Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• 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

• Neural Correlates of the Positive Effects of Gratitude.

  Fox offers a review noting studies showing that gratitude activates area of the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain associated with understanding other... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Exposure to and Recall of Violence Reduce Short-term Memory and Cognitive Control

  From Bogliacino et al.: Significance Research on violence has mainly focused on its consequences on individuals’ health and behavior. Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Leisure Just as Enjoyable Before as After Work is Done.

  From O'Brien and Roney: Four studies reveal that (a) people hold a robust intuition about the order of work and leisure and that (b) this intuition is... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Perception of Being Overweight Predicts Future Health and Well-being

  An interesting bit from Daly et al.: Identifying oneself as being overweight may be associated with adverse health outcomes, yet prospective tests of this... Read more

  Posted on 11 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• In Group Favoritism Shown by 17 Month Old Infants.

  Jin and Baillargeon make observations that suggest an early origin of the 'us and them' perspective being taken to extremes in our current political climate. Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Redistribution is Supported by Compassion, Envy, and Self Interest, but Not Sens...

  A huge collaboration looks at support for redistribution of wealth from an evolutionary psychology perspective: Significance Markets have lifted millions out... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Smiles for Love, Sympathy, and War.

  

  From Rychlowska et al.: A smile is the most frequent facial expression, but not all smiles are equal. A social-functional account holds that smiles of reward,... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE