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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Thought for the Day: America Devolving into a Plutocracy...
A clip from Tom Engelhardt writing in Salon: ...let me be as clear as I can be about something that seems murky indeed: this period doesn’t represent a... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Increases Propensity to Mind-wander
Alelrod et al. show that stimulation of the frontal lobe areas involved in our attentional network increase mind wandering associated with our default mode... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Impulse Control with Weak Currents Applied to the Head - a New Therapy?
Spieser et al. apply a very small current (1 milliamp) using the electrodes shown in the figure to slightly hyperpolarize, or make less excitable, the... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Losing the Music - Aging Affects the Perception of Musical Harmony
An open access article from Bones and Plack: When two musical notes with simple frequency ratios are played simultaneously, the resulting musical chord is... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Thomas Metzinger on (the Absence Of) Our Conscious Agency.
The edge.org question for 2014 was “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” I want to pass on a few clips from Metzinger’s lucid brief contribution, and... Read more
Posted on 19 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Hunger Promotes Acquisition of Nonfood Objects
Here is a fascinating nugget of information from Xu et al.: Hunger motivates people to consume food, for which finding and acquiring food is a prerequisite. Read more
Posted on 18 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
What Can Music Ensembles Tell Us About Social Cognition and Interaction?
D'Ausilio et al. note that most studies of how cognition and brain organization is shaped by social factors have used subjects in defined experimental... Read more
Posted on 17 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Happiness Gap Between Conservatives and Liberals Debunked
Given the number of MindBlog posts that have passed on research supporting the standard orthodoxy that conservatives are happier than liberals, I immediately... Read more
Posted on 16 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Emotional Foundations of Cognitive Control.
Cognitive control (self control, self regulation) allows us to restrain from temptations of the present to focus on more long term goals. Emotion is usually cas... Read more
Posted on 13 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Observing Brain Correlates of Self Affirmation and Its Healthy Consequences
From the introduction of Falk et. al. : ...according to the World Health Organization, “60% to 85% of people in the world—from both developed and developing... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Spontaneous Emergence of Shared Social Conventions.
Centola and Baronchelli have recruited subjects from the world wide web to play a live game. They demonstate that myopic players interacting in sequential... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Predictions and the Brain: How Musical Sounds Become Rewarding
I want to point to the review article in Trends in Cognitive Science by Salimpoor, Zatorre, and collaborators that outlines brain mechanisms underlying the... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Hugging Can Make You Less Likely to Catch a Virus Cold.
Daily social stress is known to correlate with susceptibility to cold virus infection. Cohen et al. ask whether social support and the actual receipt of physica... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Human Language Reveals a Universal Positivity Bias
Dodds et al. have constructed 24 corpora (collections of writing) spread across 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean,... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Chickens Count from the Left, Just Like Us!
Rugani et. al. show (Brugger's summary) that ...3-day old chicks associate small numerosities with the left side, and large ones with the right side, of a... Read more
Posted on 05 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The High from Nicotine Depends on Whether You Think It is There.
Fascinating observations from Gu et al.: Significance Nicotine is the primary addictive substance in tobacco, which stimulates neural pathways mediating reward... Read more
Posted on 04 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Immune Cells Drive Resilience to Stress.
Evidence has been accumulating recently for back and forth interactions between the brain and immune system. Brachman et al. have now made the observation that... Read more
Posted on 03 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
MindStuff: A Guide for the Curious User
When I am trying to collect together some ideas to form a lecture or longer piece of work, I frequently think “Haven’t I seen that before?” …. Read more
Posted on 02 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Neurochemistry of Music.
I want to point to an interesting review article by Chanda and Levitin, that summaries studies showing how music engages four of our bodies' fundamental... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Twitter Predicts Mortality from Heart Disease!
Here is an interesting item from Eichstaedt, Seligman, and collaborators: Hostility and chronic stress are known risk factors for heart disease, but they are... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE