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It said that the lights led to a 84 percent decline in suicides attempts. That may not be true, but it is definitely way higher than "regression towards the me

It said that the lights led to a 84 percent decline in suicides attempts. That may not be true, but it is definitely way higher than "regression towards the mean" would cause.

tbabb 8y ago
One could not say what is "expected" without knowing either the statistics of suicides in Japanese train stations, or the statistics of where installations happened. If per-station variance is high, or if the installed stations were significant outliers (or both), 84% would be perfectly within expectation. I find it very hard to believe that the color of the light in the train station would sway a person's life-and-death decision. Plenty of things could, but "it's blue here" does not seem like one of them. "Colors have 'magical' effects on emotion" is a very woo-y thing to believe.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  While I share your skepticism, there's is pretty solid evidence that strong white/blue light is effective in treating seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Ma...
  - mcherm 8y ago
    That fact along with any reason to believe that 84% of suicides are caused by SAD might help explain things. But that "fact" isn't remotely true.
- mistermann 8y ago
  Emotions themselves are very woo-y things.
deleted 8y ago
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