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BY: CAPRI MILLS Hi! My name is Capri Mills. I'm a junior in high school and have a passion for science, psychology, and writing. I also enjoy giving back to the environment and my community in any way I can. After high school, I plan to continue on a neuroscience path throughout college and beyond.  Have you ever noticed that certain logos appear to pop out at you? Or that hotel hallways’ color palettes seem to flow in a timeless manner? This isn’t coincidental- it is exactly the company’s goal. Color psychology is utilized by many different places, all to trick your mind into thinking of something in one way. It is a powerful subliminal tool that can be used to influence mood, increase blood pressure, and even increase metabolism (Cherry). However, it’s important to note that while there is some hype around color psychology, most reactions are based on personal experience, and it cannot be said that one color makes everyone feel the same way (Ciotti). Still, there is a bit of research to back up the bold statements many color psychology websites and books proclaim. For example, red is usually associated with aggression and anger. It’s been shown that dominance is shown by a flush of red on bare skin in many species of animals, like primates, and fake red bands can mimic this to cause the same dominance response. This is because a testosterone surge produces redness, whereas fear leads to paling (Elliot). But it’s more difficult to produce this kind of evidence for other colors not usually seen in animals, such as purple, so little can be truly proclaimed.  In a more speculative sense, it’s certainly true that people associate different colors with specific holidays, objects, or emotions. In Western culture, red and green are associated with Christmas, and black and orange with Halloween. Pink goes with femininity whereas blue is associated with masculinity. Once again, it is all still very culture-oriented. Black is seen as a deathly sort of color in the Western world; it’s considered the correct color to wear to funerals. On the other side of the spectrum, white is seen as the respectful color to wear to funerals in China. Although there is still no concrete evidence to back up a lot of color psychology enthusiasts’ claims, there is something to be said about the way certain colors make us feel. But whether it’s biological, culture-oriented, or something else entirely remains quite a mystery. Just watch what you wear. Works Cited Cherry, Kendra. "Can Color Affect Your Mood and Behavior?" Verywell Mind. 28 May 2020. Web. 15 June 2021.
Ciotti, Gregory. "Color Psychology: How Colors Influence the Mind." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 15 June 2021. Elliot, Andrew J. "Color and Psychological Functioning: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Work." Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers Media S.A., 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 15 June 2021.
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BY: CAPRI MILLS Hi! My name is Capri Mills. I'm a junior in high school and have a passion for science, psychology, and writing. I also enjoy giving back to the environment and my community in any way I can. After high school, I plan to continue on a neuroscience path throughout college and beyond.  Ever woken up from an odd dream and wondered where in the world it came from? Dreams- a combination of visual, sensual, and acoustic stories that occur in our minds when we sleep- have puzzled scientists for ages. Some seem very lifelike and realistic whereas others are totally outlandish and bizarre. Throughout history, the meaning of dreams has been debated, and there are still theories that discuss the reason behind them nowadays. However, we are closer than ever to figuring out exactly why our dreams are the way they are. A notable psychological approach to dreams was Sigmund Freud’s. He was a psychoanalyst who proposed that dreams were a manifestation of our subconscious desires and wishes, especially forbidden ones. He thought it was our mind’s way of transforming a taboo or forbidden thought into a “non-threatening form” (Mcleod). People took Freud’s ideas of dream symbolism out of hand, though, making dream dictionaries that are still popular today. Nowadays, however, there are a lot more scientifically based theories on dreams. One of the most popular of these theories is the activation-synthesis hypothesis, which says that dreams are just electrical impulses in our brain that pull random images and thoughts from our brains. Aka, they don’t truly mean anything. Dreams are just an attempt to organize and make sense of these impulses (Linden). The other side of this, though, is the “threat simulation theory”, which states that dreams actually do have a purpose: to be a biological defense mechanism that simulates threatening events in life. This can be backed up by the fact children living in a stressful and threatening environment have highly activated threat simulation systems and high dream production whereas children in safe environments do not (Valli et al.). Overall, there is simply no straight-cut answer as to why we dream. Two likely theories are the activation-synthesis hypothesis and threat simulation theory, but neither can be proven definite yet. Or you could go the Freudian route and say they are a manifestation of our subconscious desires. While it’s been shown that sleep is needed to recharge both our bodies and brains (“Why Do We Need Sleep?”), dreams seem to remain a mind-boggler. Perhaps one day the mystery will be solved. Works Cited Linden, Sander Van Der. "The Science Behind Dreaming." Scientific American. Scientific American, 26 July 2011. Web.
Mcleod, Saul. "Sigmund Freud's Theories." Sigmund Freud's Theories | Simply Psychology. Web. 12 June 2021. Valli, Katja, Antti Revonsuo, Outi Pälkäs, Kamaran Hassan Ismail, Karzan Jalal Ali, and Raija-Leena Punamäki. "The Threat Simulation Theory of the Evolutionary Function of Dreaming: Evidence from Dreams of Traumatized Children." Consciousness and Cognition. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Mar. 2005. Web. 12 June 2021. "Why Do We Need Sleep?" Sleep Foundation. 11 Sept. 2020. Web. 12 June 2021. BY: CAMERON YUEN Hello! My name is Cameron Yuen, a current senior in high school. I'm going to be attending Tufts University, and I intend on studying Computer Science. I want to use technology to incite change, whether it's bridging the digital divide, aiding public health or bolstering sustainability efforts. Outside of academics, I'm a competitive diver and an avid Overwatch player!  Any person who has experienced cancer, be it themselves or a loved one, knows how condemning the restless hours of concern and chemotherapy feels. Our thoughts, their cancer, rip us apart from the inside, making us constantly ponder “what-if?” Fortunately, there may lie mental and physical refuge with radiation oncology — specifically the photon and proton treatments. To generally understand how this radiation functions, it helps to parallel it to X-ray imaging. Simply put, “photons are a higher energy version of the same X-rays used for diagnostic imaging” (“Photons and Protons”). The particles are then oriented towards the cancer-afflicted area where “they break the DNA inside the cancer cell… [and] the cancer cell dies” (“Photons and Protons”). This differs from chemotherapy in a few ways, like the means and locus of treatment. Chemotherapy uses specialized drugs to battle cancer cells throughout the body, while radiation aims to kill cells in a localized area through a beam of energized particles. Though both methods vary in terms of their administration, their side effects are similar. Between hair loss, fatigue, and nausea, both chemotherapy, and radiation take a toll as their efforts to kill cancerous cells also damage perfectly healthy ones (“What’s the Difference Between Chemotherapy and Radiation?”).  That’s where proton therapy shines. Called “heavy-ion therapy,” proton radiation works similarly to its photon counterpart, but with one key difference: the lack of an “exit dose” (“Photons and Protons”). The photon treatment includes a stream of particles that “pass through the cancer and out the other side,” while proton treatment “stops at the tumor” (“Photons and Protons”). Especially in areas in close vicinity to vital organs, this feature is extremely beneficial. Both methods have proved to be equally effective in killing cancer, so having a way to minimize the collateral damage only adds to the laundry list of positives about radiation oncology. However, like anything related to cancer, there’s always a drawback. Proton therapy is a far more expensive method than photon, which poses a potentially complex decision as to whether the side effects of photon therapy are enough to justify the use of its sister method (“Photons and Protons”). But as our medical community trudges along in the war against cancer, continuing to accumulate mini-victories, there should be no doubt that we’ll perfect these methods, paving a path for advanced radiation techniques in oncology and beyond. Works Cited “Photons and Protons.” Promise and Progress, 20 Dec. 2019, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/photons-and-protons.
“What's the Difference Between Chemotherapy and Radiation?” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/cancer/cancer-chemotherapy-radiation-differences. |
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