This tells you something different than “ambient light while sleeping negatively impacts learning.”
> Sleep diary data revealed no differences in the number of hours slept while wearing the eye mask (7.15 ± 16.66) or the control mask (7.18 ± 16.82; t(23) = −0.11, p = .914, N = 24). Likewise, there was no significant difference in self-rating of sleep quality (eye mask: 3.13 ± 0.19 vs control: 2.84 ± 0.16; Z = −1.53, p = .131, N = 31).
That is, if you did manage to "double blind" it and got no difference in treatments, that means we don't understand the mechanism in this study. It does not, necessarily, mean that there are no results in this study. RIght?
Yes, we have evidence that this influences things. That is usually why people replicate without telling people why they were doing something. In this study, they didn't say "we are testing you with masks to see if they make you test better." It was more, we are testing you with and without masks to see if we spot differences. I could easily envision some folks expecting the result to go the other way.
More, if that is the concern, you need to test doing that. Don't make it blind, reverse the message. Tell them you expect them to be less alert wearing a mask, and see if that holds.
Right?
My question is ultimately on whether that is a flaw in this study, or more to study? :D I'm probably placing too much weight on the word "flaw?"
But seriously the only ways off the top of my head to mobilize placebos is to lie to people which doesn’t seem worth the squeeze. They just lead to more misconceptions.
But that's literally what marketing does, not just for supplements, but in general. The limits of what can be achieved through lies and persuasion are well-mapped now. There is a tension between what marketers would like to do, and what the law allows them to, but it's a tension over marginal effectiveness - the illegal methods are only slightly more effective than the legal ones. There are no psy-corps placebo mind control superpowers, known or hypothesized - if there were, then regulations around advertising and fair competition would look more like regulations around access to enriched fissile material or highly infectious pathogens.
And there has been research into what provides a stronger placebo effect. Getting a shot gives more of a placebo effect than a pill for example.
I'm not in favor of lies. But mayhap shutting up is more called for? :)
Our mind controls our body, which has strong healing capabilities.
>I'm not in favor of lies. But mayhap shutting up is more called for? :)
I don't get what you're saying here.
Edit: I am slow to realize it may have sounded like "shut up" was directed at you. My apologies. I meant that more for the generic voice of caution that is as often very valuable. And i am very nervous on what it implies for general health reporting. How many more people are sick because they think they should be? What can you even do with that idea?
>And i am very nervous on what it implies for general health reporting.
Remember that it works both ways. For everybody that gets a fake flu, there's somebody who is healthier because they ate their spinach.
That is, if we were to reduce the negative effects reporting, but increase the positive ones, would that bias the world in that direction? (That make sense?)
Are they though? I used to think so until I skimmed Wikipedia article on placebo some 5 minutes ago. According to the article (as of now), there's been plenty of research on placebo done in the past couple decades, which revealed... the most mundane reality you'd expect: placebo effect impacts perception of symptoms, and can only do as much as a transient change in perception can. Apparently, the old studies that ascribed all kinds of big effects to placebos, were failing to account for regression to the mean.
Now, I haven't checked the sources, but I'm inclined to believe it - it feels right. The possibility of placebos being meaningfully effective on the targeted condition itself felt like bad writing[0] - the same phenomenon should be giving us all kinds of superpowers, which we don't see. I mean, when you get drunk, you may tolerate pain better, but your skin doesn't turn into kevlar with steel inserts just because the drunk you believes you're impervious to knives and bullets.
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[0] - Like in fiction, when you discover the author didn't think through the consequences of a minor plot point they're making - a plot point that, extrapolated ever so slightly, would instantly break the main story, and/or disrupt the entire fictional universe.
That said, I don't know?
The progressive take is placebo should be considered valuable information and not ignored.
As for exploiting the perceptual aspects for good and bad, well, that's a really really well-explored ground - we've been at it for thousands of years. Religion, folk medicine, homeopathy, or the modern bullshit fads like fitness, healthy food, spiritual exercise philosophies, etc. - they all build up huge emotional frameworks around core interventions that, by themselves, have slight to no effect. They are big money printers, tho.