Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Risk Tolerance is Predicted by Amygdala-prefrontal Cortex Connectivity

  Hoon et al. show that more nerve connections between our amygdala and the rest of the brain increase our tolerance for risk. Highlights •Neural markers fo... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Propagation of Economic Inequality Through Reciprocity and Reputation.

  Interesting work from Hackel and Zaki...an excerpt from their introduction, followed by their abstract: Reciprocity and reputation are cornerstones of both... Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Seeing What You Feel - Unconscious Affect Drives Perception

  Siegle et al. provide yet another example of how it is impossible to separate emotions from cognition and perception: Affective realism, the phenomenon whereby... Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Exercise Alone May Not Cause Weight Loss.

  Gretchen Reynolds points to work by Lark et al. showing that mice given the opportunity to exercise on a running wheel then are more lazy the rest of the time... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Our "I" is Like a Virtual Reality Headset.

  I pass on some clips from Joshua Rothman's article on the ideas of Metzinger, Blanke and others regarding the actual nature of our experienced selves, ideas tha... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Andy Clark on Extended Mind, A.I., and Predictive Processing

  I want to point to a New Yorker article by Larissa MacFarquhar describing the evolution of the ideas of philosopher of mind Andy Clark. Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Baby Boomers Reaching the End of Their To-Do List

  A few clips from an engaging piece by Patricia Hampl on the maturing of the baby boomer generation, those born in 1946 or later - who came of age during the... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Basal Forebrain and Default Mode Network Regulation.

  

  The basal forebrain is an ascending, activating, neuromodulatory system involved in wake–sleep regulation, memory formation, and regulation of sensory... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Scared by the News? Take the Long View.

  I tell everyone I meet or chat with to read Steven Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now." It was the subject of a series of recent MindBlog posts, starting on... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cracking the Code Relating Speech Prosody to Social Judgements.

  Ponsot et al. use an ingenious method to determine prosodic prototypes that govern social judgments in speech. Clips from their introduction: In social... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Locus Coeruleus Integrity and Memory in Aging Adults

  The locus coeruleus is a deep brain nucleus whose cells synthesize noradrenaline that is sent via its axonal projections to other parts of the brain. Hämmerer e... Read more

  Posted on 13 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A.I. Quantifies 100 Years of Gender and Ethnic Stereotypes.

  Hutson points to work of Garg et al. that uses artificial intelligence to demonstrate how racial and gender stereotypes have changed over time. Read more

  Posted on 12 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Contract with Authoritarianism

  Thomas Edsall offers yet another of his thoughtful well referenced essays, from which I want to pass on a few clips. You should read the entire article. Read more

  Posted on 11 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Small Molecule for Stroke Therapy

  

  The small 'magic molecule,' a neural plasticity enhancer, found by Abe et al. to accelerate motor function recovery from brain damage is edonerpic maleate, whos... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Senior Adults Get Lost More Frequently Than Younger Adults.

  Strang et al. identify the brain area whose degeneration with aging underlies the loss of our navigational abilities: Highlights •Grid-cell-like... Read more

  Posted on 09 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Choose What We Want to Hear.

  Billig et al. provide a nice example of how we can consciously influence what we perceive, in this case hearing a sequence of pure tones either as individual... Read more

  Posted on 06 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Reprogramming Fear Responses Outside of Conscious Awareness.

  Fascinating work by Taschereau-Dumouchel et al. suggests that our 'hard wired' fear responses can be reprogrammed or attenuated by an unconscious manipulation,... Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• If Resources Are Scarce Infants Choose Ingroup Support Over Fairness.

  From Bian et al: Significance Recent research suggests that infants possess principles of fairness and ingroup support. We examined whether 1.5- and 2. Read more

  Posted on 04 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

  Two recent bits of writing on loneliness: Klinenberg suggests that the 'loneliness epidemic' that has been promoted by numerous recent articles (Britain has... Read more

  Posted on 03 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Predicting the Effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy with Functional MRI

  Reggente et al. do interesting work showing that MRI measurement of functional connectivity patterns in the default mode and visual networks of... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE