Group items tagged

CERTAIN SOUNDS TAKE PRIORITY

PAST IMAGES AFFECT PRESENT PERCEPTION

COLOR INFLUENCES TASTE

In a world in which a phone or computer is rarely more than arm’s length away, are we eliminating introspection at times that may have formerly been conducive to it? And is the depth of that reflection compromised because we have retrained ourselves to seek out the immediate gratification of external stimuli?

But our solipsism is frequently given outward expression rather than inward exploration, with more emphasis than ever before on images.

in which they correlated introspective ability with the amount of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. (Introspective ability was defined for the study as the accuracy of measuring one’s own performance on a visual-perception task, a sign of metacognition, or “thinking about thinking.”)

On the other hand, Psychology deals with the study of the mind and its behavior.

Philosophy also deals with the relationship of man to the Almighty and the supreme force responsible for the creation of life in this universe.

They believe that behavior is more important since it can be observed. Psychology is a developing field of study and has a number of branches, catering to all aspects of the human life.

Various studies point to the conclusion that subjecting the mind to formal discipline — as when studying geometry or Latin — does not, in general, engender a broad transfer of learning. There is no sweeping increase of a general capacity for tasks like writing a speech or balancing a checkbook.

Many reasons have been advanced for this poor showing, including the lack of relevance of such an abstract exercise to people’s daily lives.

Most people reflexively eliminate the cards not explicitly specified in the rule (the F and the 2) and then continue with slower, more analytic processing only for the E and the 5. In this, they rely on an initial snap judgment about superficial similarity, a tendency that some scholars speculate evolved in humans because in most real-world contexts, quickly detecting such similarities is a good strategy for survival.

I understand why scientifically minded people experience profound frustration at the nonsense, particularly when we’re forced to consider the public health implications of the anti-vaxxer movement which has been blamed as the root cause for recent outbreaks of measles in the US, a viral infection which can prove devastating for babies and young children. Misinformation can cause immense suffering and we should do our utmost to dispel the lies.

Too many people in scientific spheres seem to revel in dismissing flat-Earthers and anti-vaxxers as garden variety nut-jobs and losers. It may be cathartic – but it’s not productive.

It’s interesting that for a scientific community so perennially pleased with itself, we all seem to be making the same fundamental attribution error by ignoring the notion that belief in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories is propelled by external pressures of fear, confusion and disempowerment. Instead we seem too often satisfied with pinning the nonsense on some bizarrely flourishing individual idiocy.

President Trump is known to say what's on his mind, to go with his gut and accentuate the positive. That approach is now colliding with a public health emergency in the form of coronavirus.

The challenge posed by Trump's breezy style was on full display Wednesday night in an interview in which he disputed the World Health Organization's recent coronavirus death rate estimate of 3.4%. "Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number," Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News. "Now, this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor."

It's a challenge for any politician to accurately convey public health messages: to encourage preparedness and avoid inciting fear without underplaying or overselling the risks. That challenge is particularly acute for Trump given his free-flowing communications style. During the interview, Trump also revealed that he was concerned that repatriating Americans from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was held in Japan last month would "look bad" because it would increase the total number of coronavirus cases in the United States. "I felt we had to do it. And, in one way, I hated to do it statistically," Trump said.

to really understand the problem with Facebook we need to understand the structural roots of that problem, how much of it is baked into the core architecture of the site and its very business model

much of it is inherent in the core strategies of the post-2000, second wave Internet tech companies that now dominate our information space and economy.

Facebook is an ingenious engine for information and ideational manipulation.

Obama gives readers more than a mere recitation of events. He offers an insider’s peek into his thought process

Obama’s well-earned reputation as someone who could overthink almost anything is one reason fellow writers, especially in the media, found him so fascinating

Trump’s supporters found his “honesty” refreshing, by which they meant, he’s saying what I’m thinking, no matter how ignoble my thoughts.

Habits -- actions performed with little conscious thought and often unwittingly triggered by external cues -- are powerful influences on behavior and can be our greatest allies for positive change. But because they are so difficult to break, habits are also frequent saboteurs of personal progress.

The first thing to identify for yourself is the habit you want to work on, whether it's starting a new (good) one or ending an old (bad) one. That's a minor distinction, by the way. Eating healthier is eating less junk. Exercising more is being less sedentary. One is often the inverse of another.

We know what many of the most common areas of improvement are, at least when it comes to making resolutions. People want to lose weight, eat better, be more mindful, spend money more wisely, sleep better and improve relationships. By eliminating bad habits and starting new ones, you can succeed in most of these areas.

The attending physician at the intensive care unit had called that morning and asked whether they should include a Do Not Resuscitate order in my dad's chart. They had asked before. I had been indecisive. A successful resuscitation would extend his life. But it might also lead to brain damage.

"If it continues in this direction," he told me, "we're talking about a single-digit chance of survival."

I suspected that my father had a will and a health care directive inside the house. I put on my mask but couldn't find a clean pair of latex gloves in my duffel bag. It was cold in the backyard. I had a pair of leather gloves. I put those on and entered my childhood home for the first time in weeks. My mother barely registered my presence. She was crying on the couch.

oe Biden said Wednesday that Democrats have "had enough" debates, suggesting he is unwilling to have another one-on-one showdown with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"If there is a debate in April, he plans to be there," Sanders communications director Mike Casca said Tuesday.

"I think we need a good debate as to where we go, not only just now but in the future," Sanders told Cooper. "And to my mind, if there's anything that this unexpected moment in American history should teach us, we've got to rethink the basic structures of American society, and that is guaranteed health care to all as a human right, creating an economy that provides for all people not just the wealthy."

Plants play an important role for most indigenous communities in South America, and not merely as a source of food. They also provide the raw material for building materials, tools, medicine, and much more. The extinction of a plant species therefore also endangers the very foundation of these people's way of life. advertisement

The problem is that this is not written down. Passed down as a cultural inheritance, it exists only in the minds of the people -- and could therefore vanish almost unnoticed. "Very little is known about how vulnerable this knowledge is in the context of current global change," says Jordi Bascompte, professor of ecology at the University of Zurich.

"There is therefore an urgent need to find out how biological and cultural factors interact with each other in determining the services provided by biodiversity.."

We may be biased, but we think the human brain is pretty special.

This myth is so prevalent that it is unquestioningly accepted as a pivotal plot point in movies, a motivational tactic for self-improvement, or justification for claims about ESP and other supposed untapped abilities of the human mind. A 2013 poll surveying over 2000 Americans found that 65 percent believed the 10 percent myth. A 2007 study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that even some doctors weren't immune to the fallacy. But the truth is that everyone uses 100 percent of their brain.

Decades later, the myth has persevered because of the attractive possibility it seems to present. It absolves us for not reaching our full potential, offers a persistent insecurity for self-help gurus to appeal to, and provides a pseudo-scientific explanation for the limits of human comprehension. 

the effort we put into growing our workforce, we often forget the one person who is in constant need of development: ourselves. In particular, we neglect the soft skills that are vital to becoming the best professional possible — one of them being critical thinking.

In short, the ability to think critically is the art of analyzing and evaluating data for a practical approach to understanding the data, then determining what to believe and how to act.

There are times where an answer just needs to be given and given right now. But that doesn't mean you should make a decision just to make one. Sometimes, quick decisions can fall flat

People tend to think of memories as deeply personal, ephemeral possessions — snippets of emotions, words, colors and smells stitched into our unique neural tapestries as life goes on. But a strange series of experiments conducted decades ago offered a different, more tangible perspective. The mind-bending results have gained unexpected support from recent studies.

Don’t get too creeped out, but there are a whole lot of people walking around right now with a map of your face in their brains. But at least it’s a two-way street—you have their faces mapped in yours, too. That’s the conclusion of a recent report published in the journal Cortex. Social animals depend on being able to recognize one another. All monkeys might look the same to you, but you can be sure that they can tell each other apart. The same is true for humans. The ability to identify another person is a vital part of social interaction, which is an essential part of our lives. 

For that reason, our brains seem to devote a lot of real estate to facial recognition. Scientists believe that most of the work of facial perception happens in two brain sections: the occipital face area (OFA) and the fusiform face area (FFA). But it wasn’t clear how those regions managed recognition. 

The “vice of conformism” is a temptation for all faculty and students, they argue, due to a climate rife with group think, where it is “all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion” on a campus or in academia generally.

It leads them to suppose dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them. Since no one wants to be, or be thought of, as a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.

Because in their view, “the central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker,” and “open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth.”

One afternoon in April 1929, a journalist from a Moscow newspaper turned up in Alexander Luria’s office with an unusual problem: He never forgot things.Dr. Luria, a neuropsychologist, proceeded to test the man, who later became known as subject S., by spouting long strings of numbers and words, foreign poems and scientific formulas, all of which S. recited back without fail. Decades later, S. still remembered the lists of numbers perfectly whenever Dr. Luria retested him.

“We’re inundated with so much information every day, and much of that information is turned into memories in the brain,” said Ronald Davis, a neurobiologist at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla. “We simply cannot deal with all of it.”

Researchers like Dr. Davis argue that forgetting is an active mechanism that the brain employs to clear out unnecessary pieces of information so we can retain new ones. Others have gone a step further, suggesting that forgetting is required for the mental flexibility inherent in creative thinking and imagination.

I thought about the sales people I worked with, and the really good sales people I have known. The best are persistent, persuasive, strategic thinkers, energetic, able to offer compelling arguments to overcome resistance. Many, as you would expect, are really good talkers. But if I had to pick just one quality, that all of these individuals share, it would be this: The ability to listen.

Most of us don't really listen very well. Or if we do manage to listen, we are often just waiting until the other person finishes so that we can say what is on OUR mind. And that's not really listening.

Try really listening to a difficult business colleague or client. And when they finish, don't let your self-assertion jump in with "yes, but.....". Get rid of the word "but" altogether, it only serves to negate everything the person you are listening to has just said. Instead, if you do say anything, try asking "What else?"