Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• Tracking Ongoing Cognition with fMRI of Functional Connectivity States.

  This work by Gonzalez-Castillo at al. shows how close we are getting to real time monitoring of brain activity associated with different kinds of tasks (in... Read more

  Posted on 18 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Exercise for the Aging Brain - How Much is Necessary?

  Gretchen Reynolds points to interesting work on exercise and the aging brain by Vidoni et. al. Increasing amounts of aerobic exercise (75, 150, 225 minutes per... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Knowing the Internal States of Ourselves and of Others.

  We frequently can infer the emotional state of someone from the style of their movement, distinguishing, for example, when they hand us something rudely versus... Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Overclaiming - the Illusion of Knowledge

  Atir et al. probe how our inflated perception of our expertise can lead us to make claims of impossible knowledge. Their edited abstract: People overestimate... Read more

  Posted on 11 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Are Chatbots Destined to Become Our Most Sympathetic Listeners?

  Markoff and Mozur do a fascinating piece in the NYTimes describing how millions of young Chinese use a smartphone program as their intimate companion. Xiaoice... Read more

  Posted on 07 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Benefits of High School Music Training.

  Maybe my avoiding gym glasses in high school by being in the marching band and chorus paid off some brain benefits (in addition to my already being a pianist).... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Synchronizing Brain Theta Oscillations Strengthens Our Adaptive Behavior Control.

  Reinhart et al. show that synchronizing low-frequency theta (4-8 Hz) EEG oscillations over the medial-frontal cortex with noninvasive direct current electrical... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Stuff on Exercise, Brain, and Body.

  I'll use this post to point readers to several recent interesting articles on physical activity. Hutchinson does a review of work that distinguishes the effect... Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of the Impatience of Adolescents.

  

  Teens and young adults show greater impulsivity than children and adults, reflected by increases in emergency room visits, accidents from drug or alcohol use,... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Unlearning Social Biases During Sleep

  Feld and Born note that tenacious implicit prejudices of race or gender drive discrimination seen in the rise of nationalistic groups, excessive police... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Danger of Artificial Intelligence is Artificial Stupidity.

  Here are some clips from an interesting Op-Ed piece by Quentin Hardy on artificial intelligence. (And, by the way, a recent issue of Science Magazine has a... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Placebo Analgesia Reduces Empathy for Pain.

  Fascinating observations from Rütgen et al.. They show that experimental modulation of a first-hand emotion experience also modulates empathy for that emotion... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Markers of Individual Differences in Human Prosociality.

  Sul et al. make the fascinating observation that self-regarding and other-regarding regions of the medial prefrontal cortex show greater segregation in selfish... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Top-down Alpha Band Oscillations Optimize Visual Perception.

  Interesting work from Samaha et al.: Significance In contrast to canonical, stimulus-driven models of perception, recent proposals argue that perceptual... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Universal Features of Human Music.

  

  I have read through a fascinating paper by Savage et al. that makes a convincing case for statistical universals in the structure and function of human music.... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Screams and the Communication Soundscape

  A fascinating piece from Amal noting that human screams occupy a privileged niche in the communication soundscape. Highlights •We provide the first... Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ohmygawd - a Social App That Aims for Fleeting Authenticity?

  I prodded my troglodyte brain to actually read this article about yet another social networking app, Beme, and came away fascinated. Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Experiencing Nature Influences Our Brains.

  

  Bratman et al., in their PNAS article with the title "Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation," suggest an explanation... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Happy Or Anxious?

  I want to point to two interesting recent pieces: Luhrmann notes that the Western, and particularly American, definition of anxiety or depression is very... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sense8 - Sympathetic Sci-Fi

  I started watching the NetFlix original Sci-Fi drama series "Sense8" two weeks ago, and was completely hooked, watching one episode every day until I had... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE