NKU Cognitive Neuroscience

Powerpoint with audio lecture

a biased mind can handle uncertainty more efficiently and robustly than an unbiased mind relying on more resource-intensive and general-purpose processing strategies (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

I will raise some questions about Tye's argument. I will not challenge his claims about how Burgean intuitions apply to phenomenal concepts. Nor will I deny that those claims create problems for the phenomenal concept strategy, as it is usually formulated. Instead, I will suggest that there is a viable fallback position available to the phenomenal concept strategist: a revised strategy. (BrainPains)

Furlong and Opfer do a nice set of experiments showing that we can be lured into making decisions by numbers that seem bigger than they really are. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

One of the mysteries of gambling is that even when we should know we're going to lose, we somehow think we're going to win. Dr. Luke Clark, from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, may have discovered one of the reasons why. Using MRI, he studied brain activity in people gambling, looking particularly at "near misses" in which a loss seems close to a win. He found that the brain activated the same reward system that is activated in a real win, despite the fact that people report that these near misses are unpleasant. (CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | February 21, 2009)

Tired of all that mushy nonsense that comes with Valentine's Day - the schmaltzy cards, the heart-shaped box of chocolates, the earnest whispers and secret nothings? It's about time someone took a cold, harsh look at love and expose it for what it really is: chemistry. That's right, forget about magic - when you boil it down, love is nothing more than a molecular stew, sloshing around inside our skulls. Researchers have begun to identify these compounds and understand exactly what they do.

Neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have conducted the most comprehensive brain mapping to date of the cognitive abilities measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the most widely used intelligence test in the world. The results offer new insight into how the various factors that comprise an "intelligence quotient" (IQ) score depend on particular regions of the brain.

Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, a recent book by philosopher Andy Clark is reviewed by Melvyn Goodale in Nature, and I pass on some clips from his review, because Clark's views exactly mirror the sentiments expressed in my Biology of Mind Book. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

Now the area of the brain which controls jealousy has been found, scientists have ­announced. (Mail Online)

another interesting study from the group at Wellcome Center group at University College associated with Ray Dolan - cognitive neuroscience that is directly relevant to our current economic and political reality: (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

Of course, it should be noted that there may be alternate architectures that incorporate forward models satisfying criteria for being sensory. However, the core idea of a forward model does not alone satisfy such criteria. It is also worth noting that the characterization of imagery as the willful reactivation of input systems threatens to make the imagery account collapse into a kind of non-sensory view. This is so if a crucial part of a state's being imagery is its activation of a control signal. (Brain Hammer)

In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

Jim Schnabel offers a brief essay in NatureNews on neuroscientists who are suggesting that is effectiveness of drug intervention programs is related to their strengthening of executive frontal lobe functions. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

FORA.tv

there is growing evidence that animals share functional parallels with human conscious metacognition -- that is, they may share humans' ability to reflect upon, monitor or regulate their states of mind.

Envy and schadenfreude (gloating over the other's misfortune) are social emotions widely agreed to be a symptom of the human social tendency to compare one's payoffs with those of others. Given the important social components of envy and gloating, we speculated that oxytocin may have a modulating effect on the intensity of these emotions.

A new study says so-called "heavy multitaskers" have trouble tuning out distractions and switching tasks compared with those who multitask less. And there's evidence that multitasking may weaken cognitive ability. Stanford University professor Clifford Nass explains the work.

The first step in figuring out how the human mind arose is determining what distinguishes our mental processes from those of other creatures

An overview of neuroethics and neurolaw that covers a lot of ground, from Phineas Gage to comas. Ways that the brain controls behaviour, issues of responsibility and accountability in the legal system, decision making, recidivism and rehabilitation, predicting violence, the hype and reality of fMRI lie detectors and the implicit association test (IAT), and more. Mentions a clinical trial that's testing neurofeedback for controlling cravings.