周六(12/13) 1. 天才!哪兒來?動物治療法

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天才!哪兒來?

Where Does Genius Come From? By Andrew Robinson huffingtonpost

What do Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Darwin, Einstein and Virginia Woolf have in common? They're said to be geniuses, supremely talented people who managed to achieve breakthroughs that other hard-working smart folks only dream about. Where do such breakthroughs, and the people capable of making them, come from? If we understood the essential ingredients of genius, would we be able to create conditions conducive to its cultivation? Andrew Robinson sets out to explore whether the idea of genius can be clearly articulated, or whether we are just left with the notion that "we know it when we see it." He explores as case studies the lives and works of 10 extraordinary people: Christopher Wren, Jean-Francois Champollion, Marie Curie, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Satyajit Ray, in addition to those mentioned above.

Robinson begins by examining previous attempts to identify the "ingredients of creativity" and finds most of them wanting. He is intrigued by the combination of focus and blindness that characterizes idiot savants, for example, but he drops the subject almost entirely after a review of some high-profile cases. Happily, he doesn't trust IQ tests to predict genius, nor does he buy the claim that there is any real correlation between mental illness and great creativity. He winds up with the rather banal conclusion that "unlike talent . . . genius is the result of a unique configuration of parental genes and personal circumstances."

At the center of Sudden Genius? are chapters devoted to 10 breakthroughs in the arts and sciences. One can appreciate the author's range of subjects, from Wren's work on St. Paul's Cathedral to Champollion's decoding of the Rosetta Stone to Ray's innovative work in film. But Robinson's discussion of the actual breakthroughs themselves is often pedestrian. We learn little about what has remained so exciting about these famous achievements, nor why he chose these particular exemplars. His use of the secondary literature is haphazard, which is perhaps to be forgiven in light of the variety of work considered. But the author's passion for these achievements is not always evident, and so the chapters have a tepid feel that undercuts the notion that these are supreme monuments to creativity. Robinson seems downright hostile to Virginia Woolf's work, and I couldn't help thinking he would have preferred to write about science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, whom Robinson knew and whose name comes up at various points in the book.

At the close of the book, Robinson opines that "talent appears to be on the increase, genius on the decrease." I have no idea how one might evaluate such a claim, but it does sound like the kind of thing people usually say after spending time with the conventional classics. Unlike Sudden Genius?, the figures discussed in the book refused to settle for the conventional, and that's one of the key reasons we continue to ponder their achievements today.

Questions:

Where does genius come from? Do genius have something in common?

What do you think about Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Darwin, and Einstein?

What are the ways to find out if you're a genius?

What are the ways that to make yourself smarter?

Can new technology make people smarter?

How to discover your hidden talents?

Can someone with an average IQ become a genius?

Is it possible to train your brain to think like a genius?

   
動物治療法

Animal-assisted therapy (psychiatryonline)

Animal-assisted therapy involves interaction between patients and a trained animal, along with its human owner or handler, with the aim of facilitating patients' progress toward therapeutic goals. This study examined whether a session of animal-assisted therapy reduced the anxiety levels of hospitalized psychiatric patients and whether any differences in reductions in anxiety were associated with patients' diagnoses. METHODS: Study subjects were 230 patients referred for therapeutic recreation sessions. A pre- and posttreatment crossover study design was used to compare the effects of a single animal-assisted therapy session with those of a single regularly scheduled therapeutic recreation session. Before and after participating in the two types of sessions, subjects completed the state scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, a self-report measure of anxiety currently felt. A mixed-models repeated-measures analysis was used to test differences in scores from before and after the two types of sessions. RESULTS: Statistically significant reductions in anxiety scores were found after the animal-assisted therapy session for patients with psychotic disorders, mood disorders, and other disorders, and after the therapeutic recreation session for patients with mood disorders. No statistically significant differences in reduction of anxiety were found between the two types of sessions. CONCLUSIONS: Animal-assisted therapy was associated with reduced state anxiety levels for hospitalized patients with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses, while a routine therapeutic recreation session was associated with reduced levels only for patients with mood disorders.

Questions:

What do you think about animal-assisted therapy?

Are an animal lover? Why or why not?

Do you think the animal-assisted therapy can help reduced the anxiety levels?

What are your ways to reduce anxiety?

Pros and cons of keeping animals as pets?

Can pets improve your health?

Can pets be a prescription for happier?