How do I Look?

Now the school term’s begun here in the UK, and all over the country kids are going back or starting school. Some children have the extra challenges of learning difficulties to contend with, and might have been diagnosed with conditions including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, dyslexia, or an autism spectrum disorder. But how helpful are these categories for kids who are struggling at school? Using machine learning, Cambridge scientists have studied hundreds of children with these diagnoses, and identified clusters of learning difficulties which did not map to the diagnoses they had received. Chris Smith spoke to cognitive neuroscientist Duncan Astle, who led the study. Firstly Chris asked Duncan why the team did this study...

Duncan - Well, many children struggle with learning. There’s disorders like ADHD which was mentioned, so prevalence rates for those kinds of those things vary from 3 to 8 percent. But, actually, the proportion of children who struggle to learn is much higher than that. Governments statistics are around 30 percent of kids don’t meet their age expected levels by the end of primary school.

We’re really interested in what are the underlying causes or the underlying roots to being a struggling learner. And the way that you would normally study that would be to choose a group of kids that you’re interested in, say kids with ADHD and you would compare them to all the kids who don’t. But we began to think that there was some real problems with relying solely on that approach. The first one is that it assumes who have the same diagnostic label are all the same as each other.

Chris - You're genuinely comparing apples with apples but they actually might not be?

Duncan - That’s true.

Chris - Yeah. So who did you recruit then?

Duncan - Well, we set up a centre which we called the Centre for Attention Learning and Memory and to that centre professionals in education, in clinical services could refer children to us that they thought were struggling. They didn’t have to have a diagnosis but they could, or they could have multiple diagnoses. They just had to be struggling in the areas of attention, learning, or memory, so intentionally generic.

Chris - And how did you study them?

Duncan - Each family would visit us and the team of research assistants and PhD students would spend several hours doing different kinds of cognitive assessment with the children. And we would have behaviour ratings for the parents to fill out and most of the children would go through the MRI scanner.

Chris - So you’ve got what their performance is like, what their performance is like as in their track record, what their performance is like in your tests and a brain scan to go with. And what, you then marry all that information, or at least you’re asking a computer to marry all this information together and look for common ground or differences between them?

Duncan - Essentially, yes. We took many of the cognitive assessments and we fed them into a machine learning algorithm. Machine learning sounds kind of fancy, but actually we use it all the time in our everyday lives. Every time you type something into a search engine, behind the scenes there’s an algorithm which is learning about that information you’re feeding it, and you might notice that appear in your adverts that correspond to what you’ve searched for. Our machine learning algorithm was learning about the cognitive data that we fed in from these kids and what it learnt was that there were different profiles for children. Children with different profiles of cognitive difficulty.

Chris - What does that mean in practical terms? When you say different profiles are you saying say I had a diagnosis of ADHD, I’ve got that label but actually my ADHD may be quite different from the label of ADHD you might receive, for example?

Duncan - Yeah, exactly. Because one thing we could do is then check about what the machine learning algorithm has learnt and see whether it’s really learnt the categories, the diagnosis the kids came with. And the data showed very clearly that’s not what the machine learning was learning. Children who had a diagnosis of ADHD could have very different profiles from each other. They could have very different cognitive strengths and difficulties and that’s a real challenge in trying to think about how we support those kids.

Chris - Does this mean then our categorisation is just wrong? We’re putting people into narrow bins of problems and, in fact, it’s much more subtle than that and we need much sort of narrower but wider categorisation?

Duncan - I think it means the diagnoses, we’re not thinking about them in the right way. So they’re not like kind of medical diagnosis, they’re much less discrete and clean than that, and we don’t really understand what the underlying causes are. We still think that a diagnosis is a real landmark moment for children of families when they get some professional recognition for the challenges they’ve been facing. The question is how do practitioners then best support those kids, and how do we equip those practitioners to do that? And the answer is simply knowing the diagnostic label itself isn’t enough information to go on.

Chris - Indeed. At the end of the day we’re dealing with an individual here that’s got a problem that they want help solving isn’t it? So does your tool give us a better insight into okay, we can identify where this person’s weaknesses are so we can then go to the classroom and say if you augment the training in this direction, or give this person extra aids, perhaps more stimulation, more practice in this area this will help to develop this area that they are clearly deficient in?

Duncan - Well, we believe so. So, for example, in the data a large proportion of the children have problems in short term or working memory. Those children could have a diagnosis of ADHD, they could have a diagnosis of ASD, or they could have no diagnosis at all.

Chris - Autism spectrum disorder?

Duncan - Autism spectrum disorder, or they could have not diagnosis at all. But we know that if you try and reduce working memory demands in the classroom, then kids with poor working memory will do better. We already know that there are some interventions out there that are effective with these kinds of cognitive difficulties, it’s just that they seem to cut across the traditional diagnostic boundaries that we’ve kind of hitherto believed in.

Basking in the warm sun is a luxury that many of us love, and it’s also good for you - up to a point - because the ultraviolet rays in sunlight produce the bone-boosting hormone vitamin D in your skin. But too much UV causes sunburn, skin ageing and wrinkles, and it’s a major risk factor for skin cancer, rates of which have more than doubled in recent decades. Now scientists from Australia have come to the rescue with a wearable sensor that you pop on your wrist; it goes blue when you’re past the safe daily sun limit for your skin type. Inventor Vipul Bansal told Tamsin Bell how it works...

Vipul - UV is invisible and it’s not hot so you can’t feel UV, and the heat that we feel in the sun is because of infrared rays, it’s not because of UV. We are trying to make UV sensors in the form of wearable sensors which change colour when you go in the sun. This ink can interact with the UV light and then become blue.

Tamsin - So once our sensor becomes blue we know that we have to go inside?

Vipul - Yes. And this ink can give a warning signal - now it’s time for you to go back in.

Tamsin - How does this work? What chemicals are involved?

Vipul - The two main chemicals in this ink - we call it an invisible ink because it’s initially colourless. There’s a chemical called polyoxometalate that's a big molecule, a lot of phosphorus, oxygen involved. The second component in the ink is lactic acid, a common chemical which is present in yogurt. So when we mix these two components together and we shine this ink with the UV light, the lactic acid molecules can give electrons to the other molecule. When this happens the polyoxometalate becomes blue in colour and that’s what we see.

Tamsin - What about different skin types or UV tolerance, how does this take that into account?

Vipul - We have six different types of skin. It could be very fair skin to very dark skin. Now the UV requirements and the tolerance of these skin types are very very different. The very fair skin cannot tolerate a huge amount of UV; if you look at a darker skin it can tolerate a reasonably large amount of UV, which means that we have to have personalised sensors for different skin colours. So a sensor that would be for very fair skin, it should develop colour very very fast. On the other hand the colour should develop slowly in case of a darker skin, so a person can stay in the UV for a longer period of time.

Tamsin - I’m a bit of sun worshiper. Is this sensor going to tell me that I have to stop sitting in the sun really quickly?

Vipul - A lot of us love sun and we cannot really avoid exposure to sun. We are recommended to use sunscreen with a high SPF number to reduce the amount of UV that is reaching your skin. When you are applying the sunscreen on your skin, you can also apply it on the sensor. It will also reduce the amount of UV that reaches the sensor and the sensor will develop colour slowly.

Tamsin - I suppose the same would apply if someone sat in the shade?

Vipul - Yes, that is true. We call it a cumulative dose. So when they are in the sun then only the sensor will work and depending on the intensity of the sun the sensor will either work faster or slower. And then it won’t go back once you go back into the shade, so in that way the sensor lasts for one day. We see a huge prospect of these sensors because the sensor can allow people to be exposed to the maximum dose possible without causing harm.

Tamsin - Are you planning to make these and sell them in shops, and how much would it cost?

Vipul - We have a very ambitious target to bring it to the market by early 2020. The retail cost would be somewhere around 1 dollar.

From cosmetics to clothes, to going to the gym, most of us pay attention to our physical appearance. But why? To find out, Katie Haylor spoke to social psychologist and body image expert Viren Swami from Anglia Ruskin University. First Katie asked Viren, why bother trying to look good?

Viren - There are a number of different theoretical explanations. The kind of the most dominant one is the evolutionary psychological one that we try and look good because you want to attract mates. And the way we demonstrate our health and fitness is primarily through our attractiveness. The idea is that attractiveness is highly linked with health and fertility and that people who look attractive are more fertile and healthier. So we try and demonstrate our effectiveness or our propensity to mate with other good looking people by demonstrating our own attractiveness.

There is also a cultural explanation, which is simply that we are generally biased to perceive attractive people as having better personal qualities. Being more sociable, being happier, being better at work, and all kinds of other personal qualities. And if you have that bias or if you incorporate and internalise that bias, then you want to look good because you think you’ll accrue the rewards of looking good.

There is also a neuroscientific explanation, which is that our brains process attractive people as more rewarding. There is part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which shows heightened activity any time we see attractive people. And the suggestion from neuroscience is that our brains like it when we see attractive people so we try and demonstrate our own attractiveness.

Katie - Now, I’ve made a bit of an assumption that everyone pays attention to how they look. Is that true?

Viren - There is evidence to suggest that most people pay attention to how they look but also that they conform to different standards of grooming. So most people have an idea of what’s expected of them societally in terms of what they should look like, whether it’s in an occupational settings, or romantic settings, or in daily life.

They also have an expectation of what they should look like in terms of their grooming but there are also individual differences. So, for example, there are studies suggesting that people who are higher in what we call “appearance investment” tend to spend more time focussed on their appearance, and also tend to believe that their own appearance has a huge impact on life outcomes; whether they get a job or whether they’re likely to find a dating partner and so on. People who are low in investment appearance tend to think that appearance isn’t particularly important and they consequently spend very little time on their own appearance.

There are also other factors that might relate to how important you think appearance is, and also your use of cosmetics, for example. There is some evidence to suggest that people who are, for example, higher in what we call “oppressive belief” so people are more sexist, who are more hostile towards women, are more likely to believe that women in general, but also their partners, should use cosmetics.

Katie - So, in my handbag, which is sitting in the corner of your office, I’ve got some mascara, some foundation, some lipstick. I’m probably not alone. Why do so many of us paint it on our faces?

Viren - I think there are a number of reasons. If you look at it from a cultural point of view, particularly for women, I think there is pressure to conform to stereotypes of what femininity is. At the individual level, the reasons might be very different to why someone might choose to use cosmetics compared to the political or the social level. There is a good deal of data to suggest that when women wear makeup they feel better about themselves. When women wear cosmetics they feel more confident, they feel more self-competent, and the also perceive themselves experiencing better rewards as a result.

Katie - And have the same studies been done on men or people of other genders?

Viren - Not at the moment. We know very little about men who use cosmetics and particularly men who use makeup. There is evidence to suggest the use of makeup among men is increasing, but we don’t know necessarily about the outcomes. One of the difficulties with men and cosmetics is that, historically at least, the use of makeup in men was considered transgressive in terms of their masculinity. More recently, there is evidence to suggest that the use of makeup has been incorporated into some forms of masculinity.

Katie - What about other people’s opinions of us then? Can, for instance, wearing makeup may change the way someone else might behave towards me?

Viren - Again, it’s really difficult to know whether they’re responding to you because of the makeup or because they perceive you as being more attractive. I think there are two separate things here. I think one is the kind of general response from other people. It’s quite possible that the responding, for women particularly to you using makeup, because they perceive you as being more feminine as opposed to when you don’t use makeup when you’re perceived as being less feminine. So there are lots of interactions between the perceptions of people based on whether or not  they’re using makeup.

There are also studies suggesting when women wear makeup they’re perceived as being more competent, particularly for high-powered jobs. Because again, it’s consistent with the perception of what’s required for those jobs. So it’s really difficult to know whether the response at the level of the general population is to you because you’re wearing makeup, or because you’re conforming to societal normal about what you should and shouldn’t do.

Katie - So if I go to a job interview and I put on some makeup, is that really going to increase my chances of getting the job?

Viren - It turns out it is possible. And it’s certainly likely that you increase the likelihood of you having a successful outcome from that job interview, but I suspect this is partly a function of the people who are interviewing. Historically, at least, job interviews tend to be dominated by men and they have certain expectancies about what they would like and don’t like women doing. And the assumption here would be that women who wear makeup are kind of conforming to a gender role and men feel more comfortable when women conform to that gender role.

Women on interview panels might be doing the same thing. So they might be assuming that when other women are coming for a job are conforming, they feel better and safer around these women.

Katie - And there’s evidence to backup that notion?

Viren - Yes. The other really interesting thing is how a partner might respond to you. And this is particularly true of men’s responses to their female partners in heterosexual relationships. There is some evidence to suggest that when heterosexuals are in committed relationships men generally don’t like their partners to wear makeup. And this might be because they perceive it as a means of attracting other partners so they experience greater feelings of jealousy.

One of the nice things about social psychology is that we also know that the importance of first impressions drops off very quickly. So the importance of physical appearance matters most in the absence of any kind of social interaction so when you see someone for the very first time you make a judgement about that person based on their physical appearance alone and that makes sense because you’ve got no information about that individual.

Once social interaction begins, and this is also true of interviews and job interviews and so on, also romantic relationships for example, once you begin to have social interactions you begin to piece together a much fuller picture of the individual and you’re kind of gleaning much more satisfying and richer data. And you begin to use things like reciprocal information, whether you’re exchanging information with the other person, or whether you’re exchanging intimacy, whether you’re exchanging useful information with the other person in a job outcome, things like similarity also then begin to matter then as well.

Kind of the key point is that although appearance really is important, particularly in occupational settings, the importance is often overestimated.

What's in the creams and powders that many of us put on our faces? Chemist and science writer John Emsley spoke to Katie Haylor. First up, Katie asked John, what's actually in the lipstick she puts on her lips?

John - Well, what you’re putting on is something like a wax or an oil mixed together with a colour or a dye with it. There are other components; there are about 20 components in some lipsticks. But basically, you’re doing what Ancient Egyptians did or Ancient Romans did, you want to highlight your lips with a deep red colour. In those first things they were using quite dangerous materials, they were using things like cinnabar, which is deep red but, of course, that’s a mercury compound. Today we use safe dyes and there’s no risk of you being affected by anything that you put on your lips.

Katie - Well, I’m very glad to hear it because I’ve just put some on. Now, I’ve just taken a sip of my cup of tea that I’ve got here in the studio and, unfortunately, I now have purple on the cup.

John - Oh, dear.

Katie - Is this supposed to happen?

John - Well, modern lipsticks were invented about a hundred years ago in America, and there were lots of faults with them to begin with. They were greasy; in cold weather they snapped, broke off; in hot weather they melted. They tended to pick up germs so they very quickly became infected. And, of course, people were using them because they were a simple way of applying colour to your lips.

Well, of course today, all of those problems have been solved. You’ve got a better range of colours. You can make it glossy, you can make it even sparkle by the things you put in it. And, of course today, we’d like to think of  the colours that you’re using are impermeable; in other words they won’t pass from your lips to whatever you touch.

I’m afraid to say I’d go round and look for something slightly better if I were you.

Katie - Now secondly, mascara. It’s a common thing to find in the makeup bag. This is put on my eyelashes. What is it?

John - Well again, mascara’s been around since ancient times. And the very first mascaras were using something called kohl. Now kohl again, there were minerals. There was an antimony mineral and there was a lead mineral that people used in those days, but you’re going back now to Ancient Egyptian times again.

Today, of course, they’re much safer. What you’ve got in a mascara is you want a wax base, and some of them actually use beeswax or carnauba wax and things like that. They tend to mix that with an oil so it’s much more flexible than just the simple wax. You also want something that keeps it permanently soft like glycerine, glycerol. You also want other components there, you obviously want a dark component. Today you’d tend to use carbon black or very black iron oxides.

You don’t want, of course, there to be infection in your mascara because you don’t want your eyes to become infected and you’ll need to protection against germs and things like that. So again, it’s a very complex mix but today, I think, they’re about as safe as it’s possible to be.

Katie - So John, another thing I’ve found in my makeup bag is a foundation liquid. What is foundation?

John - Well, the idea of foundation is protect the skin of the face and to mask blemishes. And so, lots of things could be included in foundation. Of course it depends, generally they’re different forms of iron oxides, so you can get the skin tone that you’re looking for. Very often you want to put a silicon layer on your skin because that protects it. It prevents water being absorbed from the skin so this can remain slightly plumper and, of course, it protects the skin against outside influences. So it’s a protective layer and it’s a disguise - that’s basically what a foundation is.

Katie - So John, now we’re in 2018 and a lot of people wear foundation but I’m guessing people have done this throughout history. So, as far as we know, when did people first start wearing foundation and how has it changed over time?

John - Again, we can trace that back to ancient times - mainly upper class women who used it. They didn’t want their skin to appear rugged. If you were an ordinary person and you worked outside a lot then, of course, you’d be exposed to UV, your skin would begin to look aged. You didn’t want to show you were such a person so you wanted a lighter skin, and very often what they were applying to their skin was very light pigments. Sometimes they even used arsenic trioxide, which was known as white arsenic in those days. And I believe Queen Elizabeth I was very partial to having her skin looking very white as proof that she was the upper class woman of the time.

Arsenic on the surface of the skin is not a threat. It does of course if it gets into your body. But even on the tiny amounts that you might have absorbed it wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Then of course  sometimes, if you took a little arsenic into your body then you’d get a red blush forming on your cheeks and, again, that was something that women took arsenic for at one time.

Katie - Oh dear! Okay, well I’m certainly not going to be doing that now. A slightly different one John, but what about deodorant and antiperspirant? It’s a cosmetic of sorts if we think about it trying to make us smell nice. What actually are these kind of sprays or roll-ons?

John - They're basically more important for men than women because men tend to smell. They tend to produce a lot more body odour than a woman does. Now you can stop that, you can prevent the bacteria that are producing these odours if you block the pores of you skin in the armpits which, of course, is where lots of the sweat is produced, and so you'd spray on something that would block them. Once it was aluminium salt but that fell out of favour, now it can often be a zirconium salt. You block those pores, you won’t produce as much sweat and so you can go off for the evening.

Katie - Deodorant antiperspirant blocking these pores, is it a good idea? Is it safe?

John - It wouldn’t be safe if you tried to do it all over your body, I mean there are people who’ve painted their body and died very quickly because you’ve blocked every pore. But it’s just these very profuse sweating glands under your arms that then produce these bacteria and then they give off very often sulphur based smells, which are quite strong and that all sweaty odour. And, of course, if you’re going out for the evening you’re going to mix with people, you don’t want people coming up to you and then backing away thinking oh god, what a pong! You want to give off a lovely come hither smell don’t you? Of course for women it’s just as important to do this as well. The other thing about deodorants is you can try and kill the bacteria that are causing it but, again, some of the, like triclosan, some of the very powerful antibacterial agents are now frowned upon. And so it’s perhaps best to shower every day and remain as fresh as you can.