Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• 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

• The Changing Psychology of Culture from 1800 Through 2000.

  Greenfield makes use of the Google Books Ngram Viewer to observe a large shift from collectivist to individualist values during this period, as mass migration... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Distinctive Brain Correlates of Brief Compassion Meditation.

  This article by Hassenkamp provides a very useful integrative review of, and links to, several articles on brain correlates of mindfulness, empathy, and... Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is Music the Key to Success?

  I'm passing this on immediately after reading it. While I have done numerous posts on how music training influences brain development, for example to enhance an... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Dilates Our Pupils and Enhances Emotion Detection

  Interesting work from Leknes et al.: Sensing others’ emotions through subtle facial expressions is a highly important social skill. Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Sense of Fairness Changes with Weak Electric Stimulation of Our Prefrontal...

  Fascinating work from Ruff et al: All known human societies have maintained social order by enforcing compliance with social norms. The biological mechanisms... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Psychedelic Drugs Cause Cortical Desynchronization

  From Muthukumaraswamy et al., small wonder that it doesn't all hang together during the psychedelic experience: Psychedelic drugs produce profound changes in... Read more

  Posted on 08 October 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE