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Meditating could make you less error prone

Meditation has been shown to have a slew of benefits, and researchers from Michigan University have added another to the list: fixing mistakes. The team took more than 200 participants, who had never meditated before, through a 20-minute open monitoring meditation exercise while their brain activity was being measured. “Some forms of meditation have you focus on a single object, commonly your breath, but open monitoring meditation is different, '' said Jeff Lin, the study’s co-author. “It has you tune inward and pay attention to everything going on in your mind and body. The goal is to sit quietly and pay close attention to where the mind travels without getting too caught up in the scenery.” Then, the participants completed a distraction test, and were found to have an enhanced ability to notice mistakes in comparison to the group who didn’t meditate. “The EEG (electroencephalography) can measure brain activity at the millisecond level, so we got precise measures of neural activity right after mistakes compared to correct responses,” Lin said. “A certain neural signal occurs about half a second after an error called the error positivity, which is linked to conscious error recognition. “We found that the strength of this signal is increased in the meditators relative to controls.” Though meditating didn’t immediately improve actual task performance, these findings suggest that sustained meditation could have beneficial effects on performance. “People’s interest in meditation and mindfulness is outpacing what science can prove in terms of effects and benefits,” Lin said. “But it’s amazing to me that we were able to see how one session of a guided meditation can produce changes to brain activity in non-meditators.” Lin said it was encouraging to see public enthusiasm for mindfulness and meditation, but there was still a lot more to do to understand its benefits and how it works. “It’s time we start looking at it through a more rigorous lens.” The study was published in <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/9/9/226" target="_blank">Brain Science</a>. Image: Getty Images

Mind

100-year-old man charged with 3,518 murders in WWII

<div class="post_body_wrapper"> <div class="post_body"> <div class="body_text redactor-styles redactor-in"> German prosecutors have charged a 100-year-old man with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder after allegations the man served during the second world war as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp. He is alleged to have worked at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945. The man's name has not been released in line with Germany privacy laws, but Cyrill Klement, the lead investigator, believes that the man was an enlisted member of the Nazi party's paramilitary wing. Despite being 100, the man is considered fit enough to stand trial, but accommodations may have to be made to limit how many hours a day the court is in session, according to <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/09/man-100-charged-in-germany-over-3518-nazi-concentration-camp-murders" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. “The advanced age of the defendants is no excuse to ignore them and allow them to live in the peace and tranquillity they denied their victims,” Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said. The case was handed to the Neuruppin office in 2019 by the special federal prosecutors' office in Ludwigsburg, which is tasked with investigating Nazi-era war crimes. The case against the 100-year-old man relies on a recently set legal precedent in Germany that establishes anyone who helped a Nazi camp function can be prosecuted for accessory to the murders that were committed there. The court has not yet set a date for the trial. </div> </div> </div>

Legal

In praise of the printed book: The value of concentration in the digital age

There is an old saying that anxiety is the enemy of concentration. One of the best pieces of sports journalism I ever read was by <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2007/02/22/the-man-who-wasnt-there">Gene Tunney</a>, world heavyweight champion of the 1920s, writing about how reading books helped him stay calm and focused in the lead-up to his most famous fight against former champion Jack Dempsey. While members of Dempsey’s camp ridiculed Tunney for his bookishness, Tunney kept calm, and went on to win. Most of us would feel stressed at the prospect of stepping into the boxing ring, but stress-related illnesses, especially depression and forms of anxiety and attention disorder, are becoming increasingly prevalent, especially in wealthy societies. According to a major <a href="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.plosmedicine.org%2Farticle%2FfetchSingleRepresentation.action%3Furi%3Dinfo%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0030442.sd004&ei=_3mgULrKOoWRigeI6IDoCw&usg=AFQjCNFMmbioHNEqLYDf0H8jduBX-qV_hw">2006 projection of global mortality by Mathers and Loncar</a>, by 2030, unipolar depression will be almost 40% more likely to cause death or disability than heart disease in wealthy societies. Stress can of course have many causes, but in the most general sense, it spreads from factors that impact negatively on focus and concentration. We fear interruption or a surplus of tasks, responsibilities or options to choose, leading to heightened stress levels. The digital age is an age of distraction; and distraction causes stress and weakens concentration. Concentration, as the philosopher <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/">William James</a> argued in his classic 1890 work <a href="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/">Principles of Psychology</a>, is the most fundamental element of intellectual development. He wrote: <blockquote> The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again, is the very root of judgement, character, and will … An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. </blockquote> Concentration is equally important emotionally, as is being increasingly revealed by new research into <a href="http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/collections/monash-authors/2008/9781741667042.html">“mindfulness” and meditation</a>. The inability to focus is associated with depression and anxiety and, amongst other things, an underdeveloped sociability and human empathy. Tests have revealed that people report greater happiness from being effectively focused on what they are doing than from daydreaming on even pleasant topics. How many memoirs include stories of the author surreptitiously reading books by torchlight underneath the blankets, with parents fearful of the child reading too much? (In my case I was reading The Hardy Boys so my mother’s objections were probably justified.) As <a href="http://www.jamescarroll.net/JAMESCARROLL.NET/Welcome.html">James Carroll</a> has argued, at its core, reading is <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0130-02.htm">“the occasion of the encounter with the self”</a>. In other words, the ultimate object of reading is not to take on information but to absorb and reflect upon it and, in the process, hopefully, form a more developed version of one’s own identity or being. It seems likely that the concentration required and encouraged by books is extremely valuable. Reading books is good for you. And this seems especially so in the case of print books, where a reader is most completely free from distraction. Ebooks, and more pertinently perhaps, the digital reading environment, are unquestionably transformative in the opportunities and experiences they offer to readers. Great oceans of knowledge otherwise only obtainable through tracking down print books or physical archives and records, have become available and, much more easily searchable. <a href="http://websearch.about.com/od/h/g/hyperlink.htm">Hyperlinks</a> mean readers no longer have to read in a straight line, as it were, but can follow innumerable paths of interest. <a href="http://www.unimelb.edu.au/copyright/information/guides/wikisblogsweb2blue.pdf">Web2 technologies</a> enable “talking back” to publishers and media, the formation of groups of readers with common interests, easy (sometimes too easy) sharing of files and other information. Stories can be enriched by animated graphics and interactivity. And so on. No-one in their right mind would imagine that the e-reading environment can or should somehow be wound back. Nonetheless, by their nature e-reading devices facilitate and encourage the constant, inevitably distracting consideration of other reading options, more or less instantly attainable. This is probably their main selling point. <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/epcd/faculty/wolf.asp">Maryanne Wolf</a> has even asked: <blockquote> “if the assumption that ‘more’ and ‘faster’ are necessarily better (will) have consequences that radically affect the quality of attention that can transform a word into a thought and a thought into a world of unimagined possibility?” </blockquote> It is interesting to consider, in light of this possibility that the greatest benefit of reading may come from its capacity to assist in the development of focus and concentration, that the print book may not actually have been superseded or, indeed, be supersede-able. This, I think, is what the novelist, critic, philosopher and communications historian <a href="http://www.umbertoeco.com/en/">Umberto Eco</a> means when he argues: “The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved.”<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9855/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> Written by Nathan Hollier, Director, Monash University Publishing, Monash University. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-praise-of-the-printed-book-the-value-of-concentration-in-the-digital-age-9855">The Conversation</a>.

Books

Are corporate mergers hurting customers? It's time to check

Compared with the grand cause of climate change or the pointed self-interest of income tax, competition policy is a decidedly unsexy election issue. So it’s hardly surprising that no party is running hot on the issue – not even the Labor Party, although it has put <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/accc-to-review-mergers-under-alp-plan-to-aid-competition-20190224-p50zus.html">some notable reforms</a> on the election slate. But competition policy matters to all of us. It’s what stands between being able to pick and choose goods and services with a range of prices and quality on the one hand, and on the other being dictated to by one or a handful of sellers charging as much and offering as little possible. Keeping markets competitive necessitates a debate about economics, law and regulation. It may be technical but we pay dearly if we don’t have it. Existing policies to protect competition in Australia are not in bad shape. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is regarded as <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-global-competition-agency-of-the-year">one of the world’s best</a> competition regulators. But there is always more that can be done. Most of all, the commission needs more empirical evidence to know if it is doing enough to prevent competitive markets being distorted by a few dominant companies. Highly concentrated Many Australian markets <a href="https://adamtriggs.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/aere12185.pdf">are concentrated</a> – dominated by a few big players. Think of banks, energy retailers, telecommunications, supermarkets and petrol sellers. Each year the ACCC considers hundreds of mergers or acquisitions that add to concentration. The competition watchdog has the power to begin formal proceedings to block a merger if it is judged to give the merged entity too much market power. In reality, however, the regulator opposes very few acquisitions. In <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC-%26-AER-Annual-Report-2017-18_0.pdf">2017-18</a>, for example, the ACCC examined 281 mergers. It “pre-assessed” 252 as not requiring a review. Of the 29 reviewed, 17 (61%) were cleared unconditionally. This means just 4% of all examined mergers were opposed. The previous year <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/accc-aer-annual-report/accc-aer-annual-report-2016-17/accc-aer-annual-report-2016-17/part-3-program-11-accc/strategy-1-maintain-and-promote-competition/analysis-of-performance-assessing-mergers">it was also just 4%</a>. Whether Australia’s high concentration levels are due to lax merger control standards is open for debate. So too is whether concentration necessarily harms competition. The Grattan Institute has <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/competition-in-the-australian-economy/">pointed the finger at other factors</a>: too much regulation in some sectors, creating barriers to entry (such as zoning laws for grocery retailers), and too little regulation in others (such as access conditions for ports). It is generally accepted that a higher degree of industrial consolidation may be justified to enable efficiencies of scale in an economy that is relatively small and geographically dispersed. Enhanced efficiency should mean lower prices for consumers. At least, that’s what the economic theory tells us. But is that what has been happening in practice? Merger retrospectives In other countries, economists and policy makers have the benefit of empirical studies that measure what effect mergers or acquisitions have had on prices and other aspects of market performance. The studies look at merger deals not blocked by competition authorities. They examine whether acquisitions live up to the claims made by the merging parties at the time of the deal. These “merger retrospectives” have shown that mergers, in reducing the number of competitors, do indeed raise prices. A <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/mergers-merger-control-and-remedies">comprehensive review of merger retrospectives </a> in the US found prices rose by 4.3% in nearly 95% of cases where mergers led to six or fewer significant competitors in a market. This finding is not unique to the US. A <a href="https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/7c4f0300-f7cc-11e5-b1f9-01aa75ed71a1/language-en">2016 study in Europe</a> had similar results. Retrospective analyses are regularly done by agencies overseas, including in Canada and Britain. But not in Australia. Doing so would tell us if the ACCC’s system for making merger assessments is working. Depending on their scope, merger retrospectives might also provide valuable data for other important policy debates, such as whether concentration levels suppress investment, innovation and wage growth, or <a href="https://www.oecd.org/competition/inequality-a-hidden-cost-of-market-power.htm">increase inequality</a>. Labor proposals In 2013 the Abbott government initiated a <a href="http://competitionpolicyreview.gov.au/">major independent review</a> of Australia’s competition policy framework and laws. Known as the Harper review, it was completed in 2015. Several significant amendments were made as a result. The most prominent was introducing an “effects test” – to determine if unilateral conduct has the purpose or likely effect of substantially lessening competition. Now federal Labor is supporting further reforms, including <a href="http://www.andrewleigh.com/labor_will_make_merger_analysis_smarter_media_release">retrospective analysis</a> of mergers. These reviews may be complex and expensive, but Labor is also proposing an increase in the ACCC budget. It is also proposing higher fines for companies breaking competition laws. This is based on Australia being an <a href="http://www.oecd.org/daf/competition/pecuniary-penalties-competition-law-infringements-australia-2018.htm">outlier on the international stage</a> in terms of the <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-are-corporate-penalties-for-cartels-so-low-in-australia">relatively low fines</a> it imposes to punish and deter breaches of competition laws. The proposal is to increase the maximum penalty for a breach of consumer and competition laws from A$10 million to A$50 million, or 30% of the annual sales of the product or service relating to the breach, multiplied by the duration of the infringement. This emulates the European approach to calculating fines. It would mean the starting point for the fine imposed in the notorious Visy price-fixing case would have been more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/cartels-caught-ripping-off-australian-consumers-should-be-hit-with-bigger-fines-78750">A$200 million</a>, instead of A$36 million. The ACCC supports increasing corporate fines, so this proposal should be taken seriously. But reforms should not just be concerned with anti-competitive conduct after it happens. That won’t undo the damage to businesses, workers and consumers. What matters as much, if not more, is having a legal framework to ensure markets do not become overly concentrated, affording undue power to just a handful of firms, in the first place. Written by Caron Beaton-Wells. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-too-many-corporate-mergers-harming-consumers-we-wont-know-if-we-dont-check-115378">The Conversation.</a>

Money & Banking

Does music really help you concentrate?

Nick Perham is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Many of us listen to music while we work, thinking that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research has found that music can have <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182210" target="_blank">beneficial effects on creativity</a>. When it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated. The assumption that listening to music when working is beneficial to output likely has its roots in the so-called “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8413624" target="_blank">Mozart effect</a>”, which gained wide media attention in the early 1990s. Put simply, this is the finding that spatial rotation performance (mentally rotating a 3D dimensional shape to determine whether it matches another or not) is increased immediately after listening to the music of Mozart, compared to relaxation instructions or no sound at all. Such was the attention that this finding garnered that the then US governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/15/us/georgia-s-governor-seeks-musical-start-for-babies.html" target="_blank">proposed giving free cassettes or CDs</a> of Mozart’s music to prospective parents. Subsequent studies have cast doubt on the necessity of the music of Mozart to produce this effect – a “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00170" target="_blank">Schubert effect</a>”, a “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16597767" target="_blank">Blur effect</a>”, and even a “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00170" target="_blank">Stephen King effect</a>” (his audiobook rather than his singing) have all been observed. In addition, musicians could show the effect <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-014-9232-7" target="_blank">purely from imagining the music</a> rather than actually listening to it. So researchers then suggested that the “Mozart effect” was not due to his music as such, but rather to people’s optimum levels of mood and arousal. And so it became the “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00170" target="_blank">mood and arousal effect</a>”. Unfortunately, the situations in which most mood and arousal effects are observed are slightly unrealistic. Do we really sit and listen to music, switch it off, and then engage in our work in silence? More likely is that we work with our favourite tunes playing in the background. How sound affects performance has been the topic of laboratory research for over 40 years, and is observed through a phenomenon called the irrelevant sound effect. Basically, this effect means that <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pchj.44/abstract" target="_blank">performance is poorer</a> when a task is undertaken in the presence of background sound (irrelevant sound that you are ignoring), in comparison to quiet. To study irrelevant sound effect, participants are asked to complete a simple task which requires them to recall a series of numbers or letters in the exact order in which they saw them – similar to trying to memorise a telephone number when you have no means to write it down. In general, people achieve this by rehearsing the items either aloud or under their breath. The tricky thing is being able to do this while ignoring any background noise. Two key characteristics of the irrelevant sound effect are required for its observation. First, the task must require the person to use their rehearsal abilities, and second, the sound must contain acoustical variation – for example, sounds such as “n, r, p” as opposed to “c, c, c”. Where the sound does not vary much acoustically, then performance of the task is much closer to that observed in quiet conditions. Interestingly, it does not matter whether the person likes the sound or not. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.1731/abstract" target="_blank">Performance is equally as poor</a> whether the background sound is music the person likes or dislikes. The irrelevant sound effect itself comes from attempting to process two sources of ordered information at the same time – one from the task and one from the sound. Unfortunately, only the former is required to successfully perform the serial recall task, and the effort expended in ensuring that irrelevant order information from the sound is not processed actually impedes this ability. A similar conflict is also seen when reading while in the presence of lyrical music. In this situation, the two sources of words – from the task and the sound – are in conflict. The subsequent cost is poorer performance of the task in the presence of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.2994/abstract" target="_blank">music with lyrics</a>. What this all means is that whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximise their productivity levels. If the task requires creativity or some element of mental rotation then listening to music one likes can increase performance. In contrast, if the task requires one to rehearse information in order then quiet is best, or, in the case of reading comprehension, quiet or instrumental music. One promising area of the impact of music on cognitive abilities stems from actually learning to play a musical instrument. Studies show that children who are being musically trained show an <a href="http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psygs/SchellenbergCDPS2005.pdf" target="_blank">improvement in intellectual abilities</a>. However, the reasons behind this are, at present, unknown and likely to be complex. It may not be the music per se that produces this effect but more the activities associated with studying music, such as concentration, repeated practice, lessons and homework. Written by Nick Perham. Republished with permission of <a href="http://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.<img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86952/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/>

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