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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios has Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be embarking

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Speaker 1: on a two part episode about the nature and physical

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Speaker 1: basis of memory. So in the past we've explored the

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Speaker 1: question where is my mind? We did an episode about this,

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Speaker 1: I think a couple of years ago. Like, it seems

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Speaker 1: obvious enough that cognition takes place in the brain, but

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Speaker 1: this hasn't always been taken for granted. And today we're

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Speaker 1: gonna look at a very strange narrative of twenty and

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Speaker 1: some twenty one century research that asks a similar question

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Speaker 1: about memories. What are memories made of? Like, if you

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Speaker 1: have a memory of I don't know, You're going down

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Speaker 1: the street and seeing Hulk Hogan stomping on an ice

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Speaker 1: cream sandwich, is that stored exclusively within the brand sane?

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Speaker 1: If so, how is it stored in the brain? And

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Speaker 1: more importantly, for today's episode, can I eat your body

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Speaker 1: and gain that memory for myself? Yeah? This is you know,

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Speaker 1: this is actually a really tremendous question though of course

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Speaker 1: it does touch on a number of mythical and fictional

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Speaker 1: notions that we've touched on before over the years, such

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Speaker 1: as can a google eat your brains and become you

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Speaker 1: for a limited amount of time? Or cannon immortal swordsman

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Speaker 1: cut off another immortal's head and gain their vital power. Uh,

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Speaker 1: do you know the living dead really eat brains because

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Speaker 1: it makes the pain of being dead go away? Is

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Speaker 1: there anything to indo cannibalistic funeral rites you know, practiced

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Speaker 1: by various cultures throughout history since ancient times? Or how

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Speaker 1: about this, If Michael Caine loses a hand and receives

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Speaker 1: a hand transplant from a murderer, does he become more

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Speaker 1: likely to he himself murder? I assume that must be

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Speaker 1: based on a real movie. But what Oliver Oliver Stone

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Speaker 1: directed it? As a matter of fact, what's it called.

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Speaker 1: I think it's called The Hand. But Michael Caine's ended up.

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Speaker 1: He plays like a comic book artist. I think so that,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's the other side of it is used. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's early Stone. It's not political. It's

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Speaker 1: all about you know, people's hands coming off and being

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Speaker 1: replaced by hand that then has the will of a

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Speaker 1: killer within it, which I think has been explored in

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Speaker 1: other horror properties as well. Um, it sounds like solid

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Speaker 1: Michael Caine. Yeah. And it also gets into an idea

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Speaker 1: that came up in our recent episode on yoga, the

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Speaker 1: idea of of of memories being stored in one's body,

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Speaker 1: which of course is a little more complicated. All this

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Speaker 1: is all is more complicated when you consider the human situation.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of what we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: in this episode is not dealing directly with with with

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Speaker 1: human cognition and human memories, but what we can observe

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Speaker 1: in simpler but also very important and informative organisms. Yes. Uh,

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Speaker 1: though that doesn't mean that people haven't tried to extrapolate

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Speaker 1: all kinds of things about about human memory from this research,

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Speaker 1: and that will be part of the story too. This

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Speaker 1: is going to be a mostly historical pair of episodes

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Speaker 1: looking at controversial past research and linking it to more

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Speaker 1: recent studies. And it's also going to be in two parts.

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Speaker 1: As I said, so, I'd say it's it's important not

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Speaker 1: to draw your conclusions until you've heard the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: A significant part of what we're talking about today is

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Speaker 1: going to be research that looked promising at one time

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Speaker 1: but as widely regarded as as being on the wrong

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Speaker 1: track today. Exactly, but still certainly there's a lot to

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Speaker 1: learn by looking at these past cases. Absolutely. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: the main human figure we're going to be looking at

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Speaker 1: in the story today was an American psychologist named Dr

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Speaker 1: James V. McConnell, who lived nineteen twenty five to nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety And I wanted to start off by mentioning several

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Speaker 1: sources about McConnell's life and career that will be referring

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Speaker 1: to in these episodes. One was an article about McConnell

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Speaker 1: by the Michigan State University psychologist Mark Rilling that appeared

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Speaker 1: in American Psychology Ist in nineteen called the Mystery of

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Speaker 1: the Vanished Citations, uh And that title refers to a

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Speaker 1: period where McConnell was doing a lot of very influential research,

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Speaker 1: but today you don't see the citations of this research

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Speaker 1: mentioned very much, and he's sort of exploring why that is.

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Speaker 1: Another article, it was a great article called Memory in

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Speaker 1: the Flesh in the Verge by R. L. Do Haim Ross,

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Speaker 1: And also a couple of pieces in like two thousand

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Speaker 1: ten and two thousand thirteen for the Journal of the

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Speaker 1: American Psychological Association by a sociology professor named Larry Stern.

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Speaker 1: That Verge article, by the way from and it's quite

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Speaker 1: a good read. Yes it is so. James McConnell was

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Speaker 1: born in Okamalgy, Oklahoma. I hope I'm saying that right,

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Speaker 1: Okmalgy or Okmalgi. Yeah, and that sounds Oklahoma enough, I

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Speaker 1: think okay uh in nineteen. He spent almost all of

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Speaker 1: his professional career on faculty at the University of Michigan,

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Speaker 1: beginning in nineteen fifty six after he got his PhD

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Speaker 1: from the University of Texas and lasting in Hill his

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Speaker 1: retirement in nineteen eight and from the sixties through the

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Speaker 1: eighties he also served as a research psychologist at the

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Speaker 1: Mental Health Research Institute of the University. So McConnell overall

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Speaker 1: was a very controversial figure in American psychology for multiple

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Speaker 1: reasons that we will explore throughout these episodes. Widely known

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Speaker 1: as innovative, enthusiastic, humorous, but also perhaps his reckless, sometimes

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Speaker 1: un serious, and undisciplined. One interesting fact about him that will,

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Speaker 1: I think become more relevant as we go on is

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Speaker 1: that early on before his academic career, he did some

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Speaker 1: work in radio and television as a DJ and a

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Speaker 1: scriptwriter before going into psychology, and of course this would

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Speaker 1: prove valuable in a career as a public science communicator

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Speaker 1: and something of a celebrity scientist. Now, apart from the

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Speaker 1: research that we're going to be looking at today, I

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Speaker 1: think McConnell was probably best known for founding a strange

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Speaker 1: magazine called The Worm Runners Digest. I think one major

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Speaker 1: problem many psychologists had with James McConnell during his life,

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Speaker 1: UH was typified by the spirit of this journal, which

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Speaker 1: published real reports of real scientific research. In some ways,

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Speaker 1: it was kind of a clearing house for reports of

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Speaker 1: research that wasn't yet in the It wasn't yet ready

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Speaker 1: to be submitted to peer reviewed journals. So kind of

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Speaker 1: scientists would submit uh, you know, worm training reports and

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Speaker 1: things like that to this as as a preliminary measure.

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Speaker 1: But then it would publish that real research UH and

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Speaker 1: and real manuals for replication, right alongside bizarre jokes and

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Speaker 1: poems and cartoons and hoaxes and satirical articles. So, for

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Speaker 1: a few article titles cited by Larry Stern, one is

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Speaker 1: the effects of physical torture on the learning and retention

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Speaker 1: of nonsense syllables. One is called operant conditioning in the

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Speaker 1: domestic darning needle Spina Farrika. So a lot of like

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Speaker 1: weird psychology in jokes, sort of jokes about the field

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Speaker 1: psychologists trying to write parodies of their own research and

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Speaker 1: the and the problems they encountered within their sub fields. Okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: there's a very very specific audience in mind them. Yes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Larry Stern also writes that there were spoofs of Freudian theory,

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Speaker 1: including quote some comments on the addition to the theory

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Speaker 1: of psycho sexual development by Sigmund Fraud, which introduced the

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Speaker 1: nasal stage occurring between the anal and phallic stages, in

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Speaker 1: which the libido quote is localized primarily in the mucus

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Speaker 1: linings of the nose, which I guess is a strange

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Speaker 1: reminder that, you know, in the middle of the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of psychology journals would still be

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Speaker 1: dealing with a pretty significant contingent of Freudian trained psychoanalysts.

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Speaker 1: But and I figured this would be of special interest

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Speaker 1: to you. Robert McConnell actually was also a science fiction

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Speaker 1: writer and a charter member of the Science Fiction Writers

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Speaker 1: of America, which again I would say probably didn't help

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Speaker 1: his professional reputation. Yes, perhaps not uh so from what

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Speaker 1: I could find. His sci fi stories also often seemed

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Speaker 1: to be humorous and aimed at parody of the fields

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Speaker 1: that he worked in. For example, Rilling writes about McConnell's

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Speaker 1: one of McConnell's stories called Learning Theory, published in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty five, and in this story quote, McConnell is the

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Speaker 1: protagonist who is abducted during the preparation of a lecture

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Speaker 1: on learning theory, into an interstellar lab ship to become

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Speaker 1: a subject confined to a series of chambers that resembled

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Speaker 1: the skinner box, tea maze, and lashly jumping stand. And

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Speaker 1: I had to look up that last one. But the

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Speaker 1: lastly jumping stand was an apparatus for the study of

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Speaker 1: operant conditioning, and it gave a rat an option to

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Speaker 1: jump over a gap to two different visual stimuli. One

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Speaker 1: would offer a reward and one would cause the rat

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Speaker 1: to fall into a net below. Okay, so not just

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Speaker 1: another tool that was used in behavioral studies, right, So

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Speaker 1: he's in this story he's writing about himself being it

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Speaker 1: into the studies that people were doing on rats in

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Speaker 1: the fifties, and I guess the sixties too. But picking

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Speaker 1: up with Rillings description of the story quote, after first

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Speaker 1: behaving according to the predictions of learning theory, McConnell realizes

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Speaker 1: that he will be returned to ann Arbor if he

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Speaker 1: misbehaves by violating the predictions of his captor's theory of learning.

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Speaker 1: McConnell was an iconic last and his story is a

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Speaker 1: spoof fun learning theory in nineteen sixty. So I think

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Speaker 1: the idea is, uh, he's poking fun at the sort

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Speaker 1: of the rain of conventional wisdom by saying that if

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Speaker 1: he were a subject in alien psychological research, if he

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Speaker 1: didn't confirm their pre existing theories, they basically throw him

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Speaker 1: out and say he wasn't a valid research subject. Interesting.

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Speaker 1: According to an obituary I found by some University of

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Speaker 1: Michigan colleagues, McConnell was also a cultivator of orchids, as

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Speaker 1: well as a lover of computers and poker, and known

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Speaker 1: by many students for quote personal zest to joy in teaching,

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Speaker 1: intellectual animation, infectious enthusiasm, and individualized attention that he brought

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Speaker 1: to his classes. Uh and Rilling points out that while

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Speaker 1: much of his cannibalistic memory transfer work that we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be focusing on was later considered wrong and misguided, McConnell

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Speaker 1: was actually a really important pioneer in research into invertebrate

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Speaker 1: learning and memory, and that scientists today should be able

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Speaker 1: to learn from both his successes and his failures. Now,

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Speaker 1: I want to make an admission that I'm afraid I'm

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Speaker 1: going to say something wrong in one of these episodes

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Speaker 1: because I keep accidentally calling James McConnell Jerry O'Connell, who

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Speaker 1: was not a psychologist. He was the guy in Scream Too,

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Speaker 1: and he played the football player and Jerry McGuire No, no,

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Speaker 1: I actually haven't seen Jerry McGuire um, But you've got

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Speaker 1: some VHS t do I have some VHS tapes because

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm saving them. I have to contribute them to

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Speaker 1: the pyramid that is being built in the desert, because

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Speaker 1: we do have to return all the Jerry's home. But yes,

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Speaker 1: I have actually have not watched it. Well know, he

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Speaker 1: was like a hunky dude in the nice but no

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Speaker 1: different guy, not the actor Jerry O'Connell, James McConnell. So

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Speaker 1: if I say, Jerry O'Connell, you've got to reach across

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Speaker 1: the table and slap me, will will you? Will you

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Speaker 1: keep this pledge? Um? I don't know if I feel

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Speaker 1: like getting up to slap you, but I will try

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Speaker 1: and jump in. Um. So. Dr McConnell explores some pretty

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Speaker 1: radical ideas during his career. You know, one of them

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Speaker 1: will be the primary focus for these episodes. But he

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Speaker 1: also later wrote about the potential of using behavioral modification

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Speaker 1: on criminals to enable their re entry into society. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: And he thought that this might be used to eliminate

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Speaker 1: crime and mental illness altogether. There was a lot of

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Speaker 1: enthusiasm in the mid century among the behaviorist school of

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Speaker 1: psychology for this kind of like society revolutionizing potential of

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Speaker 1: behavior modification. Right, And we have to go back to

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Speaker 1: some of these character attributes we've touched on already, that

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Speaker 1: he was when he was excited about an idea, he

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Speaker 1: was very excited about it and infectious with his excitement.

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Speaker 1: And he was something of a public figure and would

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Speaker 1: engage is kind of a celebrity scientist. He could engage

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Speaker 1: with science on a show biz level, not just on

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Speaker 1: a research level, and in fact often maybe did so

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Speaker 1: to the detriment of public expectations. He was accused by

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Speaker 1: some colleagues of over hyping and over interpreting and over

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Speaker 1: speculating from what research existed. So it's thought that this

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Speaker 1: is the reason that and it's particularly some of these

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Speaker 1: ideas that he was pushing in enthusiasm, he was pushing

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Speaker 1: regarding a behavioralism, that this is what attracted the attention

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Speaker 1: of a man by the name of Ted Kazinski. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which most people probably recognize that name. If not, you

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Speaker 1: might know him by his moniker, the UNI Bomber. We

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Speaker 1: were talking about this before we came in that, Like,

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Speaker 1: I bet a lot of younger listeners out there don't

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Speaker 1: even remember the UNI Bomber. I remember from when I

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Speaker 1: was very young. I mean, it's also easy to only remember,

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Speaker 1: you know, a few pictures here and there, remember that

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Speaker 1: police sketch, and remember like a courtroom picture where you know,

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Speaker 1: Kazinski looks, you know, completely unhinged, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, McConnell was one of his targets. Kazinski mailed

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Speaker 1: his tenth bomb to Dr McConnell in an assassination attempt,

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Speaker 1: and this was in nineteen five. UM he had at

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Speaker 1: that time he was working with a graduate student assistant

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Speaker 1: uh named I believe what is Nicholas Sueno, and so

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Speaker 1: they're working together. They opened the package and triggered the explosion. Now,

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Speaker 1: thankfully both individuals survived with only only minor injuries and

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Speaker 1: mild hearing loss, as well as what sounds like some

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Speaker 1: level of PTSD based on the experience, which I think

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Speaker 1: is quite understandable. But but yeah, just a refresher on

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Speaker 1: the UNI bomber for anyone who doesn't know or as

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Speaker 1: a little foggy uh Ted Kazinski born ninety two was

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Speaker 1: a was a former mathematics professor and mathematician who took

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Speaker 1: two acts of murder and domestic terrorism to advance his manifesto,

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Speaker 1: which was titled Industrial Society and Its Future, in which

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Speaker 1: he heavily criticized his post Industrial Revolution society and he

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Speaker 1: also criticized what he referred to as leftist psychology. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's sometimes he can be kind of hard to pin

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Speaker 1: down in terms of his ideology because he doesn't fit

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Speaker 1: with a lot of the standard ideological kind of groupings

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Speaker 1: you see with mass murderers and terrorists that are motivated

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Speaker 1: by ideology. He was more of a kind of idiosyncratic

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Speaker 1: lone wolf terrorist. But but he's sometimes referred to as

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Speaker 1: like an anarchist primitivist. He wanted people to return to

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Speaker 1: nature and reject modern technology and science, right, which I

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Speaker 1: mean they're they're versions of that that of course, that

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Speaker 1: are that many people listening to the show might agree with, uh,

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Speaker 1: and they wouldn't resort to murder exactly. And I mean

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Speaker 1: that's that's the big thing, just to drive home here,

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Speaker 1: you know. He Yeah, he argued for this nature centric anarchism,

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Speaker 1: and in his bombings he targeted individuals involved in modern

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Speaker 1: type mostly individuals involved in modern technological advances. And that's

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Speaker 1: why McConnell's work is sometimes hard to figure out, like

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Speaker 1: why this attracted the attention of Kazinski because it doesn't

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Speaker 1: quite seem to fit the profile at first glance. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The article I was reading by Mark Rilling identifies McConnell's

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Speaker 1: public communication on TV and another media about behavior modification

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Speaker 1: at use, uh, you know, in use in criminal justice

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Speaker 1: and human behavior reform at the large scale, as the

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Speaker 1: likely culprit in attracting Kazinski's hire. Yeah, because Kazinski did

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Speaker 1: criticize modification of the human condition, especially behavioral modification, which

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Speaker 1: McConnell had become an outspoken proponent of in the media,

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Speaker 1: and Kazinski saw him as an advocate of society's attempts

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Speaker 1: to change humans to fit the system rather than the reverse. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Between ninety nine teen, Ted Kaznski killed three people and

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Speaker 1: injured twenty three. Uh. He was the target of an

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Speaker 1: intense um search for his identity, but finally he was

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Speaker 1: arrested in nineteen and remains in prison serving a life

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Speaker 1: term as of this recording. Yeah. And fortunately both McConnell

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Speaker 1: and and the student Sweeno survived the Attechnic and so

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Speaker 1: McConnell lived several years after that. He passed away in nineteen.

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Speaker 1: So this is just something about just a bizarre um

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Speaker 1: you know, aspect of the overall story and just uh,

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Speaker 1: certainly a historically noteworthy part of McConnell's biography. Uh, that

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Speaker 1: he just ends up, you know, wandering into the path

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Speaker 1: of of this individual and becomes part of the Kazynski

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Speaker 1: story as well. Yeah, but that's not the main part

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Speaker 1: of his life. We're going to be focusing on in

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Speaker 1: these episodes. We're gonna be looking more at his research

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Speaker 1: on memory, and specifically memory research with a group of

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Speaker 1: flat worms known as plenaria. So should we take a

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Speaker 1: quick break and then come back to talk about planarians. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's go ahead and cut the episode right here. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So before we look at the experiments of

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Speaker 1: James McConnell and colleagues, we should meet a major character

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Speaker 1: in this scientific narrative, which is a type of flat

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Speaker 1: worm called planaria. Right now, for starters, Planaria, there is

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Speaker 1: a genus planar area. But but but it's not what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here, is not just organisms within that genus. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it can be a little confusing because there are multiple

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Speaker 1: things called planaria. Planaria is also used to refer to

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Speaker 1: a larger family of related flat worms, and most of

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Speaker 1: the worms that are called planarians are outside the genus

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Speaker 1: of Planaria, in classes in the class to Bellaria or

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Speaker 1: the family Planaria. Day, So we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: this broader class of planarians. Yeah, the old you'll find

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Speaker 1: them living in both fresh and salt water, in the water,

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Speaker 1: but also on land. A terrestrial Planaria are found the

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Speaker 1: soil or or damp areas or humid places. Some are

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Speaker 1: even parasitic, but most feed on protozoans, tiny snails and worms,

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Speaker 1: and they mostly feed at night. Mostly they're they're soft.

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Speaker 1: They tend to be soft leaf leaf shaped creatures that

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Speaker 1: range from three to fifteen millimeters, but they can reach

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Speaker 1: longer lengths. They have two eyes, and those two eyes

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Speaker 1: are often quite notable because they look like googly eyes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you've probably seen these before in actual photos of these

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Speaker 1: worms zoomed in their cross side. Uh. Some some of

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Speaker 1: them have tentacles, They have of ventral mouth opening and

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Speaker 1: no body cavity. They may swim via undulations or crawl

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Speaker 1: like a slug. They are also simultaneous hymaphrodites, having both

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Speaker 1: sexes within a single individual. Yet some utilize sexual reproductions

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Speaker 1: and and some utilize a sexual reproduction and of course

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Speaker 1: their legendary for their regenerative powers. Yes, and it's these

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Speaker 1: regenerative powers that are going to play a central role

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Speaker 1: in a lot of this research. Uh. And it may

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Speaker 1: have played a role in your individual research and even

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Speaker 1: science education growing up. Oh sure, yeah, maybe, I mean so,

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Speaker 1: I mean you could not have a planarian highlander situation,

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Speaker 1: you would have a real problem with trying to keep

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Speaker 1: a planary in decapitated. That's right. Uh. And and to

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Speaker 1: really drive this home, let's talk about just how amazing

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Speaker 1: their regenerative powers are. Basically, they can be cut in

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Speaker 1: half in each half will form into a fully formed individual.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it's been estimated that a mere one two

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy nine of the organism can, once removed,

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Speaker 1: regenerate into a fully formed individual. So we're talking total

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Speaker 1: sourcer as apprentice territory here, and that's really not an overstatement. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it would be like, you know, if you could chop

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Speaker 1: my finger off and it would grow a whole new me. Yeah. Really,

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Speaker 1: And that's I mean, that's amazing because we've we've talked

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Speaker 1: on the show before about the regenerative p hours of

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Speaker 1: of various vertebrate organisms. For example, you know, and it's

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Speaker 1: impressive that a lizard co jettis in its tail and

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Speaker 1: re mostly regrow that tail. Things of that nature. Many

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Speaker 1: of the healing abilities of even the human body are

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Speaker 1: pretty substantial when you really set back and and consider them.

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Speaker 1: But this is this is something far beyond most of

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Speaker 1: those examples. Yeah, I would say this goes even beyond

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Speaker 1: the impressive examples we see in like amphibians, like salamanders.

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Speaker 1: You can even cut their head in half, kind of

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Speaker 1: like you started to cut them in half with a

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Speaker 1: sword and then you got bored like around the neck. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You can, you can. You can cut their head in

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Speaker 1: half and then just stop and then they'll they'll develop

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Speaker 1: two heads and live that way. In some cases, Uh,

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Speaker 1: they have. There have been some very interesting experiments in

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Speaker 1: how they regenerate in micro gravity as well. For instance,

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Speaker 1: normally a two headed planaria is a rare occurrence in nature,

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Speaker 1: but in one experiment, space exposed worms were far more

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Speaker 1: likely developed a second head to the tune of one

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Speaker 1: in fifteen worms. Uh. In amputating this worm within result

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Speaker 1: in more two headed worms. And this is this is

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Speaker 1: just one area where you know their their further study

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Speaker 1: can help us understand their biology and uh it also

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Speaker 1: help us better understand the effects of micro gravity on

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Speaker 1: an organism. But of course, their regenerative powers in general

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Speaker 1: continue to garner a great deal of research attention. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean the medical applications of regenerative biology itself are

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Speaker 1: very important. Yeah, Worth noting that Darwin actually observed these

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Speaker 1: amazing creatures as well. Uh, and their amazing ability. I

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Speaker 1: will read a quick quote here from Charles Darwin. Alright,

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Speaker 1: this is from a journal of researches into the natural

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Speaker 1: history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage

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Speaker 1: of HMS Beagle around the world. Quote. Having cut one

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Speaker 1: of them transversely into two nearly equal parts in the

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Speaker 1: course of a fortnight, both had the shape of perfect animals.

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Speaker 1: I had, however, so divided the body that one of

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Speaker 1: the halves contained both the inferior or orifices, and the

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Speaker 1: other in consequence none In the course of twenty five

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Speaker 1: days from the operation, the more perfect half could not

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Speaker 1: have been distinguished from any other specimen. And there's more

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Speaker 1: that you know here, obviously, But that's just a taste

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Speaker 1: of his fascination with the organism itself, sitting in the

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Speaker 1: Beagle cutting up worms, and and they've continued to fascinate

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Speaker 1: researches as well. Uh. You know, for a number of reasons.

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Speaker 1: Um as pointed out by a doctor only are Pagan

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Speaker 1: author of the first brain. Uh. He pointed this out

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Speaker 1: in a two thousand fourteen interview with futurism. There are

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Speaker 1: other organisms with this kind of regenerative ability, but very

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Speaker 1: few are quite as excellent at it as the planarian.

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Speaker 1: And they also have a relatively complex nervous system, which

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Speaker 1: contributes to their appeal, especially when you get into areas

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Speaker 1: where you're talking about what can we learn from the

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Speaker 1: from a planarian that we can then apply potentially in

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Speaker 1: the future to human physiology. Now, just a few other

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Speaker 1: quick fascinating facts about them. At least one variety produces

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Speaker 1: a deadly U produces the deadly tetrodotoxin um. In general,

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Speaker 1: their mouths emerge from a proboscis located halfway down their body.

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Speaker 1: And those googly eyes sometimes described as cross eyes. Apparently

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Speaker 1: nobody's exactly sure why that is the case. I will

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Speaker 1: say the google eyes often look like an illustration, and

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Speaker 1: they present a problem with the presentation of these planarians

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Speaker 1: and the display the google eyes, because you can show

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Speaker 1: a photo of them and it looks like somebody drew it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't look like a real world organism. It always,

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Speaker 1: even to this day, it makes me think of Spy

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Speaker 1: Versus Spy and Mad Magazine. They look like the the

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Speaker 1: two Spies, the Black Spy and the White Spy from

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Speaker 1: that cartoon. Yep, So that's the subject in a nutshell. Uh,

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Speaker 1: But I imagine we should start turning our attention to

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Speaker 1: some of the experiments. Right, So I would say the

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Speaker 1: story begins with the psychological technique of classical conditioning. So

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Speaker 1: the most common example of classical conditioning is Pavlov's dogs. Right.

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Speaker 1: The Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who lived eighteen forty nine

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Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty six, was famously studying the process of

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Speaker 1: digestion in dogs when he noticed that not only did

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Speaker 1: the dogs begin to drool in the presence of food.

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Speaker 1: That that would make sense, right, you put some food

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Speaker 1: in front of a dog. The digestion process begins with

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Speaker 1: the mental stimulation of the side of food. Right, you

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Speaker 1: start producing saliva or drool in order to help you eat.

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Speaker 1: It actually went beyond that. Pavlov observed that the dogs

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Speaker 1: would start to drool as soon as they saw the

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Speaker 1: lab assistant who usually fed them. So there's a physiological

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Speaker 1: justification for producing extra saliva. When an animal sees food,

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Speaker 1: the animal's body is preparing to eat. But Pavlov, since

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Speaker 1: I was realizing that through repeated training, you could separate

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Speaker 1: the stimulus and the response through one or more layers

428
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: of abstraction. So, of course the lab assistant isn't food,

429
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: but the dog comes to learn through repeated instances that

430
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: every time it sees the assistant, it's about to get food.

431
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: And thus the body prepares itself to eat and digest.

432
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: And this was later done with all kinds of different things.

433
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: With auditory cues such as a bell or a metronome,

434
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: the dog, here's the sound. It knows the food is coming,

435
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: and the body responds. And I don't know about you,

436
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: but like, this is something that helps define my relationship

437
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 1: with my pet. Like I think about this all the

438
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: time when observing my cat's relationship with our household environment.

439
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: Absolutely I think about my dog's relationship with any stimulus

440
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: such as sound or visual cues that may signal a

441
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: walk is about to take place. So like the picking

442
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: up of the keys, the putting on of the coach,

443
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: that putting on of the shoes, all these different things

444
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: are like start to trigger this powerful excitement reaction in

445
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: the dog, even though none of them are are opening

446
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: the door, leashing up, going out for a walk, right,

447
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: none of them are in and of themselves the desired reward,

448
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 1: but there are various bits of stimuli associated with that

449
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: eventual reward of course. So yeah, we are constantly, even

450
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: accidentally classically conditioning our pets whenever something that they're interested in,

451
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: whether positively or negatively, is about to happen. If it

452
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: happens repeatedly, you're probably training them, whether you want to

453
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: be or not. Can is open, might be foods as

454
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: the cat um, the rattle of foil, walking into the kitchen, um, etcetera. Yeah, uh,

455
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: and this is widely acknowledged as one of the most

456
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: useful discoveries in the history of experimental psychology. Of course,

457
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 1: it works with both positive and negative stimuli. You can also,

458
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: for example, administer a mildly painful shock every time somebody

459
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: hears the Batman theme, and after enough repetition, the person

460
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: or the animal is probably gonna freeze or WinCE when

461
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: they hear the music, even if no shock is administered.

462
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 1: A call back to our recent episode of Invention, our

463
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: other podcast about the history the techno history of inventions,

464
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: we did want on the turnspit Dog. If you're not aware,

465
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: there was a time in the history, especially in Britain,

466
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 1: where small dogs turned little wheels to keep the spit

467
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: of meat turning by the fire. And one of the

468
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 1: problems with using dogs for this particular bit of work

469
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 1: is that they are smart and they pick up on

470
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: these clues. So you they might pick up on these

471
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: little signs that that inform them that some meat is

472
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: going to be skewer, that they're the roast is gonna

473
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: be had for dinner, or maybe just a big dinner

474
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: is going to take place, and then the dog will

475
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: run off and hide. Exactly what they should have found

476
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: to turn those spits was like a large invertebrate that

477
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,880
Speaker 1: was not very good at learning through classical conditioning. Oh

478
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: and just to keep things clear, because this is some

479
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: thing that I used to confuse myself. What's the difference

480
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: between these two terms, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. You've

481
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: probably heard both of them. Uh, they're similar. They're both

482
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: based on learning associations between two things. But the difference

483
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: is classical conditioning pairs two external stimuli. For example, I

484
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,120
Speaker 1: show you a picture of Sean Connery and I give

485
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: you an electric shock. So every time you know, if

486
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: you do that enough, when you see the picture of

487
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: Sean Connery, you'll win s or freeze, or react as

488
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: if you're going to get a shock, even if you don't. Meanwhile,

489
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: operant conditioning associates a reward or a punishment with a

490
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: behavior supplied by the subject. So, for example, if you

491
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: jump three times, you get a bag of candy corn.

492
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: Now we know perfectly well that these types of conditioning,

493
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: classical conditioning operant conditioning work with a number of more

494
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: complex life forms like rats, like dogs, like humans. But

495
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: there was an interesting question that came up in the

496
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: twentieth century, which was did it work for less complex

497
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: life forms like say worms. All right, on that note,

498
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: we're going to take one more break, but we'll be

499
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: right back. Thank alright, we're back, alright. So we've been

500
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: discussing classical conditioning, behavioral conditioning, and the fact that this

501
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: we we know this works in more complex life forms

502
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: like mammals, rats, dogs, humans, but does it work in

503
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: less complex life forms like worms and other invertebrates. In

504
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, the answer to this question was pretty

505
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: well understood, and that answer was no. Invertebrates could not

506
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: learn the way that rats and monkeys and other mammals

507
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: could mark. Rilling makes this point at length in his article,

508
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: writing that the widely held view, especially among zoologists and

509
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 1: psychologists who were not experts directly in animal behavior, was

510
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: that invertebrates had no capacity for internal memory states, and

511
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: the only thing that they that they could do that

512
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: would even a approximate learning might come from temporary changes

513
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: in body tissue. Really quotes a leading textbook of comparative

514
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: psychology at the time, I think it's from the nineteen

515
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: thirties on a question of whether invertebrates can learn associations

516
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: through conditioning and the passage reads experience may temporarily alter

517
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: the form of behavior by inducing local tissue change, but

518
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: such changes are wiped out by subsequent events and have

519
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: no permanent altering effect. Uh. It was also the opinion

520
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: of a contemporary researcher in the nineteen fifties I think

521
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:37,719
Speaker 1: named Donald Jensen quote that no invertebrate, no matter how complex,

522
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: is capable of showing true associative learning. So that's the

523
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: consensus invertebrates can't learn. As for this distinction they're making

524
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: about true learning versus tissue change, I think the distinction

525
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: here is that, like if a worm or an insect

526
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: could be conditioned to go left rather than right in

527
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: a maze. It might only be because, for example, the

528
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: conditioning process had made the legs or the wings or

529
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: something on one side of the body stronger. Uh. The

530
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: bottom line was that animals without backbones cannot truly learn

531
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,239
Speaker 1: the same way animals like us can. You couldn't have

532
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: a Pavlov's worm or a Pavlov's crab. Though the authors

533
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: of the textbook quoted by Rilling make exactly one exception.

534
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: They admit that this rule might not apply to planaria.

535
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: But of course, McConnell, as usual, was sort of disposition

536
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: alle opposed to the conventional wisdom. He was something of

537
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: an iconoclast, and he did not accept the idea in

538
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties that invertebrates could not learn. He wanted

539
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: to find out if worms could be trained. Could he

540
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: become a worm tamer. So here we move on into

541
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: the first stage of this research history, the worm conditioning.

542
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fifty three McConnell was in graduate studies

543
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: at the University of Texas and UH. Then this year

544
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: and some of the following years he he collaborated with

545
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: another researcher named Robert Thompson to demonstrate that planarians could

546
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: be classically conditioned, and the basic set up here involved

547
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: learning of responses to light light stimuli. Again, most of

548
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: them are going to be nocturnal. Uh, so light is

549
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: going to play an important role in their behavior. Yeah,

550
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: and certainly yeah through their you know, day night cycles

551
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So they can detect a light.

552
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: They have the ability to to tell when a light

553
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: is being flashed. So planaria usually live, uh, at least

554
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: the planaria they were working with usually live in aquatic

555
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: environments and they move from one place to another by

556
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: gliding across the bottom surface of a pool, usually along

557
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: slime trails that they deposit as they move. So McConnell

558
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: and Thompson put together a test with a foot long

559
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: pool of water in which they would deposit a planarian

560
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: and then the worm could glide from one end to

561
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: the pool to the other. Then, for the conditioning groups,

562
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: McConnell and Thompson would train the worms by flashing a

563
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: light above the water, paired with an electric shock applied

564
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: to the whole pool to the water and the conditioned

565
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: responses the researchers were looking for in response to the light.

566
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: After training were contraction of the worm's body and turning

567
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: of the of the direction, and when the behavior of

568
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 1: these trained planaria was compared with control groups, they found

569
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: that while the planarian learning effect was not extremely strong,

570
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: it was undeniably present. The condition worms showed an increase

571
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: in contraction in response to the light from from about

572
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: two percent in the first fifty trials to about ten

573
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: percent in the last fifty trials, and turns started at

574
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: a rate of about in response to light, but increased

575
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,719
Speaker 1: throughout the test period to thirty five percent after conditioning. So,

576
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: as you can see, the planarian probably does not learn

577
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: it nearly the efficiency of a mammal like a rat

578
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,479
Speaker 1: or a dog or an orangutan, but these nevertheless are

579
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: significant changes. So, however weak, some learning was clearly taking place.

580
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: And as a as a modern note, just to be clear,

581
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 1: the established wisdom about invertebrates being unable to learn through

582
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 1: association was pretty much completely wrong, and planaria were not

583
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: the only exception. I was looking at one paper by

584
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 1: Hawkins and burn From published in Cold Springs Harbor Perspectives

585
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: Perspectives in biology called associate of Learning and Invertebrates, and

586
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,240
Speaker 1: they say that rudimentary forms of associative learning are found

587
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: basically throughout the animal kingdom. One commonly studied example used

588
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: in invertebrate learning and memory research is the California sea

589
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: hair or applies a Californica. Almost had applies a californication californica.

590
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 1: So it's a huge sea slug. I was looking this off.

591
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: It could barely be up to seventy five centimeters long

592
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: and way up to about seven kilograms or fifteen pounds.

593
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: That's a that's a real mother of a sea slug.

594
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: Can you imagine trying to pick up a fifteen hound

595
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: sea slug? No? No, I mean one scarcely imagines it

596
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: coming out of the water, right, But I can't help

597
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: just because we're talking about something that they see hair,

598
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: I always think of them behaving and rabbit like behavior,

599
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 1: you know, or even delivering Easter eggs. Well, one also

600
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: thinks about the sea monster that was popular on medieval

601
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: and Renaissance maps, the sea hare. I relieve I talked

602
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: about Chet Manduser with the sea the sea hare, yes,

603
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: or I talked with chet Mandouser about the sea hare. Yeah.

604
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: That's one of the fun things about sea monsters is

605
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: that we have all these things that are sort of

606
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: name have the same name, like a sea hair, a

607
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: sea lion, etcetera. But in the history of sea monsters,

608
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: pretty much every creature that was known to reside on

609
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: the surface had a double in the deep. Right, the

610
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: medieval and Renaissance map sea hair has nothing to do

611
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: with the sea here. It was not a slug. It

612
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: had fuzzy bunny ears, and you could have a velveteen

613
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: sea hair and it would be very sad. But yeah,

614
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: so this sea hare is a giant sea slug, and

615
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 1: experiments show that it can learn associate sans, for example,

616
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: a conditioned retraction of the gill and siphon organs that

617
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,919
Speaker 1: strengthened by noxious stimuli like electric shocks to the tail.

618
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: So while learning responses are going to vary according to

619
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 1: a creature's nero anatomy, there appears to be no general

620
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: rule against invertebrate learning. Okay, that's good to know heading forward.

621
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: So it's not just this idea that like all the

622
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 1: eggs are in this one basket for invertebrate learning, only

623
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: the planarians can learn. No, that is not the case.

624
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: We We got some smart sea hairs, relatively smart but

625
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: again to emphasize, this was the opposite of the conventional

626
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: wisdom leading into the nineteen fifties UH, and to some degree,

627
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: even after research demonstrating that there was invertebrate learning like,

628
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: consensus among experts at the time resisted the idea of

629
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 1: true invertebrate learning even after some published studies. One example

630
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: cited by Rilling concerns a response after McConnell and colleagues

631
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that the condition learning they could elicit

632
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: in Planaria had to sustained effect that the memory associations

633
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: lasted not just for hours, not just for days, but

634
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: literally for for months at a time. I think they

635
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: set up to four months. In response to this, UH,

636
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 1: a renowned zoologist specializing in invertebrates named Libby Hyman said

637
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 1: apparently said multiple times, no, that just can't be, and

638
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 1: argued that maybe a planarian could remember something for like

639
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 1: five minutes or so, but the memory retention for weeks

640
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: or months was just unthinkable. But we already see some

641
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: things at work here in UH in McConnell's story. So

642
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: Rilling points out that while these results did bear out,

643
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: and UH he thinks did generally demonstrate planarian learning and

644
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,439
Speaker 1: and showed something that is real and true. You could

645
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: already see some of McConnell's methodological shortcomings at work. For example,

646
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: he and Thompson did not use any kind of automatic

647
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: measuring of the flatworm responses, but instead use the more

648
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: traditional method of quote naturalistic observation, which I think means

649
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: that they just watch to see what happened. You can

650
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 1: probably guess why psychologists today try to find ways not

651
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: to rely on experiment or is just eyebawling it when

652
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: making a judgment about what happened. Uh, You're you're way

653
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: more subject to experiment or bias this way. You want to,

654
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: if possible, come up with an automatic method, right, because

655
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: I mean, ironically, what you're dealing with when you're just

656
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: dealing with observations as you are of course dealing with memory. Um,

657
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: even if certainly if you're making notes about what you're

658
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: seeing as you're seeing it, you're still having to rely

659
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: then on your memory of the observation far better and

660
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: you know, far more reliable to be able to point

661
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: to say measurements yeah, yeah, done by a machine or something.

662
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: Have some kind of method that's not just your subjective judgment,

663
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,879
Speaker 1: of what you just saw, being able to say this

664
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: organism moved, you know, however far have left in this experiment,

665
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: and then in a second experiment the same thing definitely occur. Yes, uh.

666
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear that like this doesn't

667
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: experiment men or bias doesn't have to result from experimenters

668
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: trying to trick anyone or being trying to commit conscious

669
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: fraud for their results. They can be doing their honest

670
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: best to try to represent things accurately. But still, you know,

671
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: observation is somewhat subjective. You're going to honestly believe you

672
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: saw something differently than somebody else did, or you know,

673
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: our observations and our memories are not perfect, and they're

674
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: highly influenced by what we want to see or expect

675
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: to see. Also, Rilling points out that McConnell and Thompson's

676
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: graduate advisor here was a comparative psychologist named M. E. Bitterman,

677
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: who was critical of both students for not being careful enough,

678
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: for example, not including a control group that were exposed

679
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: to both shocks and light flashes but unpaired from each other,

680
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: to more firmly establish a causal link for the for

681
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: the conditioning process itself. But what if they had gotten

682
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 1: both flashes and shocks and they just weren't linked the

683
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 1: same way they were in the in the test group,

684
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: and they apparently didn't do that. And so Rilling seems

685
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: to see this as characteristic of McConnell's career as a whole. Uh.

686
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,759
Speaker 1: To quote from him in a summary passage, quote, McConnell,

687
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 1: an innovator, raced from one exciting phenomenon to the next

688
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: without comprehensive experimental analysis or adequate controls. McConnell's controls were

689
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: often developed as a response to his critics. McConnell's students

690
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,280
Speaker 1: and other scientists were left to the task of cleaning

691
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:33,320
Speaker 1: up after McConnell by adding the control groups that he omitted.

692
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 1: And I think it's easy to see how this kind

693
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: of thing can be at at the same time very

694
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: uh winning and exciting, especially to maybe the general public

695
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: and you know, publications writing about his exciting and strange

696
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: and counterintuitive new research, but also really irritating to appears

697
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 1: in the field. If you're vaulting from one flashy, controversial,

698
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: exciting discovery to another without taking the time to slow

699
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,839
Speaker 1: down and be sure you're on firm ground after each stop, right,

700
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: because the ideal process. If the study comes out and

701
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 1: there's some sort of problem with it, than than you know,

702
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: the others in the field chime in. There's a sort

703
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: of amount of course correction that takes place. You go

704
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:14,839
Speaker 1: back to the drawing board, try to figure out how

705
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: you went wrong. Yeah, may yeah, maybe take a complete

706
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: step or two backwards. You don't just keep going along

707
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 1: this line because you know that there is gold on

708
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: the other end. But at the same time, I mean,

709
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,879
Speaker 1: you can totally understand the temptation to do it that way.

710
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: It sounds so much more exciting and than trying to

711
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 1: buckle down and be super sure and super rigorous about

712
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: what you think you already proved. Well. In this we

713
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: get into something we've discussed them the show before about

714
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 1: just the nature of scientific inquiry. Like it's one of

715
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: these things that in some ways it is very much

716
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: like how the human mind works and how humans have

717
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: always solved problems. You can find, you know, examples of

718
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: what is essentially scientific inquiry, certainly in in in prehistoric

719
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 1: people's But at the same time, there are aspects of

720
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: scientific inquiry that defy, uh, what it is to be

721
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 1: a human problem solver that that that perfect the method

722
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: in ways that don't make sense just within the confines

723
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: of you know, you know, minute to minute human experience exactly.

724
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: Trial and error comes naturally. But we're way too prone

725
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: to rely on heuristics, you know, to to use our

726
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: sort of standard day to day trial and error judgment

727
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: for real scientific investigation, because usually we only need one

728
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: or two examples of something going right for us to

729
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: derive a rule from it. And one or two examples

730
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: is not you know, that's still an anecdote scientifically. I

731
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: here's an example from my my life as a parent.

732
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 1: Um My son at an early age was enthralled by

733
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 1: claw machines like pizza parlors and um and whatnot. And

734
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: so the first time I let him try it, I said, Okay,

735
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 1: here's a quarter, you can try it. And I was thinking, oh,

736
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: he'll learn a good lesson. You know, you won't pick

737
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: anything up with the claws, and I'll see this is

738
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 1: a tricky machine made exclusively to take his money by

739
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: tempting when with the idea that he'll win a cheap prize.

740
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: And then he wins a cheap prize the first time, right,

741
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: So I instantly set the wrong lesson. And then there

742
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 1: was another case like shortly thereafter, or maybe a little

743
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 1: mong later, but he had some credits at some sort

744
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: of parlor as part of a children's birthday party. Did

745
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: it again, won a prize, and so now it's ruined

746
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: like to the two prizes makes a rule of that

747
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: claw machines are where you get cheap toys, and the

748
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 1: trickery is you know, somewhat lost on him at this

749
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: at this point anyway, Oh no, I mean that kind

750
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 1: of learning. I've actually wondered before if that could feature

751
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:48,399
Speaker 1: into and maybe as far as we know, it already does,

752
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 1: but could in the future feature into a a more

753
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 1: insidious type of slot machine. It's a more perfect gambling

754
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:59,399
Speaker 1: addiction creator and money extractor. And what how it would

755
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: simply work is it's got a camera on there with

756
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 1: facial recognition, and it can recognize if you've played a

757
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,760
Speaker 1: slot machine in this casino before, and if you haven't

758
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: it's and it's your first time. It gives you a

759
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 1: small payout on your first go. Yeah, I give you

760
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: that that that that first time user beginner luck, but

761
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: also give you false expectations about what's playing a slot

762
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: machine is all about exactly. But I hope I didn't

763
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: just give ideas to some really insidious designer there, right,

764
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: because to be sure to be clear, and we certainly

765
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: did a couple of episodes and slot machines in the past.

766
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 1: A slot machine's purpose is to take your money, and

767
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 1: the slot machine playing experience is the loss of money. Yeah,

768
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: the slot machine is not designed to help you win big.

769
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: If you want to play them, you should understand that

770
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: you are paying for an entertaining experience and that's the

771
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: best case scenario. All right, we got we got a

772
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 1: little off topic there, but it's just as well because

773
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,919
Speaker 1: we've kind of hit our time for this part of

774
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: the inquiry. We're gonna be back in the next episode

775
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: to continue you this discussion of planarians to what extent

776
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: can they can they learn? But also we're going to

777
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: get into this other area about the absorption of another

778
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 1: worm's memory. Is it possible, uh, through cannibalism? Through cannibalism,

779
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: And then how does McConnell get into trouble based on

780
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,399
Speaker 1: his reported findings, and then where do we go from

781
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: here in the modern age? In the meantime, if you

782
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 1: want to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow

783
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: your Mind. Heading over to Stuff to Blow your Mind

784
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: dot com. That is the mothership. That's where you'll find

785
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: them all. You will also find them all at any

786
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,800
Speaker 1: place that you acquire your podcasts and wherever that happens

787
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: to be. We just asked that you subscribe and that

788
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: you leave a nice review, leave us some stars and

789
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 1: or a nice comment, because this helps us out in

790
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: the long run. If you want to check out other

791
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:51,320
Speaker 1: shows that were involved in First of all, there's Invention.

792
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: We've mentioned that one before on the show already, and uh,

793
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: this is a journey through human techno history. Find it

794
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: an Invention pod dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.

795
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: We've mentioned the second oil age that is out as well,

796
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: if you want to a short form of fiction horror

797
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 1: fiction exploration throughout your holidays. Oh and I should also

798
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,799
Speaker 1: note if you were interested in Stuff to Blow your

799
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,240
Speaker 1: Mind merchandise, we still have the old T shirt store

800
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: and I am to understand that there is going to

801
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: be a sale of some sort coming up. Uh, you

802
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: know how it is you get around Thanksgiving. There are

803
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Speaker 1: all these sales. The same will be true of our

804
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Speaker 1: T shirt store. You can find some old favorites, like

805
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Speaker 1: our the squirrels are not what they seem, uh the

806
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Speaker 1: Scugs shirt. Also, of course, the the Great Basilisk shirt

807
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Speaker 1: was a big hit to the sphere Catastrophee and it's

808
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Speaker 1: one of my favorites as well as some standard logo stuff.

809
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Speaker 1: And I believe there's gonna be a new shirt in

810
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Speaker 1: the store as well, so that's gonna be worth checking

811
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: out definitely by all the merch uh huge thanks as

812
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

813
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

814
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: feedback on today's episode, to suggest a topic for the future,

815
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

816
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

817
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios.

818
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,719
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819
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820
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