The 30 human guinea pigs were ushered into the dimly lit laboratory and shown
to their seats.
To maintain scientific rigour, they were isolated from one another, with at
least three empty seats between them. As the experiment began, researchers
watched their every move.
After two hours of being subjected to a particularly challenging programme,
they were debriefed. What had it felt like? How did it compare with their
past experiences? The researchers then left to consider the evidence they
had collected.
Last week their results were published, to blanket media coverage. Bjarne
Holmes, who led the team of researchers at Heriot-Watt University in
Edinburgh, was deluged with requests for interviews from newspapers and
radio stations here and in Sweden, Germany and America.
The findings of the study? That romantic comedies do not accurately portray
people’s everyday experience of love.
The 30 subjects of the experiment had averred that Serendipity, a 2001 film
starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale which featured “a billion rom-com
clichés”, according to a review in The Sunday Times, was not how their own
love lives panned out.
Welcome to the University of the Bleedin’ Obvious – where last week
researchers produced a vintage collection of earth-shattering discoveries.
First came the revelation, from Leanne Proops of the University of Sussex,
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States, that horses recognise members of the same herd by sight and
by their neighing.
Then researchers from the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, announced
that their studies of a sometimes equally hard-to-read animal – fans of
heavy rock music – had found their habit of head-banging was bad for the
brain.
These were just the latest potential contenders for the Ig Nobel prizes –
presented each year for science that makes the lay person laugh out loud.
In Britain alone this year research has been published concluding that heavy
drinkers may forget their most negative boozy experiences and consequently
continue to drink; that a nice cup of tea makes people feel calmer; and that
women find displays of kindness and generosity an attractive characteristic
in men.
All of which prompts the question: why do academics spend time and money
investigating what seems like blindingly obvious common sense? HOLMES, who
works in Heriot-Watt’s family and personal relationships laboratory, insists
that his work is both socially valuable and relevant.
“Film is prevalent and influential, and when it deals with a subject matter
like love that younger audiences have little experience of, it could have a
profound influence on expectations,” he said. “We hope this research will
help them retain more scepticism about film, and maybe even lead to happier
relationships.”
He confessed, however, that compared with his department’s research with the
NHS into how infants bond with their mothers and how happiness in marriage
affects the ageing process, “the rom-com study is very much the lighter side
of our work. It’s not that it is unimportant but we do take it with a pinch
of salt”.
The head-banging expert, Andrew McIntosh, is convinced his research, which was
published in the British Medical Journal, will prevent more young people
from suffering brain damage because of vigorous head movements in the throes
of their musical passion.
However, he conceded: “This is certainly the advice your mother would give
you. And we conducted the research because my colleague, Declan Patton, is a
heavy metal fan.
“However, this is also an excellent way of promoting the discipline of
biomechanics which can only be good for promoting the university and
encouraging people to study.”
Proops was emphatic in her defence of her horse communication study: “People
are often anthropomorphic so they assume that their cats and dogs recognise
them and are sitting there imagining them before they come home from work.
“Our study confirmed that horses use cross-modal representation and complex
memory processes, and associate the sound of another member of a herd with a
mental image of the other animal. This has never been shown before.”
While proving hypotheses with experiments is what academics do, these days
they have another priority too: securing funding.
Last week the official rankings of British universities’ research efforts were
published in the “research assessment exercise” which will determine the
destination of £1.5 billion of government grants up to and including 2013.
Proops’s research matches one of the assessment areas in that it is “a new
area of study”.
Though ineligible for British grants, work like McIntosh’s scores well because
it has “significant practical applications” – he proposed that head-bangers
should wear a neck brace.
Another factor in determining the excellence of a particular university
department is the number of citations its work receives in academic
journals. Here lies a reason for the studies into the apparently obvious:
research in America has shown that citations are linked to media coverage.
In 2005 a study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
found that a mention of research in The New York Times would double the
number of citations, and coverage on national radio and television could
boost the number of references by 1,000%.
Similar research for the UK is being planned by Alex Bentley of Durham
University who has said that the increased emphasis on citations and the
growing number of online journals is forcing academics to try to make
themselves “the Britney Spears of science”, after the overexposed pop star.
Yet another assessment criterion used is esteem – how a department’s academics
are regarded by their peers.
“The measurement of esteem includes keynote addresses at conferences,
membership of professional associations and activity on advisory bodies, but
it also includes media coverage such as newspaper columns and appearances on
programmes like Newsnight and Question Time,” said Vivien Lowndes.
She is pro-vice-chancellor of De Montfort University, the former polytechnic
which was ranked in the assessment alongside Cambridge for its English
research and which famously has undertaken research into the Bridget Jones
novels.
Academics understand that gaining publicity for an apparently frivolous piece
of research could put them in contact with journalists who will call again
when something more serious comes up – and hopefully boost their citations
and esteem ratings.
This attitude is much more common in the United States, but with the
introduction of tuition fees in the UK and fiercer competition between
universities, more academics are putting their head above the ivory parapet.
With the “publish or perish” mantra crossing the Atlantic, it is easy to see
how areas in which the results might seem preordained are attractive.
It is notable how many of the frivolous studies come from the former
polytechnics, which are under greater financial pressure than the
traditional universities. However, it is not confined to them.
Charles Spence, a psychology professor at Oxford University, has the dubious
honour of being one of just two British academics to win an Ig Nobel prize
this year. He won the nutrition award alongside Massimiliano Zampini of the
University of Trento, Italy, for proving that enhancing the “crunch” of a
crisp makes it taste more fresh.
Spence admits he tailors some research with the front pages of national
newspapers in mind, including using easily understood percentages. He said:
“We are now studying how the design of a drinks can can convince people
their drink is still fizzy, reducing the amount of carbonic acid – which
damages the teeth so there is a public health benefit.”
Spence has also been involved in another significant source of apparently
pointless research: studies sponsored by businesses keen to give their
products respectability.
Six years ago he was paid £30,000 by the chemicals giant ICI for a nine-month
study of how people react to different colours. The report resulted in 400
printed articles and 50 radio interviews. “I had a minder reminding me to
mention ICI,” he recalled, while arguing that the project helped further his
career and actually improved his work.
He is certainly not alone in undertaking such work. Last year the London
School of Economics issued a press release stating 85% of people felt a
mobile phone was essential to their “quality of life”. The project was
undertaken “in conjunction with” Carphone Warehouse.
A number of top PR firms keep lists of academics who they know can be
encouraged to put their name to formulas for, say, the best time of day for
a cup of tea and how long a biscuit should be dunked.
“Academics come cheap,” said Spence. “Companies are seeing the financial
incentives of getting their name into the media this way. It’s part of the
PR industry.”
It is an area that causes concern among university authorities. Spence
admitted: “The press office did get upset when I was doing a project for Mr
Kipling which showed the sights and smells of Christmas increased the number
of mince pies people would eat.”
Others would counter that academics have a duty to challenge received opinion.
Indeed, last week the British Medical Journal debunked a number of popular
beliefs, including that people lose most heat through their head and that
sugar makes children more hyperactive.
So how did such untruths become regarded as bleedingly obvious? Now there’s a
new area for research.
This year’s classics
— Students who watch hundreds of television adverts for junk food are
more likely to eat snacks of unhealthy food and put on weight, according to
the University of Alberta’s centre for health promotion studies
— Call centre staff who try to be your friend by using your name – dubbed
synthetic personalisation – are irritating, concluded Oxford University
researchers
— Parents whose children will not eat vegetables can succeed in disguising
them in other dishes by mushing them up, according to research by Penn State
University
— Men prefer blondes, says research by a team of Polish psychologists on the
perception of hair colour in women over 35
— Children who lack confidence are more likely to grow up to be overweight,
according to a team at Southampton University’s School of Medicine
— Heaps of long string always end up in knots, discovered the University of
California at San Diego’s physics department, when scientists put string in
a box and shook it
— Impulsive, risk-taking and thrill-seeking drug takers are more likely to
become addicts, found Cambridge University researchers
— People are better at work when they exercise, a Leeds Metropolitan
University study revealed
