Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• 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

• Caloric Restriction and Longevity.

  I thought I would pass on this recent open access Nature article by the Univ. of Wisconsin group studying the effects of caloric restriction in Rhesus monkeys,... Read more

  Posted on 11 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is Consciousness in Control? Does It Matter?

  I want to pass on a clip from SelfAwarePatterns that is as succinct a summary as I have seen (better than the one in my "I-Illusion" lecture) of the largely... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Interesting Pain Suppression Tactic.

  Romano and Maravita report that magnifying the visual size of one׳s own hand modulates pain anticipation and perception, reducing experiened pain, a... Read more

  Posted on 09 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Practice and Sleep Form Different Aspects of Skill.

  Because I am a pianist I find this work by Song and Cohen totally fascinating. It conforms to my own experience in learning new note sequences in a piano... Read more

  Posted on 08 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Using Imagination Or Memory to Increase Prosocial Behavior.

  Gaesser and Schacter test two simple techniques for altering empathy towards the suffering of others, useful perhaps at the scale of individuals, but not... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Exercise Protects Retinas.

  Gretchen Reynolds points to an article by Lawson et al. showing that the increase in blood levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factors (B.N.D.F. Read more

  Posted on 04 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Another Demonstration of the Gender Gap.

  

  The observations of Brooks et al. are quite clear-cut: We identify a profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneurship, a central path to job creation,... Read more

  Posted on 03 April 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE