Improbable Research

Two years before the Covid-19 pandemic existed, Ajikie Majima patented a way to solve a problem that would annoy millions of lipstick-wearers who want to also wear protective facemasks. That patent is:

“Mask Replacement Patch,” Ajikie Majima, Japan patent #3211488U, 2017.

Majima’s basic description of the invention: “Disclosed is a non-woven pleated mask that can be attached to a non-woven pleated mask that eliminates a gap near the upper side of the pleated mask and prevents a lipstick from attaching to a female mouth.”

Here’s further detail:

“PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a patch to be attached to a non-woven pleated mask by eliminating a gap near the upper side of the non-woven pleated mask and preventing the lipstick from sticking to a woman’s mouth to cause discomfort. SOLUTION: This is a three-dimensional patch A that covers a nose and a mouth, and double-sided tape is attached to a central portion 4b and both end portions 5b and 6b near the upper part, and a non-woven pleated mask 1 has a face covering portion. It is used by mounting it at a position near the upper side 2. It has a three-dimensional shape by inserting scissors in the vertical center part of the backing cloth A, and by stuffing cotton in the upper seam allowance except for the central part, the upper side of the face covering part of the non-woven pleated mask 1 The gap between 2 and the backing cloth A can be eliminated. The material of the patch A is double gauze or organic cotton.”

Bearing in mind that the number of medical injections might soon be increasing, and that some find them painful, a question can arise – ‘What are the options for minimizing the pain of a medical injection?’ Have you considered holding a chopstick in your mouth (to induce a fake smile) or maybe grimacing?

Sarah Pressman,  ^{[not pictured, see note 1 below]} who is Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine, and Principal Investigator of the Stress, Emotion & Physical Health Lab (STEP) has co-authored a recent paper which describes experiments aimed at reducing needle injection pain – by manipulating facial expressions.

“Expression was covertly manipulated via cover story and chopstick placement in the mouth.”

The experiments also investigated ‘grimacing’.

“Together, these findings indicate that both smiling and grimacing can improve subjective needle pain experiences, but Duchenne smiling may be better suited for blunting the stress-induced physiological responses of the body versus other facial expressions.”

See: Smile (or grimace) through the pain? The effects of experimentally manipulated facial expressions on needle-injection responses  Emotion, Pressman, S. D., Acevedo, A. M., Hammond, K. V., & Kraft-Feil, T. L. (2020)

Notes:

[1] The photo is from a previous study also involving chopstick smiles, and also co-authored by Professor Pressman : Contrasting Experimentally Device-Manipulated and Device-Free Smiles  Front. Psychol., 15 October 2019.

[2] SmileSticks™ (an hygienic alternative to a chopstick, which were evaluated in the study above) can be purchased here

[3] The 2010 Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.

_{Research research by Martin Gardiner}

In Podcast Episode #1049, Robin Abrahams explores some of the engineering in a classic research study Dramatic readings and reactions ensue.

Remember, our Patreon donors, on most levels, get access to each podcast episode before it is made public.

Robin Abrahams encounters:

Etiquette, by Emily Post, 1942.

Seth Gliksman, Production Assistant

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Podcasts, AntennaPod, BeyondPod and elsewhere!

“Outside the academy, the paper [“The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips“] failed to generate any interest until 2008, when its authors were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Nutrition. The Ig Nobels are intended to “honor achievements that make people laugh, and then think,” but media coverage of Spence’s win focussed mostly on the former, with headlines that ranged from “boffin gives eaters sound advice” to “why research that?!” At first glance, the “sonic chip” experiment, as Spence fondly refers to it, does seem trivial. In reality, it was an elegant psychological trick, offering insight into the way the brain combines two separate sensory inputs—the crunching sound and the tactile oral sensation of a potato chip—into one multisensory perception. Spence lists the honor at the top of his curriculum vitae.”

—from the report “Accounting for Taste,” by Nicola Twilley, in The New Yorker magazine,  October 26, 2015

Here is some detail from the study:

Here is the Ig Informal Lecture by the winner of the 2020 Ig Nobel Entomology Prize.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. In the Ig Informal Lectures, some days after the ceremony, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it. [In non-pandemic years, the lectures happen at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, two days after the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. But in the pandemic year 2020, it’s all happening online.]

The 2020 Ig Nobel Prize for Entomology was awarded to Richard Vetter, for collecting evidence that many entomologists (scientists who study insects) are afraid of spiders, which are not insects.

He documented that research, in this study:

• “Arachnophobic Entomologists: When Two More Legs Makes a Big Difference,” Richard S. Vetter, American Entomologist, vol. 59, no. 3, 2013, pp. 168-175.

Schedule

We are releasing The Ig Informal Lectures, one at a time, here on www.improbable.com, and on YouTube. Here are the release dates:

• November 26th, 2020: Economics
• December 3rd, 2020: Psychology
• December 17th, 2020: Medicine
• December 24th, 2020: Physics
• December 31st, 2020: Entomology
• January 7th, 2021: Acoustics
• January 14th, 2021: Materials Science