Deric Bownds
These articles, from Deric's MindBlog at http://mindblog.dericbownds.net report new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
MY BLOGS
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Deric Bownds' MindBlog
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/
This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 2494 )
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Slow Motion Increases Perceived Intent.
The abstract from interesting work of Caruso et al. To determine the appropriate punishment for a harmful action, people must often make inferences about the... Read more
Posted on 23 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition - Early Life Sets the Stage.
Walhovd et al. present a fascinating study on the origins of lifespan changes in brain and cognition, defining an extensive cortical region wherein surface... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Neural Link Between Affective Understanding and Interpersonal Attraction
From Anders et al.: Being able to comprehend another person’s intentions and emotions is essential for successful social interaction. Read more
Posted on 19 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Statistics Versus Judgement.
This interesting website, pointed out to me by a friend, offers to send a daily gem of information to you, usually an excerpt from a published book...so, being ... Read more
Posted on 18 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Long Lives of Fairy Tales.
I pass on some clips from a review by Pagel of work by Da Silva and Tehrani suggesting that some common fairy tales can be traced back 7,000 years or more,... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Changes During Hypnosis
Jiang et al. do the most detailed analysis to date of brain changes that are distinctive to people undergoing hypnosis: Hypnosis has proven clinical utility, ye... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Why Do People Infer “ought” from “is”?
Tworek and Cimpian offer an interesting perspective, doing experiments illustrating how we ascribe intrinsic value to what is customary. Read more
Posted on 12 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Our Brain and Visceral Monitoring Encode the ‘self’
Babo-Rebelo et al. show that two seemingly distinct roles of the default brain network (DN), in self-related cognition on the one hand, and in the monitoring... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Leave the Kids Alone! A Cognitive Case for Un-parenting
I want to pass on some clips from the text of a recent review by Glausiusz of Alison Gopnik's book on child-rearing "The Gardener and the Carpenter," and also... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Uncalculating Cooperation is Used to Signal Trustworthiness.
Jordan et al. devise an economic game experiment whose results help to explain a range of puzzling behaviors, such as extreme altruism, the use of ethical... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A Brain Area Crucial to Coping with Stress.
Sinha et al. show that “neuroflexibility” in a specific region of our ventromedial prefrontal cortex enhances resilience to stress - an increase in its... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
To Remember Something Better, Wait, Then Exercise.
Another nice bit on what exercise can do for you. The abstract from van Dongen et al.: Highlights •Performing aerobic exercise 4 hr after learning... Read more
Posted on 05 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Distinguishing Brain Correlations from Causes.
Many researchers, even though they know better, fall into the trap of assuming that correlations are causes (i.e., if brain activity X occurs just before or at... Read more
Posted on 04 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Competition Does Not Improve Quality of Work.
I have always been phobic about competition, especially in my scientific laboratory work, because I could feel its toxic effects on my risk taking, spontaneity... Read more
Posted on 03 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Turn-taking Skills Unique to Humans?
In yet another "humans are unique with respect to...." type article Melis, Tomasello and collaborators do experiments showing that humans differ in their abilit... Read more
Posted on 02 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Zapping Your Brain at Home.
Mindblog has done a number of posts on transcranial electrical stimulation, usually reporting some beneficial cognitive or emotional effects (enter 'transcrania... Read more
Posted on 01 August 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Worldwide Internet Access from Light Based Wireless Communication
Under the "random curious stuff" category in MindBlog's subtitle, I want to point to this NYTimes piece that fascinated me by using some simple analogies to... Read more
Posted on 29 July 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Abstract Thinking in Newborn Ducklings!
Martinho and Kacelnik have shown that duckings imprint on the relational concept of "same or different." From Wasserman's perspective on the work: Adhering to... Read more
Posted on 28 July 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Scans Are Prone to False Positives.
An analysis by Eklund et al. has raised serious doubts about positive correlations reported in many of the 40,000 fMRI studies published in the last 2 decades... Read more
Posted on 27 July 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Intractability of Implicit Beliefs
Caoa and Banaji in the Harvard Psychology Dept. introduce their study: Imagine meeting Jonathan and Elizabeth. One person is a doctor. The other is a nurse.... Read more
Posted on 26 July 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE