Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Do Americans Care About Rising Inequality?

  Interesting ideas from McCall et al.: Significance Although rising economic inequality in the United States has alarmed many, research across the social science... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence

  As a postscript to MindBlog's Aug. 23 post on Artificial Intelligence (AI), I pass on chunks from Oren Etzioni's more recent piece on how to artificial... Read more

  Posted on 12 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How “ought” Exceeds but Implies “can”

  From John Turri: This paper tests a theory about the relationship between two important topics in moral philosophy and psychology. Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Debate Over a Scientific Wellness Study.

  Ryan Cross discusses reactions to a new "Scientific Wellness" pilot study set up by distinguished biologist Lee Hood and their recent report on the effort in... Read more

  Posted on 08 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Reduces Xenophobic Outgroup Rejection.

  This work from Marsh et al. suggests that it might be useful to spritz a bit of oxytocin up the noses of alt-right, alt-left, fascist, and antifa... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Evaluation of Brain Training Programs.

  By now there is a consensus that most claims about brain training making improving mental agility have no scientific basis. Most brain training only makes you... Read more

  Posted on 06 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• American Nirvana

  I've been meaning to point to an engaging article by polymath Adam Gopnik reviewing Robert Wright's recent book "Why Buddhism Is True." (Wright has written... Read more

  Posted on 05 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Washing Away Your Sins in the Brain.

  From Tang et al. The association between moral purity and physical cleanliness has been widely discussed recently. Studies found that moral threat initiates... Read more

  Posted on 04 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindfulness Management of Stress and Inflammation

  I pass on a description from the Univ. of Wisconsin Center for Healthy Minds of research suggesting that mindfulness meditation may be an effective way to manag... Read more

  Posted on 01 September 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Make Time Slow Down.

  Many days I feel by 5 p.m. like my day has evaporated without my noticing it. I recall that when I was 20-40 years old my days seems to stretch out much longer. Read more

  Posted on 31 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Essay on the Real Problem of Consciousness.

  For those of you who are consciousness mavens, I would recommend having a glance at Anil Seth’s essay, which does a clear headed description of some current... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Magic Bullet to Restore Our Brain's Plasticity?

  No...not yet. But work by Jenks et al. showing that juvenile-like plasticity is restored in the visual cortex of adult mice by acute viral expression of the... Read more

  Posted on 29 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Are People Really Unconcerned About Rising Economic Inequality?

  McCall et al. provide data to counter a common social sciences research conclusion that Americans don't are about rising inequality: Economic inequality has bee... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mammalian Empathy: Neural Basis and Behavioral Manifestations

  

  I want to point to an interesting review by de Waal and Preston in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Here are the Abstract and a few excerpts from the article: Recen... Read more

  Posted on 25 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Forget About Our Brains, Even the Most Simple Nerve Networks Defy Understanding.

  If the artificial intelligence researchers who want to ‘reverse engineer the brain’ as a model for artificial general intelligence want yet another sobering... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Different Flavors of Artificial Intelligence - And, Can We Pull the Plug?

  I want to pass on a few summary points from two recent sessions of the Chaos and Complex Systems seminar that I attend at the University of Wisconsin. Read more

  Posted on 23 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Race Based Biases in Deception Judgements.

  From Lloyd et al.: In six studies (N = 605), participants made deception judgments about videos of Black and White targets who told truths and lies about... Read more

  Posted on 22 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Beyond Anger.

  A feature of our current political polarization is the pent up anger felt by both far-left and far-right political partisans against each other, sometimes... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Hold Your Nose to Prevent Obesity?

  Smell clearly affects the anticipation and appreciation of food. Riera et al. show (in mice) that activity in olfactory sensory neurons also influences energy... Read more

  Posted on 18 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

  

  You probably have seen this chart from a NYTimes article by now, but I want to pass it on just in case. Also getting it into the list of MindBlog posts makes... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE