Subliminal Motivation People often do things and can’t say exactly why they did them. While it might seem that “acting without explanation” is the result of poor attention or irrational impulse, it turns out that our brains are wired to do this. It is possible, researchers at INSERM in Paris found, to motivate half the brain without the other half being aware of what’s going on. The INSERM researchers discovered this by measuring how hard subjects could squeeze a grip with each hand. Here’s where the experimenters got tricky: they showed the coin image only to one eye, and only for 17 milliseconds. Although the subjects could not correctly guess which coin they had seen – confirming that they were not conscious of what they saw – they squeezed harder when presented with the larger coin if the hand grip was on the same side of the body as the eye that had seen it. The neuromarketing implications of this work aren’t clear. effort, inserm, motivation, subliminal
The Roots of Consciousness: Theory, The Biological Perspective The Biological Perspective In the Introduction, I discussed the evolution of organized matter from the photon through particles, atoms and molecules to living cells which begin to differentiate in structure and function forming a wide variety of tissues and organs that play a specialized function in the human body. It is reasonable to assume all these levels of organization including the whole human being play a role in shaping consciousness. Particularly important are the nervous system, comprising brain and spinal cord, and the endocrine system, comprising a number of ductless glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream. The Nervous System Neuron cells are the principle units of the nervous system. The process by which pulses transmit across the neural membrane is electrochemical. Multi-Polar Neuron Bipolar Neurons Neurons are stimulated to fire by either sensory receptors or other neurons. Neuron cell body with synapses from other neurons Cross-section of the human brain Serotonin
The Death Delusion « Kensho By Bard Canning “Afraid of dying? Don’t be. It’s never going to happen to you, and I can prove it.” It’s said that Albert Einstein once commented that the most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile. Surely death is the greatest threat that we all face. I do not agree. Before outlining my hypothesis, I should make it clear that the aim of my writing is the excavation and study of the truth. To put it simply: I do not believe in death. I do not think that we are immortal, far from it. It has been my experience that once the spectre of death is stripped of its shadowy mask it becomes much easier to contend with as a concept. The Alpha and the Omega “Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear, To be we know not what, we know not where.” John Dryden Everyone eventually reaches the point in their lives where they become fully aware of the inevitability of their own death. It’s All in Your Mind Morpheus – The Matrix Mark Twain
Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To. The jury is back and the verdict is in. The long-term storage of memories occurs during sleep. The brain constructs and reorganizes its circuits while we sleep. The pivotal question is, This past week, a significant study caught my eye, one that can help us eventually answer that question. Sleep researcher Jan Born. In this study, a team of researchers led by Jan Born of the University of Lübeck set up two experiments to test memory. In both groups, half the volunteers were told immediately following the learning tasks that they would be tested in 10 hours. Sleep compared with wakefulness produced a strong improvement on test performance if the subjects had been informed about the test. The researchers also recorded electroencephalograms (EEGs) from the individuals who slept. For More Information: I. F. F. Sleep photo credit.
Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio - review Consciousness has become a hot topic for brain scientists. Once, we were content to leave the interminable mind/brain problem to philosophers and theologians. Speculation remained a CLM – a career-limiting move — for ambitious young researchers. No longer. Armed with novel tools, from genetic manipulation to brain imaging, flush with funding, and convinced that neuroscience has the key to the human condition, the hunt is on. Neuroscientists, especially those of us trained in the Anglo-American tradition, tend to be as mechanically materialist as was "Darwin's bulldog", Thomas Huxley, in the 19th century, when he remarked that mind is to brain as the whistle is to the steam train – a mere epiphenomenon. Consciousness is a term with multiple meanings. For biologists though, consciousness, if not an accidental epiphenomenon, must be an evolved property with a function of some benefit to its possessor. This, briefly summarised, is the latest version of Damasio's theory.
Can your body sense future events without any external clue? Wouldn't it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even if there's no clue about what those events will be? Presentiment without any external clues may, in fact, exist, according to new Northwestern University research that analyzes the results of 26 studies published between 1978 and 2010. Researchers already know that our subconscious minds sometimes know more than our conscious minds. Physiological measures of subconscious arousal, for instance, tend to show up before conscious awareness that a deck of cards is stacked against us. "What hasn't been clear is whether humans have the ability to predict future important events even without any clues as to what might happen," said Julia Mossbridge, lead author of the study and research associate in the Visual Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern. "I like to call the phenomenon 'anomalous anticipatory activity,'" she said. Source: Northwestern University
A mind of one's own Soul Dust: the Magic of Consciousness Nicholas HumphreyQuercus, 288pp, £25 Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Antonio DamasioWilliam Heinemann, 384pp, £25 The republic of letters is in thrall to an unprecedented scientism. The word is out that human consciousness - from the most elementary tingle of sensation to the most sophisticated sense of self - is identical with neural activity in the human brain and that this extraordinary metaphysical discovery is underpinned by the latest findings in neuroscience. These beliefs are based on elementary errors. These pseudo-disciplines are flourishing in academe and are covered extensively in the popular press, in articles usually accompanied by a brain scan (described by the writer Matt Crawford as a "fast-acting solvent of critical faculties"). There are more cautious writers, but even for them the attraction of biologism seems irresistible. At times, the illusion of explanation becomes quite strong.
Qualia: The Inverted Spectrum G83.3010 Consciousness, Action and Attention Thursday 3:30-5:30, Philosophy 2nd floor Seminar Room, 5 Washington Place (Note the change to the 2nd floor) Attendance by those who are not PhD students in a philosophy department requires permission of Professor Block Requirements: A 10 page mid-term paper is due March 13th and a longer term paper is due May 1st. Assignments for the remainder of the term May 1: Sensorimotor 3 Noë PPR (2008) précis, Noë, Magic Realism, Block review, Hurley, “Varieties of Externalism”. Reading List Note: some of the links below are linked to the NYU Library web site. Qualia: The Inverted Spectrum Ned Block, “Wittgenstein and Qualia”, Philosophical Perspectives 21, 1, 2007: 73-115, edited by John Hawthorne. Alex Byrne, “Inverted Qualia”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Consciousness and Attention Daniel Simons & Ron Rensink, Change Blindness: Past, Present, and FutureTrends in Cognitive Sciences, 9: 16-20. 2005 The Relation between Consciousness and Attention H.
Google's 'Jolly Good Fellow' On The Power Of Emotional Intelligence When Google engineer-turned-mindfulness expert Chade-Meng Tan gives a talk in front of a group of Silicon Valley developers and executives, he often starts with a simple exercise. “Imagine two human beings. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just wish for those two human beings to be happy. That’s all.” During one recent talk, he gave the group a homework assignment: Perform the exercise the next day at work, spending 10 seconds each hour randomly choosing two people and silently wishing for them to be happy. It’s not the first time that Tan -- who Wired recently dubbed an "Enlightenment engineer" -- has seen emotional intelligence exercises transform an employee’s work and life. More than 1,000 Google employees have gone through the SIY curriculum, according to Wired, the principles of which are outlined in Tan's New York Times bestseller, “Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path To Achieving Success, Happiness (And World Peace)". Meditate. Cultivate compassion. Also on HuffPost:
Body Atlas Reveals Where We Feel Happiness and Shame Yellow shows regions of increased sensation while blue areas represent decreased feeling in these composite images. Image courtesy of Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, and Jari Hietanen. Chests puffing up with pride — and happiness felt head to toe — are sensations as real as they are universal. Researchers have long known that emotions are connected to a range of physiological changes, from nervous job candidates’ sweaty palms to the racing pulse that results from hearing a strange noise at night. Once More With Feeling More than 700 participants in Finland, Sweden and Taiwan participated in experiments aimed at mapping their bodily sensations in connection with specific emotions. Researchers found statistically discrete areas for each emotion tested, such as happiness, contempt and love, that were consistent regardless of respondents’ nationality. Hot-Headed Although each emotion produced a specific map of bodily sensation, researchers did identify some areas of overlap.
Dreams: Night School The Dream Robbers What happens when a rat stops dreaming ? In 2004, researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison decided to find out. Their method was simple, if a bit devilish. Step 1: Strand a rat in a tub of water. In the center of this tiny sea, allot the creature its own little desert island in the form of an inverted flowerpot. In this uncomfortable position, the rat is able to rest and eventually fall asleep. Step 2: After several mostly dreamless nights, the creature is subjected to a virtual decathlon of physical ordeals designed to test its survival behaviors. The dream-deprived rats flubbed each of the tasks. The surprise came during Step 3. What Dreams Are Made Of Dreaming is so basic to human existence, it's astonishing we don't understand it better. Later came the idea that dreams are the cognitive echoes of our efforts to work out conflicting emotions. A Theater of Threats Better to bend your knees and lower your center of gravity so you're harder to lift.
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