Since 2010, my lab has been investigating cognitive mechanisms associated with relaxation response and prosociality that may underlie proclivity for religious experience and derive from over 800,000 years of human manipulation of fire. Hearth and campfires are multi-sensory phenomena that have played an important role in human evolution, including possible effects on cognition. Through the Fireside Relaxation Study, we test the role of the elements of fire on blood pressure, and skin conductance through use of simulated fire and potentially analogous media conditions. This project utilizes a biopsychocultural model, and all HBERGers participate as experimenters as part of their neuroanthropology training.

We are currently collecting data for a new iteration of the Fireside Relaxation Study. Having demonstrated that people find watching DVD fires relaxing, we received gift funding and resource support from Napoleon Fireplaces & Grills to determine if similar benefits accrue for an electric fireplace. We are recruiting adults in the Tuscaloosa area. Participants receive a $20 gift card and opportunity to win a Napoleon Grill. For more details and to participate, see our current study page.

Studies

CD Lynn, MJ Stein*, APC Bishop*. Engaging undergraduates through neuroanthropological research. Anthropology Now, 2014, 6(1):92-103.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19492901.2013.11728423
I used the idea behind the fireside relaxation study as the basis of setting up my lab. My aim had simply been to have a one-hour meeting at the end of the week to brainstorm research like I did with the Gallup Evolutionary Psychology Lab in grad school. Of course the other members of that lab worked together in their lab during the week, conducting research for their various dissertations and theses. Anthropology works a little different, given our tendency to conduct fieldwork outside of campus lab settings. It makes it more difficult to train undergraduates for some elements of anthropology. As a new professor, the only students willing and able to join a new lab were undergraduates, so I took a mixed approach, training students in quantitative methods by having them run participants in a lab-based "proof of concept" type study and conducting ethnographic participant-observation at local churches as part of our Religious Ecology Study Tuscaloosa. When I was invited by neuroanthropologists Daniel Lende and Greg Downey to participate in a AAA session they were convening on the topic, I discussed the HBERG approach as training undergraduates in neuroanthropology. If I had thought of it when I started the lab, I'd probably call it a Neuroanthropology Lab because it is what we do and has a good ring to it. Furthermore, I teach a course called Neuroanthropology, so it rings true. And I don't like giving talks that don't become articles, so I had to work a bit to find a venue for this article.
​CD Lynn. Hearth and Campfire Influences on Arterial Blood Pressure: Defraying the Costs of the Social Brain through Fireside Relaxation. Evolutionary Psychology, 2014, 12(5):983-1003, epjournal.net/3397
The idea to test an aspect of James McClenon's ritual healing hypothesis was developed in the Gallup Evolutionary Psychology Lab when I brought it up there during graduate school. That original idea was to test the relaxing influences of fire purported to be a basis for self-soothing and social integration at a local mall that had a fireplace. We didn't get it off the ground then, but I brought the idea to early lab meetings as a project we could brainstorm together and conduct on campus. Ironically, by the time I started writing an article on the Fireside Relaxation Study, none of the students who had collected data along the way were available or interested in writing it up, so I ended up solo-authoring what has always been a production of the whole lab. This paper details Study 1, conducted 2010-11, which compared pre-posttest blood pressure of viewing a 5-minute video of fire without sound condition to a 5-minute blank computer screen; Study 2, conducted 2011-12, which added a fire with sound condition; and Study 3, conducted 2012-13, which extended the time increments to 15 minutes and changed the control to an upside down static picture of a fire. Study 3 was conducted in response to a reviewer, so it took a while to this paper to the finish line, but it went viral when it was published and continues to draw inquiries. This paper resulted in the gift of research funding from Napoleon Fireplaces in 2022.
MJ Stein*, A Daugherty*, I Rivera*, J Muzzo*, CD Lynn. Thinking outside anthropology’s box: Socializing undergraduates through collaborative research, teaching, and service. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 2016, 40(2):164-177. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/napa.12099/full.
We wrote a second article about the approach we take in our lab by discussing the theory and methods behind the Fireside Relaxation Study, among other projects. Where I took the lead on the previous study and asked for input from Max Stein as a master's student, he continued to work in my lab developing his own mentoring skills as he continued in our PhD program and was invited to contribute this to a special issue on experiential learning in anthropology for undergraduates.

CD Lynn. Would our early ancestors have watched the Super Bowl? Sapiens, January 31, 2019 https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/history-of-fire-super-bowl/. 
I wrote this article in time for the holidays and the Super Bowl comparing watching television to fireside relaxation. After the original study went viral, we continued collecting data but added a sound-only condition and a television condition. I hypothesize that television and other multimedia glom onto the same cognitive predispositions as domestic fire. They capture our attention through multisensory stimulation and social immersion. We have yet to formally publish these data, but I wrote about them here for a popular audience first.
Picture
​CD Lynn. Transcendental Medication: The Evolution of Mind, Culture, and Healing. Routledge Press, 2022 (ISBN 9780367472634).
In this book, I describe dissociation as a basic function of consciousness to temper the stress of awareness that has been amplified through evolutionary scenarios. I describe James McClenon's ritual healing theory, what aspect of it we tested, and the implications for evolution. I consider animal predispositions for dissociation that may be result of homology and candidate genotypes that could have been subject to selective pressure.

CD Lynn and A Sents. Is television addiction a byproduct of fireside evolution?: Physiological responses to multimedia and domestic fires. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (In draft).
This article outlines analysis of our second fireside relaxation study, in which we repeated the 3rd version of the original study but included a fire sounds-only condition and a television condition. The dataset was ultimately smaller than intended, making the results difficult to interpret. Findings approach significance but because of sampling or because we're seeing our bias? Technically, this article was declined, but we are currently redoing analysis using difference statistical approaches for limited samples.

Presentations

The Fireside Relaxation Study began as a teaching project to set up my lab and get students learning anthropological theory and principles and interdisciplinarity through on-campus research. Therefore, I share all the presentations given by lab members for this project, as they are as representative of the scholarly impact of this project as the publications and media.
  • ​B Starliper, C Buzney, CD Lynn. Trance by Fire: Is Television Addiction a By-product of Fireside Relaxation? Presented at Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meetings. Santa Monica, CA, March 31-April 3, 2011.
  • CD Lynn. “Transcendental Medication”: Tests of a Functionalist Model of the Dissociation/ Absorption Spectrum via Speaking in Tongues and Fireside Relaxation. Presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, November 15-20, 2011.
  • M Roberts, CD Lynn. Fireside Relaxation and the Effects of Flickering Light and Sudden Sound Phenomena. Presented at Southern Anthropological Society 47th Annual Meeting. Birmingham, AL, March 15—17, 2012.
  • CD Lynn. Compromising on Compromise: Engaging Undergraduates through Neuroanthropological Research. Invited presentation at 112th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA, November 14-18, 2012.
  • M Steel, L Moore, C Lynn. Trance by Fire: the Stimulation of a Relaxation Response by Focusing on Flickering Light and Novel Sound Phenomena. Presented at the Society for Anthropological Sciences Annual Meeting, Mobile, AL, February 20-23, 2013.
  • CD Lynn. The Psychophysiology of Fireside Relaxation. Presented at 2013 Human Biology Association Annual Meeting. Knoxville, TN, April 10-11, 2013.
  • M Steel, L Moore, C Lynn. Trance by Fire: the Stimulation of a Relaxation Response by Focusing on Flickering Light and Novel Sound Phenomena. Presented at the University of Alabama Evolutionary Studies Darwin Day Research Colloquium. Tuscaloosa, AL, February 12, 2013.
  • M Steel and CD Lynn. Fireside Meditations: The Induction of a Relaxation Response by Focused Attention on a Flickering Light and Novel Sound Phenomenon. Presented at the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, IL, November 20-24, 2013.
  • LV Pratt and C Lynn. Human Evolution at the Hearth: The Influence of Fire on Relaxation and Psychophysiology. Presented at the 8th Annual Conference of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society, New Paltz, NY, April 10-13, 2014.
  • M Carr, A Daugherty, C Lynn. A Burning Question: Fireside Relaxation. Presented 9th Annual Conference of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society, Boston, MA, April 24-26, 2015.
  • ​E Duncan, B Hall, C Lynn. Multi-Sensory Campfire Experiences Influence Lower Blood Pressure. Presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Human Biology Association, Atlanta, GA, April 13-14, 2016.
  • K Meighan*, H Tytus*, M Wanis*, MJ Stein*, CD Lynn. Is Cyber Dependence Related to our Fireside Evolution? Blood Pressure and Skin Conductance between Fireside and Multimedia Relaxation Responses. Presented at the 2nd Annual Southeastern Evolutionary Perspectives Society Conference, Tuscaloosa, AL, February 10-12, 2017.
  • A Sents*, E Smith*, C Lynn. It’s Lit: Campfire Relaxation as a Preadaptation for Television Viewing. 89th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Los Angeles, CA, April 16, 2020.
  • CD Lynn. Psychology of Fire. Invited talk for Fireplace, Patio, and BBQ Expo, Atlanta, GA, February 3, 2022.
  • L Clark*, A Sents*, CD Lynn. Relaxation and physiological responses to fire. 91st Annual Meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists, Denver, CO, March 24, 2022.

Media

This was the lab's first "viral" study and continues to receive media coverage regularly. Following are representative selections.