Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Excess Mortality Rates Since 2000 in the US Compared with Europe.

  

  Interesting, from Preston and Vierboom. Just the numbers, no commentary on the causes (mainly opioid crisis?). We use three indexes to identify how... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Embracing Diversity Can Disadvantage Minorities

  From Starck et al.: Significance There are numerous reasons why institutions of higher education may choose to embrace diversity. Read more

  Posted on 28 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sensitivity to Geometric Shape: A Putative Signature of Human Singularity

  From Sablé-Meyer et al.: Among primates, humans are special in their ability to create and manipulate highly elaborate structures of language, mathematics, and... Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What Coffee Does to Body and Mind

  

  I am completely dependent on coffee, starting every morning with this stimulant and continuing small sips until a lunchtime cappuccino terminates my... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ancient Greece's Army of Lovers

  

  This post is under MindBlog's "random and curious stuff" category. A piece by Daniel Mendelsohn in The New Yorker: Comprising a hundred and fifty male couples,... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Gamma-frequency Oscillations Link Different Brain Regions During Learning.

  Fernández-Ruiz et al. demonstrate that specific, projected gamma-frequency oscillation patterns dynamically engage functionally related cell assemblies... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Vision: What’s So Special About Words?

  Readers are sensitive to the statistics of written language. New work by Vidal et al. suggests that this sensitivity may be driven by the same domain-general... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Useful Delusions

  I want to pass on to MindBlog readers some background information on the recent book "Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain" by... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Does Passion Matter More in Individualistic Cultures?

  Tsai does an interesting commentary (open source) on work noted in MindBlog's recent post on an article by Li et al. Some clips: Our research finds that, becaus... Read more

  Posted on 12 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Psychology of Fake News

  Pennycook and Rand do a fascinating open source article in Trends in Cognitive Science on the psychology of fake news. Their highlights and summary: Recent... Read more

  Posted on 09 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Dopamine Leads to Hallucinations

  Hallucinations (perceptual experiences without external stimuli) seen in conditions such as schizophrenia are thought to result from giving too much weight to... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Dendrite-Focused Framework for Understanding the Actions of Ketamine and...

  I pass on the highlioght points from an interesting review (open source, with a useful graphic) of how the similar therapeutic effects of ketamine and... Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• False Memories Can Be Reversed Without Damage to True Memories.

  Oeberst et al. demonstrate the effectiveness of source sensitization, which involves alerting participants that their memories could come from external... Read more

  Posted on 01 April 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Case Against Reality

  Over the past year I've dipped into and out of Donald Hoffman's ideas several times, looking back at Geffer's article in Granta Magazine, Hoffman's TED talk, an... Read more

  Posted on 30 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Plasticity During Our Development of Mapping Time on to Space.

  A previous mindblog post has pointed to work showing how culture shapes our spatial conceptions of time. Starr and Srinivasan now address the development of... Read more

  Posted on 26 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Measuring Happiness in Small Steps.

  I find this Brook's self help essay - that I came across while browsing the news during this morning's coffee - to be a nice brief tonic. Read more

  Posted on 25 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Mechanism by Which Testosterone Reduces Generosity

  Interesting work from Jianxin Ou et al.: Significance Testosterone is associated with aggressive behavior in both animals and humans. Read more

  Posted on 24 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Four Distinct Patterns of Aging - What is Your 'ageotype'?

  An interesting piece from Lanese describs work showing how aging unfolds at different rates in different tissues: The research team behind the study sorted 43... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Points on Having a Self and Free Will.

  A recent podcast by Sam Harris summarizing his ideas on the question of whether we have free will motivates me to do a further summary here…There is a broad... Read more

  Posted on 22 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Passion Matters but Not Equally Everywhere.

  From Li et al.: Significance In three large-scale datasets representing adolescents from 59 societies across the globe, we find evidence of a systematic cultura... Read more

  Posted on 19 March 2021 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE