Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Brain Activity Display in the Spirit of P.T. Barnum

  Carl Zimmer points to some amazing brain graphics, notably one from Gazzaley's lab. You should use the gear symbol to slow down the graphic, and set the... Read more

  Posted on 09 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Transfer Reward in a Bottom-up Search Task to a Top-down Search Task.

  Lee and Shomstein make the interesting observation that a reward-based contingency learned in a bottom-up search task can be transferred to a subsequent top-dow... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Rapid Epigenetic Changes in Expert Meditators.

  Fascinating data from an international collaboration: Background A growing body of research shows that mindfulness meditation can alter neural, behavioral and... Read more

  Posted on 07 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Smell of Sickness.

  Olsson et al. demonstrate the existence of a olfactory signal of illness, a aversive body odor that can signal other humans to keep their distance from a... Read more

  Posted on 06 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Out of Body, out of Mind.

  

  Bergouignan et al. do a neat experiment in which they test how well study participants remember a presentation when they experience being in their own bodies... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Promotes Group-serving Dishonesty

  Like Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, the oxytocin story gets curiouser and curiouser.... this from Shalvi and De Dreu: To protect and promote the well-being of... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Aesop's Crow - Evidence of Causal Understanding

  Jelbert et al. show even further smarts in the New Caledonian Crow I've mentioned in several previous posts. Understanding causal regularities in the world is... Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Blood Test for Alzheimers Disease?

  Mapstone et al. have identified a set of 10 lipids whose levels predict, with an accuracy of over 90%, whether or not an older individual will develop mild... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Abnormalities Caused by Marijuana Use.

  Numerous studies have shown that cannabis use is associated with impairments of cognitive functions, including learning and memory, attention, and... Read more

  Posted on 28 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Activity Underlying Subjective Awareness

  Hill and He devise and interesting paradigm to distinguish brain activities directly contributing to conscious perception from brain activities that precede or... Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Blocking Facial Muscle Movement Compromizes Detecting and Having Emotions

  Rychlowska et al. show that blocking facial mimicry makes true and false smiles look the same: Recent research suggests that facial mimicry underlies accurate... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is It a Stradivarius?

  I've published several posts on studies showing that panels of expert wine tasters can not distinguish cheap from expensive wines if their labels are covered,... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Top Brain, Bottom Brain - a User's Manual from Kosslyn and Miller

  

  I thought I would point to a recent book authored by Kosslyn and Miller: “Top Brain - Bottom Brain: Surprising Insights into How You Think. Read more

  Posted on 22 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Judging a Man by the Width of His Face.

  Valentine et al. make interesting observations in a speed-dating context. The effect of higher facial width-to-height ratio on short-term but not long-term... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Over the Hill at 24

  Great....the continuous stream of papers documenting cognitive aging in adults and seniors, many noted in MindBlog, has how lowered the bar even further.... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Training Emotions - a Brief Video from The Brain Club

  

  I received an email recently from "The Brain Club" pointing me to the series of brief video presentations they are developing over time. I thought the... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Attributing Awareness to Oneself and Others.

  Kelley et al. make some fascinating observations. I pass on their statement of the significance of the work and their abstract: Significance What is the... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Poor People Judge More Harshly.

  From Pitesa and Thau: In the research presented here, we tested the idea that a lack of material resources (e.g., low income) causes people to make harsher mora... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Memory Reactivation in Aging Versus Young Brains.

  Given my status as a senior aging person I always note the passing article that chronicles yet another way in which the equipment upstairs is losing it. Here... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Enhancing Or Lowering Performance Monitoring Activity of Our Brains.

  Wow, here is a fascinating observation. Small electrical currents applied to our medial frontal cortex can either enhance or abolish our brains' error... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE