Yo! Fro-Yo!

As a person, I am fond of trying any sort of food that I see—may it be pasta, ice cream, siomai, stir fried noodles, tea, and many more. An addition to that countless list is frozen yogurt (also called as ‘FRO-YO’). Out of sheer curiosity, I tried eating some in one shop which offers soft-served fro-yo. It was somewhat tangy and the consistency was bordering the middle (between creamy and watery). After that, I’ve managed to try fro-yos from other shops. What can I say is that the differences in the quality easily surface with a mere taste from a spoon.

In relation to that, almost every one of us might have already observed the rapid increase of shops that offer frozen yogurts. Creamy yogurts that can be sprinkled with a variety of toppings that one can choose from (fruits, chocolates, cereals, biscuits, etc). They also come in different flavors: original, green tea, or coffee. Although there are two types of these mouth-watering frozen yogurts (soft served or hard packed), the most common here in the Philippines is the soft served.With the emergence of the availability of non-fat, low carbohydrate food in the market, who would not be smitten by the alluring characteristics of frozen yogurts? According to Stuart (1979), the refreshing taste accompanied by the nutritional benefits became the deciding factor that certainly made people hooked in frozen yogurts. A study conducted in the early 1990s has shown that there is a preference for frozen yogurt that has a low acid and high sugar content (Guinard Little, Marty, & Palchak , 1994). And contrary to the hype of low fat frozen yogurt these days, Kım, Kim, Baick, Lee & Yu (1993) explained that consumers actually favor fro-yos that have a high fat content.

Based from the abovementioned features of frozen yogurt you may have, by this time, caught the trend of the marketing strategies used to enable this product to penetrate our senses. As the attention of FRO-YO producers is focused on the visual packaging as well as the taste and its consistency, the important aspect of putting the proper amount of live culture of bacteria is neglected. Meyer (1989), argued that the required amount of live cultures in a frozen yogurt that would actually produce beneficial effects in the digestive system is estimated to be about 5 million to 10 million cells per milliliter. She added that most of the consumers are unaware of that. As of present time, there exists no federal standard for frozen yogurts so there is a great variation in the composition (fat, sugar, acid, and total solids) among different competing producers (Guinard Little, Marty, & Palchak , 1994).

On that note, we must begin to be more critical about what kind of food we are consuming. It might look pleasant to the eyes and the advertisements can be quite magnetizing. A real frozen yogurt must contain the necessary amount of live cultures. "The only difference between most frozen yogurt and ice milk is the perception in the consumer's mind of the benefits of yogurt over ice milk," suggests Greg Sheil, president of Yo-Fruit Specialties (page 2. cited in Meyer, 1989). Let us not be easily fooled. We must enhance our difference threshold (the smallest difference between two stimuli that a person can detect) for us to be able to detect if there really are live cultures inside of the frozen yogurt that we eat. Hence, the next time that we crave for something creamy yet healthy, we could be confident enough to choose the best fro-yo that the market has to offer!

REFERENCES:

Guinard, J X, Little C, Marty C and Palchak T R (1994). Effect of sugar and acid on the acceptability of frozen yogurt to a student population. Journal of Dairy Science 77 1232–1238.

Kım, J. H., Kim, Y. H., Baick, S. C., Lee, Y. G. & Yu, J. H. (1993). Studies on the manufacture of frozen yogurt made with different mixing ratios of raw milk and whole skim milk powder. Korean Journal of Dairy Science 15 128–134.

Meyer, A. (1989). Will the real frozen yogurt please stand up? - includes related articles on growing frozen dessert industry. Dairy Foods. FindArticles.com. 06 Jul, 2010. Retrieved from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3301/is_n2_v90/ai_7544853/

Stuart, S. L. (1979). The Dannon Book of Yogurt. Sacramento, CA: Citadel Press.

(Jeni)

Talk to ze Hand

Talk to ze Hand

Dear Hand,

I’m in love with my new best friend but I’m not sure if he feels the same way for me, too. He keeps giving me weird signals: he’s very sweet to me, he’s visited my place in the province (a four-hour ride!) and he’s told me things he doesn’t even tell his girl. Heck, we’ve even kissed! He said I’m his personal brand of heroin. However, he still doesn’t want to break up with his girlfriend. Do you think he really loves me? What should I do?

Mistress-in-Training

Dear Mistress,

Love is very much like perception. Sometimes we see things that aren’t there, while other times we tend to overlook details jumping out from the fabric. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look and what to look for.

The first question that you have to answer: is there really love between you and him? You have to determine the absolute threshold by ascertaining whether the affection between you guys is enough to spark into a full-blown romance. Remember, just like in neural firing, love is an all-or-nothing principle, and if you don’t have what it takes to fulfill the requirements of a good love affair, then there’s no way you’ll get a serious relationship. Rubin (1973) said that romantic love is made up of three elements: attachment, caring and intimacy. Based from your description (him being sweet to you, taking the trouble to visit you just so he could be with you and telling you matters close to his heart), it can be safe to say that the minimum amount of stimulus energy required for stimulus detection of love has been fulfilled.

But before you jump off your feet from joy because of an expert pronouncement on the possibility of true love, you have to remember that true love, in itself, can exist in many forms. Understanding the difference threshold, which is the slightest change in stimuli energy necessary for a detection of variations in the stimulus, can help you with that. It means that you have to be aware of the different levels of love and the forms that they can take. For example, a person’s love for another can be tantamount to mere friendship, while a greater form of love makes a relationship endure, like the concept of consummate love for Sternberg (1988). You have to know the difference between how he treats other people compared to you to assess how special you truly are in his eyes.

Now that you know the difference threshold of his love for you compared to the affection he shows other people, the final hurdle is magnitude estimation. In this you have to assess how much he really loves you and if it is enough to enter into a long-term relationship with him. Remember Lee’s The Colors of Love (1973)? In it he says that all types of love are based on a combination of three primary kinds: eros (passionate love), ludos (love as a game) and storge(love between friends). You know the difference, now assess the magnitude of his feelings for you. The fact that he doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend for you should be an indication of how he feels for you. Would that kind and amount of love be enough to last through years of happiness as well as sadness? Only you can answer that. Introspection is still the best way of evaluating the stimuli we perceive. :)

I hope this crash course on perceptual studies helped.

Sincerely yours,

Hand Sam

p.s. Though if you really ask me, I think you should dump the two-timing jerk. Why settle for being second when someone out there can make you the center of the universe? There are way too many fishes in the ocean for you to concern yourself with just a single one. ;)

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2007). Sensation and Perception (7^th Eds.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Lee, J. A. (1988). In R. J. Sternbergs and M. L. Barnes (Eds.), The psychology of love. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Rubin, Z. (1973). Liking and Loving: An invitation to social psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Sternberg, R. J. (1988). Triangulating love. In R. J. Sternbergs and M. L. Barnes (Eds.), The psychology of love. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Strumming My Pain...

by Dianne Cuyugan

Eh, what to say? Hmm... Actually, I don’t really like letting “other” people (or “hindi kapwa” in Filipino concept) know my thoughts especially online. Well, except for posting a little shout outs and status messages on Facebook or YM. On one part, I think it’s a bit unnecessary to share things especially those which would not concern a lot of people. Secondly, I don’t shed time thinking if there are people who would care to read my posts or notes. And lastly, I haven’t done blogging even just for fun. So clearly, there’s no point for me doing so. But hey! Why am I here on Blogspot? Well, I have to. What else can I do if it is required? (peace Sir!) I just hope blogging would be fun. And since this is my first blog, please bear with me.


I thought I would want my first blog to be music-related since music is usually on my background while I’m doing something. Then, while searching on Ebsco I encountered this article that caught my attention. It was “Interaction effects of visual distraction, auditory distractions and age on pain threshold and tolerance” done by Wright and Raudenbush and published this year, 2010. Basically, they investigated the effects of music and videos on the participants while they were subjected to pain, specifically in a cold pressor task wherein their hands and forearms were placed in a device with water maintained at a temperature of 3° Celsius. They found out participants aged 35 years and older perceived less pain while watching the romantic video with classic music. Moreover, the pain increased less severely after some time. They also found out, compared with older subsamples, the younger subsamples liked with greater significance heavy metal music and action videos. Although among the younger subsamples, males liked heavy metal music and action movies while the females liked romantic videos and classical music. Since it causes relaxation, preferred music and videos lead to higher pain tolerance and less perceived pain. It is then concluded that auditory and visual distractions mediate pain management.



Am I hearing IKR (I Know Right) responses? Am I still making sense? After all, this is the main reason this blog site was created, to talk about perception and sense and make sense all the time. Am I just stating the obvious that music and videos distraction lessen pain and that males like heavy metal music and action videos and females are more onto romantic videos? Haha, hindsight bias or I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon guys! Now I’m incorporating Psych 180 Social Psychology lessons here (credit to Ma’am Chei Billedo). Of course, we might say this is obvious because this typically applies to every one of us. But aren’t these kind of experimental results validate those I-know-right stuffs that are coming from nowhere? And aren’t validated stuffs ensure positive results on life applications? Oh I sound like a logico-positivist. Please don’t judge, I also favor socio-cultural and historical perspective. And oh, isn’t this also one of the reasons other people accuse psychology of being a fad? Music, videos, technology, and chronic pain are in. Somehow, the answer is yes.

Psychology is more often than not used in application. But hey! This is good, right? Knowing that a lot of Americans are in chronic pain and are undergoing physical therapy fuelled this research. Now, we have evidence to include music and visual distractions in therapy sessions. Moreover, although this cannot be an alternative for pain reliever it can increase the effect of the med since their pain threshold will be increased and tolerance will be greater. Thus, rehabilitation, therapy process and recovery would speed up.

I just remembered way back when I was a kid, I needed to be punctured on my thumb for blood sample (I don’t remember what for), my aunt doctor asked me to watch television (I’m just not sure if it was Sesame Street or cartoons) instead of watching her doing her stuff and inflicting pain on me (haha). I obey and indeed, it was as if I did not feel the needle pass through my skin! (Or maybe my Pacinian corpuscles, a mechanoreceptor for deep feeling and pain, failed. Now, it’s Biology 102 Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy haha)

So what’s the implication? Filter the songs on your playlist so as not to increase the pain, haha. And let's catch a movie. But oh, I'm still talking about physical pain. Although I'm not also saying that we watch a movie only if we feel pain. I know a lot of us cannot endure that one haha. Hmm, well, there goes my first blog entry. It was like doing a reaction and/or reflection paper except for this is more fun haha. I just hope I did well.

P.S. Just another thought, is studying really that painful (and unbearable) to the extent that most of us need music on the background?

Source:
Wright, T., & Raudenbush, B. (2010). Interaction effects of visual distractions, auditory distractions and age on pain threshold and tolerance. North American Journal of Psychology, 12(1), 145-158. Retrieved from PsycINFO database.