Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2570 )

• The Morning Morality Effect.

  Here is an interesting tidbit from Kouchaki1 and Smith: Are people more moral in the morning than in the afternoon? We propose that the normal, unremarkable... Read more

  Posted on 22 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Milliseconds of a Choice - Watching Your Mind When It Matters.

  This is actually a post about mindfulness, in reaction to Dan Hurley's article describing how contemporary applications of the ancient tradition of mindfulness... Read more

  Posted on 21 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Beauty at the Ballot Box.

  From White et al.: Why does beauty win out at the ballot box? Some researchers have posited that it occurs because people ascribe generally positive... Read more

  Posted on 20 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Signals from Inside and Outside Our Bodies in Self Consciousness

  

  Olaf Blanke (whose work on projecting ourselves outside our bodiesI've mentioned previously) and collaborators extend their studies on body perception and self... Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Reason for the Power of Prayer.

  Friesea and Wänke find one source of the power of prayer that is not supernatural: it enhances self control by buffering self-control depletion, that is,... Read more

  Posted on 16 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How the Brains of Virtuosic Pianists Are Different...

  Because I'm a performing classical pianist (in fact, giving a concert on Feb. 9 in Fort Lauderdale, my snowbird roost from mid-October to mid_April), I always... Read more

  Posted on 14 January 2014 CULTURE, PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Social Life of Our Genes - the Devastating Effects of Social Isolation

  

  David Dobbs has done a broad and accessible review of how completely the expression of the genes regulating behavior are controlled by the social milieu,... Read more

  Posted on 13 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Social Darwinism Isn't Dead - the Rich Really Do Think Their Different...

  An engaging piece by Matthew Hutson in Slate points to work by Kraus and Keltner. Some clips: ...In 2012 the top 0.01 percent of households earned an average... Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Watching Our Brain Remembering Something.

  

  This is kind of neat! Staresinaa et al. observe a part of our brain working at remembering something while we go on about our further activities unrelated to... Read more

  Posted on 09 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The "being Happy" Stress-out.

  Oliver Burkeman (the author of “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking”) does an engaging article on how deliberate effort on the... Read more

  Posted on 08 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Enhances Brain Function in Children with Autism.

  Fascinating observations from Gordon et al, who find that that intranasal administration of oxytocin enhances activity in the brain for socially meaningful... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Neural Prosthesis Can Restore Sensory-motor Function After Brain Damage.

  

  Guggenmos et al. use a brain–machine–brain interfaces (BMBIs) to reconnect two active brain regions whose connections had severed by damage to the brain area... Read more

  Posted on 06 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• My Aversion to "selfies" and the Demographics of Social Media.

  

  The actor James Franco has done an interesting brief essay on the meaning of "selfies", photos of himself reporting what he is doing relayed via Instagram. Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Control - What You See Depends on How You Look.

  

  Turk-Brown argues for a more expansive approach to understanding various kinds of non-invasive brain imaging data. I relay his abstract, and one figure... Read more

  Posted on 02 January 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Our Advanced Capabilities May Have Come from Separation of Our Primary...

  

  Buckner and Krienen put forward the fascinating idea that our advanced human capabilities may be a spandrel (i.e. a byproduct of the evolution of some other... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Your Brain Has Many Genomes.

  Life used to be simple. We had one set of genes, found in all cells of the body. Skin cells, liver cells, and brain cells were different only because different... Read more

  Posted on 30 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Benefits of Music Lessons?

  I’ve done numerous posts on effects that early music training has on the brain. Adults with early music training in general show enhanced capabilities in sensor... Read more

  Posted on 27 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin and the Strength of Romantic Bonds in Men.

  Here is an interesting bit from Scheele et al.: Significance: Sexual monogamy is potentially costly for males, and few mammalian species along with humans... Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• In Praise of Failure

  Costica Bradatan offers these thoughts (which I’ve clipped from a longer piece). The design of a superior kind of human being – healthier, stronger, smarter,... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• My Grandsons - Making It in the Brave New World - Part III

  This is the final post in my ramblings on the world my grandsons will face. The first two posts dealt with professional achievement, this final piece touches... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE