, while others showed strengthened belief and renewed fervor toward Dorothy Martin's teachings. This contradiction in the remaining members was what psychologist Leon Festinger and his team predicted to find. Because the members had sacrificed their families, work, money, and possessions to join the cult, they looked for "ways to minimize any negative aspects of the group and to maximize its benefits" (When Prophecy Fails, p. 11). They largely justified their failed predictions by claiming their faith had saved the world from ending and had earned the approval of the Guardians of Clarion. This flipped the failed predictions into successes.

To define cognitive dissonance: "Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved in a certain way" (Psychology Today).    

Read more about Leon Festinger, The Seekers, and cognitive dissonance:                                                                                                                                        The Seekers Leon Festinger Cognitive dissonance - definition APA - More examples of cognitive dissonance (Left): When Prophecy Fails: A Doomsday Cult on Alien Invasion by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter