Deric Bownds
These articles, from Deric's MindBlog at http://mindblog.dericbownds.net report new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
MY BLOGS
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Deric Bownds' MindBlog
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/
This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 2494 )
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Robots Exert Peer Pressure on Children, but Not Adults.
From Vollmer et al.: People are known to change their behavior and decisions to conform to others, even for obviously incorrect facts. Read more
Posted on 29 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Reversing Age Related Decay of Brain Plasticity with Prozac
Eavri et al. find that treatment of mice with fluoxetine as they are aging slows the decline of several brain plasticity makers. Read more
Posted on 28 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit
I want to thank MindBlog reader Mike Walterman, who sent me an email pointing me to this article (which won an Ig Nobel Prize) and commented on his experience... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Architecture of Pride is a Cultural Universal.
Sznycer et al. provide evidence that the pride system of WEIRD (western-ized, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies is found in 10... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Tracking of Musical Beat is Enhanced by Low Frequency Sounds.
Lenc et al. find that that brain activity at the frequency of the perceived beat is selectively enhanced compared with other frequencies in the... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The False Idols of Wellness.
Jen Gunter does an engaging take-down of the wellness-industrial complex in a NYTimes piece. She suggests that the wellness industry is exploiting rather than... Read more
Posted on 21 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Mesolimbic Reward Circuitry Influences Valuation of Knowledge Versus Ignorance.
From Charpentier et al.: The pursuit of knowledge is a basic feature of human nature. However, in domains ranging from health to finance people sometimes... Read more
Posted on 20 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Meditation Quiets the Ego? ….maybe Just the Opposite.
From Gebauer et al.. In their abstract "self-enhancement bias" refers to exaggerated self views or valuations. Mind-body practices enjoy immense public and... Read more
Posted on 17 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Neuroscience of Pessimism.
Ann Graybiel and collaborators offer a fascinating study showing that stimulation of the brain's caudate nucleus induces persistent and repetitive negative... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
More Evidence Against the Transferable Benefits of Online Brain Training on...
From Stojanoski et al.: There is strong incentive to improve our cognitive abilities, and brain training has emerged as a promising approach for achieving this... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Controlling Drones with a Body-machine Interface.
On first glance this article creeped me out, because when control of drones at a distance is mentioned I think of the drones used to bomb ISIS or Al Quaeda cell... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
No Gender Differences in Early Math Cognition.
Kersey et al. have examined data from more than 500 children ranging in age from 6 months to 8 years across several tests of numerosity, counting, and elementar... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A Ecosystem of Podcast Bros Who Want to Optimize Your Life.
I'm not a podcast or video kind of person, being too impatient to listen to or watch material that I can absorb more rapidly by reading about it. Read more
Posted on 09 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Weaponized Social Media
I pass on a few clips from a sobering NYTimes article by Kara Swisher, who quotes from a recent Facebook post: We face determined, well-funded adversaries who... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Pupil Mimicry Promotes Trust.
Prochazkova et al. show that pupil mimicry promotes trust through our theory of mind brain network: Significance Trusting others is central for cooperative... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Regions Involved in Compensating for Lost Body Parts.
From Striem-Amit et al.: Significance What determines the role of brain regions and their plasticity when typical inputs or experience is not provided? To what... Read more
Posted on 06 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Residential Isolation of Disadvantaged Groups is Not Mitigated by Extensive Urba...
Wang et al. offer yet another approach to observing the intractability of racial segregation in large cities: Significance Living in disadvantaged... Read more
Posted on 03 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Chimps Can Psych out Humans
Interesting work from Eckert et al. shows that chimps can use mental state information revealed by experimenters' biases in selecting food items. Read more
Posted on 02 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Enhanced Brain Activity Associated with Highly Superior Memory.
Santangelo et al. show that people with superior memory have enhanced connectivity of their prefrontal cortex with their hippocampus and temporoparietal... Read more
Posted on 01 August 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Are Things Getting Better Or Worse?
In a recent New Yorker article Joshua Rothman discusses debate over assessing the state of the world, with major emphasis on Pinker book "Enlightenment Now",... Read more
Posted on 31 July 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE