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The Headcase is in Boston for the Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science. Having recently posted on teaching creativity, I was eager yesterday afternoon to attend a talk by Ludy Benjamin of Texas A&M, who discussed the role psychological scientists should play in education reform.
That is to say, a much larger one:
"Psychology could do more than the piecemeal work that our discipline has offered to date," Benjamin said of psychology's impact on education. "We have considerable talent in our ranks, and this goal is arguably the most worthwhile one we could ever envision."
Read the rest of my brief APS Observer post on the talk here.
Benjamin, a historian of psychology and a humorous speaker, dedicated the first part of his talk to research into whether William James had been a Red Sox fan.
Turns out he was not; in fact, he wasn't a sports fan at all, it seems.
And that's William James the psychologist from Harvard. Not Bill James the baseball statistician and BoSox advisor. For those keeping score at home.
Evening Session
Friday evening's main event was a symposium on spices coordinated by taste expert Linda Bartoshuk of Florida, the current APS President.
The last time I heard Bartoshuk speak I nearly vomited. Not because of her speaking, of course, but because she was testing the audience for supertasters, and I'm apparently one. The test involves putting something called a PROP tab into your mouth. If you're a supertaster—meaning you have way more taste buds than normal—the tablet triggers intense (intense) sourness.
Needless to say I was wary when I entered last night's event and found on each seat a strawberry, lemon slice, and another tablet. After confirming with several authoritative-looking figures that I would not vomit from the demonstration, I followed Bartoshuk's intstructions to the audience and tried the fruit after chewing the tablet. To my great surprise all sourness was gone, even from the lemon, and only sweet sweetness remained. It's the supertaste antidote, I guess.
As for the symposium itself, I thought Paul Rozin of U Penn stole the show with his lively presentation on his decades of research into why people eat hot peppers. Rozin has found that:
people grow accustomed to eating hot peppers as a form of “benign masochism.” His studies have shown that even in Mexico, young children have a natural aversion to spice, which disappears by around age 6 or 7.
“We are the only species to seek out innately negative events,” he joked.
Read about the other presenters, including Ana Sortun from Top Chef Masters, at my brief Observer write-up.
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