Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• The Science of Mind Wandering.

  

  I want to pass on this reference to an Ann. Rev. of Psychology article by Smallwood and Schooler, an extensive review and description of mind wandering, its... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Manipulating Moral Decisions by Exploiting Eye Gaze.

  

  Here is a fascinating piece of work from Pärnamets et al.: Eye gaze is a window onto cognitive processing in tasks such as spatial memory, linguistic processing... Read more

  Posted on 13 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The iWatch Will Be Making Us More Sociable and Human??

  I enjoy techie stuff (with the recent exception of taking too many hours to figure out wireless network problems that caused my Zeppelin AirPlay speaker to... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Drug for Compassion?

  

  Sáez et al. enhance human egalitarian behavior in humans with tolcapone - a drug approved for use with Parkinson's disease patients - which prolongs the... Read more

  Posted on 09 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Natural Compound for Chilling Out?

  

  As I sit here typing this morning, I'm munching on cocoa nibs, inspired by Friedman's review pointing to the work of Dincheva et al. Read more

  Posted on 08 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Physical Activity's 'modest' Effects on Cognitive Vitality

  Prakash et al., in the Annual Review of Psychology, have reviewed the epidemiological literature on physical activity and exercise and their relationship to... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Awareness Breaks Down Brain’s Network Modularity.

  Godwin et al. provide an analysis showing that awareness emerges from global changes in the brain’s functional connectivity: Neurobiological theories of... Read more

  Posted on 03 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Origins of Narcissism in Children

  An interesting study from Brummelman et al. showing that narcissism in children is predicted by parental overvaluation, not by lack of parental warmth,... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Abilities Across the Lifespan.

  

  Hartshorne and Germine do a massive analysis of changes in cognitive abilities across the life span, showing that digit symbol coding, digit span, vocabulary,... Read more

  Posted on 01 April 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Singularity—an Urban Legend?

  Clips from an interesting essay by Daniel Dennett: The Singularity—the fateful moment when AI surpasses its creators in intelligence and takes over the... Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Quiet

  From my long queue of potential MindBlog post items, I pull up Judith Warner’s 2012 review of Susan Cain’s Book “Quiet”, which argues for the power of... Read more

  Posted on 30 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Altering the Oxytocin Receptor Gene Enhances Perception of Anger and Fear.

  

  Puglia et al. find that the epigenetic modification of methylating the DNA of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) decreases the control of amygdala fear... Read more

  Posted on 27 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Information Overload is Filter Failure.

  I pass on the following brief lucid piece by Jay Rosen.You might also have a look at Peder Zane's "In the Age of Information, Specializing to Survive. Read more

  Posted on 26 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Expert Listening to Music Alters Gene transcription...So?

  I can't resist comment on a piece generated by PsyBlog, "Classical Music's Surprising Effect on Genes Vital to Memory and Learning." ... Read more

  Posted on 25 March 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• 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