Breakfast of (concentration) champions? Maybe not....Photo credit: Kyndall Ramirez/Unsplash A headline at Psych Central reads, "High fat meal may impair concentration." Does the study behind the headline support that causal claim? At first, you might assume that this came from a correlational study on diet and concentration. However, it turns out the research summarized in …
Category: Is this causal claim justified?
Claim: “Going to museums and concerts helps you live longer”
Does the study's method support the claim that attending arts events makes you live longer? Photo credit: agefotostock/Alamy We'll never run out of material in the "correlation is not causation" department. This time, a New York Times journalist led with the headline, "Another benefit of going to museums? You may live longer." Let's check out the …
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Screen time (again!)
The effect of screen time on well-being is likely to depend on moderators such as what's on the screen, when it's used, and who's using it. Photo: Eric Nathan / Alamy Stock Photo I can't promise this is the last article on screen time research that I will blog about. But this long-form piece by …
Dog people live longer
The study found an association between dog ownership and longevity. Which third variables were controlled for? Which third variables might still be responsible for the relationship? Photo: Shutterstock I can't resist blogging about research on dogs. Here's a story on NPR that summarized several studies that have tested the correlation between longevity and dog ownership. …
Can Probiotics Actually Treat Obesity?
Should you be suspicious of a study conducted by a company that produces probiotics products? Photo: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo Guest post by Dr. Dina Gohar, University of Michigan Hippocrates, considered to be the Father of Medicine, reportedly said, “all disease begins in the gut. ” It took doctors centuries …
Of head horns and cell phones
Did the study collect the right data to conclude that "screen time found to cause 'head horns'?" Photo Credit: Nature Scientific Reports Maybe you heard the story last week about how cell phones are making horns grow on people's heads. Take a minute to watch this short video of the morning crew from ABC news …
Did the show “Thirteen Reasons Why” cause an increase in suicides?
The study used a quasi-experimental design. Credit: Beth Dubber/Netflix/Kobal/Shutterstock Update 7/19/2019: Netflix has decided to remove the scene depicting the main character's actual suicide, perhaps in response to data from this and other studies. Here's one story on the change. The Netflix series "Thirteen reasons why" tells the story of a teenage girl who commits …
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Claim: Mothers’ friendships are good for babies’ brains
The study showed that moms with larger social support networks had kids with higher cognitive test scores. Photo: Noriko Cooper / Alamy Stock Photo The Washington Post headline reads, "Mothers' friendships may be good for babies' brains." The story is about an empirical study on mothers' social networks. Although it says "babies' brains", the study …
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More butter, happier citizenry
What internal validity problems prevent us from claiming that butter leads to happiness? Photo: Fatty's place/Shutterstock A writer for the Big Think wrote about how "Butter supply and life-satisfaction are linked". It's a dairy interesting story with perfect scatterplots for practicing correlational designs. Writer Frank Jacobs used the following bullet-points to open his story: Haiti and …
Concentration blunts your sense of smell
He is concentrating so much that he might not notice the coffee smell.... Photo: baranq/Shutterstock At times, we've all been so engrossed in a task that we've lost awareness of our surroundings. Maybe you didn't hear someone calling your name when you were finishing your paper, or maybe you missed the oven timer when you …