Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2562 )

• Brain Plasticity Induced by Musical Training.

  

  As a lifelong pianist, I have always regarded with awe pianists like Horowitz and Rubenstein who have continued to perform into into their advanced old age. Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Herding Hormone

  Yet another addition, from Stallen et al., to the long list of studies on oxytocin and our social behaviors (enter oxytocin in the search box in the left... Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Imaging of the Positive Bias We Place on Social Feedback.

  Continuing the social brain thread started by yesterday's post, I pass on this piece by Korn et al. showing brain correlates of the rose colored glasses we put... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Enhancing Social Ability with Brain Stimulation.

  

  Social information is thought to be processed by a specific set of neural circuits often referred to as the ‘social brain’ The figure shows localization in huma... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Thanks for Not Sharing, and Tuning Out...

  I almost did a post last week on Roger Cohen's NYTimes 'thank you for not sharing' piece , and now he has done a followup on tuning out, so I can't resist... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Living Without Irony?

  I've been wanting to pass on this marvelous essay by Christy Wampole, which bemoans the ironic sensibility that pervades our culture, and wonders whether there... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Hindsight Bias.

  Regarding the recent presidential election, do you feel that you knew the outcome in your gut all along? Not only felt it coming, but are sure you predicted it... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Use Body Cues, Not Facial Expression, to Discriminate Intense Positive and...

  Interesting work from Aviezer et al: The distinction between positive and negative emotions is fundamental in emotion models. Intriguingly, neurobiological... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog is Trying a New Brain Fitness App

  It has been a few years since I have reviewed brain fitness exercises of the sort claimed to enhance working memory and general intelligence (g). Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications)

  Here is a nice little piece from Eldar and Bereby-Meyer: Recent research suggests that refraining from cheating in tempting situations requires self-control,... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Regions That Predict and Regulate Risk-taking.

  

  Two recent pieces of work raise the prospect of being able to predict and even regulate a person's risk-taking behavior, by first observing activity of the... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Where Our Brains Predict Romantic Attraction at a Glance.

  

  From Cooper et al: Humans frequently make real-world decisions based on rapid evaluations of minimal information; for example, should we talk to an attractive... Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Face to Face Dialog is Different.

  Jian et al do a neat bit of work showing how modern hi-tech dialog devices fail to engage the evolved brain and body synchronization that accompanies... Read more

  Posted on 28 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Body-Mind Dualism - Effects on Health.

  Forstmann et al do an interesting bit of work whose results make a lot of sense: Beliefs in mind-body dualism—that is, perceiving one’s mind and body as two... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Nudges Men to Monogamy?

  Scheele et al. show that oxytocin nasal spray causes married, but not single, men to keep a greater distance from attractive woman during a first encounter. The... Read more

  Posted on 26 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Musical Protolanguage Hypothesis - Support from Congenital Amusia.

  Fascinating work from Thompson et al. (open access), suggesting that sensitivity to emotion in speech prosody derives from our capacity to process music,... Read more

  Posted on 23 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Inspired by Distraction.

  Baird et al. do a simple experiment demonstrating how mind wandering can facilitate creative incubation, that the basement stuff that is dinking around in the... Read more

  Posted on 22 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Unpredictable Love.

  There's a nice pieces in the "Gray Matter" series in the New York Times by Richard Friedman that argues that it is our evolved motivational machinery (that... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Force of Affective Norms - the Stranger Effect

  Szczurek et al. make a more distanced and structured description of an experience we all have had - being put on guard in a chat with another person if their... Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How a Simple Innate Bias Might Guide Visual Learning

  For years computer programmers have been trying to design algorithms that even remotely approach the ability of young infants in their first few months of life... Read more

  Posted on 19 November 2012 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE