Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• Our Spatial Memory is Driven by Perceived Animacy of Simple Shapes.

  Chin points to work of van Buren and Scholl who use “wolfpack” animations of dart shapes whose points track the movement of a disc (the prey) to show that... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Semantics and the Science of Fear - the Amygdala Doesn't 'cause' Fear.

  

  Here are some core clips from an article in which Joseph Ledoux updates an idea he proposed several decades ago: …that objectively measurable behavioral and... Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What We Perceive Depends on How Much It Costs Us.

  Interesting work from Hagura et al. showing that our perceptual decisions are biased by the action costs that are associated with our subsequent decisions is... Read more

  Posted on 11 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Has Trump Stolen Philosophy’s Critical Tools?

  Casey Williams does an intriguing piece in the NYTimes “The Stone” section on topics in philosophy. I’m sure he is not crediting Trump with any awareness of... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Details of Our Brain's Upstairs-downstairs Emotion Regulation.

  Morawetz et al. (open source) offer a study probing how our brain's prefrontal upstairs modulates the up-regulation or down-regulation of our emotional... Read more

  Posted on 09 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of Third Person Perspective Improving Interactions with...

  Interesting work (open source) from Leitner et al.: Previous research suggests that people show increased self-referential processing when they provide criticis... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Histone Variants Promote Vulnerability to Depressive Behaviors

  Lepack et al. find that a particular histone protein variant in the nucleus accumbens contributes to stress susceptibility in mice (histones are highly... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Watching the Brain Think About Friends.

  Work from Wlodarski and Dunbar (open source) produces imaging data suggesting that maintaining friendships may be more cognitively exacting than maintaining... Read more

  Posted on 04 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• From Learning to Instinct

  

  I pass on a few chunks from the Science Perspective article by Robinson and Barron: An animal mind is not born as an empty canvas: Bottlenose dolphins know how... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Nature Fix

  Suttie points to a recent book from Florence Williams, also reviewed by Jason Mark, that I would like to be able to slow down enough to actually read, rather... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Stimulation Enhances Memory.

  Important work from Ezzyat et al., a potential approach to ameliorating memory loss in dementia: Highlights •Intracranial brain stimulation has variable... Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain-heart Dialogue Shows How Racism Hijacks Perception

  Tsakiris does a nice summary of his work that shows a biological basis for why you’re more than twice as likely as a white person to be unarmed if you’re... Read more

  Posted on 28 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Underestimating the Value of Being in Another Person's Shoes.

  I pass on a bit of the introduction from Zhou et al., and then their abstract: A lot of leaders are coming here, to sit down and visit. I think it’s important... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog is Moving to Austin. Texas

  

  A personal note...the picture is of a crane moving my Steinway B out of our second floor condo in Fort Lauderdale. It's been a good run. Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Reading What the Mind Thinks from How the Eye Sees.

  Expressive eye widening (as in fear) and eye narrowing (as in disgust) are associated with opposing optical consequences and serve opposing perceptual functions. Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brooks on "The Crisis of Western Civilization"

  A brief screed by David Brooks, worth a read, notes the decline of a progressive Western civilization narrative that “that people, at least in Europe and North... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A.I. Better at Predicting Heart Attacks, Learns Implicit Racial and Gender Bias.

  Lohr notes a study that suggest we need to develop and "A.I. index" analogous to the Consumer Price Index, to track the pace and spread of artificial... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Study Suggests Social Media Are Not Contributing to Political Polarization.

  Bromwich does an interesting piece on increasing political polarization in the US. The number of the 435 house districts in the country competitive for both... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Feel Good - and How Feeling Good Can Be Bad for You.

  In case you feel like another click,  I pass on these two self-helpy feel-good or happiness bits, in the common list form ... First, a bit from Scelfo noting a... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Scratching is Contagious.

  The precis from Science Magazine, followed by the abstract: Observing someone else scratching themselves can make you want to do so. This contagious itching... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE