Creating videos of anatomical images

If you have a 3D anatomical image (dicoms) of you brain, here's a really easy way to make it into a movie. Thought this would be a fancier thing to send to participants as opposed to the boring fslview screenshot :). Information courtesy of Sylvia Morelli:

1. Download this program and install on your computer

2. Open up Osirix. Import all the dicoms into Osirix.

3.  Click on the name of the patient/participant.

4.  In the top panel, there is a button called “Orientation” with the three views of the brain. You can click on whichever view you want.  I generally like saggital.

5. Then, go to file —> “Export to movie” or there is a button that says “Movie Export” in the top right hand side of the toolbar.

6. You can do this for each Orientation and create three different movies.  

There's also some fancy 3D rendering stuff that I haven't had a chance to check out - maybe I'll update this blogpost when I do! Have fun!

Explaining Culture, Sperber 1996: Book Summary

I just finished reading Dan Sperber’s Explaining Culture (1996), and have to return it to the library soon – so I thought I would digitize some of the reading notes I had jotted down. Overall, I thought the ideas were really cool. I’ve always been interested in concepts like culture, shared reality, collective memory etc, so this book was really up my alley. If anything, it game me the vocabulary to talk about the relationship between psychology, sociology and anthropology. To be clear, this isn’t really meant to be a review of the book as much as a summary of what I thought were the mains points.

The central idea of the book is to study culture as an epidemiology of representations, and to think of population-scale macrophenomena as the cumulative effect microprocesses that bring about individual events. In the context of culture, these microprocesses are the instances of inter-individual information transmission, which are in turn constrained by individual mental processes (i.e. human cognition). That is to say, cultural transmission involves the interplay of different ecological (i.e. writing, oral) and psychological (e.g., memory) processes.

There are two types of representations – mental representations and public representations. Public representations are often manifestations of mental ones. More crucially, because mental representations are private and tied to the individual, a mental representation has to be transformed into a public representation before it can be transmitted. Hence, each transmission is associated with a transformation, which leads to many opportunities for “mutations”. This is somewhat different from genetic transmission, which often has high fidelity between generations. In Sperber’s words – communication is transformation, not replication.

To push the analogy to diseases even further, there are cultural endemics (traditions) and epidemics (fashion). Cognitive processes are the different pathologies. Thus each phenomenon can be different, with different explanations. The task is to explain the distribution of representations, and not necessarily each representation. What ties the study of culture together isn’t so much having the “same mechanisms”, but rather the general approach, the types of questions asked and the ways of constructing concepts.

A representation is defined by two things – the object that it represents, and the information-processing device that processes the representation. It is important to consider the material properties of representation, because they have different effects on cognitive processing. While anthropology has focused on the causal explanation of cultural facts, and psychology has focused on the study of conceptual thought processes. The study of culture has to bridge these two frameworks, and seek to understand the psychological susceptibility to different cultural phenomenon.

On this note, Sperber makes the distinction between dispositions and susceptibility. Dispositions are adaptations (that were selected for by evolution). Susceptibility is the side effects that come with dispositions. In particular, meta-representational ability is a human disposition, which in turn makes us susceptible to cultural representations. It allows us to doubt and disbelief, but also allows us to suspend doubt and disbelief.  For example, our meta-representational ability allows us to learn half-understood ideas that build on things that are better understood. This has interesting implications for religious beliefs, where we temporarily suspend our disbelief based on respect for authority.

Sperber proposes two mechanisms for transmission – communication vs. imitation. Here, we are more interested in communication. He argues that the spread of ideas via communication should be thought of more as a process of attraction, rather than a process of selection. The outputs of which are not solely determined by inputs, but also on constructive cognitive processes that transform the inputs in a systematic, predictable way.

The last few chapters deal with the modularity of the mind, and argue that the mind is likely modular, and cultural diversity is compatible with a modular mind.

My Workview

This quarter, I'm taking this rather interesting class called "Designing the Professional". Full course description here:

ENGR 311B: Designing the Professional

How to Get a Life as well as a PhD: Seminar open to ALL doctoral students (Humanities, Sciences and Engineering). Apply principles of design thinking to designing your professional life following Stanford. Topics include: Introduction to "design thinking", a framework for vocational wayfinding and locating profession within life overall; tools to investigate multiple professional paths. Creation of personal "Odyssey Plan" to innovate multiple prototypes for post-PhD professional launch.

Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable for credit | Grading: Satisfactory/No Credit

Instructors: Evans, D. (PI) ; Sheppard, S. (PI)

So far, it's been fairly thought-provoking. To document these thoughts, I felt that it would make sense to blog my assignments here - otherwise, I'll probably lose them by next quarter. The assignments might also be of us of readers who are interested in thinking about their "work-life". Hopefully Dave won't sue me for copyright infringement on his homework. Here's the first assignment:

Write your Workview (150 words - or so)

A workview would address the critical issues related to what work is and means to you. It is not just a list of what you want from or out of work, but a general statement of your view of work. Schumacher's definition of a "theory of work" is one example.  A workview may address such questions as:

• Why work?
• What's work for?
• What's it mean?
• How does it relate to the individual, others, society?
• What defines good or worthwhile work?
• What does money have to do with it?
• What does experience, growth, fulfillment have to do with it?
• Does a PhD have a special form or work, and if so how?

What we're after is your philosophy of work - what it's for,  what it means.  It's essentially your work manifesto.  When using the term "work" we mean the broadest definition - not just what you do to make money or for "a job".  Work is your active engagement with the world and can extend well beyond a narrow definition of job or labor or even career.  Work is the largest single component of most people's waking lives.  Over a lifetime it occupies more of our attention and energy than any other single category.  Accordingly we're suggesting you take the time and reflection to articulate what work and vocation mean to you (and perhaps what you hope it means for others as well).

People's workviews range widely in what they address and how widely they incorporate issues related to service, others, the world, standard of living, growth, learning, skills/talents, etc.  We want you to address what you think is important (i.e., the questions listed above).  While not prescribing that you address the question of service to others/the world or explicit connection to social issues or your higher values, we do findthat we concur with Martin Seligman (who you're reading this week).  He found that the people who do make an explicit connection between their understanding of work in general, and a job or role in particular, are more likely to find satisfaction and meaning in their work and are more enabled to adapt to the inevitable stresses and compromises that come with being engaged in the world.  Since satisfaction and meaning-making are things most of our students tell us they long for, we encourage you to explore those questions.

My Response

We each find meaning in our lives in different ways. For me, I derive meaning from my relationships with those close to me, and the work that I do. Work is not merely any activity that I do, but one that demands commitment, requires sustained effort and comes with a certain set of responsibilities. My criteria of good work is inspired by the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who in considering possible careers, measured them up against the following criterion – “to support myself and my family, and somehow make the world a better place in which to live”.  I read his autobiography in college, and this simple criterion has stuck with me since. Financial remuneration is important to me for two reasons: (i) it is external validation that my work is valued, and (ii) it provides me with the means to support me and my family. It does not have to be much, but it should be enough to provide my children with the comforts and opportunities that I had growing up. In addition, good work should make a positive, concrete contribution to society.

Given the philosophy of work described above, I try to see my time as a PhD student as a career and a calling. However, this can be burdensome during the times when career prospects seem bleak or when the work does not feel meaningful. During those times, I consciously switch to thinking of my PhD as a job, and that helps me get through the day. That said, the switch feels like holding my breath under water – I can only do it for that long before having to resurface to breathe again.