Psychology
clock | September 14, 2007Unfortunately, due to the Murphy's Law of conference dates, I will have to miss this fantastic meeting, because I will at the time be at another fantastic meeting, but if you can come, please do - registration will be open online in a few days.
Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity
The conference theme is about bringing scientists and humanities scholars to talk about ways that science is changing human life.
November 8th, 9th, and 10th, the National Humanities Center will host the second ASC conference.
And the program features a Who's Who list:
Thursday, November 8th
Frans de Waal
Martha…
omnibrain | September 14, 2007Since it's short.... here's the entire snipit from The Onion:
BETHESDA, MD--After an extensive six-month study using an electroencephalogram and a finger, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered the section of the human brain that responds unfavorably to poking.
"We found a direct link between this negative effect and our finger pressing on a particular area of the brain," said neuroscientist Matthew Redman Monday, who conducted the study on 12 healthy participants. "After analyzing our data and testing and retesting our subjects, we finally identified this region as…
neurophilosophy | September 13, 2007Gareth Furber, author of the PsychSplash blog, has just launched a new website called PsychAntenna:
...an ever-growing showcase of psychology-related websites, blogs, podcasts and journals that utilize RSS to broadcast their content, [whose] goal is to help clinicians, researchers and students...to utilize RSS more efficiently and locate the best resources to keep them up-to-date in their respective areas of interest.
omnibrain | September 10, 2007A torture manual created by psychologists in the 1950s entitled The Manipulation of Human Behavior is freely available online. Included are these scary sounding chapters:
1 The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject
as it Affects Brain Function 19
Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr.
2 The Effects of Reduced Environmental Stimulation
on Human Behavior: A Review 51
Philip E. Kubzansky
3 The Use of Drugs in Interrogation 96
Louis A. Gottschalk
4 Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating
Information 142
R. C. Davis
5 The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation 169
Martin T.…
omnibrain | September 10, 2007I know why I pee on myself (It usually involves wind or alcohol...or both) but I've always wondered why monkeys do it as well. Ok, I lie, I had no idea that monkeys (yeah yeah, I know it's a chimp but monkey is a more fun word) peed on themselves... well, besides this one.
According to News @ Nature, it's all about trying to get laid:
Miller and her team noticed a link between urine washing and attention-seeking.
Alpha males, for example, doubled their urine washing rates when being solicited by females. The researchers think this might be how males encourage females to continue paying…
neurophilosophy | September 7, 2007The Manipulation of Human Behavior, a manual for psychological torture techniques written by leading psychologists and psychiatrists, is now available online.
Published by John Wiley & Sons in 1961, the 323-page book was edited by Albert D. Biderman of the Bureau of Social Science Research and Herbert Zimmer, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, and funded by the U.S. government.
The editors' introduction reads:
This book represents a critical examination of some of the conjectures about the application of scientific knowledge to the manipulation of…
clock | September 6, 2007Over the past several months, Alvaro of SharpBrains blog interviewed eleven neuroscientists on the topic of the ability to use various techniques to affect the way our brains function - brain training. He has now put together a collection of key quotes from the eleven interviews, each quote linking to the interview itself. Interesting reading on the cutting edge of neuroscience.
omnibrain | September 4, 2007Check out these amazing pieces of 3d Fakery in a swimming pool. I'd personally get a 3d shark pool to keep those damn kids out of my yard. Well... at least I would if I were 80 and had a yard with a pool.
neurophilosophy | September 4, 2007
In the 1880s, Francis Galton described a condition in which "persons...almost invariably think of numerals in visual imagery." This "peculiar habit of mind" is today called synaesthesia, and Galton's description clearly defines this condition as one in which stimuli of one sensory modality elicit sensations in another of the senses.
There are several different kinds of synaesthesia, and the condition is now known to be far more common than was previously thought. Galton was describing a specific type of synaesthesia, called grapheme-colour synaesthesia, in which printed numbers or letters…
neurophilosophy | August 29, 2007Beliefnet.com has an interview with Martin Seligman. (Don't click on the link if you can't bear promises of finding "eternal joy with Jesus' word," or - worse - ads for live psychic readings.)
Seligman is a highly influential psychologist. A former president of the American Psychological Association, he is perhaps best known for his theory of learned helplessness.
Beliefnet also has excerpts from Seligman's latest book, Authentic Happiness.
razib | August 25, 2007Check out this new interview with Steven Pinker. It ostensibly focuses on his new book, The Stuff of Thought, though it covers a lot of ground. My own feeling is that the interviewer should have let the focus be more on Pinker than his own pet theories, but there's a lot of good stuff in there.
omnibrain | August 24, 2007Remember this guy from a few posts ago?!
Nothing is actually wrong with his face. Check out the answer (and another picture) after the break...
Here he is again with a little more telling setup.
According to the website of Lawrence D. Rosenblum and Mike Gordon at UC Riverside:
The point-light technique involves applying small fluorescent yellow cardboard dots to a speaker's face. The dots are affixed to the lips and face with a medical adhesive, and to the teeth and tongue tip with a denture paste. The speaker is videotaped under high-quality fluorescent lighting (seen on left). The…
omnibrain | August 22, 2007
Bet you can't guess what's going on with this guy's face!
I'll give you a hint.... it has to do with psychology.
Give us your best guess and I'll tell you tomorrow why all that crap is all over his face.
neurophilosophy | August 21, 2007
The New York Times contains an article by George Johnson, who attended the recent Magic of Consciousness Symposium in Las Vegas, at which a number of well-known magicians discussed how they exploit the limits of perception in their performances:
Apollo, with the pull of his eyes and the arc of his hand, swung around my attention like a gooseneck lamp, so that it always pointed in the wrong direction. When he appeared to be reaching for my left pocket he was swiping something from the right. At the end of the act the audience applauded as he handed me my pen, some crumpled receipts and…
omnibrain | August 16, 2007According to an article in Salon, via Mind Hacks:
The American Psychological Association, the world's largest professional organization of psychologists, is poised to issue a formal condemnation of a raft of notorious interrogation tactics employed by U.S. authorities against detainees during the so-called war on terror, from simulated drowning to sensory deprivation. The move is expected during the APA's annual convention in San Francisco this weekend.
The APA's anti-torture resolution follows a string of revelations in recent months of the key role played by psychologists in the development…
purepedantry | August 13, 2007I read this article in the Economist that summarizes a paper showing that men wanting to attract women spend conspicuously and women wanting to attract men volunteer conspicuously. All I could think about when I read it was, "Well, I guess Veblen was right about something." (I will get to the article at the bottom, but this is an interesting history lesson for those of you who haven't heard of Veblen.)
Thorstein Veblen was a turn of the century economist and social critic noted for coining term conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous consumption is when you buy something really expensive so…
sb admin | August 10, 2007Video of a Second Life virtual reality simulation of psychosis in schizophrenia, created by UC Davis Professor of Psychiatry Peter Yellowlees.
Also, create a psychotic VR therapeutic scenario with NeuroVR (from Positive Technology Journal).
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007 Vaughan discusses the recent revelations that psychologists play a key role in military "interrogations", and provides plenty of links about the subject, including this article from Vanity Fair about two psychologists who developed torture techniques for the CIA.
As I have mentioned, my father was tortured during his time as a political prisoner in Egypt in the late 1950s. So campaigning against this abhorent practice is something that I'm extremely passionate about.
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007A new study by researchers at Stanford University shows that fast food branding affects the taste preferences of preschoolers.
3- to 5-year-old children from low-income families were given pairs of five identical foods and drinks and asked to indicate if which, if any, tasted better.
The children consistently reported preferring the foods and drinks in packaging form McDonald's over those presented to them in unbranded packaging. This was the case even if the food or drink tasted was not on the McDonald's menu.
The effect of branding was found to be greater in those children who had more…
omnibrain | August 7, 2007From Gary O:
Harvard and MIT researchers have finally addressed a question that has long been puzzling mankind: "If you were a New World monkey, would you rather listen to Russian lullabies or German techno?" In the September issue of Cognition, Josh McDermott and Marc Hauser report finding that both cotton-top tamarins and common marmosets clearly prefer the lullabies. A follow-up experiment concludes that the monkeys actually prefer silence over Russian and German lullabies, as well as Mozart.
Of course no primates (including humans) enjoy listening to Gary Yodel. Here's Gary at Big Bend…