Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2685 )

• Politics and the English Language - George Orwell

  The 1946 essay by George Orwell with the title of this post was recently discussed by the Chaos and Complex Systems seminar group that I attend at the Universit... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Can Utopianism Be Rescued?

  I’ve been wanting to do a post on utopias for some time, notes on the subject have drifted to the bottom of my queue of potential posts.  There are six cities i... Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• When the Appeal of a Dominant Leader is Greater Than a Prestige Leader.

  From Kakkara and Sivanathan: Significance We examine why dominant/authoritarian leaders attract support despite the presence of other admired/respected... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Damaging in Utero Effects of Low Socioeconomic Status.

  Gilman et al. make another addition to the list of how low socioeconomic status can damage our biological development, showing maternal immune activity in... Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Nutrition Modulates Our Cognition.

  A fascinating study from Strang et al.: Food intake is essential for maintaining homeostasis, which is necessary for survival in all species. Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Working Memory Isn’t Just in the Frontal Lobes.

  An inportant open access paper from Johnson et al.: The ability to represent and select information in working memory provides the neurobiological infrastructur... Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Control as a Double-edged Sword.

  Amer et al. offer an implicit critique of the attention and resources dedicated to brain-training programs that aim to modify the cognitive performance of... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Describing Aging - Metastability in Senescence

  Naik et al. suggest a whole brain computational modeling approach to understand how our brains maintain a high level of cognitive ability even as their... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Human Fetus Engages Face Like Stimuli.

  Reid et al. are able to show that we prefer face-like stimuli even in utero: Highlights •The third trimester human fetus looks toward three dots configure... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neural Measures Reveal Lower Social Conformity Among Non-religious Individuals.

  An interesting bit from Thiruchselvam et al.: Even in predominantly religious societies, there are substantial individual differences in religious commitment.... Read more

  Posted on 03 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Maybe Trump’s Behavior is Explained by a Simple Machine Learning (A.I.)...

  Burton offers an intriguing explanation for our inability to predict Donald Trump’s next move suggesting: ...that Trump doesn’t operate within conventional huma... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mechanism of Adult Brain Changes Caused by Early Life Stress.

  Peña et al., working with mice, demonstrate a mechanisms by which early life stress encodes lifelong susceptibility to stress by changing a reward region o... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Positive Trends Over Time in Personality Traits as Well as in Intelligence.

  Jokela et al. add an interesting dimension to numerous studies that have shown a steady increase in people's intelligence over the past 100 years, concluding... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• It's Complicated....more on Sapolsky's New Book.

  In a recent MindBlog post I urged you to read Robert Sapolsky’s new book, "Behave - The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why It is Impossible to Tune a Piano.

  

  Here is a 'random curious stuff' item, per the MindBlog description above.  I want to pass on this great explanation of why physics requires that piano notes... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sorting out Complex Thoughts and Messy Emotions

  Here is a nice perky piece from Stephen Matheson, editor of Cell Reports, on the genetics of behavior, which I pass along in its entirety (references are in... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dogs Can Know What You Know.

  Catela et al. offer evidence in dogs for theory of mind ability (recognizing that others have a different perspective, shown for humans, apes, and corvids). Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Metabolic and Physical Decline That Occurs During Aging Promoted by a DNA...

  Damage to our DNA accumulates during our aging, and Park et al. show a link between this damage and the loss of metabolic function associated with physical... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Conclusion from One of My Lectures.

  While mulling over possible topics I might develop for a next lecture, I have looked back over previous efforts on dericbownds.net and found several bits of tex... Read more

  Posted on 20 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Some Outstanding Books on the Biology of Our Behaviors.

  If you are wanting to find a humorous, fascinating, engaging, authoritative account of why we humans behave the way we do, you should immediately buy a copy of... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE