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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Where Musical Melodies Are Represented in Our Brains.
Here is a fascinating piece by Schindler et al. (open access) showing that musical melodies, or ‘gestalts’ are encoded at very early stages of our auditory... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Why Some of Us Can, Or Can't, Disengage from Pain.
Kucyi et al., note a beneficial effect of mind wandering and increased default mode network activity on pain suppression. Here is the author's state of the... Read more
Posted on 13 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Promises of 'priming'
I've done numerous posts noting psychological experiments on the phenomenon of priming, whose practical application is a major component of behavioral economics. Read more
Posted on 12 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Serious Business of Play
Gillian Brown reviews what looks like a very interesting book from Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin "Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation." The look... Read more
Posted on 11 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Motor Exploration of 5-month Old Predicts Academic Achievement at 14 Years.
A fascinating part of these observations is the lack of correlation noted in the last sentence of the abstract:. From Bornstein et al. Read more
Posted on 08 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Quest for Personal Enhancement - Adding Self Brain Stimulation to the...
I done a series of posts on computer games that can enhance attention, intelligence, memory, navigation and at least partially reverse the effects of aging. (Se... Read more
Posted on 07 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Generating Music During Exercise Lessens Sense of Physical Effort.
A fascinating bit of work from Fritz et al. makes one wonder whether our human love of music is based in part on its ability to ease physical effort. Read more
Posted on 05 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Slaves of the Internet, Unite!
To continue the rant started in last Tuesday's post, let's move on to emphasizing how, in addition to our digital connections compromising our direct human ones... Read more
Posted on 04 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Sleep Cleans Our Brains, Renews Our Synapses, Consolidates Our Memories
This bit of work got a flurry of attention recently, but I think is important enough to warrant repeating here. Xie et al. have used an elegant two-photon... Read more
Posted on 01 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Scary Music for Halloween - Dance Macabre
You should have a look at the 13 scariest pieces of classical music for Halloween, assembled by Limelight Magazine. It is hard for me to select a favorite, but ... Read more
Posted on 31 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Finding a Protein Linking Exercise to Brain Health
Yet another candidate for a life enhancing drug? ...perhaps a protein that mimics the effect of the protein FNDC5, which is produced by muscular exertion and... Read more
Posted on 30 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
"Only Disconnect" - The Pathology of Digital of Connectivity
Alas, it seems increasingly clear that to follow E.M. Forster’s dictum “Only Connect” (i.e. with humans in person, what our emotional brain evolved to do. Read more
Posted on 29 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Perspective Taking Can Turn Competitors Unethical
An interesting bit from Pierce et al.: Perspective taking is often the glue that binds people together. However, we propose that in competitive contexts,... Read more
Posted on 28 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Oxytocin, Gentle Human Touch, and Social Impression.
Another bit of information from Leknes and collaborators, expanding on their work mentioned in a recent post: Interpersonal touch is frequently used for... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A Genetic Predisposition to Note the Negative.
Another interesting example of viewing the world through gene-colored glasses...Todd et al. note an interesting behavioral correlation involving a gene... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Silver Lining of a Mind in the Clouds
This post continues a MindBlog thread on the consequences of our minds being task-focused versus wandering. A seminal paper was Killingsworth and Gilbert's... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Face Recognition Area of the Brain Also Notes Race and Sex.
Hundreds of papers have been written on the fusiform face area (FFA) of our brains, which Contreras et al. now show immediately collects information about race... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Out of the Group, out of Control?
From Otten and Jonas: The effects of social exclusion are far-reaching, both on an emotional and behavioral level. The present study investigates whether... Read more
Posted on 18 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Trashing Malcolm Gladwell
It is with some glee that I have been reading the many negative reviews of Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book (David and Goliath..), in particular Chad... Read more
Posted on 18 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Constructive Aspects of Mind Wandering
I've generally been noting research that documents some negative aspects of mind wandering, for example "A wandering mind is an unhappy mind" and "Better... Read more
Posted on 16 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE