How Trees Calm Us Down In 1984, a researcher named Roger Ulrich noticed a curious pattern among patients who were recovering from gallbladder surgery at a suburban hospital in Pennsylvania. Those who had been given rooms overlooking a small stand of deciduous trees were being discharged almost a day sooner, on average, than those in otherwise identical rooms whose windows faced a wall. The results seemed at once obvious—of course a leafy tableau is more therapeutic than a drab brick wall—and puzzling. That is the riddle that underlies a new study in the journal Scientific Reports by a team of researchers in the United States, Canada, and Australia, led by the University of Chicago psychology professor Marc Berman. Are such numbers fanciful? What is most interesting about this data, though, is one of its subtler details. In the late nineteenth century, the pioneering psychologist and philosopher William James proposed a distinction between “voluntary” and “involuntary” attention.
Amazing video shows us the actual movies that play inside our mind Upon rereading the entire article it does appear that the second clip shown to the subjects was fully reconstructed by what was learned from the brain in the first mapping session. That is fucking incredible. Agreed. That's just so incredible. It's not perfect, obviously, but who cares?! They reconstructed what a person was seeing! Actually, I think it's sort of the opposite of the headline, which is completely misleading us here. Researchers have used (invasive) sensors in the brain to reconstruct the images that lab animals were seeing, actually creating an image that represented an approximation of what they saw; however, that doesn't seem to be what's going on here. It's really impressive, but that's exactly what's not going on.
Neuro-Programmer 3 - Innovative Brainwave Entrainment Software How does NP3 work? It’s surprising science, but thanks to modern equipment it’s easy to prove that this works because we can watch it happening on an EEG. And over 80 years of scientific investigation have revealed many useful applications for this method, which are being widely used today.5 Neuro-Programmer 3 takes advantage of the latest research in this field to deliver the most effective neural stimulation experience. Benefits Inspired and informed by the best practices and research in the fields of psychology, neurology, and audio-visual stimulation studies, Neuro-Programmer 3 is a software application with unlimited potential and broad capabilities. 1. Back to the top
Rhythm and Meter in English Poetry Rhythm and Meter in English Poetry English poetry employs five basic rhythms of varying stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables. The meters are iambs, trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls. The meters with two-syllable feet are IAMBIC (x /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold TROCHAIC (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbersSPONDAIC (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! Adam Had'em. Here are some more serious examples of the various meters. iambic pentameter (5 iambs, 10 syllables) That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold trochaic tetrameter (4 trochees, 8 syllables) Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers anapestic trimeter (3 anapests, 9 syllables) And the sound | of a voice | that is still dactylic hexameter (6 dactyls, 17 syllables; a trochee replaces the last dactyl) This is the | forest pri | meval, the | murmuring | pine and the | hemlocks A note on the source.
Flash-Lag Effect - D. M. Eagleman This is a page of supplemental information for D. M. Eagleman and T. J. Sejnowski, Motion Integration and Postdiction in Visual Awareness, Science, 287(5460), 2000, and for follow-up Technical Comments. Eagleman, D.M. & Sejnowski, T.J. (2000) Motion integration and postdiction in visual awareness. The goal of this line of research is to close in on a connection between physical mechanisms present in neural tissue and the perceptual functions that these mechanisms embody. "Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward" - Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard (Please note: this page is not currently maintained, and has not been updated since 2007) The flash-lag effect is a visual illusion wherein a flash and a moving object that appear in the same location are perceived to be displaced from one another (MacKay, 1958; Nijhawan, 1994). Scroll down to watch demonstrations of the stimuli we used to elucidate several aspects of the flash-lag phenomenon. Dim lights Embed
Watch this: Kinect turns a dancer into a 22,000-point musical sculpture Digital artists Daniel Franke and Cedric Kiefer have released their latest creation, an "unnamed soundsculpture" which turns the movements of dancer Laura Keil into a moving sculpture reminiscent of sand pouring through your hand to the floor. The designers used three of Microsoft's Kinect cameras arranged in a triangle, which creates a three-dimensional model and tracks every aspect of Keil's movements in minute detail: her body is transformed into 22,000 points. The designers then mapped a camera move around the motion-tracked model, and added gravity so that each point steadily falls to the floor creating the illusion of flowing sand. The delay this creates also means that it often seems to be more than one dancer, with ghostly arms protruding from the current body of dots. The result is mesmerizing, perfectly complementing the electronic soundscape by Machinefabriek.
Hyperbole and a Half At around midnight last night, it started snowing. A lot. I got absurdly excited about it. I was like "Ohmigoditssnowingletsgoforawalkrightnow!!!!" And Boyfriend was like "It's 12:30 AM..." and I was like "So? We need to go to the grocery store anyway." My point is that after staring at me in silence for a few long moments in which I am sure he questioned some of his life decisions, Boyfriend was like "Fine." So Boyfriend got all bundled up while I checked to make sure everything was unplugged because I didn't want the house to catch on fire while we were gone and then I got dressed while Boyfriend sat on the couch in his snow-clothes looking like he was on some sort of detonation timer and if the timer went off we would no longer be allowed to go for a walk, so I put my hat and gloves on really fast and then I was like "I'm ready!" Boyfriend wanted to stop and take pictures of the snow and the pretty lights, but I was so excited that I took off running: Not open. And this is what I did:
Why Did Consciousness Evolve, and How Can We Modify It? | Science Not Fiction Update 5/24/11: The conversation continues in Part II here. I recently gave a talk at the Directors Guild of America as part of a panel on the “Science of Cyborgs” sponsored by the Science Entertainment Exchange. It was a fun time, and our moderators, Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant from the HowStuffWorks podcast, emceed the evening with just the right measure of humor and cultural insight. In my twelve minutes, I shared a theory of how consciousness evolved. My point was that if we understand the evolutionary basis of consciousness, maybe this will help us envision new ways our consciousness might evolve further in the future. That could be fun in terms of dreaming up new stories. This idea is so simple that I’m surprised I’ve not yet been able to find it already in circulation. The idea is this: back in our watery days as fish, we lived in a medium that was inherently unfriendly to seeing things very far away. So what does this have to do with consciousness?
Welcome to the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person 2017, motherfuckers. Yeah! LET'S DO THIS. "Do what?" Feel free to stop reading this if your career is going great, you're thrilled with your life, and you're happy with your relationships. Via Upscalehype.com For the rest of you, I want you to try something: Name five impressive things about yourself. Note: I originally posted this in December of 2012, and to date it has drawn more than 20 million page views and been shared on Facebook more than half a million times. #6. Getty Let's say that the person you love the most has just been shot. Getty"OK, which one is the injured one?" You ask, "Are you a doctor?" The guy says, "No." You say, "But you know what you're doing, right? At this point the guy becomes annoyed. Confused, you say, "How does any of that fucking matter when my [wife/husband/best friend/parent] is lying here bleeding! Now the man becomes agitated -- why are you being shallow and selfish? Getty"I don't get it. Getty"Here's that shit you needed. #5. "Nice guy? #4.