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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More on the Sociopathy of Social Media
I want to pass on to MindBlog readers some material from Michael Kaplan, who recently pointed me to his YouTube channel OneHandClap, and in particular his... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Much Should A.I. Frighten Us?
Continuing the artificial intelligence topic of yesterday's post, I want to pass on the concluding paragraphs of a fascinating New Yorker article by Tad Friend. Read more
Posted on 01 June 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A.I. Needs to Learn Like a Human Child.
Matthew Hutson summarizes efforts to nudge machine learning researchers away from the assumption that "computers trained on mountains of data can learn just... Read more
Posted on 31 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Intelligent Brains Have More Sparse and Efficient Nerve Connections.
From Genç et al.: Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with higher intelligence are more likely to have larger gray matter volume in brain areas... Read more
Posted on 30 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Light and Dark Sides of Friendship.
I want to point to two brief reviews by Natalie Angier on friendship. She first points to work of Parkinson et al. showing similarities in the brain activities... Read more
Posted on 29 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Good Things About a Party Drug (Ketamine).
Ketamine, used extensively as an anesthetic during the Vietnam war and also as a party drug, has a rapidly acting antidepressant effect. Read more
Posted on 28 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Why We Itch More with Aging.
Lewis and Grandl offer context and note the significance of work by by Feng et al.: It is well known that aging is accompanied by the death of specific cell... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Microbiome Regulates Amygdala-dependent Fear Recall.
Hoban et al. show interaction between the gut microbes and expression of anxiety and fear regulated by the amygdala. Their technical abstract: The amygdala is... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Research on Subjective Well-being.
Given the drum beat of daily negative news we all face, it is useful to be open to facts about longer term trends showing improvement in different areas of... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Cognitive Underpinnings of Nationalistic Ideology.
From Zmigrod et al.: Significance Belief in rigid distinctions between the nationalistic ingroup and outgroup has been a motivating force in citizens’ voting... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Changes from Adolescence to Adulthood
Kundu et al. have used a new fMRI imaging technique to look at shifts in functional brain organization in subjects ranging from 8 to 46 years old, finding that... Read more
Posted on 21 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Has Artificial Intelligence Become Alchemy?
Mathew Hutson describes Ali Rahimi's critique of current artificial intelligence (AI) learning algorithms at a recent AI meeting: Rahimi charged that machine... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Status Threat Explains 2016 Presidential Vote
Niraj Chokshi points to a PNAS article by Diana Mutz. Mutz's abstract: Significance Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Effort Paradox - Effort is Both Costly and Valued
Inzlicht et al. do an interesting review article on how we (as well as some other animals) associate effort with reward, sometimes pursuing objects and... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Transparency is the Mother of 'fake News'
Stanley Fish, writing in the NYTimes "The Stone" series suggests that fake news is in large part a product of the enthusiasm for transparency and absolutely fre... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Industrial Revolutions Are Political and Social Wrecking Balls.
I want to point to yet another impressive bit of research and writing by Thomas Edsall, who gives one of the most clear pictures I have seen of current politica... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Not to Mind If Someone is Lying...
Daniel Effron describes the means by which Trump supporters, aware that many of his statements are falsehoods, manage to temper their potential anger. Mr. Read more
Posted on 11 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
More on the Vagaries of Expertise
To follow up on yesterday's post on the illusion of having skills, I want to point to two other articles in this vein. Herrera notes work showing that: ... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Illusion of Skill Acquisition.
Kardas and O'Brien document how watching others perform can foster an illusion of skill acquisition. Their abstract: Modern technologies such as YouTube afford... Read more
Posted on 09 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Protein Synthesis in Brain Tissue is Much Higher Than Previously Thought.
Smeets et al. use stable isotope methodology during temporal lobe resection surgery to demonstrate protein synthesis rates exceeding 3% per day, suggesting... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE