The article I read was about a woman who had musical
hallucinations. She constantly heard music playing. It wasn’t as if a song was
stuck in her head like we often have after hearing a pop song too many times on
the radio. Instead, they were so real, the woman, Sylvia, could easily imagine
a choir or marching band in her room. Her condition is rare. People with
musical hallucinations usually are psychologically normal — except for the
songs they are sure someone is playing. The doctors decided to perform tests
such as scanning her brain while she heard those songs and asking her to
evaluate how loud or soft it was on a scale. By comparing the two states, they
found important clues to how the brain generates these illusions. They found
that a few regions consistently produced stronger brain waves when the
hallucinations were louder. The research helps scientist observe the parts of
the brain that control our auditory parts.
The
conclusions of the study are preliminary, because it was based on a single
person. However, the same method may work on other people with musical
hallucinations. Sometimes people with musical hallucinations say that hearing
real music can quiet the imaginary tunes. Researchers had already found that
they could use a similar method to mask tinnitus, in
which people have a nagging ringing in the ears. Dr. Kumar argues that these
results support a theory developed by Karl
Friston of the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging: that our
brains are prediction-generating machines. The research could explain why some
people have music hallucinations, especially people suffering from hearing
loss, and how to negate it.
The
article was pretty clear and covered everything; I don’t have much to say about
the article itself. It could’ve provided some visual aid to understand Karl
Friston’s theory or some of the MRI scans of Sylvia’s brain to show differences
in the brain between when she heard loud and soft music. However, the writing
was very well done.
Zimmer, Carl. "Phantom
Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings." Http://www.nytimes.com/?action=click&contentCollection=Science®ion=TopBar&module=HomePage-Title&pgtype=article.
N.p., 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
I read Sally Kwok’s review of the article entitled “Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings." Sally presented her review of the article well and she did three things particularly well. First, in describing the condition of the patient who hears musical hallucinations, she made a real life connection that most people can identify with. She mentioned that this disease was very different than just having a song stuck in your head, which is coming all of us experience at some point, so it is something we could relate to and make the association that this disease was much more serious. Second, I enjoy how she mentioned that the study was preliminary because it was only based on a single person. This made me realize that there was still much more to be done in this study and we could hear about it more in the future. Finally, I like how she described the medical brain test that was performed on this woman. This gave me a medical and biological view at the issue rather than just hearing about it in everyday terms.
ReplyDeleteShe could have also worked on some other things to improve her review of this article. First, the information in her review was very informative, but it could have been made even better if her grammar was a little bit better. It was a little bit hard to read because the information didn’t flow very well due to the grammar issues. Secondly, she could have elaborated on the description of the disease. It would have helped me understand the rest of the article a bit better if she had started out with a better description of the disease and a stronger note.
One thing I was impressed to learn from this review was that this disease actually exists. I was unaware that people were subject to hearing musical hallucinations and that even though it was so rare, it still happened to people and could potentially happen to anyone. Overall, I enjoyed reading this review and it was very informative.
Sally wrote a good review on the article, “Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings.” First, she did a great job introducing Sylvia and her unusual condition. Specifically, Sally wrote, “She constantly heard music playing. It wasn’t as if a song was stuck in her head like we often have after hearing a pop song too many times on the radio. Instead, they were so real, the woman, Sylvia, could easily imagine a choir or marching band in her room. Her condition is rare. People with musical hallucinations usually are psychologically normal — except for the songs they are sure someone is playing.” Second, Sally recognized that this study was done on only one person, which reminds the reader that more scientific research must be done. Lastly, Sally mentioned that Dr. Kumar’s conclusions are connected to Karl Friston’s theory of the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging, which is that “our brains are prediction-generating machines.” This can show the possibility that Dr. Kumar’s study is on the right path, or that Dr. Kumar and Friston can be unraveling something that will scientifically advance humanity, concerning the knowledge of the brain and musical hallucinations.
ReplyDeleteSally could have improved her review by giving an example after she stated, “Sometimes people with musical hallucinations say that hearing real music can quiet the imaginary tunes.” Specifically, Sally could have written that when Sylvia listens to Bach, it sometimes eases her hallucinations. She had several seconds of complete relief from the hallucinations, but, soon after, the hallucinatory piano gradually returned, reaching full sound after a minute and a half since Bach ended. Second, since this is not a condition people hear about every day, Sally could have researched other people who suffer from musical hallucinations, so that she can connect the reader more to her review and to the original article.
From Sally’s review, I learned that it is possible to suffer from musical hallucinations. Personally, I was never familiar about this condition until reading the article and its review. It was intriguing how Bach suddenly eased Sylvia’s hallucinations.
I read Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings, by Carl Zimmer, and then read Sally’s commentary about the article. I thought Sally did a great job in summarizing this article. When I read about this woman’s musical hallucinations, it was difficult for me to grasp the subject. Sally made it easier to understand. I also loved how Sally made it clear how this woman’s musical hallucinations can help doctor’s figure out the auditory part of the brain better. This can help people who, for example, have constant ringing in their ears. I though Sally’s interpretation of the author was fairly similar to mine. The writing was fairly clear, and it was expressed in a well-mannered way. However, it did lack some description.
ReplyDeleteI though Sally’s comment could have been simply improved. I thought, although her description of the article was clear, it was not very detailed. It could have done her audience well to include some more specific details. If I had just read the comment, I would not have understood the extent to which this hallucination can really help people in the future. It would have also been nice if Sally had found some examples outside of this article. In this article, we really only learned about how this can help with ringing in ears, however, there must be other purposes as well.
I thought this article was eye opening. The fact that a woman hears a choir in her head, and how that reveals so much information about the brain and auditory system, is incredible. It is incredible that something we take as a strange idea, is actually a phenomenon.
The review by Sally of the article “Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings” by Carl Zimmer is a very interesting read. The article is about how studying a woman with “musical hallucinations” helped scientists study the auditory sections of the brain. When she heard the music, certain sections showed more activity. Sally did a good job with explaining what exactly the women with the hallucinations heard. This seemed to be confusing, but Sally explained it very well. Sally also did a good job with summarizing the scientists’ findings easily in a way anyone can understand, even someone with no knowledge of biology. Sally also did a good job with relating the findings to tinnitus, the ringing in people’s ears. I would not have seen this connection and I am impressed that Sally did.
ReplyDeleteDespite being very well written, Sally’s review could use some improvements. For example, Sally could have integrated a quote to further prove what the article is stating. Quotes are an effective skill in writing that Sally should utilize. Sally could have also explained more about the actual experiment. How did they know where the auditory sensors were located? How did high activity show information about the brain? These changes can improve the review. However, these improvements do not take away from the article too much.
Sally’s article was definitely was an interesting. I find interesting that these random noises actually correspond with functions in the brain. This was definitely an interesting read.
I read Sally’s review of the article “Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings.” The first thing that Sally did exceptionally well is that she introduced Sylvia in an interesting way that was engaging. Sally wrote, “She constantly heard music playing. It wasn’t as if a song was stuck in her head like we often have after hearing a pop song too many times on the radio. Instead, they were so real, the woman, Sylvia, could easily imagine a choir or marching band in her room. Her condition is rare. People with musical hallucinations usually are psychologically normal — except for the songs they are sure someone is playing.” Using specific details, it was very interesting for the reader. The second thing that Sally did well was that she made it clear how this woman’s musical hallucinations can help doctor’s understand the auditory part of the brain better. This can help people who, for example, have constant ringing in their ears. Finally, I like how she described the medical brain test that was performed on this woman. This gave me a medical and biological view at the issue rather than just hearing about it in everyday terms.
ReplyDeleteSally could have improved her review by giving an example after she stated, “Sometimes people with musical hallucinations say that hearing real music can quiet the imaginary tunes.” Specifically, Sally could have written that when Sylvia listens to Bach, it sometimes eases her hallucinations. She had several seconds of complete relief from the hallucinations, but, soon after, the hallucinatory piano gradually returned, reaching full sound after a minute and a half since Bach ended. Second, since this is not a condition people hear about every day, she could have researched other people who suffer from musical hallucinations, in order to connect the reader more to her review and to the original article.
I learned from Sally’s review that it is possible to suffer from musical hallucinations. I was never familiar about this condition until reading the article and its review. It was really interesting how Bach suddenly eased Sylvia’s hallucinations.
I thought the article “Phantom Melodies Yield Real Clues to Brain’s Workings,” was thought provoking and scientifically interesting. Sally did an excellent job of reviewing such an interesting article and handled this review of this astounding issue quite well. This article was slightly complex and Sally did a great job of making this article sound exciting and interesting. I think Sally did a great job of simplifying the overall idea of the article to make the main concepts of the article stand out. That way I was able to get a pretty good feel for the article just from reading Sally’s review. Furthermore, Sally’s writing was clear and effective. She got to the heart of the article quite eloquently. Lastly, Sally’s connection of this article to the world today and what this discovery means for couples around the world made me question what science really means and got me thinking about how far science has come.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Sally’s review was great there are some things that she could improve on. For instance, Sally’s explanation of the baseline experiment was straightforward but it left me with questions and wanting more information. In addition, Sally could have used quotes from her article to give the review more depth. However, overall I felt that Sally’s writing and review of this article was excellent.
From this article I learned about a mysterious and scientifically puzzling phenomenon called musical hallucinations. There is not a “cure” as of yet but this phenomenon will hopefullt lead to new and exciting discoveries about the brain. Overall, I had a great time reading Sally’s article and her excellent review of that article!