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 ( 2570 )
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My Grandsons Making It in the Brave New World - Part II
The first post in this series dealt with mental capabilities required to be included in the small fraction of future workers who live a comfortable life with... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
My Grandsons - Making It in the Brave New World - Part I
I will be going soon to Austin Texas, to spend the holiday with my son's family, who live in the same house I grew up in. Every grandfather says this, but I hav... Read more
Posted on 17 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Sequence Your Microbiome!
Some months ago I paid 23andMe about a $100 to analyze a mouth swab of epithelial cell and report back information on my genetic makeup, ancestry, health... Read more
Posted on 16 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Psychobiotics - Gut Bacteria Changing Our Brains?
Walking through the aisles of my local health food store, the Williamson Street Co-op, I’ve often been tempted by the claims of exotic yoghurts and “probiotic”... Read more
Posted on 12 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Three Psychological Regions of the U.S. - Economic, Health, Social, Political...
Rentfrow and collaborators probe the possibility of dividing regions of the United States, not in terms of traditional social and economic indicators, but in... Read more
Posted on 11 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Imaging the the Updating of True and False Memories.
When we recall, or reactivate a memory, we render it susceptible to alterations such as incorporating relevant new information, so that it might be then stored... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Naked Bodies and Mind Perception.
Numerous studies have found that viewing people’s bodies, as opposed to their faces, makes us judge them as less intelligent, ambitious, likable, and competent. Read more
Posted on 09 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Unconscious, Not Conscious, Attitudes Predict Relationship Success.
There has been some recent criticism of 'priming" experiments, in which subliminal presentation, particularly of emotional, stimuli is said to influence the... Read more
Posted on 06 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Digital Passivity
This piece by Jaron Lanier is well worth reading. A few clips: I fear that 2013 will be remembered as a tragic and dark year in the digital universe, despite th... Read more
Posted on 05 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Childhood Poverty Changes Adult Brain Emotion Regulation Pathways.
Kim et al. add sobering detail to the story of how the chronic stress experienced by children in poverty correlates with long term change in the emotion... Read more
Posted on 04 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Do You Use Your Head Or Follow Your Heart?
Fetterman and Robsinon do a piece of work that tries to provide evidence of what we all commonly suppose: that where we physically locate our self (head or... Read more
Posted on 03 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Homage to Idleness.
All of a sudden this past Saturday morning there was a subtle "poof" from somewhere in my now-cyborg body and it just started thinking and writing again, most... Read more
Posted on 02 December 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Biology of Sacred Values.
Frank Rose does a nice piece in the NYTimes, pointing to the work of Gregory Berns and others, on brain correlates of why financial incentives are irrelevant... Read more
Posted on 21 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Your Fitness Age - a Simple Online Calculator
Several popular articles have directed attention to recent work by Nes et al., which suggests that answers to seven simple questions can predict fitness age as... Read more
Posted on 20 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Making Muscle
Several scientific journals are having a robust and quirky sense of humor these days. I have to pass on this take-off on the Charles Atlas comic advertisements... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
More of Long-term Benefits of Early Musical Training.
White-Schwoch et al. show that older adults who took music lessons at an early age - the type of instrument doesn't matter - can process the sounds of speech... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
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