Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Morality in Real Life Versus the Lab.

  The majority of studies on morality have used artificial controlled laboratory settings where study participants respond to presented moral issues (such as the... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neuroanatomy Predicts Individual Risk Attitudes.

  Gilaie-Dotan et al. show that the volume of a region in the right posterior parietal cortex is relatively larger in individuals with higher risk tolerance... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Synchrony Between Observers' Brains During Action Observation.

  Nummenmaa et al. (free access article, check out the nice graphics) have examined how we can understand what another person might be thinking or feeling just... Read more

  Posted on 22 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Female Hurricanes Are Deadlier Than Male Hurricanes

  The fact that I am driving away from Madison Wisconsin tomorrow, to my cold weather nest in Fort Lauderdale Florida, made me recall this interesting bit on... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Music Shapes How We Think - Whether We See the Forrest Or the Trees.

  Hansen and Melzner do a fascinating piece on how musical cues that vary in distance and abstractness versus proximity and concreteness influence us. Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Parasites Practicing Mind Control.

  Zimmer points to a further installment in the fascinating story of Toxoplasma gondii parasites, who can infect any mammal or bird, but can reproduce only... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Associative Memory Enhanced by Brain Stimulation.

  Wang et al. do a proof that the hippocampus facilitates associative memory formation in humans by interacting with distributed brain regions. Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Norm Enforcement is Biased from Its Emergence.

  Interesting work from Jordan et al. on the appearance of in-group bias in punishing selfish behaviors in insiders versus outsiders: When enforcing norms for... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Early Music Training Improves Neural Encoding of Speech in Children and Arrests...

  Fascinating work from Kraus et al.: Musicians are often reported to have enhanced neurophysiological functions, especially in the auditory system. Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Study on Relationship Between Genomics and Well Being Receives a Critical...

  I recently did a post passing on (as usual, uncritically) what looked like a neat correlation between genomics and human well-being. Brown et al. now issue a... Read more

  Posted on 12 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A New Compound That Ameliorates Cognitive Dysfunction.

  

  Alzheimer's disease is thought ultimately to be caused by the accumulation of the excess proteins found in plaques and tangles in the brain, but the prior defec... Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Upstairs/Downstairs in Our Brain – What’s Running Our Show?

  Although I mentioned this in Tuesday's post, I wanted to more explicitly point MindBlog readers to this web version of a talk I gave at the Sept. Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog's Other Half - a Sunday Afternoon Recital at Twin Valley

  This past Sunday afternoon my partner Len and I hosted a musical/social event for 50 friends at our Twin Valley home in Middleton Wisconsin. Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Reboot, Reset, Your Brain - Take a Break - a Walk, Or Better, a Vacation.

  I've done a number of posts on the attentional and default modes of our brain (in fact, I'm doing on a talk on this topic today at the Physics Department's chao... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MDMA (Ecstasy) as an Affiliative Social Drug

  Wardle et al. probe an interesting bit of social neurochemistry: 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ‘ecstasy’) is used recreationally to improve mood and... Read more

  Posted on 08 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Does One Novelty Lead to Another?

  Barbar Jazney summarizes interesting work by Tria et al.: Life would be boring if things were always the same. Tria and colleagues explore whether... Read more

  Posted on 05 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Genetic Influence on Our Valuation of Free Choice

  Cockburn et al. find an interesting correlation: A polymorphism in DARPP-32, a gene linked to dopaminergic striatal plasticity and individual differences in... Read more

  Posted on 04 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Morality - How Theists and Non Theists Differ

  Shariff et al offer an interesting review of the ways in which the moral concerns of theists and nontheists both overlap and are different, as a result of... Read more

  Posted on 03 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Intergenerational Transmission of Emotional Trauma.

  Interesting work from Debiec and Sullivan on how conditioned fear learning in a parent is transmitted to children: Despite clinical evidence that specific fear... Read more

  Posted on 02 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Could Language Have Evolved?

  An eminent group of co-authors (Bolhuis, Tattersall, Chomsky, and Berwick) suggest that a simple core repeatable operation is the basis of all language. Read more

  Posted on 01 September 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE