Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Brain Systems Specialized for Knowing Our Place in the Pecking Order

  From Kurnaran et al.: Highlights •Social hierarchy learning is accounted for by a Bayesian inference scheme •Amygdala and hippocampus support... Read more

  Posted on 29 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Termite Castles, Human Minds, and Daniel Dennett.

  After reading through Rothman’s New Yorker article on Daniel Dennett, I downloaded Dennett’s latest book, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” to check out his... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ownership of an Artificial Limb Induced by Electrical Brain Stimulation

  From Collins et al.: Significance Creating a prosthetic device that feels like one’s own limb is a major challenge in applied neuroscience. Read more

  Posted on 27 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Predicting the Knowledge–recklessness Distinction in the Human Brain

  Important work from Vilares et al. - in an open source paper in which fMRI results are shown in a series of figures - showing that brain imaging can determine,... Read more

  Posted on 24 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Warping Reality in the Era of Trump - Some Interesting Essays

  I try to not pay attention, feel worn down by the continual bombardment of alternative realities presented by today's media, but have read and enjoyed the... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is the Body the Missing Link for Truly Intelligent Machines?

  Medlock comments on efforts to achieve human-like artificial intelligence (AI) while bypassing the messy flesh that characterizes organic life. A clip from the... Read more

  Posted on 22 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What is Really Going on in the White House?

  A good friend sent me this speculation, and I asked him if I could pass it on. He said yes, as long as he remained anonymous.... Ivanka Trump now has an office... Read more

  Posted on 21 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Emergence of Communities and Diversity in Social Networks

  Two edited chunks from the introduction of Han et al. (open source), followed by the significance and abstract statements: Han et al. Read more

  Posted on 21 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Materialism Alone Can't Explain Consciousness? A Flawed Argument.

  Adam Frank does an interesting piece at aeon.co in which he suggests that since the materialist position in physics appears to rest on shaky metaphysical ground... Read more

  Posted on 20 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Half of the Conclusions in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Papers Are...

  I want to add to MindBlog's archive (see here, here, and here) of articles that document the fact that half or more of the scientific studies that are... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Well-being Increased by Imagining Time as Scarce.

  You have surely heard the homilies "Live each day as if it were your last." or "Would you be doing what you are doing now if you knew you had only a year to... Read more

  Posted on 16 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Minding the Details of Mind Wandering.

  Mind wandering happens both with and without intention, and Paul Seli, in Schecter's Harvard psychology laboratory, finds differences between the two in terms o... Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Humans Can Do Echolocation

  Flanagin et al. find evidence for top-down auditory pathways for human echolocation comparable to those found in echolocating bats. Sighted humans perform bette... Read more

  Posted on 14 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Exercise Slows the Aging of Heart Cells.

  Ludlow et al. find (in female rats) that exercise slows the loss of caps (telomeres) on the end of chromosomes that prevent damage or fraying of DNA. (Shorter... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Meditating Mice!

  Here is an interesting twist from Weible et al., who find that inducing rhythms in the mouse anterior cingulate cortex similar to those observed in meditating... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Higher-order Theory of Emotional Consciousness

  LeDoux and Brown offer an integrated view of emotional and cognitive brain function, in an open source PNAS paper that is a must-read for those interested in... Read more

  Posted on 09 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Look Like Our Names.

  An interesting bit from Zwebner et al.: Research demonstrates that facial appearance affects social perceptions. The current research investigates the reverse... Read more

  Posted on 08 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Trump Vortex - Social Media as a Cancer

  Manjoo does a piece on his effort to spend an entire week without watching or listening to a single story about our 45th president. I discovered several truths... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Crony Beliefs

  I want to mention a rambunctious essay by Kevin Simler, "Crony Beliefs," that a MindBlog reader pointed me to recently. It deals with the same issue as the... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Evolutionary Psychology Explains Why Facts Don't Change People's Minds.

  A number of articles are now appearing that suggest that the ascendancy of Donal Trump, the devotion of his supporters, their indifference to facts (which are... Read more

  Posted on 03 March 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE