MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'cognitive psychology'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:17:09 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4302190&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FY4Cf0l5FmIA%2F Think we all have different tastes where beauty is concerned? Well, cognitive psychology shows us that an average face (made from several other faces) is almost always judged as more attractive than its constituent faces… Why? It may be for the simple reason that an average face is closer to the mental idea we have of a prototypical face and thus easier for the brain to process. Want to experience it? Follow this link to the the Face Research Lab and create your own average faces. Enjoy. Happy stimulating New Year to you! (Source: SharpBrains) SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4302190 Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:32:55 +0100 4302190 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3133638&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2009%2F12%2F31%2Fthe-future-of-psychiatry-5-reasons-for-optimism%2F After reading the last chapter of the book, Demystifying Psychiatry, I felt so much better about where psychiatry might be when my kids are my age. Perhaps, if either is ever diagnosed with a mental illnesses, there will be more targeted treatments, and more optimism for a speedy recovery. Here are a few reasons we can be optimistic about the future of psychiatry: 1. Interdisciplinary Studies Over the next 50 to 100 years, neuroscience research will lead scientists to understand in exquisite detail how humans process information, express and regulate emotions, and motivate themselves to achieve specific goals. This information will affect many clinical and scientific disciplines, including neurology, psychology, biomedical engineering, and computer sciences, but it will likely pay its grea... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3133638 Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:15:13 +0100 3133638 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3083095&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F7QQyLFTa_zw%2Fthe-psychology-of-success-934.html It is my belief that at the centre of our misunderstanding of success and creativity lays our ego.  In the deep dark depths of our psyche we allow mutual myth perpetuation and self-importance to cloud the truth about “talent”.  That is, that all those artists, designers and thinkers would have to admit that they did not simply sit and spark perfection from nowhere but their brilliant brains.  But instead undertook arduous processes, leading them on twists and turns of trial and error and accidental discovery.  They in fact refined and scrapped many ideas or images in their search that were not quite there before they worked their way to that revelation of understanding. So the truth is not as mystical or magical.  But for those young minds like mine developing and wondering what t... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3083095 Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:23:20 +0100 3083095 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3039858&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F11%2F30%2Fmotivated-judicial-reasoning%2F In her recent book, Law, Politics, and Perception: How Policy Preferences Influence Legal Reasoning (2009), Eileen Braman examines how policy preferences and legal authority interact to influence judicial decision making.  Here’s the book’s abstract. * * * Are judges’ decisions more likely to be based on personal inclinations or legal authority? The answer, Eileen Braman argues, is both. Law, Politics, and Perception brings cognitive psychology to bear on the question of the relative importance of norms of legal reasoning versus decision markers’ policy preferences in legal decision-making. While Braman acknowledges that decision makers’ attitudes—or, more precisely, their preference for policy outcome... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3039858 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:01:56 +0100 3039858 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2441590&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F04oz160933E%2Feyewitness-testimony-can-you-really-trust-your-own-eyes-851.html We all like to think that we have good memories for events and that if we were to be witness to a crime or incident that we would be able to recall in detail the events of the day. However our memories are not that reliable at all.  This has implications on many levels, but especially in the courtroom and with the police. For example: “Some researchers in Bologna demonstrate the spectacular hopelessness of memory. One morning in 1980, a bomb exploded in Bologna station: 85 people died, and the clock stopped ominously showing 10.25, the time of the explosion. This image became a famous symbol for the event, but the clock was repaired soon after, and worked perfectly for the next 16 years. When it broke again in 1996, it was decided to leave the clock showing 10.25 permanently, as a memor... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2441590 Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:58 +0100 2441590 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2320463&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FDJUyXt6ocL8%2F Learning can be incidental. We all memorize facts without paying much attention to these facts or without willing to memorize them. However, when one really wants to memorize a fact, it is crucial to pay attention. Many studies have shown that compared to full attention conditions, dividing attention during study time leads to poor memory performance. This exercise will help you practice focusing your attention. It may seem easy but make sure you count twice! Count the number of “Y” in this text: Yesterday, Lucy went all the way to Boston. She wanted to buy new shoes. She had to go in many shops before she found the shoes she wanted. She was happy to stop at a restaurant to have some tea and cookies before she took the train back home. Count the number of “E” in this text: Last sum... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2320463 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:19:54 +0100 2320463 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2160939&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F531109479%2F We present a very complex task, mixing different forms of stimuli (auditory, visual) under time pressure. - Designed for Transferability: The tasks can be designed in a way that do not allow for the development of task-specific "strategies" to beat the game. One needs to truly expand capacity, and this helps ensure the transfer of to non-trained tasks." brain age, Brain Training, brain training games, cognitive benefits, cognitive psychology, crossword puzzles, enhance intelligence, fluid intelligence, intelligence, Lieury, nintendo, Nintendo Brain Age, nintendo brain training, Rise of Nations, videogame (Source: SharpBrains) SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2160939 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:14:48 +0100 2160939 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1911395&cid=t_100406_133_f&fid=35129&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwhitterer-autism.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F10%2Ftry-and-tackle-it-tuesday-slimline.html I have adopted the American way. I will not whisper the word Christmas or the Holidays until after Thanksgiving, my new favourite holiday. However just this once I am breaking my self imposed silence in the hope of broadcasting peaceful sanity during the season of clamour. There are 57 days left until the Holidays. Here’s your chance to get ahead of the hunt. Nip over to your library and borrow a book called "Unplug the Christmas Machine" by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. This will give you more than enough time to speed read your way through, so that you can figure out what, if anything, is important to you, and "jettison" all the stressful rest.I read this book about 5 years ago when my children were really small. It was a Christmas present from a jolly good American pal of m... Whitterer on Autism blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1911395 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:59:00 +0100 1911395 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2511019&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2Fwz0Pky7YTDM%2Fa-selection-of-strange-stories-theory-of-mind-autism-693.html Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers. In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories. This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers.... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2511019 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:57 +0100 2511019 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1876938&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F421039369%2Fa-selection-of-strange-stories-theory-of-mind-autism-693.html Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers. In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories. This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers.... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1876938 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:57 +0100 1876938 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2511021&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2Fcf5Hqz1qpJk%2Fautism-in-100-words-648.html A short article in the current BJ of Psychiatry where psychologits are asked to condense an important point, concept or theory into only 100 words.  A need for succinctness required.  This time around Baron-Cohen was asked for Autism in 100 words … here’s what he said:  Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) occur in 1% of the population, are strongly heritable, and result from atypical neurodevelopment. Classic autism and Asperger Syndrome (AS) share difficulties in social functioning, communication and coping with change, alongside unusually narrow interests. IQ is average or above in AS with average or even precocious age of language onset. Many areas within the ’social brain’ are atypical in ASC. ASC has a profile of impaired empathy alongside strong ’syste... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2511021 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:14 +0100 2511021 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1848507&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F409739249%2Fautism-is-it-all-in-the-eyes-623.html I’ve written a lot about Autism here over the years and spoken about the different ways in which it has been suggested it was possible to find out if a person or child was autistic; from the Sally-Anne test to this more recent suggestion from Baron-Cohen et al. - the eyes and emotion recognition.  In his 1997 study Baron-Cohen used adult participants with autism or Aspergers and compared there ability to recognise emotions from only seeing the eyes of a target person with ‘normal’ participants and further group of participants with Tourettes.  He found that those with Autism performed significantly worse on the ‘eye task’.  He suggested that this could have significance relating to those with autism’s poor social skills and difficulty with social ... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1848507 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:18 +0100 1848507 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1646501&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F07%2F22%2Fkevin-jon-heller-on-the-cognitive-psychology-of-mens-rea%2F Kevin Jon Heller, a law professor at the University of Auckland and contributor to the Opinio Juris blog, has recently posted on SSRN his essay “The Cognitive Psychology Mens Rea.” Below is an abstract of the essay, which can be downloaded for free at this link. * * * Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea - the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty. Few today would disagree with the maxim; the criminal law has long since rejected the idea that causing harm should be criminal regardless of the defendant’s subjective culpability. Still, the maxim begs a critical question: can jurors accurately determine whether the defendant acted with the requisite guilty mind? Given the centrality of mens rea to criminal responsibility, we would expect legal sc... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1646501 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:00:35 +0100 1646501 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1643155&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F337367929%2Fmilgram-would-i-pull-that-switch-405.html One of the most talked about studies, both here on PsychBLOG and throughout popular psychology, is Milgram’s study of obedience.  Here he asked a volunteer sample of men from the New Haven area to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person (a confederate).  How many people, both teachers and students alike asked themselves the same question: would I pull that switch? The results from his study (well what was actually a series of studies) can force one to reflect heavily on the behaviour of the participants in the study, but also a lot closer to home.  A recent article in the New York Times titled ‘Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?’ puts a great perspective on the research as a whole. Consider the psychologist Stanley Milgram... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1643155 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:48:01 +0100 1643155 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2523114&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2FMeJbWWTEAX0%2Ffart_spray_and_disgust_more_ge.php In this study, Schnall et al. found that, for participants with high "private body consciousness" scores (that is, high awareness of their own internal feelings), disgust significantly increased the severity of their moral judgments overall, while for participants with low "private body consciousness," there was no effect of disgust on the severity of their moral judgments. They replicated this result in a third experiment involving a different disgust manipulation (having participants write about a disgusting experience). Finally, in their fourth and final study, Schnall et al. added a sadness condition, to show that the effects observed in the previous study were specific to disgust. In this experiment, sadness and disgust were induced by watching videos previously shown to induce thos... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2523114 Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:05:59 +0100 2523114 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2523120&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2FCqSxe83UYes%2Fpsychological_essentialism_in.php There's an interesting short paper by Paul Bloom and Susan Gelman in the July issue of Trends in Cognitive Science with that title. Unfortunately, it's not yet available without a subscription (though Bloom tends to put his papers on his website once published, so it might show up there sometime in the near future), but if you have a subscription or access to a university library, you can read it here. If you're not familiar with the idea, "psychological essentialism" is the belief that entities have an internal set of necessary properties, or an essence, that make them what they are. For example, people tend to believe that there's something about tigers (their DNA, perhaps) that make them tigers. There's a great deal of evidence that people are "psychological essentialists" about natura... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2523120 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:02:16 +0100 2523120 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1512546&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F310139058%2F This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon, Copyright 2008. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area. Brain exercises, Brain games, Brain teasers, cognitive, cognitive processes, cognitive psychology, frontal lobes, mind teasers, occipital lobes, parietal lobes, Pascale Michelon, short term memory, Spot the Difference, the brain (Source: SharpBrains) SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1512546 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:05:18 +0100 1512546 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1449243&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F291894194%2Fgetting_grows_to_clean_up_afte.php Interesting (and short) video of a talk by Joshua Klein (via HENRY) on how smart crows are, and how we might use their intelligence: Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1449243 Fri, 16 May 2008 21:44:21 +0100 1449243 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1424072&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F284403277%2F As you have probably noticed, a growing number of Expert Contributors are writing in our blog, so that we can collectively discuss the latest research and trends on cognitive and brain health, and the implications of brain research in general for our everyday lives.  If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter (above) and our RSS feed (on the right). Below you have the profiles of some of our Contributors and links to their best articles with us so far. Enjoy! Dr. Pascale Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1424072 Tue, 06 May 2008 05:16:08 +0100 1424072 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1416673&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36506&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FBrainSciencePodcastBlog%2F%7E3%2F282183434%2F Discussion Forum Audience Survey Subscribe via iTunes™ Subscribe in a reader or podcatcher Subscribe to Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell by Email Donations and Subscriptions are appreciated (Source: the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell) the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1416673 Fri, 02 May 2008 15:41:23 +0100 1416673 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1310936&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F253739546%2Fgirls_talk_gooder_take_that_me_3.php OK, so where did this myth that feminists not only believe that there are no differences, across the population, between men and women, but also actively suppress scientific research that inevitably discovers such differences, come from? I mean, has anyone actually seen feminists do this? Apparently one student at Ohio State has, though she doesn't provide any examples. But I certainly haven't. I mean, I know there was an uproar among feminists and pretty much any rational person over the whole Larry Summers thing, but here's some news: Summers isn't a gender differences researcher. He's not really a researcher of any sort. And if you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that research on gender differences in math has exploded in the last three or four years, without any object... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1310936 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:31:14 +0100 1310936 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1305653&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F252160568%2Fstatic_motion.php I really do love illusions of all sorts, in large part because they fit nicely into my narrative about the fallibility of human thought, but illusions are also great as windows into the ordinary working of our brains. For example, color afterimages provide direct evidence for opponent-processing theories of color vision, and when we find aftereffects for a particular class of stimuli, we can be pretty certain that class of stimuli has particular neurons or populations of neurons that encode it. And speaking of aftereffects, there's a really cool paper in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science that uses motion aftereffects to test an interesting hypothesis about the processing of static images that I thought I'd tell you about. The classic example of the motion aftereffect is... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1305653 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:00:23 +0100 1305653 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1643176&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F241971544%2Focr-psychology-for-as-with-dynamic-learning-cd-342.html Hodder Education presents OCR Psychology for AS a brand new text for the 2008 OCR AS Psychology specification, covering all 15 core studies, contextualising, presenting and evaluating each study in full, in order to make it relevant to the student. The textbook is highly accessible and readable, with useful guidance on comparing studies, applying themes, and learning key concepts and terminology. Each study is introduced in detail, with background, aims and methods to fully contextualise it and the book comes complete with a Dynamic Learning CD-ROM for students and a Dynamic Learning Network Edition CD-ROM for teachers. Fully tailored to the new 2008 OCR Psychology specification this resource is supported by Student CD-ROM and a Network Edition CD-ROM for teachers. Both the book and the s... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1643176 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:28:19 +0100 1643176 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1220147&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F232227369%2F This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area.     Solutions 1. LOCK – PIANO > KEY 2. SHIP – CARD > Deck 3. TREE – CAR > Trunk 4. SCHOOL – EYE > Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible) 5. PILLOW – COURT > Case 6. RIVER – MONEY > Bank (Flow is also possible) 7. BED – PAPER > Sheet 8. ARMY – WATER > Tank 9. TENNIS – NOISE... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1220147 Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:14:07 +0100 1220147 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1204599&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F229280390%2Ffalse_autobiographical_memorie.php One of the criticisms of most false memory research is that it lacks ecological validity. For example, in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, a common method for inducing false memories in the lab, involves giving participants a bunch of words (e.g., bed, rest, nap, snore, etc.) that are all associated with another word that's not presented (e.g., sleep). During recall, if you ask participants if they saw the word "sleep" after seeing a list of its associates, they're pretty likely to tell you that they did. But it's difficult to know how to generalize the DRM to real-world situations. So it's always exciting to see researchers attempting to create more ecologically valid paradigms to study false memories. And the current issue of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review just happens to ... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1204599 Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:37:18 +0100 1204599 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1173748&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F221904237%2F This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area. Alzheimer’s disease, brain, brain damage, brain scans, CAT scans, cognitive brain reserve, cognitive psychology, Education, fit brains, fMRI scans, Functional imaging, healthy brain, higher education, intellectual stimulation, Memory Workshops mental stimulation, MRI scans, museums, neural activity,... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1173748 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:53:52 +0100 1173748 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1156730&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F217977742%2Fembodied_cognition_in_the_bost.php In case you haven't seen it already, there's an article on the embodied cognition "revolution" in the Boston Globe. This, I think, is the best point to take away from it: "I think these findings are really fantastic and it's clear that there's a lot of connection between mind and body," says Arthur Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas. He remains skeptical, though, that the roots of higher cognition will be found in something as basic as the way we walk or move our eyes or arms. "Any time there's a fad in science there's a tendency to say, 'It's all because of this,"' Markman says. "But the thing in psychology is that it's not all anything, otherwise we'd be done figuring it out already." Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1156730 Thu, 17 Jan 2008 02:29:15 +0100 1156730 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1136752&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F213192185%2Fgoogle_predicts_memory_and_pro.php There's a paper in the December 2007 issue of Psychological Science titled "Google and the Mind: Predicting Fluency With PageRank." Here's the abstract: Griffiths, T.L., Steyvers, M., & Firl, A. (2007). Google and the mind: Predicting fluency with PageRank. Psychological Science, 18(12), 1069-1076. Abstract Human memory and Internet search engines face a shared computational problem, needing to retrieve stored pieces of information in response to a query. We explored whether they employ similar solutions, testing whether we could predict human performance on a fluency task using PageRank, a component of the Google search engine. In this task, people were shown a letter of the alphabet and asked to name the first word beginning with that letter that came to mind. We show that PageRank, c... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1136752 Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:00:04 +0100 1136752 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1132270&cid=t_100406_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F212264461%2F Dr. Robert Sylwester is an educator of educators, having received multiple awards during his long career as a master communicator of the implications of brain science research for education and learning. He is the author of several books and many journal articles, and member of our Scientific Advisory Board. His most recent book is The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy (Corwin Press, 2007). He is an Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Oregon. I am honored to interview him today. Alvaro Fernandez: Let's start with that eternal source of debate. What do we know about the respective roles of genes and our environment in brain development? Robert Sylwester: Genetic and environmental factors both contribute to brain maturation. Genetics probably play a stronger role in... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1132270 Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:41:45 +0100 1132270 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1124139&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F209554192%2Fcognitive_load_and_moral_judgm.php I've been posting about moral cognition anytime a new and interesting result pops up for a while now, and every time I think I've said before, though it bears repeating, that every time I read another article on moral cognition, I'm more confused than I was before reading it. Part of the problem, I think, stems from a tendency towards theoretical extremes. For a long time, in fact for most of the history of moral psychology, empirical or otherwise, some form of "rationalism" dominated. That is the view that there are ethical rules in our heads, and that moral judgment involve applying those rules to the situation to be judged. More recently, moral psychologists have argued that moral judgment may be much less "rational" than previously believed. In the extreme view, represented most explic... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1124139 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:29:27 +0100 1124139 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=959703&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F171415370%2Fwomen_in_math_science_and_engi_1.php There's a fair amount of evidence that spatial reasoning abilities and spatial attention are an important constituent of secondary math skills (basically everything after basic algebra)(1), and it stands to reason that secondary math skills are an important determinant of success in math-heavy careers. There's also a pretty large body of evidence that, on average, females perform worse than males on spatial reasoning and spatial attention tasks (e.g., the classic mental rotation task), and this difference is often taken to be one of the major factors in sex differences in math ability(2). It's almost certainly the case that there's an innate component to spatial reasoning abilities, but it's not clear how much, and in what way, environmental factors influence spatial reasoning abilities (a... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=959703 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:14:41 +0100 959703 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=880074&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2FHasheretalFalseData.JPG Why are so many people convinced that we only use 10% of our brains, or that Eskimos have n words for snow, where n is as high as you need it to be for the desired rhetorical effect? Or more seriously, why have some people, particularly Fox News viewers (no, really), persistently believed in Saddam Hussein's involvement in 9/11? Why does that used car salesman who waves at you as you drive by the dealership on the way to work every morning look so trustworthy, even though you know used car salespeople are never, ever, under any circumstances to be trusted? And why do you dig Henri Matisse's "The Dance" so much? The answer to each of these questions, and to every other question you will ever ask, is mirror neurons processing fluency. OK, processing fluency's not the whole answer to these qu... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=880074 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:31:34 +0100 880074 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=822277&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F08%2Fpinkcadillac.JPG Short answer, no. Duh. Long answer, man do I hate how psychology gets reported in the media. If you were surfing around news sites earlier this week, you might have come across something like this: A study in Current Biology reports some of the first conclusive evidence in support of the long-held notion that men and women differ when it comes to their favorite colors. Indeed, the researchers found that women really do prefer pink--or at least a redder shade of blue--than men do. Which quickly turned into this: Girls Really Do Prefer Pink The attraction may owe to evolutionary influences, researchers say Ugh. You don't even have to read the journal article (a letter, actually) to know that there's something fishy there, but let's go through the study by Hulbert and Ling(1) anyway. Th... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=822277 Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:51:52 +0100 822277 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=803504&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F08%2FObjectivismGraph.jpg There's a really interesting paper by Geoffrey Goodwin and John Darley in press at the journal Cognition on the subject of lay meta-ethics, and ethical objectivism specifically. That is, the paper explores the question, "How do lay individuals think about the objectivity of their ethical beliefs?" (from the abstract). The paper contains a ton of data, and I couldn't possibly do it justice in a blog post, but unfortunately, there's no free version online (if you have a subscription, you can read the paper here). So you'll have to do with my incomplete discussion of it. The paper is interesting because it is the first that I know of to take a direct look at how people view their own moral beliefs. There's plenty of literature on how people make ethical decisions (I've discussed some of it o... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=803504 Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:41:03 +0100 803504 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=790497&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F08%2Fqualitative_physics_and_qualit.php Over at one of her other blogospheric homes, Channel N, fellow ScienceBlogger has posted a link to a great talk on modeling qualitative physics by Ken Forbus. It was one of the earliest of the Cognitive Science Society's virtual colloquia, a series that it has, for some reason, discontinued. "Qualitative physics" is a semi-fancy name for everyday qualitative reasoning, and Forbus focuses on things like spatial reasoning, causal reasoning, and motion, and reasoning about physical processes. It's cool stuff. When you're done with that, you might want to check out this paper, in which Forbus and Sven Kuehne explore the possibility of using similar modeling techniques to model political reasoning. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=790497 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:30:39 +0100 790497 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=713954&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F07%2FHasson%2526Glucksberg2006Fig2.JPG Long, long ago, during my first summer as a grad student (technically, I wasn't even a student yet), in one of my first meetings with my graduate adviser, he suggested that I think about the problem of representing negation. The problem of representing negation? That seemed like an odd suggestion. I mean, I was looking for potential research projects, and negation, being so common in everyday speaking and thinking, seemed like an issue that would have been researched to death, so that there's little I could have done with it. But as the grad student saying goes, ours' is not to question why, at least not until we've officially registered for classes, so I asked for some references, and started reading up on negation. It turns out I was partially right -- a ton of work has been done on nega... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=713954 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:05:17 +0100 713954 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=694110&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F06%2Fchaterjeeetal1999Fig1.jpg Picture in your head one person throwing a ball to another. How were the two people oriented spatially? Was one on the left, and the other on the right? If so, which one was on the left, and which on the right? Chances are, the thrower was on the left, and the catcher was on the right. For some reason, that seems to be our default way of representing actions: with the actor on the right, the patient on the left, and the actions occurring from left to right(1), as in this beautifully drawn figure: Why is that? Good question, but before we answer it, let's look at some research. The most striking work on the relationship between language and the spatial representation of actions has been done by Chatterjee and his colleagues. They first looked at the relationship in a patient with profou... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=694110 Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:27:54 +0100 694110 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=674205&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F06%2Fprettybrain.JPG About a year ago, there was an article in Seed Magazine titled "Seduced by the Flickering Lights of the Brain," in which Paul Bloom argued that people are too easily seduced by neuroscience, believing that it made for good science, even when it doesn't. At the end of the article, Bloom mentioned a then unpublished study in which participants were more impressed with bad scientific explanations if they contained a bit of irrelevant neuroscience. Well, now the study, which is by Weisberg and a bunch of other people (apparently to write a paper about neuroscience, you have to have as many authors as an actual neurososcience paper would) is in press. There are three experiments instead of just the one, and it turns out that even neuroscience students are seduced by irrelevant neuroscience, tho... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=674205 Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:05:54 +0100 674205 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=644506&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F05%2FBloom%2526Weisberg.JPG A little over a year ago, I wrote a post describing some research showing that there are cognitive barriers to understanding evolution. There I listed three specific factors: Intuitive theism, in which our intuitions lead us to make design inferences about complex kinds or under conditions of uncertainty; intuitions that can be reinforced culturally to an extent that it may be almost impossible to overcome them by the time we reach adulthood. Intuitive essentialism, which causes us to believe that biological kinds have hidden internal essences which determine what they are, how they will behave, and what features they should have, and which may make us interpret evidence of adaptation in transformationalist, rather than Darwinian/modern biological varationist terms. The role of explanator... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=644506 Mon, 28 May 2007 14:30:37 +0100 644506 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=622980&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F05%2Fcomputerbrain.jpg Some of you who are interested in the history of psychology or philosophy of mind might find this paper interesting: Gentner, D., & Grudin, J. (1985). The evolution of mental metaphors in psychology: A 90-year retrospective. American Psychologist, 40(2), 181-192. Abstract It seems plausible that the conception of the mind has evolved over the first hundred years of psychology in America. In this research, we studied this evolution by tracing changes in the kinds of metaphors used by psychologists to describe mental phenomena . A corpus of metaphors from 1894 to the present was collected and examined. The corpus consisted of all metaphors for mental phenomena used in the first issue of Psychological Review in each decade, beginning with the inception of the journal in 1894 and continuin... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=622980 Fri, 18 May 2007 02:05:31 +0100 622980 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=611067&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F05%2FMeyers-Levy%2526ZhuAppendix.JPG File this one in the annals of "huh?" There's been a lot of research over the last decade or so on what only be described as the bizarre implicit priming of social concepts. In a typical experiment, participants are given lists or scrambled sentences that contain words associated with a particular stereotype or attitude and people will subsequently behave in a way that's consistent with that stereotype/attitude. For example, Bargh et al.1 gave participants scrambled sentences with words associated with the elderly (e.g., worried, old, lonely, and Florida... no seriously, Florida), told them they were done, and then timed their walk to the elevator. These participants walked slower ('cause old people are supposed to be slow) than participants who'd unscrambled sentences with neutral words. ... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=611067 Fri, 11 May 2007 15:12:29 +0100 611067 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=611068&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F05%2Fthe_amazing_color_changing_car_1.php Cool video (via Bill Benzon over at The Valve: A bit more below the fold, but only after you watch the video. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=611068 Thu, 10 May 2007 04:31:23 +0100 611068 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=554179&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F04%2Fhow_bad_was_abu_ghraib_it_depe_1.php I have to admit that I've been avoiding the "framing science" discussion that's been going on in the science blogosphere recently, mostly because I'd rather talk about what framing is and how it works than two author's rather vague ideas about how to use framing in a particular area of discourse. And because the Science article has made framing a hot topic again, and because it is clear from much of the discussion that many are still very confused about what framing is (if I see someone describe framing as "spin," again, I'm going to throw something at them), I think it's important to talk about framing itself. As I was sitting around thinking about exactly how I wanted to approach the topic, Science Direct was kind enough to send me a social psychology topic alert that included a paper in... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=554179 Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:16:41 +0100 554179 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=554180&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F04%2Fcognition_language_culture.php In the recent dust up over "framing science," there's been more hand waving than any actual discussion of, you know, framing. However, I was struck by one point that fellow ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet, one of the authors of the Science article that sparked this whole mess, made in comments to my post on the discussion. He wrote (emoticon removed, for your sanity): In part what we have across the various disciplines studying framing is a classic "levels of analysis" problem. Some working at the micro and cognitive level, others working at the macro and sociological level. My reaction that comment was pretty much the same as my reaction to most of his comments over the last couple weeks (including many in the article itself): ummm, no. It's not a level of analysis issue. It's an issue of di... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=554180 Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:42:43 +0100 554180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=505230&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F03%2Fjohn_rawls_and_cognitive_scien.php Some of you may find this book chapter interesting: Hauer, M.D., Young, L., & Cushman, F. (in press): Reviving Rawls' Linguistic Analogy: Operative principles and the causal structure of moral actions. In Moral Psychology and Biology. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=505230 Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:18:19 +0100 505230 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=501085&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F03%2Freddot.JPG When I was an undergrad, my intro psych professor mentioned research in industrial/organizational psychology indicating that the color red causes people to be happier and more productive, while blue makes people sadder and less productive. Later I was taught that the relationship between color and performance was actually more complex. Specifically, I was taught that colors with higher wave lengths (like red) cause arousal, while colors with smaller wavelengths are soothing. Until a couple years ago, though, I'd never actually read any research on the topic. My knowledge was all hearsay. Then I came across a paper in Nature that seemingly confirmed what I'd heard. In that paper, Hill and Barton1 found that wrestlers (Greco-Roman and freestyle) wearing red tended to win more matches than th... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=501085 Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:37:27 +0100 501085 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=473130&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F03%2Fframing_project_a_long_overdue.php I'm sure you've all long forgotten about the framing project that I discussed on this blog late last year, but in case someone out there remembers it, I wanted to give you an update. I still want to collect the category norms that I discussed. That is, I want to have people list features of political concepts like abortion, social security, war, etc., along with concepts related to Lakoff's framing analysis such as family, nation, and the like (if you'd like to help me write the code for this, let me know). However, not long after I discussed the project on this blog, my perspective changed in some fundamental ways. While I still think that schemas and structural alignment (ideas that I'd be happy to discuss in greater detail, if you're interested) are important, I now think their roles ar... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=473130 Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:03:02 +0100 473130 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467706&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F02%2Fghost.JPG Here's a nominee for strangest psychology experiment ever, or at least spookiest. Yesterday I talked about the theory that religion, or at least supernatural agent concepts, serve to activate representational concerns, and thus increase prosocial behavior, or decrease selfish behavior. The experiment I'm about to describe was designed to test part of that theory. But given how odd the experiment is, I don't really care what the theoretical motivations for it were. It's post-worthy simply by virtue of its bizzarness. The experiment, conducted by Bering et al.1, involved a boring enough task. They selected the 25 most difficult mental rotation problems (designed for "experienced users") from a common spatial reasoning test, and told participants that they were going to be completing a new a... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467706 Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:29:06 +0100 467706 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467711&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F02%2Fvoodoodoll.JPG This study tested whether college students might come to believe that they had caused another person pain through a voodoo curse when they had thoughts about the person consistent with such harm. Experimental participants assumed the role of "witch doctor" in an ostensible voodoo enactment involving a confederate as their "victim." To examine the influence of evil thoughts about the victim, we arranged for participants to encounter either a victim who was offensive or one who was neutral. After this encounter, participants were instructed to stick pins in a voodoo doll representing the victim, in the victim's presence. The victim subsequently responded by reporting a slight headache, and participants were queried about their reactions to this symptom. I've often said that much of social p... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467711 Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:25:52 +0100 467711 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467712&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F02%2Fhesitation_helps.php Here's something I didn't know1: Approximately 6 in every 100 words are affected by disfluency, including repetitions, corrections, and hesitations such as the fillers um and er. Moreover, the distribution of disfluency is not arbitrary. For example, fillers tend to occur before low frequency and unpredictable words, in circumstances where the speaker is faced with multiple semantic or syntactic possibilities, as well as in cases where other types of uncertainty occur. (p. 3) Well, I knew that I hesitate in speech a lot (my son will often say to me, "Stop saying 'um!'"), but I didn't realize disfluency that common in other people's speech as well. The fact that it is raises all sorts of interesting questions, some of which are answered by the above descriptions of the contexts in which d... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467712 Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:24:32 +0100 467712 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467713&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F02%2Fmoney_is_umm_food.php A while back, I linked to a paper analogically comparing money to drugs. Judging by the comments, those of you who read the paper weren't particularly impressed by it. But if you thought the money-drug analogy was odd, I've got a better one for you. If you recall, the money as a drug paper by Stephen E. G. Lea argues against a purely instrumental, "tool" theory of the subjective value of money. From the money as a drug perspective, money doesn't serve purely practical purposes. Instead, people actually seek out money because it gives them some pleasure, like a drug. Apparently, a similar debate has been raging in the literature on eating. On one view, food is valued and desired simply to maintain energy levels (the instrumental, or tool theory of eating). On another, creatively called "po... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467713 Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:36:42 +0100 467713 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467715&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F02%2FPronin%2526WegnerFig1.JPG Have you ever had a meeting, or a brain storming session, that involved a lot of coffee and enthusiasm, with everyone throwing out ideas at a breakneck pace, and quickly becoming convinced of their brilliance? I had just such a meeting one morning not too long ago. Everything moved really, really fast, and we were convinced that we'd hit upon a really good idea. Later that evening, everything about the idea that we'd come up with began to fall apart. The next morning, I woke up to an email from one of the meeting's participants with the subject heading, "Maybe this is why we thought it was such a good idea." The email had no text, only an attached paper by Emily Pronin and Dan Wegner titled "Manic Thinking: Independent Effects of Thought Speed and Thought Content on Mood"1. Pronin and Weg... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467715 Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:52:48 +0100 467715 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=467716&cid=t_100406_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F02%2Fkismet.jpg There's been a ton of research over the last decade or two on what is often called folk psychology or theory of mind (the latter is a bit theoretically loaded). That research concerns who has the ability to reason about other minds -- do young children? autistic children? chimpanzees? dolphins? elephants? -- and what that ability looks like. In most research on the subject, what people consider minds to be, and who they consider to have minds, has largely been taken for granted. While that doesn't mean we haven't learned anything about theory of mind, it does mean we may have missed some interesting aspects of it. In this week's issue of Science there's a paper presenting research that begins to address those two questions. Gray, Gray, and Wegner1 surveyed 2400 people between the ages of... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=467716 Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:23:01 +0100 467716