Time on the Brain: How You Are Always Living In the Past, and Other Quirks of Perception I always knew we humans have a rather tenuous grip on the concept of time, but I never realized quite how tenuous it was until a couple of weeks ago, when I attended a conference on the nature of time organized by the Foundational Questions Institute. This meeting, even more than FQXi’s previous efforts, was a mashup of different disciplines: fundamental physics, philosophy, neuroscience, complexity theory. Crossing academic disciplines may be overrated, as physicist-blogger Sabine Hossenfelder has pointed out, but it sure is fun. Neuroscientist Kathleen McDermott of Washington University began by quoting famous memory researcher Endel Tulving, who called our ability to remember the past and to anticipate the future “mental time travel.” McDermott outlined the case of Patient K.C., who has even worse amnesia than the better-known H.M. on whom the film Memento was based. Tellingly, not only can he not recall the past, he can’t envision the future. Alas, they couldn’t.
Holmes Institute School of Consciousness Studies. Why Does Beauty Exist? | Wired Science Over at the always excellent Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Yong summarizes a new investigation into the neural substrate of beauty: Tomohiro Ishizu and Semir Zeki from University College London watched the brains of 21 volunteers as they looked at 30 paintings and listened to 30 musical excerpts. All the while, they were lying inside an fMRI scanner, a machine that measures blood flow to different parts of the brain and shows which are most active. On the one hand, it’s not exactly shocking that beauty can be sourced to the cortex. But why does beauty exist? Here’s my (extremely speculative) theory: Beauty is a particularly potent and intense form of curiosity. Let’s begin with the neuroscience of curiosity, that weak form of beauty. The first thing the scientists discovered is that curiosity obeys an inverted U-shaped curve, so that we’re most curious when we know a little about a subject (our curiosity has been piqued) but not too much (we’re still uncertain about the answer).
Plot Generator Controlling Brains With a Flick of a Light Switch | Mind & Brain Stopped at a red light on his drive home from work, Karl Deisseroth contemplates one of his patients, a woman with depression so entrenched that she had been unresponsive to drugs and electroshock therapy for years. The red turns to green and Deisseroth accelerates, navigating roads and intersections with one part of his mind while another part considers a very different set of pathways that also can be regulated by a system of lights. In his lab at Stanford University’s Clark Center, Deisseroth is developing a remarkable way to switch brain cells off and on by exposing them to targeted green, yellow, or blue flashes. Deisseroth’s technique, known broadly as optogenetics, could bring new hope to his most desperate patients. Today, those breakthroughs have been demonstrated in only a small number of test animals. For all its complexity, the brain in some ways is a surprisingly simple device.
Name Nerds! Were you one of 10 Jennifers or Mikes or Bobs or Lindas in your class at school? Or perhaps you were the only Moonbeam or Daejuwon in school and loved it, and wish to continue the tradition. In any case, here is a site that, hopefully, will break you out of the bonds of conventional naming trends and start you down the path to creativity. Unlike in past eras, when Johns and Marys reigned supreme, the21st century is marked by parents looking to different sources than the traditional naming pools when naming their children. ***NEW!!! Ads Implant False Memories | Wired Science My episodic memory stinks. All my birthday parties are a blur of cake and presents. I’m notorious within my family for confusing the events of my own childhood with those of my siblings. And yet, I have this one cinematic memory from high-school. It’s an admittedly odd detail for an otherwise logo free scene, as if Coke had paid for product placement in my brain. So where did this sentimental scene starring soda come from? A new study, published in The Journal of Consumer Research, helps explain both the success of this marketing strategy and my flawed nostalgia for Coke. The experiment went like this: 100 undergraduates were introduced to a new popcorn product called “Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Fresh Microwave Popcorn.” One week later, all the subjects were quizzed about their memory of the product. The scientists refer to this as the “false experience effect,” since the ads are slyly weaving fictional experiences into our very real lives. Image: irene/Flickr.
The Ultimate Guide to Google Docs for Writers (+ workflow video & PDF checklist) | creative writing blog PIN TO READ LATERGoogle Docs is a great alternative to Microsoft Word. If you’re a writer, I think you’ll find the mobile apps and collaboration options particularly useful, and you may be surprised by some of Google Docs’ lesser-known features too. I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible in this article and accompanying video. I also update as new features are released (or taken away), so please check back often! Last updated: Feb 2017. Google Docs Workshop Benefits of Google Docs for Writers 1. Nothing to shake a stick at! 2. This is by far my favourite thing about Google Docs, as anyone who’s participated in my write-alongs or watched my live writing knows. :) You can share a link with anyone you want, and they can watch the words appear in the document as you type them. 3. Google Docs records your every keystroke, a feature which the add-on, Draftback, turns into a fascinating replay. 4. 5. I do feel a bit nervous without a save button sometimes but really why should we need one? 6.
Mirror Neurons Mirror Neurons PBS air date: January 25, 2005 ROBERT KRULWICH: Hello again. Gaze into a mirror, and what do you see? Well, I see my face, of course. But in my face I see moods, I see shifts of feeling. We humans are really good at reading faces and bodies. Ask yourself, "Why do people get so involved, so deeply, deeply involved, with such anguish, such pain, such nail biting tension over football?" COMMENTATOR: The Cleveland Browns are gambling on defense. ROBERT KRULWICH: Why are we such suckers for sports? Well, as it happens, scientists have an explanation for this strange ability to connect. DANIEL GLASER: It had never been found on a cellular level before. ROBERT KRULWICH: A set of brain cells, found on either side of the head, among all the billions of long branching cells in our brain, these so-called "mirror neurons," have surprising power. (NEURON FIRING): Clack, clack, clack. ROBERT KRULWICH: ...whenever the monkey would grab for a peanut. ROBERT KRULWICH: ...the neuron would fire.
Mirror neuron A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.[1][2][3] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in primate species.[4] Birds have been shown to have imitative resonance behaviors and neurological evidence suggests the presence of some form of mirroring system.[4][5] In humans, brain activity consistent with that of mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area, the primary somatosensory cortex and the inferior parietal cortex.[6] The function of the mirror system is a subject of much speculation. Discovery[edit] Further experiments confirmed that about 10% of neurons in the monkey inferior frontal and inferior parietal cortex have "mirror" properties and give similar responses to performed hand actions and observed actions. Origin[edit] In monkeys[edit] In humans[edit]
Less Empathy Toward Outsiders: Brain Differences Reinforce Preferences For Those In Same Social Group An observer feels more empathy for someone in pain when that person is in the same social group, according to new research in the July 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The study shows that perceiving others in pain activates a part of the brain associated with empathy and emotion more if the observer and the observed are the same race. The findings may show that unconscious prejudices against outside groups exist at a basic level. The study confirms an in-group bias in empathic feelings, something that has long been known but never before confirmed by neuroimaging technology. "Our findings have significant implications for understanding real-life social behaviors and social interactions," said Shihui Han, PhD, at Peking University in China, one of the study authors. Other recent brain imaging studies show that feeling empathy for others in pain stimulates a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex. But the finding raises as many questions as it answers, Farah said.