Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• Brain Coupling During Holding Hands Correlates with Pain Reduction

  From Goldstein et al.: The mechanisms underlying analgesia related to social touch are not clear. While recent research highlights the role of the empathy of th... Read more

  Posted on 21 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Being What We Think We Are.

  Gretchen Reynolds points to an interesting article in Health Psychology by Zahrt and Crum. Following up on an earlier article in which Crum and her co-author... Read more

  Posted on 20 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Rationalizing Undesired Change as Soon as It Takes Effect.

  Lauren does interesting work illustrating how our psychological immune system acts to rationalize and make us feel better about changes we don’t like. Read more

  Posted on 19 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dying for the Group - a Theory of Extreme Self-sacrifice

  I'm on Behavioral and Brain Sciences' mailing list of potential commentators on its forthcoming articles, and now pass on the abstract of a forthcoming article... Read more

  Posted on 16 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Project Our Own Spatial Bias onto Others.

  Graziano's group has done an experiment suggesting that our spatial bias in processing objects in the right visual field better than the left (or vice versa,... Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Slow Thought Manifesto

  I am on Aeon’s mailing list to receive three essays from its archive each day, three more items to scan in a daily stream of emails from aggregators that... Read more

  Posted on 14 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• On Social Media Lies Spread Faster, Deeper, and More Broadly Than the Truth.

  Here is the link to the widely reported open access Science Magazine article by Vosoughi et al. showing that social media propagate false news more rapidly and... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Critical Comment on Pinker's "Enlightenment Now"

  In this final post on Pinker’s new book, “Enlightenment Now” I want to note several reviews that offer reservations about the book (and offer a few responses),... Read more

  Posted on 12 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pinker on Humanism and Human Flourishing.

  These clips from the last chapter (chapter 23) of Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now" conclude my passing on of some of the ideas from the book. Please read... Read more

  Posted on 09 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pinker on Reason, and Our Presumed Post-truth Era

  The last section, part III, of Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now" is titled Reason, Science, and Humanism. Here I pass on a few clips from Chapter 21,... Read more

  Posted on 08 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Future of Progress - Return to the Middle Ages, Or Continuing Upward Curve?

  Continuing the series of posts on Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now", I want to pass on clips from the last chapter (Chapter 20) of part II of the book,... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pinker on Progress

  This post is my third installment of summarizing or passing on bits of Pinker’s new book “Enlightenment Now”. The previous installments dealt with Pinker’s... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Progressophobia

  In this post I continue to pass on brief clips from Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now" that I found most fascinating. The following is from Part II of the... Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Two Very Different Worlds to Live In.

  On the same day that I read yet another depressing article in the New York Times - Thomas Edsall on the increasing polarization and demonization in our... Read more

  Posted on 02 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" - a Must Read Book

  I recommend Pinker's new book to all MindBlog readers as an refreshing antidote to the drumbeat of popular press articles bemoaning our world's potential... Read more

  Posted on 01 March 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Culture of Empathy

  While approving comments submitted on a MindBlog post, I always go back and read the post. (I have to vet comments, because most are designed to get clicks on... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Computerized Gaydar - a Threat to Privacy and Safety of Gay People

  My Oct. 13, 2017 post dealt with controversy over an article referenced as forthcoming that showed neural networks to be more accurate than humans at detecting... Read more

  Posted on 27 February 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Amygdala Structure and Defense of the Social System.

  Nam et al. examine the neuroanatomical substrates of preferences for maintaining existing social arrangements. Individual variation in preferences to maintain... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Microbiome Challenges Our Concept of Self.

  Rees et al. offer an interesting perspective on the significance of our microbiome. Their abstract: Today, the three classical biological explanations of the... Read more

  Posted on 23 February 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• When Our Eyes Move, Our Eardrums Move.

  Interesting stuff from Gruters et al.: Significance The peripheral hearing system contains several motor mechanisms that allow the brain to modify the auditory... Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2018 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE