by Janae HunterIn this article, Lynn and his colleagues attempt to talk about educating undergraduate students about neuroanthropology. One of the main issues brought up is the oversimplification of certain topics which can sometimes lead to misunderstanding. One example the authors used to illustrate this point is the display of horse evolution. Lynn and his colleagues discuss Holley’s (2009) approach of teaching neuroanthropology with an interdisciplinary approach. They used The Human Behavioral Ecology Research Group (HBERG) here at the University to break down the Holley’s approach. Through the HBERG, Lynn was able to teach student neuroanthropology through a hands on learning experience. The students were able to conduct two research projects: The Religious Ecology Study and the Fireside Relaxation Study. The Religious Ecology Study gave students a chance to combine cultural anthropology and field experience. In this project the students were immersed in the church culture in Tuscaloosa and in Costa Rica in order to better understand how the church functions and how to conduct field studies. In this study the students had to record their findings in workbooks. The Fireside Relaxation Study incorporated more of the neuroscience aspect, by trying to test the relaxing effects of fire. The students monitored the blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance and prefrontal cortical brain activity of the subject’s while they were presented with different recordings of fire with and without sound. This blend of lab techniques and field studies is important to teaching and understanding the practice of neuroanthropology.
I think this article is great for expressing how to teach undergraduate student neuroanthropology, but it doesn’t really add anything to our understanding of neuroanthropology as a discipline. I loved how the article broke down Holley’s interdisciplinary approach to teaching neuroanthropology, because it involves such a hands on approach. During the reading, I had a few questions:
8 Comments
Kaitlyn May
2/5/2019 05:04:57 pm
I really enjoyed reading this article and was quite impressed with the University's involvement in advancing the field of neuroanthropology. I felt this article offers a clear example of what neuroanthropology "looks like," practically speaking. These examples gave me a better understanding of what neuroanthropology is, past the theoretical sense and into the day to day experience. What was striking to me is how clearly limited neuroanthropology is by traditional neuroscience methods. Skin conductance methods, like those mentioned in the Fireside Study, are easily portable and taken into the field. Methodologies like EEG or fMRI are large, immobile, and impede on the naturalistic environment that is the hallmark of anthropology. It is difficult for me to envision using these methods within anthropology. However, reading this article and the methods used in the Fireside Study provide a step towards a more inclusive neuroanthropology.
Reply
Madi Moore
2/6/2019 06:55:14 am
As mentioned in a comment above, I was also very impressed with the University's involvement in advancing neuroanthropology. Lynn and colleagues stated early in the article, "anthropology's relevance can be demonstrated by embracing new forms, defending good science, and empowering students." Empowering students is extremely important, I feel, in all fields. Giving students the tools, work space, and guidance they need to better their understanding of neuroanthropology is crucial to not only the success of the field, but also to the students' success. However, at what point does oversimplifying very complex concepts do more harm than good? Is there a way to avoid this? Lynn et al. (2014) explained that by compromising some precision, neuroanthropology can use cheaper, and easier to use methods in the field or in the lab. How much precision are we compromising? I thought that the Religious Ecology Study and the Fireside Relaxation Study were very interesting. Do you think that they could have implemented more of a neuroscience aspect in the religious study? In many ways I think that this article helped me to better understand neuroanthropology. One reason includes seeing how neuroscience and anthropology came together during an experiment that local students were involved with (the Fireside Study).
Reply
Brian Rivera
2/6/2019 07:39:44 am
One thought that came to mind when thinking about how to teach neuroantrhopology is whether it is possible to fit enough of neuroscience and anthropology in one semester. The depth of experience described in the article seems to provide a great foundation for neuropantrhopology but I do feel that it would take a lot of academic guidance to be able to meaningfully interpret heart rate, skin response, along with cortical activity. I feel that a command of these methods is needed to then turn to answer questions about neuroanthropology and this might be difficult to fit into one semester.
Reply
Madi Moore
2/26/2019 08:28:17 pm
This same thought has crossed my mind. I agree with you in the sense that it would require much guidance to meaningfully interpret things like heart rate, skin responses, and cortical activity. If one cannot synthesize the results and have a firm understanding for what they mean, how can students confidently and "accurately" answer neuroanthropological questions? Fitting Neuroanthropology into one semester can be done, in my opinion, but it might be better to have an extensive list of prerequisites before a student can actually participate. Neuroanthropology, being the wonderfully magical blend of a class that it is, requires a firm understanding of the methods used if a student wishes to be successful (successful not just in making a good grade in the class, but in more of a general long-term sense).
Reply
Leah Fontaine
2/6/2019 08:19:21 am
I have heard of HBERG in past classes, but until reading this, I had no idea that it was such a leading front in Neuroanthropology. This article helped me to understand how researching Neuroanthropology can give us a better understanding of how culture and surroundings can affect the brain. Something mentioned in the article but not in the above summary was how the perception of disease rate determines if people are more or less willing to be around strangers (Schaller 2011.) I'd be interested in seeing how this often this perceived disease rate matches the actual disease rate and how much people are willing to seclude themselves dependent on this thought disease rate.
Reply
Daniel J Quillen
2/6/2019 09:28:14 am
While I don't believe this article provided any more insight into our understanding of neuroanthropology, It does exemplify the importance of field work in this area of study. The HBERG allows undergraduate students to access field work and research that both shows the hands on nature of neuroanthropology and gives them a better understanding of how it is progressing as a field. It may be difficult to teach undergraduates the necessary skills in order to properly understand the skills and reasoning behind monitoring things such as skin conductance and cortical brain activity, but not impossible. With the neuroscience minor being added here in Alabama there are students with the background to understand the concepts without need of oversimplification, the selection of these undergraduates just may need to be more particular.
Reply
Moe Prince
2/27/2019 09:25:22 am
I enjoyed learning about the importance of students taking neuroanthropology classes and the different ways to go about educating them. I was also impressed by the universities involvement with the HBERG. I feel like this reading didn't really further my understanding of neuro itself, but it was helpful to see the benefits of taking this class.
Reply
Brian Rivera
2/27/2019 10:20:07 am
Revisiting this article reignited some skepticism about this approach to understand cognition. I recently got to use a portable EEG system to extract information about cortical activity from the head in another class. The two main measures extracted are Alpha and Beta waves interpreted as indices of wakefulness and relaxed states (similar to the ones described here). The class went on to have a discussion about how this quantification of attention or engagement could be used in school settings, conferences, etc. The class saw through the methods and algorithms and assumed that the quantified measures reflected by the EEG system were true readings of the brain. But such measures of cortical activity are at best correlational indices of states such as attention. They are the byproduct of noisy measurements and must be subjected to averaging and algorithmic transformations. A whole semester devoted to EEG signal processing might be needed to be able to understand the tradeoff of this type of signal acquisition and interpretation. The purpose of this class was not interpreting these signals as measures of cognition but rather to build something with them, since it was an engineering class. But I feel that a class that wants to make claims about cognition must wrestle with this problem. The fireside study has this same difficulty built in. The neuroscience part of this neuroanthropology study requires a depth not described in detail in the paper. This is the same question about oversimplification raised above by others.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThis blog is group authored by Dr. DeCaro and the students in his ANT 474/574: Neuroanthropology. Archives
April 2019
Categories |