Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• "Meaningful Life" Science - a Tonic for Our Times?

  I am a rye crisp empathy challenged old fart, but I try sometimes to kind, generous, and nice. And, I sometimes wonder what planet the Greater Good Magazine... Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of Successful Cognitive Aging.

  From Wang et al. (open access to text and figures): Prevention of age-related cognitive decline is an increasingly important topic. Read more

  Posted on 21 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Corruption of Online Social Systems by Bots

  From Stella et al.: Societies are complex systems, which tend to polarize into subgroups of individuals with dramatically opposite perspectives. Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• More on Slowing Down Aging.

  Some recent articles: Gretchen Reynolds points to work showing that vigorous aerobic exercise causes an increase in the length of telomeres, pieces of DNA at th... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Can We Really Inherit Trauma?

  MindBlog has mentioned a number of studies that claim that the effects of trauma can be passed through generations. Carey does a review that notes that human... Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Bad News on Human Nature - a Listicle

  I pass on clips from an Aeon piece by Jarrett that notes some of the darker and less impressive aspects of human behavior. Each of the points is accompanied by... Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Septuagenarians with the Bodies of 25-year-olds

  This septuagenarian (76 year old) author of this MindBlog always enjoys coming across reports of research, such as the work of Trappe and collaborators, which i... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Stop Talking About 'male' and 'female' Brains.

  As a counterpoint to yesterday's post, which invokes the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism, I pass on some clips from a piece by Joel and Fine that contests... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Testing Theories of Sex Differences and Autism with Big Data.

  From Greenberg et al: Significance In the largest study to date of autistic traits, we test 10 predictions from the Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) theory of sex... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Watching Memories Change the Brain - a Challenge to the Traditional View

  

  I pass on both the Science Magazine summary of Brodt et al., as well as the summary graphic in a review of their article by Assaf, and finally the Brodt et al. Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Coding of Perception in Language is Not Universal.

  From Majid et al.: Is there a universal hierarchy of the senses, such that some senses (e.g., vision) are more accessible to consciousness and linguistic... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Neuroscience of Hugs.

  Packheiser et al. observed more than 2,500 hugs at an international airport, hugs with positive emotions at arrival gates and hugs with negative emotions at... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Limited Prosocial Effects of Meditation.

  Kreplin et al. do a meta-analysis, and Kreplin writes a more general review of studies on the effects of meditation. The Krepline et al. Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Stress Changes Our Brains' Blood Flow.

  From Elbau et al.: Ample evidence links dysregulation of the stress response to the risk for psychiatric disorders. However, we lack an integrated... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• More on the Sociopathy of Social Media.

  Languishing in my queue of potential posts have been two articles that I want to mention and pass on to readers. Max Fisher writes on the unintended consequence... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Brains Are Prediction Machines. Friston's Free-energy Principle

  Further reading on the article noted in yesterday's post has made me realize that I have been seriously remiss in not paying more attention to a revolution in... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Being a Beast Machine: The Somatic Basis of Selfhood

  Seth and Tsakiris offer a review in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, with the title of this post, that immediately caught my eye. I'm working on a lecture now... Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Molecular Basis for the Placebo Effect.

  Several popular articles point to work I wish I had been more aware off. Gary Greenberg in the NYTimes, and Cari Romm in The Atlantic, point to work of Kathryn... Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Impacts of Outdoor Artificial Light on Plant and Animal Species.

  

  Gaston does a perspective article describing how the nighttime lighting up of our planet is profoundly disturbing the activities of many animal and plant... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dietary Fat: From Foe to Friend?

  

  The title of the post is the title of one of the articles in a special section of the Nov. 16 issue of Science devoted to Diet and Health. Read more

  Posted on 26 November 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE