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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America is Facing an Epistemic Crisis
The Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times" is certainly taking its toll on all of us who don't hide from the current news. Read more
Posted on 16 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Improving Brain Function by Shocking It.
This post points to three recent articles on non-invasive electrical brain stimulation of various types that enhance brain brain function. Krause et al. Read more
Posted on 15 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Linguistic Metaphor Scaffolds Reasoning
Continuing the line of inquiry pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson's 1980 book, "Metaphors We Live by", Thibodeau et al. provide further examples of how the use of... Read more
Posted on 14 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Arousal Versus Relaxation in Meditative Practices.
I am grateful to Robert Ruhloff for his comment on MindBlog's Oct. 25th post on Mindfulness, in which he pointed to a reference whose abstract I would like to... Read more
Posted on 13 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Self as Object: Trends in Self Research
The current issue of Trends in Neurosciences has a nice open source article reviewing different aspects of assessing what our 'self' is, considering 'self as... Read more
Posted on 10 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
For Your Brain's Sake, Keep Moving.
Gretchen Reynolds points to work by van Praag and collaborators showing that a week of activity rather than inactivity (in adult male rats) increases both the... Read more
Posted on 09 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Where Our Brains Perceive Social Interactions.
From Isik et al.: Significance Humans spend a large percentage of their time perceiving the appearance, actions, and intentions of others, and extensive previou... Read more
Posted on 08 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Modern Flimflam Men? - The Flow Genome Project
Cleaning up my queue of articles on which a MindBlog post might be based, I came across this piece by Casey Schwartz titled “How to Hack your Brain (for... Read more
Posted on 07 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Focus on Present Predicts Enhanced Life Satisfaction but Not Happiness
Another study by Felsman et al., in the vein of the work described in MindBlog's Oct. 25 post. That study claimed a correlation between present-moment... Read more
Posted on 06 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Cognitive Reflection in Men Impaired by Single Testosterone Dose
An interesting bit from Nave et al.: In nonhumans, the sex steroid testosterone regulates reproductive behaviors such as fighting between males and mating. Read more
Posted on 03 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Split Brain Revisited - a New Perspective
I pass on the suggestion by Pinto et al. that classical experiments on subjects whose corpus callosum communicating between the two hemispheres has been severed... Read more
Posted on 02 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Gut Reasons to Brush Your Teeth.
Cao does a summary and discussion of work by Atarashi et al. : Numerous microorganisms, including bacteria, colonize the intestine where they play important... Read more
Posted on 01 November 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Smiles of Reward, Affiliation, and Dominance.
From Martin et al.: Abstract The human smile is highly variable in both its form and the social contexts in which it is displayed. Read more
Posted on 31 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Rethinking Our Conceptions of Mental Life.
Interesting ideas from Weisman et al.: Significance How do ordinary people make sense of mental life? Pioneering work on the dimensions of mind perception has... Read more
Posted on 30 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
“Let’s Get Togetherism.”
I have to pass on the ending paragraphs of Brooks NYTimes OpEd piece today, titled "The week Trump won." He compares our situation today with the 1927 chaos,... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media.
Benedict Carey does a fascinating article on how misinformation is spread on social media. Here are a few clips with his major points: For all the suspicions... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Do Intelligent Robots Need Emotion?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the parts of our brains processing emotions are not tidily separated from those dealing with reason, cognition,... Read more
Posted on 26 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Different Kinds of Mindfulness Correlate with Different Benefits.
Jazaieri points to work by Blanke et al. that probed how different aspects of mindfulness influence our emotional well-being. Three kinds of mindfulness were... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The “sense of Self” in Biblical Times.
Sigal Samuel does an article on the ideas of James Kugel in his final book “The Great Shift - Encountering Good in the Biblical Era” Here are a few clips from... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Coming Dark Age…or a New Integration?
I would like to offer Mindblog’s rambling thoughts on possible futures, if, as in some estimates , the relentless march of the machines of artificial... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE