Know how much you’re texting while driving? U-M study says no
Texting while driving is a serious threat to public safety, but a new U-M study suggests that we might not be aware of our actions.
Researchers found that texting while driving is predicted by a person’s level of “habit” — more so than how much someone texts.
Photo by Jason Doiy.
When people check their cell phones without thinking about it, the habit represents a type of automatic behavior, or automaticity, the researchers say. Automaticity, which was the key variable in the study, is triggered by situational cues and lacks control, awareness, intention and attention.
“In other words, some individuals automatically feel compelled to check for, read and respond to new messages, and may not even realize they have done so while driving until after the fact,” says Joseph Bayer, a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies and the study’s lead author.
This first-of-its-kind study, which identifies the role of unconscious thought processes in texting and driving, is different from other research that has focused on the effects of this behavior. Thus, the current study investigates the role of habit in texting while driving, with a focus on how (rather than how much) the behavior is carried out.
Scott Campbell, associate professor of communication studies and Pohs Professor of Telecommunications, says that understanding this behavior is not just about knowing how much people text — it’s about understanding how they process it.
“A texting cue, for instance, could manifest as a vibration, a ‘new message’ symbol, a peripheral glance at a phone, an internal ‘alarm clock,’ a specific context or perhaps a mental state,” Campbell says. “In the case of more habitual behavior, reacting to these cues becomes automatic to the point that the person may do so without even meaning to do it.”
The findings appear in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
— Jared Wadley, News Service
U-M astrophysicists help open eye of world’s most powerful digital camera
U-M physicists built parts of a telescope camera that just captured its first image in a major survey designed to help scientists understand why the universe is expanding at an ever-faster rate.
The Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the Victor M. Blanco telescope in the mountains of northern Chile, has been called “the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created,” and the “world’s most powerful digital camera.” With its 570-megapixels and super wide field, it will perform the largest galaxy survey ever undertaken, imaging 300 million galaxies up to 8 billion light years away over the next five years. Each snapshot will capture light from more than 100,000 galaxies.
The camera is the cornerstone instrument of the Dark Energy Survey, a collaboration of 120 scientists from 23 organizations around the world who are working together to understand the mysterious force labeled “dark energy” that is believed to be speeding up the expansion of the universe. Important clues about the nature of dark energy could be found by studying how the distribution of distant galaxies has evolved over the past 8 billion years.
The new camera is a specialized tool for scientists to do this. It will image about one- eighth of the sky through five filters, each a different shade of blue, green, red or infrared—beyond the red that the human eye can see. The camera has an unprecedented sensitivity to very red light, the part of the spectrum where the most distant galaxies reside.
U-M physicists built the mechanism that holds and switches the camera’s five filters, which are about the size of manhole covers, says David Gerdes, physics professor in LSA. They also built a system that measures the camera’s alignment with the telescope’s main mirror, 10 yards away.
— Nicole Casal Moore, News Service
New study analyzes why people are resistant to correcting misinformation
Childhood vaccines do not cause autism. President Obama was born in the United States. Global warming is confirmed by science. And yet, many people believe claims to the contrary.
In a study appearing in the current issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, researchers from U-M, University of Western Australia and University of Queensland examined factors that cause people to resist correcting misinformation.
Misinformation can originate from rumors but also fiction, government and politicians, and organizations, the researchers say.
“Misinformation stays in memory and continues to influence our thinking, even if we correctly recall that it is mistaken,” says Colleen Seifert, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Psychology. “Managing misinformation requires extra cognitive effort from the individual.
“If the topic is not very important to you, or you have other things on your mind, you are more likely to make use of misinformation. Most importantly, if the information fits with your prior beliefs, and makes a coherent story, you are more likely to use it even though you are aware that it’s incorrect.”
Ideology and personal world views can be major obstacles for changing false beliefs. Despite attempts to retract misinformation, the researchers say this effort can backfire and even amplify the erroneous belief.
In fact, attempts to correct misinformation often spread the false beliefs even further, they say. That’s because corrections may repeat the false information and then explain why it is wrong.
As time passes, people forget the details. When they then hear the misinformation again, it feels all the more familiar and is even more likely to be accepted, says Norbert Schwarz, the Charles Horton Cooley Collegiate Professor of Psychology and a research professor at the Institute for Social Research.
— Jared Wadley, News Service
Local leaders split over state’s emergency manager law
Less than half (38 percent) of Michigan’s local leaders support the state’s emergency manager law, while about a third (30 percent) oppose it, and the rest are neutral or unsure, according to a U-M survey.
Other findings in the poll by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy indicate that a majority (53 percent) of those who feel fairly well informed about the law think it would be effective at helping to protect or restore the fiscal health of Michigan’s local governments.
The emergency manager law (Public Act 4), one of the most controversial reforms of the Gov. Rick Snyder administration and the state Legislature, took effect in March 2011. It expands powers available to emergency managers, under certain circumstances, to reject, modify or terminate collective bargaining agreements; shrink or void decision-making powers of local elected officials; sell a local jurisdiction’s assets and more. PA 4 has been suspended, pending a referendum on the November ballot.
The poll, part of the Michigan Public Policy Survey series, reports that:
• Less than half, or 43 percent, of local leaders think PA 4 will be effective at helping to protect or restore the fiscal health of Michigan’s local governments across the state, while 19 percent think it will be ineffective. Belief in the law’s effectiveness climbs to 53 percent of leaders when excluding those who know very little about the law.
• Support for PA 4 is more strongly correlated with beliefs about the law’s effectiveness than with other factors, including partisanship.
• Levels of support or opposition among local officials also differ along a number of other lines including whether the official is elected or appointed, whether the jurisdiction has a public sector labor union or not and other factors.
— Greta Guest, News Service
U-M researchers identify new brain mechanism that causes people to overeat
A part of the brain usually thought to control movement also may cause people to overeat, U-M researchers say.
A new study appearing in the current issue of the journal Current Biology indicates that a new brain mechanism in the neostriatum produces intense motivation to overeat tasty foods.
The neostriatum, located near the middle and front of the brain, has traditionally been thought to control only motor movements (this is the part of the brain that is damaged in patients with Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease). Yet for several years, it has been known that the neostriatum is active in brains of obese people when viewing or tasting foods, and in brains of drug addicts when viewing photos of drug-taking.
The research showed that an opium-like chemical — enkaphalin — produced naturally in the brain is a mechanism that generates intense motivation to consume pleasant rewards, says Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, a doctoral student in psychology and the study’s lead author.
When researchers gave extra morphine-like drug stimulation to the top of the neostriatum in rats, it caused the animals to eat twice the normal amount of sweet fatty food. For this study, that food was M&M milk chocolate candies.
DiFeliceantonio and colleagues mapped where extra drug stimulation of opioid receptors affected eating habits. They found that overeating was only caused in one region at the front and center part of the neostriatum (called the anterior-medial region of dorsal neostriatum).
“Finding the brain mechanisms for overconsumption is a step towards designing better biological-based treatments for obesity and binge eating disorders,” DiFeliceantonio said.
The study’s other researchers were Omar Mabrouk, a postdoctoral research fellow in pharmacology and chemistry; Robert Kennedy, the Hobart H. Willard Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and professor of pharmacology; and Kent Berridge, the James Olds Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.
— Jared Wadley, News Service
