Origami good for the brain?

Jonnycakes · Post by **Jonnycakes** » April 14th, 2008, 7:11 pm

If you're using handmade paper (perhaps origamido paper >.<), then it could get expensive.

qtrollip · Post by **qtrollip** » April 14th, 2008, 7:55 pm

Origami is still cheaper than golf, skiing, etc...

Post by **Daydreamer** » April 14th, 2008, 8:10 pm

Well.... if you consider those books you buy for several hundred euros/dollars it can get really expensive

qtrollip · Post by **qtrollip** » April 14th, 2008, 8:52 pm

You got that right!

origamimasterjared · Post by **origamimasterjared** » April 14th, 2008, 8:59 pm

Jonnycakes wrote:If you're using handmade paper (perhaps origamido paper >.<), then it could get expensive.

There's more easily available super-expensive paper. Things like gampi, kasugami, some kozo--I've seen at about $15 a sheet. Even bought a couple. Years later I still haven't used any of it. $4 kozo and loktas are about the highest I've actually used. I folded a scrap of gampi once. Folds like a dream.

Fishgoth · Post by **Fishgoth** » April 15th, 2008, 3:33 pm

Re DBRCTs

A triple-bind study would be impossible. Randomisation and single blinding is easy. The double-blinding side of it is a bit more tricky, and would involve more than one activity, in a controlled fashion; e.g.

origami+control A+control B = group 1
origami+control A+control C = group 2
control A+control B+control C = group 3...

And so on. Variant analysis would remove trends from matching controls. So, in other words, give a subject a variety of activities, and test intelligence in a pre-set way, rather than single activity vs no or different activity.

nonkelgans · Post by **nonkelgans** » April 16th, 2008, 2:29 pm

Daydreamer wrote:Well.... if you consider those books you buy for several hundred euros/dollars it can get really expensive

Depends, if you have to buy stuff like a jetski or a quad then it's expensive too, just imagine how many books you can buy with that kind of money

.

aesthetistician · Post by **aesthetistician** » April 16th, 2008, 3:35 pm

Fishgoth, I have to disagree. For a single-blind study, the participants don't know what group they're in. For a double-blind study, neither the participants nor the researcher knows which group is which. For a triple-blind study, the analysing statistician also doesn't know which group is which.

Since there's no way for a person to do origami without knowing they're doing origami, none of these is possible. The most you could do is 'blind' the researcher and the statistician.

What you're describing is a block design, which is certainly valid and would let you estimate interactions as well. It's still a CRT, just not double-blind.

Fishgoth · Post by **Fishgoth** » April 17th, 2008, 9:48 pm

I'll disagree again - the blinding element for certain groups depends on whether they are aware of what is being tested. For example, in clinical drug trials, a patient may be given a red pill, a blue pill, and a green pill. They do not know which one is being tested, if any. Or, if a therapy is being tested, a series of therapies are carried out, one after the other. This is the only effective way of introducing a blinding element into studies involving complex activities, rather than the simple 'take a pill or not' approach of most theraputic research. For example, a methycellulose pill. Which is about as closest a link as I can find to origami.

Fishy
DOI: Research surgeon at London teaching hospital. Author of two RCTs in surgical journals.

origamimasterjared · Post by **origamimasterjared** » April 17th, 2008, 9:59 pm

I'm no statistician, but are we theorizing about testing origami's "effects on the brain" or how it affects while you're doing it? Because it wouldn't seem to hard to get a group of people who do origami, and make it not obvious that that was the variable you were testing, unless you had to actually do/not do origami during the experiment.

notefolds · Post by **notefolds** » April 18th, 2008, 1:08 am

I know that origami is used in rehabilitation. One of my co-worker's daughter is learning origami to help with her dyslexia. She folded a simple flower (from a shawl base), a stem (from a kite base), and a pot (the traditional cup). I hope this starts her on a path to life-long origami!

I also found this website: http://www.theragami.com/gpage.html which promotes origami for therapy. From the site: "Of the many academic benefits Origami has to offer, three are predominant:. Sequencing, mathematics/spatial relationship and reading. Origami lends itself to the development of sequential memory."

qtrollip · Post by **qtrollip** » April 18th, 2008, 2:48 am

Thanx for the link, Notefold!

Fishgoth · Post by **Fishgoth** » April 18th, 2008, 11:43 pm

From the above website

A clinician can use Origami to identify strengths and weaknesses such as verbal and visual memory, attention and concentration, sequencing verbal reasoning, visual perception, gross and fine motor skills.

This is touchy-feely rubbish, written by someone who isn't a clinician. Whereas origami probably engages and develops all of the above, it has no clinical use as a diagnostic test in medicine. It has a role to play in therapy, but no more than any other creative art/craft skill.

Some of the above site is laudable. However, well meaning medical amateurs should not try to promote origami as something it isn't. Such claims rapidly descend into quackery, especially as none of their claims are referenced.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » April 21st, 2008, 3:06 pm

I agree, its fantastic for the mind. Its rewarding, relaxing and FUN

aesthetistician · Post by **aesthetistician** » April 29th, 2008, 9:33 pm

Fishgoth, what you propose is a balanced incomplete block (BIB) design. It is valid and very useful, but not blind. The fact that subjects are aware that origami is being studied is not the only reason to blind - to be truly blind, the subjects would have to be completely unaware of which group they were in. Even if that were the case, origami is not the only thing being studied in such a design - it can't be. The effect of origami relative to each of the other two treatments is being studied, which is a whole different animal. In what you say about the red pill/blue pill/green pill question, could you be thinking of a double-dummy trial?

-Aesthetistician
(BSc in Applied & Computational Mathematics, MSc in Statistics)

PS: I don't mean to sound argumentative. I wish half the researchers out there knew as much statistics as you evidently do. It would certainly make my job easier!