CogSci

Why news is to the mind, what sugar is to the body... MUST READ, concentrate if you must :-) then diet. I'm starting today. Dobelli's paper articulates how I've been feeling lately (bloated), especially with yummy Android apps like Flipboard, Pulse, Currents, and Bloomberg. His arguments are reasonable and perceptive. \\ The German version is here: http://dobelli.com/... includes FAQS in English. - Adriano

So true... This is why lately I went back to the old habit of reading more books rather than newspapers. - Amira

Abstract: "In the largest false memory study to date, 5,269 participants were asked about their memories for three true and one of five fabricated political events. Each fabricated event was accompanied by a photographic image purportedly depicting that event. Approximately half the participants falsely remembered that the false event happened, with 27% remembering that they saw the events happen on the news. Political orientation appeared to influence the formation of false memories, with conservatives more likely to falsely remember seeing Barack Obama shaking hands with the president of Iran, and liberals more likely to remember George W. Bush vacationing with a baseball celebrity during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. A follow-up study supported the explanation that events are more easily implanted in memory when they are congruent with a person's preexisting attitudes and evaluations, in part because attitude-congruent false events promote feelings of recognition and familiarity, which in turn interfere with source attributions." - Amira

See also: Creating False Memories by Elizabeth F. Loftus http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus... - Amira

...and just the opposite: Harvard researchers found that 83% of radiologists didn't notice the gorilla in this image http://www.npr.org/blogs... :-) - Amira

"Technology has changed the speed and the scope of social influence and has really transformed our realities. (...) I see that most of our learning is by social modeling and through indirect experiences. Errors can be very costly and you can’t afford to develop our values, our competences, our political systems, our religious systems through trial and error. Modeling shortcuts this process. (…) With new technologies, we’re essentially transcending our physical environment and more and more of our values and attitudes and behavior are now shaped in the symbolic environment – the symbolic environment is the big one rather than the actual one. The changes are so rapid that there are more and more areas of life now in which the cyber world is really essential. One model can affect millions of people worldwide, it can shape their experiences and behaviors. We don’t have to rely on trial and error. (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

"The revolutionary tendency of technology has increased our sense of agency. If I have access to all global knowledge, I would have fantastic capacities to educate myself. (…) The important thing in psychology is that we need a theory of human agency, rather than arguing that we’re controlled by neural networks. In every aspect of our lives we now have a greater capacity for exercicing agency." - Amira

We assume that aggression is inbred, but some societies are remarkably pacifistic. And we can also see large variations within a society. But the most striking example might be the transformation from warrior societies into peaceful societies. Switzerland is one example. Sweden is another: Those vikings were out mugging everyone and people would pray for protection: - Elestirel Gunluk

"Alpha males almost invariably acquire authority by killing their enemies—think of the generals that Americans have elevated to the presidency. The general's ability to order people around is, paradoxically, a first step "in the direction of law." Yanomamö men fought over women and that this male conflict was not only the fundamental cause of war in simple societies but "the most important single force in shaping the evolution of political society in our species." [T]hese people are not "pure" or "pristine"; they are dispossessed. Their existence in small bands is reflective not of humankind's ancient past but of a shattered society that has preserved its liberty by retreat." - Adriano from Bookmarklet

I should kill my enemies… - Amit Patel

"Lehrer executed one of the most bewildering recent journalistic frauds, one that on Monday cost him his prestigious post at the magazine and his status as one of the most promising, visible and well-paid writers in the business. An article in Tablet magazine revealed that in his best-selling book, “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” Mr. Lehrer had fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan, one of the most closely studied musicians alive. Only last month, Mr. Lehrer had publicly apologized for taking some of his previous work from The Wall Street Journal, Wired and other publications and recycling it in blog posts for The New Yorker, acts of recycling that his editor called “a mistake.” By Monday, when the Tablet article was published online, both The New Yorker and Mr. Lehrer’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, made it clear that they had lost patience with him." - Adriano from Bookmarklet

That apology was a wonderful letter (to his future daughter), and quotes the real Bob Dylan: “She knows there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all.” \\ Lehrer is a very good writer, and I wish he will continue his work. He examined himself as a case study in self-blindness -- Bravo! - Adriano

see the wonderful video therein (French researchers included)... "at the level of human-like computing tasks, neuromorphic machines have the potential to be superior to von Neumann machines." - Adriano

"What if the very thing that made you feel crazy happy also made you smarter? That’s the question underlying the work of the Institute for Centrifugal Research, where scientists believe that spinning people around at a sufficiently high G-force will solve “even the trickiest challenges confronting mankind.” (...) The culminating experiment features a ride that resembles a giant tropical plant. Riders enter a round car that rises slowly up, up, up and then takes off suddenly at incredibly high speed along one of the “branches.” “Unpredictability is a key part of our work,” says Laslowicz. After the ride, he says, people described experiencing a “readjustment of key goals and life aspirations.” Though he later adds that he wouldn’t put his own children on one of his rides. “These machines provide total freedom,” Laslowicz says, “cutting all connection to the world we live in: communication responsibility, weight. Everything is on hold when you’re being centrifuged.” - Amira from Bookmarklet

*Eivind* - Harold Cabezas from Android

Ten great questions about the unknowns, worthy of your perusal. They should be posted over at Quora :-) though in the meantime check out the CogSci "blog" https://cogsci.quora.com - Adriano from Bookmarklet

You're also very welcome to this 'blog' http://cognitive_science.quora.com/ :-) - Amira

And just as I predicted... on Quora for 2013: https://www.quora.com/Neurosc... - Adriano

"Cellist Katinka Kleijn performed both halves of a duet Sunday night. Her hands played the cello, and her brain, hooked up to a headset that detects cerebral electrical signals, played itself. (...) "Intelligence in the Human Machine,” the cello/brain duet, explored the relationship a performer has to the music she’s playing. During the performance, at Chicago’s Cultural Center, Kleijn wore an Emotiv EPOC, a neuroheadset with 14 sensors that attach to the scalp and detect brainwaves. In front of her, a laptop flashed a word and a few measures of music. She then played the music on her cello, interpreting the word onscreen. At the same time, her brainwaves, translated to audio, changed sounds as she reacted to the word. (...) “Not only is Katinka playing the cello, but she is also, in a sense, playing her brain waves, emphasizing what’s going on in her brain while she’s performing,” Dehaan says." - Amira

"I'm trying to undo a mistake I made some years ago, and rethink the idea that the way to understand the mind is to take it apart into simpler minds and then take those apart into still simpler minds until you get down to minds that can be replaced by a machine. This is called homuncular functionalism, because you take the whole person. You break the whole person down into two or three or four or seven sub persons that are basically agents. They're homunculi, and this looks like a regress, but it's only a finite regress, because you take each of those in turn and you break it down into a group of stupider, more specialized homunculi, and you keep going until you arrive at parts that you can replace with a machine..." - Adriano from Bookmarklet

"Sex, we have been led to believe, is as natural as breathing. But in fact, contends British philosopher Alain de Botton, it is "close to rocket science in complexity." It's not only a powerful force, it's often contrary to many other things we care about. Sex inherently sets up conflicts within us. We crave sex with people we don't know or love. It makes us want to do things that seem immoral or degrading, like slapping someone or being tied up. We feel awkward asking the people we love for the sex acts we really want. There's no denying that sex has its sweaty charms, and in its most exquisite moments dissolves the isolation that embodied life imposes on us. But those moments are rare, the exception rather than the rule, says de Botton, founder of London's School of Life. "Sex is always going to cause us headaches; it's not something we can miraculously grow relaxed about." We suffer privately, feeling "painfully strange about the sex we are either longing to have or struggling to... more... - Lit from Bookmarklet

"Why is adultery overrated? Contrary to all public verdicts on adultery, the lack of any wish whatsoever to stray is irrational and against nature, a heedless disregard for the fleshly reality of our bodies, a denial of the power wielded over our more rational selves by such erotic triggers as high-heeled shoes and crisp shirts, by smooth thighs and muscular calves. But a spouse who... more... - Lit

"The science of self-improvement never ceases. Every year brings dozens of new quirky findings about how to be more effective, whether in managing our time, being more creative or just getting things done. Here are some of the highlights for me from 2012." - Lit from Bookmarklet

"1. You don’t know yourself as well as you think. We think we know ourselves best, but more and more evidence is surfacing to the contrary. This raises an interesting challenge for employers who solely base their hiring decisions on self-reported questionnaires. Psychologist Timothy Wilson proposes that to really know someone, you have to ask others to evaluate you. It turns out that... more... - Lit

"3. We’re more creative when thinking about others. Creativity in the business world is increasingly important. Creativity often involves viewing things from different perspectives. New findings show that we are more creative when we think of others solving problems instead of ourselves. To test this, professors Evan Polman and Kyle Emich presented 137 undergraduates with this riddle:... more... - Lit

"Experiencing and expressing gratitude is an important part of any spiritual practice. It opens the heart and activates positive emotion centers in the brain. Regular practice of gratitude can change the way our brain neurons fire into more positive automatic patterns. The positive emotions we evoke can soothe distress and broaden our thinking patterns so we develop a larger and more expansive view of our lives. Gratitude is an emotion of connectedness, which reminds us we are part of a larger universe with all living things. Below are some of my favorite quotes about gratitude to help inspire you and deepen your thinking about finding an enduring place for gratitude in your own life." - Lit from Bookmarklet

"Gratitude Quotes "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." - Thornton Wilder As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John... more... - Lit

"How to Bring Gratitude into Your Life To begin bringing gratitude into your life, you can deliberately meditate on all the things in your own life that help you or give you pleasure. You can also write a gratitude diary, posting pictures and writing about the things you feel grateful for each day. The holidays are a great time to express your gratitude to friends and family by writing... more... - Lit

“What is needed is nothing less than a breakthrough in philosophy, a theory that explains how brains create explanations. (…) What distinguishes human brains from all other physical systems is qualitatively different from all other functionalities, and cannot be specified in the way that all other attributes of computer programs can be. It cannot be programmed by any of the techniques that suffice for writing any other type of program. Nor can it be achieved merely by improving their performance at tasks that they currently do perform, no matter by how much. Why? I call the core functionality in question creativity: the ability to produce new explanations. (…) What is needed is nothing less than a breakthrough in philosophy, a new epistemological theory that explains how brains create explanatory knowledge and hence defines, in principle, without ever running them as programs, which algorithms possess that functionality and which do not. (…)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

"The truth is that knowledge consists of conjectured explanations — guesses about what really is (or really should be, or might be) out there in all those worlds. Even in the hard sciences, these guesses have no foundations and don’t need justification. Why? Because genuine knowledge, though by definition it does contain truth, almost always contains error as well. So it is not ‘true’... more... - Amira

"Our eyes may be our window to the world, but how do we make sense of the thousands of images that flood our retinas each day? Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the brain is wired to put in order all the categories of objects and actions that we see. They have created the first interactive map of how the brain organizes these groupings. The result — achieved through computational models of brain imaging data collected while the subjects watched hours of movie clips — is what researchers call “a continuous semantic space.” Some relationships between categories make sense (humans and animals share the same “semantic neighborhood”) while others (hallways and buckets) are less obvious. The researchers found that different people share a similar semantic layout. “Our methods open a door that will quickly lead to a more complete and detailed understanding of how the brain is organized. Already, our online brain viewer appears to provide the most detailed... more... - Lit from Bookmarklet

"A clearer understanding of how the brain organizes visual input can help with the medical diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. These findings may also be used to create brain-machine interfaces, particularly for facial and other image recognition systems. Among other things, they could improve a grocery store self-checkout system’s ability to recognize different kinds of... more... - Lit

"'The structure and content of thinking looks very much like the structure and content of dreaming. They may be the product of the same machine,' said Matthew Wilson, a neuroscientist at MIT and a panelist at the New York Academy of Sciences discussion 'The Strange Science of Sleep and Dreams' on Friday (Nov. 9). His work and others' explores the crucial link between dreams and learning and memory. Dreams allow the brain to work through its conscious experiences. During them, the brain appears to apply the same neurological machinery used during the day to examine the past, the future and other aspects of a person's (or animal's) inner world at night. Memory is the manifestation of this inner world, Wilson said. 'What we remember is the result of dreams rather than the other way around,'" he said. - Wynne Parry - Lit from Bookmarklet

Recommended... brings together snippets from CogSci to real life :-) "Harvard psychologist and author of _Stumbling on Happiness_, Prof. Daniel Gilbert, talks with experts about the latest science on what makes us “tick” and how we can find support for the emotional issues we all face. Each episode weaves together the compelling personal stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research along with revealing comments from celebrities." PBS http://www.pbs.org/thisemo... - Adriano

Here is an alternative playlist on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch... :-) - Amira

"Self-change is tough, but it's not impossible, nor does it have to be traumatic...To increase the overall probability of success, divide a behavior into parts and learn each part successively." - Lit from Bookmarklet

"Change Requires Structure Many people view structure as restrictive, something that inhibits spontaneity. While spontaneity is wonderful for some activities, it's a surefire method for sabotaging change. Strategy: Identify what works Classify all activities and materials you're using as either helpful, neutral or unhelpful in achieving your goal. Eliminate unhelpful ones, make neutrals... more... - Lit

"Spatial location is closely connected to the formation of new memories. Until now, grid cells were thought to be part of a single unified map system. New findings from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology demonstrate that the grid system is in fact composed of a number of independent grid maps, each with unique properties. Each map displays a particular resolution (mesh size), and responds independently to changes in the environment. A system of several distinct grid maps can support a large number of unique combinatorial codes used to associate new memories formed with specific spatial information. (...) Your brain has at least four different senses of location – and perhaps as many as 10. And each is different. (...) This independence can be used by the brain to create new combinations - many combinations - which is a very useful tool for memory formation. (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

:-) - Amira

"Brain Power: From Neurons to Networks is a 10-minute film and an accompanying TED Book. Based on new research on how to best nurture children’s brains from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child and University of Washington’s I-LABS, the film explores the parallels between a child’s brain development and the development of the global brain of Internet, offering insights into the best ways to shape both. The film and TEDBook launched at the California Academy of Sciences on November 8, 2012." http://bit.ly/QCcAnn - Amira from Bookmarklet

"Since the days of the ancient Greeks, scientists have wondered why the ear prefers harmony. Now, scientists suggest that the reason may go deeper than an aversion to the way clashing notes abrade auditory nerves; instead, it may lie in the very structure of the ear and brain, which are designed to respond to the elegantly spaced structure of a harmonious sound. (...) If the chord is harmonic, or “consonant,” the notes are spaced neatly enough so that the individual fibers of the auditory nerve carry specific frequencies to the brain. By perceiving both the parts and the harmonious whole, the brain responds to what scientists call harmonicity. (...)" - Amira

“Beating is the textbook explanation for why people don’t like dissonance, so our study is the first real evidence that goes against this assumption” (...)“It suggests that consonance rests on the perception of harmonicity, and that, when questioning the innate nature of these preferences, one should study harmonicity and not beating.” (...) “Sensitivity to harmonicity is important in... more... - Amira

See also: Listen: The Music of a Human Brain http://www.wired.com/wiredsc... - Amira

"A number of research studies have identified a link between improved cognitive functioning and exercise in elderly people.  A 2004 study, for example, found that exercise did, in fact, improve the cognitive functioning of elderly people with cognitive impairments or dementia.  In an analysis of more than 30 years of data and 2,020 subjects, this study found that groups who exercised fared better in terms of mental acuity than those who did not exercise." - Lit from Bookmarklet

“Even ten minutes can change your brain,” says Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey, author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. According to Ratey, exercise increases the level of brain chemicals called growth factors. It is these growth factors that help make new brain cells and establish new connections between brain cells to help us learn. - Lit

"Psychologists speak of “heuristics,” which are shortcuts in thinking that we use to get quickly to a solution. Imagine that you’re trying to solve an anagram. It’s pretty easy to use trial and error when you’re dealing with only a few letters (e.g. “YOU”), but as soon as you’ve got 7, 8, or 9 letters to unscramble, trial and error could take you a very long time (e.g. “VERAUNTDE”).   You’ll need a heuristic such as “RE” often go together as do “A” and “D.”  Using such rules of English words, you’ll more easily and quickly arrive at the solution (“ADVENTURE”)." - Lit from Bookmarklet

"...Apart from the entertainment value that the affect heuristic can produce, it can also cause us to loosen our inhibitions. As the insurance example above showed, we buy things that make us feel good. Even without directly manipulating us through advertising, however, marketers also get us to make choices by the way they show or describe their products. Slovic and his co-authors point... more... - Lit

"How did humans acquire language? In this lecture, best-selling author Steven Pinker introduces you to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar. He also explores why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution. Finally, Pinker touches on the wide variety of applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature." - Amira from Bookmarklet

*bookmarked for when my brain is fully booted* - Eivind

"What is the genesis of Funes the Memorious, the Jorge Luis Borges story about a mnemonist that fascinates neuroscientists, and is as famed a fictional treatise on memory as anything but Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past? (...) Funes the Memorious” tells the vicissitudes of Ireneo Funes, a peasant from Fray Bentos, who after falling off a horse and hitting his head hard recovers consciousness with the incredible skill—or perhaps curse—of remembering absolutely everything. (...) Borges again plays with the infinite in a context no less fascinating: the vast labyrinths of memory and the consequences of having an unlimited capacity to remember. (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

"Borges argues that “Funes the Memorious” is a long metaphor of insomnia. In fact, toward the end of the story he mentions that Funes found sleeping difficult, because to sleep is to get distracted from the world. Borges gives more details on the way he conceived Funes during his own sleepless nights. (...) Imagine the most extreme example, a human being who does not possess the power... more... - Amira

"[Bezos] doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today. He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary. \\ What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time." - Adriano from Bookmarklet

http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos... ;-) - Amira

tabloid version, "The Simulation Argument: Why the Probability that You Are Living in a Matrix is Quite High" http://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix... -- but ad infinitum, "if our universe were one of many being simulated, the simulation argument could therefore be statistically applied to the creators saying they are in a simulation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... \\ Discuss wormhole: http://www.quora.com/How-wou... -- but the Dream Argument keeps it simple: "the mind's ability to create simulated realities during REM sleep affects the statistical likelihood of our own reality being simulated." - Adriano from Bookmarklet

good comments on the Beane paper, https://www.quora.com/Physics... "How is the vision of the universe as a computer simulation considered among modern physicists?" - Adriano

Eye-opener! publication bias practically constitutes research fraud... "When a new drug gets tested, the results of the trials should be published for the rest of the medical world -- except much of the time, negative or inconclusive findings go unreported, leaving doctors and researchers in the dark. In this impassioned talk, Ben Goldacre explains why these unreported instances of negative data are especially misleading and dangerous." - Adriano