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Music Training and Neuroplasticity

Music Training and Neuroplasticity
With our multi sensory brain, music harnesses powers of nature, culture, and mind. How much is the brain changed by the effects of music training and neuroplasticity? Music is one of the most demanding cognitive and neural challenges, requiring very accurate timing of multiple actions, precise interval control of pitch not involved in language, and multiple different ways of producing sound. Auditory and motor actions influence each other in a constant interplay, which is largely unknown. Brain Lesion Effects on Music All brain imaging is done in a time scale of seconds, but the brain functions in the scale of milliseconds. A lesion in the auditory cortex causes “amusia” where a patient can speak and understand everyday sounds, but cannot notice wrong notes in tunes, or remember melodies.Another case, a 71-year-old cellist, had encephalitis and lost ordinary memory, but remembers music. But, recent research shows that when studying infants these differences do not necessarily exist.

PsyBlog’s 10 Most Popular Psychological Insights From 2012 How the mind works, the dark side of creativity and how to be a great leader: these and more… Here’s my review of the psychological insights covered here on PsyBlog in 2012 that have proved most popular with you, the readers. 1. How the mind works Never let it be said that the titles for my articles lack ambition! Insights included the fact that suppressing your thoughts is counter-productive, brainstorming doesn’t work and hallucinations are more common than you’d think. 2. Six factors seem to set apart the truly great leaders from the rest: decisiveness, competence, integrity, vision, persistence and, perhaps most surprisingly: modesty. We could really do with some more modest leaders, don’t you think? 3. Creativity is always a favourite topic here on PsyBlog but usually we’re talking about the positive aspects. In fact research suggests that creative individuals are also more likely to be arrogant, good liars, distrustful, dishonest and maybe just a little crazy—OK, let’s say eccentric.

How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently By Maria Popova “In disputes upon moral or scientific points,” Arthur Martine counseled in his magnificent 1866 guide to the art of conversation, “let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.” Of course, this isn’t what happens most of the time when we argue, both online and off, but especially when we deploy the artillery of our righteousness from behind the comfortable shield of the keyboard. That form of “criticism” — which is really a menace of reacting rather than responding — is worthy of Mark Twain’s memorable remark that “the critic’s symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else’s dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.” Daniel Dennett (b. If only the same code of conduct could be applied to critical commentary online, particularly to the indelible inferno of comments.

15 TED Talks That Will Change Your Life 30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die {Via studioflowerpower on etsy} “Rather than money, than fame, than love…give me truth.” ~ Thoreau I woke up this morning and my life clock marked 30. My first sleep-deprived idea was to pack a small suitcase, get on the first train, move to another country, change my name, change my hair color (or get plastic surgery if needed), and start from scratch. By now, I’m good at both: fighting and disappearing. A true warrior doesn’t feel forced to do either, but moves through and with and for life, like water. So after I washed my face and considered the costs of running and those of fighting, I decided to do neither and have some juice instead. {Alkaline Espresso / Click for recipe.} We are a constant process, an event, we’re change. Our life is the house, the rest are just projections, shadows of the greater structure: even our deepest thoughts, beliefs, you, me and everything and everyone we’ve ever known, are subject to interpretation. Loving the questions means to love yourself. You. Comments

Activity theory Introduction to Activity Theory applied to a work context The premise of activity theory is that a collective work activity, with the basic purpose shared by others (community), is undertaken by people (subjects) who are motivated by a purpose or towards the solution of a problem (object), which is mediated by tools and/or signs (artefacts or instruments) used in order to achieve the goal (outcome). The activity is constrained by cultural factors including conventions (rules) and social organisation (division of labour) within the immediate context and framed by broader social patterns (of production, consumption, distribution and exchange). Activity theory provides a conceptual framework from which we can understand the inter-relationship between activities, actions, operations and artefacts, subjects’ motives and goals, and aspects of the social, organisational and societal contexts within which these activities are framed. Example of application of Activity Theory in a TLRP project

Proportional Pie Chart of the World’s Most Spoken Languages [2000x3261] 11 Productivity Hacks to Boost Your Mental Focus Making a dent in the universe requires focus. So we've collated 11 simple and easy to use tips on improving your mental concentration. Most of it is a basic stuff that I tried myself, so I selected what got me the best results. What works for me may not work for you but the best way to find out is to keep testing new ideas all the time ( and eventually adopt what works and move on from what doesn't )! #1. Develop a habit of getting enough sleep Lack of sleep decreases production of chemicals such as dopamine or adrenaline that regulate your attention. Our tip: Have a fixed time to wake up and go to bed when your body gets tired. - This way you let your body regulate how much sleep it needs. #2. Simple carbs digest very quickly and cause insulin spike which pulls excess glucose out of your bloodstream. Complex carbs take longer to digest delivering your brain a steady supply of energy. Our tip: Eat complex carbs while working. #3. After few days you should see a pattern emerge: #4. 1. 2. 3.

Self-Efficacy This summary was written and compiled by Karin Kirk, SERC, and contains an overview of motivation research and pertinent references. Self efficacy is commonly defined as the belief in one's capabilities to achieve a goal or an outcome. Students with a strong sense of efficacy are more likely to challenge themselves with difficult tasks and be intrinsically motivated. These students will put forth a high degree of effort in order to meet their commitments, and attribute failure to things which are in their control, rather than blaming external factors. Self-efficacious students also recover quickly from setbacks, and ultimately are likely to achieve their personal goals. How can students gain self-efficacy? There are four sources of self-efficacy. Mastery experiences - Students' successful experiences boost self-efficacy, while failures erode it. Pedagogic strategies that foster self-efficacy Other pedagogies for improving self-efficacy include: Teaching Practices to Avoid Further reading

How Smart Are Dogs? How Smart Are Animals? PBS Airdate: February 9, 2011 NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON (Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History): Hi, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host of NOVA ScienceNOW, where this season we're asking six big questions. On this episode: How Smart Are Animals? Meet Chaser. She knows the name of every single one of these? And it's not just her. Look at that intensity. And researchers are finally taking notice. BRIAN HARE (Duke University): A dog is like a soldier of science. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Find Crawdad. BRIAN HARE: If we can figure out how they think, then we'll understand ourselves. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Excellent, excellent, good job! And a trip to paradise, where some of the smartest creatures... TERI BOLTON (Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences): Come on, boy. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: ...who can even read symbols, are also the most talkative. TERI BOLTON: These are his clicks. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: But what are they saying? TERI BOLTON: Yes, French is very vocal. Also,... ALEX: Two.

Here’s How The World’s Most Brilliant Minds Scheduled Their Days Sources: RJ Andrews Infowetrust.com Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: The Dolphin Institute - Dolphin Research Echolocation is the process of detecting and identifying objects by emitting sounds, such as the broadband clicks used by dolphins, and listening to the echoes returning from objects reflecting those sounds. A recent discovery we made is that dolphins appear capable of directly perceiving the shapes of objects through echolocation. Prior to this finding, it had been generally assumed that dolphins learned to identify and recognize objects through echolocation by a process of associative learning-by comparing the echoes returning from targets with the visual appearance of those targets. Instead, our work has shown that echolocation can yield an immediate perception of the shapes of objects without any intervention by associative learning. We established this finding by asking the dolphin to inspect an object inside of a visually opaque box, using echolocation alone, and then to find a match for that object from among two or more objects inspected through vision alone. Pack, A.

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