Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• Rethinking Our Conceptions of Mental Life.

  Interesting ideas from Weisman et al.: Significance How do ordinary people make sense of mental life? Pioneering work on the dimensions of mind perception has... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• “Let’s Get Togetherism.”

  I have to pass on the ending paragraphs of Brooks NYTimes OpEd piece today, titled "The week Trump won." He compares our situation today with the 1927 chaos,... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media.

  Benedict Carey does a fascinating article on how misinformation is spread on social media. Here are a few clips with his major points: For all the suspicions... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Do Intelligent Robots Need Emotion?

  It is becoming increasingly clear that the parts of our brains processing emotions are not tidily separated from those dealing with reason, cognition,... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Different Kinds of Mindfulness Correlate with Different Benefits.

  Jazaieri points to work by Blanke et al. that probed how different aspects of mindfulness influence our emotional well-being. Three kinds of mindfulness were... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The “sense of Self” in Biblical Times.

  Sigal Samuel does an article on the ideas of James Kugel in his final book “The Great Shift - Encountering Good in the Biblical Era” Here are a few clips from... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Coming Dark Age…or a New Integration?

  I would like to offer Mindblog’s rambling thoughts on possible futures, if, as in some estimates , the relentless march of the machines of artificial... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Coordination of Brain Waves Between Humans Facing Territorial Threats.

  Here is an interesting piece from Mu et al., first their abstract, and then a chunk of their introduction which gives rationale and background. Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Like Apes and Small Children, Ravens Plan Ahead.

  The notion that animal cognition outside of the primate lineage is locked into the present has to be tossed. It appears that cognitive evolution of the ability... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Premortem

  Richard Thaler, the father of behavioral economics, just received the 2017 Nobel Prize in economics. I thought I would pass on this brief piece he did for edge. Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Sobering Political Graphic

  

  The graphic (click to enlarge) is from Thomas Edsall's thoughtful and well-researched piece (as usual) on our current political situation, titled "Democrats... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Does Acupuncture Work by Re-mapping the Brain?

  I want to pass on a chunk of a sane article offered by Vitaly Napadow in Aeon. Napadow is director of the Center for Integrative Pain Neuroimaging (CiPNI) and a... Read more

  Posted on 16 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A 'Gaydar' Machine?

  Heather Murphy describes the kerfuffle that has ensued after Stanford researchers published a preprint of their work that will soon appear in The Journal of... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain and Body Imaging of the Emotional Power of Poetry.

  By now a body of work has grown on how peak musical experiences engage the reward systems of our brains, with concomitant changes such as tingling and goosebump... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog Has Moved to Austin Texas.

  

  A personal note.  Len and I have just moved back into the family house in Austin Texas where I grew up, through high school. My son and his family recently move... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Price Modulates the Effectiveness of Your Pain Medication!

  Fascinating observations from Tinnermann et al. A Science magazine summary, followed by the article abstract: Price modulates early pain processing Patients in... Read more

  Posted on 10 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Transcending Tribalism - Crafting a New Vision for America?

  I want to point to, and comment on, two recent pieces by David Brooks. In the first, he argues that “the main enemy is not aliens; it’s division — between rich... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog's Book Abstracts.

  I’ve been working on abstracting a book I’ve mentioned recently, Sapolsky’s “Behave - The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst,” hoping to present the basic... Read more

  Posted on 06 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Curtailing Proactive Policing Can Reduce Major Crime.

  Weisburd points to work by Sullivan and O’Keeffe, yielding counter-intuitive results, that "took advantage of a natural experiment in New York City that resulte... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Circuits That Modulate Sociability.

  

  The social bonding neuropeptide oxytocin can be traced over 500 million years, with analogous peptides found in birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and some... Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE