A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."
posted on Aug 12, 2008 - View this thread

levelHead is a spacial memory game by artist Julian Oliver, using a hand-held solid-plastic cube as its only interface. On-screen each face of the cube contains a little room, each of which are logically connected by doors through which you guide your character. Take a look at a demonstration or build your own levelHead setup.
posted on Aug 10, 2008 - View this thread

You know the feeling that something is on the tip of your tongue? It offers deep insights into the nature of the mind. [Via The Frontal Cortex]
posted on Jun 3, 2008 - View this thread

Minds of their Own: Animals are smarter than you think.
posted on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

The predictably irrational door game.
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Twilight of the Books - What will life be like if people stop reading?
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

"Over and over he scoops up a chick with his left hand, expels its droppings with a squeeze of his thumb, opens its vent with his fingers, peers through the magnifying lenses attached to his spectacles and determines its sex." It's a dirty job (YT). Sexing chicks early is important so that the cockerels can be separated and culled^ or fed to be broilers^. The obvious differences take weeks to develop, so when the vent sexing method was developed in Japan in the 1920s, professional chicken sexers became sought after.
posted on Nov 19, 2007 - View this thread

How the new type standard for American road signage reduces halation and improves readability.
posted on Aug 11, 2007 - View this thread

Recursion and Human Thought - Why the Piraha don't have numbers
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Life without memory (multi-part YouTube): the extraordinary case of Clive Wearing.
posted on Jan 29, 2007 - View this thread

Cognitive Neuroscience Vs Who wants to be a millionaire? "Researchers in my department, Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS), seek to understand the brain's mechanisms, including three cognitive systems that happen to be essential for a profitable performance on Millionaire: learning, memory, and decision-making."
posted on Jan 8, 2007 - View this thread

Free Science and Video Lectures Online A nice blog collecting science videos. The most recent post on Cognitive Computing, Consciousness, Science Philosophy and Mind Video Lectures has some hum-dingers.
posted on Dec 30, 2006 - View this thread

Online videos of philosophical lectures. Chomsky, Pinker, Dennet, Hofstadter, Searle, the Churchlands...
posted on Aug 31, 2006 - View this thread

Neurogenesis Neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells, was something we were all taught was impossible after a certain point. Professor Elizabeth Gould, doctor of psychology at Princeton, has claimed that it happens all the time. (more) Now, she and her team at Princeton are saying not only is our brain always changing, stress and environment directly affect brain development.
posted on Mar 4, 2006 - View this thread

Don't Even Think About Lying fMRI is poised to transform the security industry, the judicial system, and our fundamental notions of privacy. I'm in a lab at Columbia University, where scientists are using the technology to analyze the cognitive differences between truth and lies. By mapping the neural circuits behind deception, researchers are turning fMRI into a new kind of lie detector that's more probing and accurate than the polygraph, the standard lie-detection tool employed by law enforcement and intelligence agencies for nearly a century.
posted on Jan 5, 2006 - View this thread

Cognitive Daily reports nearly every day on fascinating peer-reviewed developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field.
posted on Mar 11, 2005 - View this thread

Hey Summers: Male [monkeys] more susceptible to age-related cognitive decline.
"Gay men adopt male and female strategies. Therefore their brains are a sexual mosaic".
Exotic animals on the menu: Bush/Meat ‘05.
posted on Mar 2, 2005 - View this thread

“Tool Use In Animals”, a tidy little informative set of pages from Dr. Robert Cook's much larger “Animal Cognition & Learning Website” at Tufts University. See also (worth repeating because it’s the coolest thing ever) the previously featured “Betty the Crow”.   ◊via milovoo in Ask MetaFilter◊
posted on May 3, 2004 - View this thread

Nootropics ("smart" drugs) - all wish to be smarter, correct ? And - while exercise, nutrition, learning, travel, and social interaction (the last 3 via release of neurotrophins) effectively do this, Nootropic drugs have been researched since the 1950's and have been shown to cause at least short term cognitive function enhancement. Piracetam, the first of this drugs, shows promise in the treatment of Alzheimer's and Attention deficit Disorder. Alas, as with poor little Algernon, the effect seems temporary. Nootropics can be a little difficult to acquire in the US. Beer is not a nootropic, but sex on the other hand.....
posted on Mar 5, 2004 - View this thread

I am John's brain. Amusingly written, yet astutely raising an important point. What exactly are we to do about consciousness? Although clearly different theories abound, one must still ponder whether or not the problem is even solvable in the first place. Where then can we turn to for our solution? Why, bicamerality, of course.
posted on Jun 23, 2003 - View this thread

2003 Reith Lectures. Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, talks about a number of fascinating neurological disorders and the insights they provide into mental functioning.
posted on May 24, 2003 - View this thread

Elephants are people, too. A new book by Steven M. Wise, Drawing the Line, marshalls the latest research on animal cognition in arguing for legal rights for some animals, especially gorillas, chimps, elephants, and gray parrots. The author's previous book, Rattling the Cage, forcused on primates, as many researchers and animal rights activists do. After all, we share at least 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Other researchers are expanding our knowledge of animal cognition in the octopus, dolphins, even dogs. See also: Next of Kin and When Elephants Weep.
posted on Sep 4, 2002 - View this thread

Monkeys are capable of abstract reasoning according to recent research, which may have "profound implications for the evolution of human intelligence and the stuff that separates homo sapiens from other animals."

Just so long as there are enough bananas to go round, it's OK by me ...
posted on Oct 16, 2001 - View this thread

FRANCISCO VARELA (1946 - 2001)^* One of the more quietly influential thinkers of our times. A neuroscientist turned immunologist whose formulation of the theory of autopoiesis (with Humberto Maturana) has challenged conventional thinking in areas as diverse as Artificial Intelligence, Ecology and AIDS research.
The mathematics of self-reference involves creating formalisms to reflect the strange situation in which something produces A, which produces B, which produces A. That was 1974. Today, many colleagues call such ideas part of complexity theory.
On 28th of May, Varela's own autopoiesis ceased.
*pointer via fmh
posted on Jun 6, 2001 - View this thread

How Culture Molds Habits is a fascinating article. Read this article, tally another point for nurture. I've long thought this was true, but Nisbett's supposedly gathered rather a lot of data proving it is so. The article raises some interesting parts of the study, but I think the ramifications bear some considering. I'd be interested in reading the full study when it's published, but I haven't a clue where to get the Psychological Review. And can you imagine what the advertising execs will do with this stuff? Ads tailored to the way you think. Wheee. It does, of course, raise some fun questions about religion and politics.
posted on Aug 8, 2000 - View this thread