Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• You Are Going to Die...

  The "Opinionator" online commentary feature of the New York Times has another engaging contribution in its "Anxiety" series, from Tim Kreider, author of... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Thoughts as Material Objects - Impact on Evaluations

  It's hard to get rid of unwanted thoughts. What about just throwing them in the garbage like unwanted objects? In some conditions might we discard our thoughts... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What We Should Fear...

  Gary Marcus does a review of some answers to the annual question of John Brockman's edge.org, "What *should* we be worried about? Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of Developing Intuition.

  

  An interesting open access study from Wan et al.: The superior capability of cognitive experts largely depends on automatic, quick information processing,... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Procrastination Gets Things Done...

  John Tierney writes a delightful piece on not getting some things done. He notes several authors' comments on procrastination: The key to productivity, John... Read more

  Posted on 22 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Hedonic Adaptation - Where Did the Warm Glow Go?

  Obtaining something we want follows a very stereotyped course, as noted in Oscar Wilde's famous aphorism: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not... Read more

  Posted on 21 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Environments Talk to Genes.

  The January issue of Nature Neuroscience has some fascinating articles on gene-environment interactions. Vassoler et al. report that in rats paternal cocaine us... Read more

  Posted on 18 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Brains Change Operating Modes During an Eyeblink.

  Nakano et al. suggest that an eye blink briefly gives our attentional network a rest, as activity shifts to the default network: It remains unknown why we... Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Mental Arithmetic Counts.

  Price et al. show that brain activation during single digit arithmetic predicts high school math scores: Do individual differences in the brain mechanisms for... Read more

  Posted on 16 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Lifelong Bilingualism Enhances Cognitive Control in Aging.

  This work by Gold et al. makes me wish I had maintained the proficiency in German that I had in my college years: Recent behavioral data have shown that lifelon... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindfulness Neuroscience

  The journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience has released an issue devoted to studies of brain correlates of different kinds of meditation. One... Read more

  Posted on 14 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Power of Concentration

  I've been meaning to pass on this review by Konnikova on the salutary effects of mindfulness and concentration. It pulls together a number of observations that ... Read more

  Posted on 11 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Self Affirmation Enhances Responsiveness to Errors.

  Legault et al. note brain responses that correlate with augmented attention and emotional receptivity to performance errors caused by enhanced self affirmation. Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Music and Movement: Shared Dynamic Structure in Universal Expressions of Emotion

  Sievers et al. do a fascinating analysis. They designed an ingenious computer program that used slider bars to adjust a music player or a bouncing ball with... Read more

  Posted on 09 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The End of History Illusion.

  The Jan 4 issue of Science has an interested article by Quoidbach et al. on our perception of how much we changed in the past decade and how much we expect to... Read more

  Posted on 08 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Surprise! Satisfied Old Folks Live Longer.

  Contra a popular assumption that feisty, grumpy old farts are likely to live longer than sweet docile passive ones, Judith Graham reviews recent work by Becca... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Human Evolution: Endurance Running Made Our Brains Larger and Smarter.

  Gretchen Reynolds reviews work suggesting that our advanced cleverness and big brains may have come not from the need to think but becoming endurance athletes,... Read more

  Posted on 04 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Are Older People More Susceptible to Fraud?

  From Castle et al: a succinct set of observations. Their data is quite compelling. Older adults are disproportionately vulnerable to fraud, and federal... Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Body Resonance and Art Appreciation.

  Leder et al. have asked how hand movements reflected two styles of painting having similar content and historic period might interact with muscle movements in... Read more

  Posted on 02 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Piaget's "shattered Hologram" of Aging.

  I've been having a go at Jim Holt's popular book "Why does the world exist? An existential detective story." After three chapters of fascinating quotes from... Read more

  Posted on 01 January 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE