Tuning In To The Brain's 'Cocktail Party Effect' Scientists are beginning to understand how the human brain accomplishes a remarkable trick known as the cocktail party effect. It's what allows us to pick out the words from just one speaker even when we're in a room full of other voices that are just as loud. For decades, scientists have puzzled over how our brain is able to focus on certain sounds while filtering out others. Birds don't spend much time at cocktail parties, but they do face a similar auditory challenge, says Frederic Theunissen of the University of California, Berkeley. And just like humans, some birds need to pick out just one voice in the crowd, Theunissen says. Zebra finches, like bats and humans, are able to recognize individual calls amid a cacophony of sound. itoggle caption Periptus via Wikimedia Commons Clues In Bird Brains Theunissen and his colleague Channing Moore thought there must be brain circuits in a zebra finch that filter out unwanted sounds. And they found some, he says. A Bat-Cave Cocktail Party
Manipulation of The People - Rudiments of Propaganda Despite living in "the free world", there are very few free men and women walking around in our democracies. Very few indeed. This is because some men and women have a human failing that drives them to want to manipulate others for the sake of power. That manipulation has enslaved humanity throughout most of its history, and still presents the most ominous threat to democracy. W E THINK WE LIVE in a democracy, which is the type of society in which ultimate power lies with the people. The rate and density of information flow has been rising exponentially since the end of the Second World War. With control over the West's mass media falling into the hands of a small group of multinationals (only 5 control just about all the US media), the potential for information flow to be spun by the interests of big business (and governments, which have a symbiotic relationship with big business) has never been greater. Our leaders don't care about democracy.
Can't relax? It's all in your mind: Research shows stopping a thought puts more strain on the brain (PhysOrg.com) -- Turns out, relaxing is exhausting—which could by why so many people struggle to unplug from work during vacation. According to mathematicians at Case Western Reserve University, stopping a thought burns more energy than thinking-like stopping a truck on a downhill slope. "Maybe this explains why it is so tiring to relax and think about nothing," says Daniela Calvetti, professor of mathematics and one of the authors of a new brain study published in an advanced online publication of the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism. Since opening up the brain for detailed monitoring isn't exactly practical, Calvetti teamed up with fellow mathematics professor Erkki Somersalo and Rossana Occhipinti, a postdoctoral researcher in physiology and biophysics, to create a computer model of brain metabolism. Calvetti and Somersalo created a software package specifically designed to study the complex metabolic systems.
Penn Gazette | Essays | Notes from the Undergrad By Andrew Newburg | Yawn. Go ahead: Laugh if you want (though you’ll benefit your brain more if you smile), but in my professional opinion, yawning is one of the best-kept secrets in neuroscience. Even my colleagues who are researching meditation, relaxation, and stress reduction at other universities have overlooked this powerful neural-enhancing tool. Several recent brain-scan studies have shown that yawning evokes a unique neural activity in the areas of the brain that are directly involved in generating social awareness and creating feelings of empathy. For these reasons I believe that yawning should be integrated into exercise and stress reduction programs, cognitive and memory enhancement training, psychotherapy, and contemplative spiritual practice. Why am I so insistent? As a young medical student, I was once “caught” yawning and actually scolded by my professor. But yawning doesn’t just relax you—it quickly brings you into a heightened state of cognitive awareness.
World Changing Ideas: 20 Ways to Build a Cleaner, Healthier, Smarter World What would happen if solar panels were free? What if it were possible to know everything about the world—not the Internet, but the living, physical world—in real time? What if doctors could forecast a disease years before it strikes? This is the promise of the World Changing Idea: a vision so simple yet so ambitious that its full impact is impossible to predict. Scientific American’s editorial and advisory boards have chosen projects in five general categories—Energy, Transportation, Environment, Electronics and Robotics, and Health and Medicine—that highlight the power of science and technology to improve the world. Some are in use now; others are emerging from the lab. The No-Money-Down Solar Plan Select an option below: Customer Sign In *You must have purchased this issue or have a qualifying subscription to access this content
Neurotheology: This Is Your Brain On Religion Principles of NeurotheologyBy Andrew B. NewbergPaperback, 284 pagesAshgateList price: $29.95 "Neurotheology" is a unique field of scholarship and investigation that seeks to understand the relationship specifically between the brain and theology, and more broadly between the mind and religion. As a topic, neurotheology has garnered substantial attention in the academic and lay communities in recent years. Several books have been written addressing the relationship between the brain and religious experience and numerous scholarly articles have been published on the topic. If neurotheology is to be considered a viable field going forward, it requires a set of clear principles that can be generally agreed upon and supported by both the theological or religious perspective and the scientific one as well. It is important to infuse throughout the principles of neurotheology the notion that neurotheology requires an openness to both the scientific as well as the spiritual perspectives. 1. 2.
Your True Self Revealed - Fast Fun Free Personality Tests This is your private report page. If you wish to share your results with your friends and family, use the links below. You have not saved your results to your account yet. If this is your report page and you wish to save your results, click here to sign in. You are an Advocating Creator. personalDNA about you You are a Creator If you want to be different: how you relate to others You are Advocating Your Personal DNA Maps Here are personalDNA maps that uniquely represent your personality. Advocating Creator To add this map to your website or blog, copy/paste this HTML into the body of a blog post or web page: Your Personality Chart »Glossary of Traits This chart shows thirteen personality traits. want to save your report to a personalDNA account? PersonalDNA is one of many ATTAP websites. By linking your personalDNA information to your account, you give yourself access to your report all the time. Click here to create your account Or, if you already have a personalDNA account, click here to sign in
Are we selling our souls to social networks? - opinion - 03 May 2012 IF YOU aren't paying for the product, you are the product. So runs the mantra of those who criticise huge internet companies like Facebook and Google. They argue that we have entered into a Faustian pact - trading personal information in exchange for seductively useful services. How concerned should we be? But the realisation that social networking sites can figure out details about us that we haven't actually told them (see "Mindreader: Facebook of revelations") makes the deal's merits harder to evaluate: the potential benefits and pitfalls are hard to grasp. New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist What climate change has done to Walden's woods (New Scientist) Mysterious quasar casts doubt on black holes (New Scientist) 'Iron Man' plants are supercharged by nanotech power (New Scientist) Alien ocean (New Scientist) More from the web 99% of Gmail users don't know about this trick (Metro Chatter) Quantum computing: The next information revolution (Home | AAAS MemberCentral)
Brain Games & Brain Training Ways to Improve Human Intelligence This briefing is intended to pull into one convenient, single frame of reference a body of key information which currently is scattered across a great many different contexts. Until recently, even the possibility of any such information existing was, for essentially political reasons and funding reasons, denied by most of our institutions, together with most of our educators and psychologists, so that such findings as were made in various contexts and circumstances never got discussed across a broader context. Now that it is evident that the brain, and one's intelligence, are highly changeable and that a wide variety of conditions, arrangements and techniques may be employed to improve both brain functioning and intelligence to even a profound degree, we need to make a start on getting a lot of this key information organized to where you and other inquirers can more readily get at it, understand it, and use it. Menu of Methods Quick Interjection 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter. "Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."
7 Skills To Become Super Smart People aren’t born smart. They become smart. And to become smart you need a well-defined set of skills. Here are some tips and resources for acquiring those skills. Memory If you can’t remember what you’re trying to learn, you’re not really learning. If you want to amaze your friends with remembering faces, names, and numbers, look to the grand-daddy of memory training, Harry Lorayne. Reading Good scholars need to be good readers. Evelyn Woodski Slow Reading Course Announcer … Dan Aykroyd Man … Garrett Morris Woman … Jane Curtin Surgeon … Bill Murray … Ray Charles Announcer V/O: [The following words rapidly appear on a blue screen as they are read by the fast-talking announcer:] This is the way you were taught to read, averaging hundreds or thousands of words per minute. Psychologists have found that many people who take speed reading courses increase their reading speed for a short time but then fall right back to the plodding pace where they started. Writing Speaking Numeracy Empathy
How to Meditate What should I do if my legs fall asleep while meditating? This is common for new meditators, and will likely get better over time if you stick with it. As long as feeling comes back to your legs within a few minutes after changing position, don’t worry about it. Which kind of meditation is best for someone with anxiety? Most types of meditation will teach you to calm your mind and be more aware of your thoughts and emotions, which will help with anxiety. Can I still meditate if I’m not religious? Absolutely. How can I stop myself from thinking while I meditate? Many of the techniques listed in this article will help you focus your mind on something other than your own thoughts.
Living in the Present Is a Disorder | Wired Opinion The opening titles sequence of Game of Thrones conveys a presentist style. Image: HBO We’re living in the now, we no longer have a sense of future direction, and we have a completely new relationship to time. I met Rushkoff back when I was editor of the cyberpunk magazine Mondo 2000, when he was working on his first book about digital culture. The internet is still with us (to put it mildly) … so Rushkoff’s latest book is for everybody. R.U. Douglas Rushkoff: Narrative Collapse is what happens when we no longer have time in which to tell a story. Think Game of Thrones. Remote controls and DVRs give us the ability to break down narratives — particularly the more abusive ones. However, the inability to tell stories over time has yielded new forms — like video games and fantasy role-playing — which tell stories in the present tense. R.U. Douglas Rushkoff: Think Game of Thrones. Yet it really does capture the qualities of a fantasy role-playing game or massive multiplayer online world. R.U.