Monthly Archives: January 2007

Dancing in the waiting room

January 25, 2007 – 1:00 pm

I found this on the wall of a Rehab Unit in a London hospital this morning. Dancing in the Waiting Room by Angus Macmillan All our living is in waiting. In these moments we find our myriad selves anxious, hopeful, trembling, wishful, fearful, impatient. All our dancing shadows are there flitting in the half light […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Coding for cognition

January 25, 2007 – 8:00 am

Cognitive scientist Sacha Barber has created a three-part guide to the mechanics and mathematics of neural networks. If you’re interested in how many artificial intelligence systems work, the guide takes you through the mathematics of neural networks, to the basic of creating your own network in the C programming language. Even if you’re not a […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (2)

Looking for fireworks

January 24, 2007 – 9:00 pm

Brain Ethics has a fantastic post by neuroscientist Thomas Rams√∏y who describes the discovery of a worrying brain pathology in a volunteer who took part in one of his brain imaging studies. A 1999 study found that 18% of healthy participants have brain scans that might suggest some form of abnormality, although only a minority […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

The thingishness of things

January 24, 2007 – 8:45 pm

…when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you sometimes find that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. Winnie the Pooh struggles with the problem of communicating qualia to external […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

The Stuff of Thought

January 24, 2007 – 8:00 am

The Toronto Star has a preview of Steven Pinker’s forthcoming book ‘The Stuff of Thought’ which apparently tackles language (no surprise there) but this time examines the multiple meanings in language and how and why we use metaphor. The book isn’t slated to appear until late 2007, although it seems he’ll be doing some lectures […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (2)

The colourful world of naming and knowing

January 23, 2007 – 10:00 pm

The Economist has a short article on two recent studies which have examined the theory that our ability to perceive colours is influenced by the way a language labels different hues. The general idea that language shapes our thoughts and experience is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. For example, some languages don’t have separate names […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Seeing | Leave a Comment

Magic in mind

January 23, 2007 – 7:00 pm

The New York Times has an article on magical thinking – the mental process of making connections between unrelated or loosely-related things. Magical thinking is thought to exist on a spectrum, from hunches, creative leaps and superstitions at one end, to frank psychosis at the other – where the connections become so odd as to […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Reasoning | Comments (2)

A serious case of focal retrograde amnesia

January 23, 2007 – 8:00 am

I’ve been notified of a rare case of focal retrograde amnesia that doesn’t seem to have been reported in the medical literature. Focal retrograde amnesia is where memory for past events and personal information is lost, while the ability to remember new events is spared. The case is described in Mr Bump Loses His Memory […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Comments (3)

Cliff Arnall is depressing

January 22, 2007 – 8:45 am

It’s January 22nd, it must be time for another Cliff Arnall bollocks-fest. According to Arnall, his ‘formula’ predicts that today is officially the most depressing of the year. Yes, Cliff, it is, but only because we have to put up with more utter nonsense from you. Exactly the same story appeared in 2005 and 2006, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (3)

Sleep pattern slumber wear

January 22, 2007 – 8:30 am

Online t-shirt retailers No Demographic have created a t-shirt with EEG (‘brainwave’) traces from each stage of sleep. Sleep is divided into two main types: ‘rapid eye movement‘ or REM sleep, and non-REM sleep. The majority (but not all) dreaming happens in REM sleep. REM sleep is sometimes called ‘paradoxical sleep’ in the research literature, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

Feeling the connection

January 22, 2007 – 8:00 am

It seems the latest edition of Time Magazine is a special on the brain, and there’s another full-length neuroscience feature article available online that discusses how the brain reorganises and ‘rewires’ itself. This is known as ‘plasticity’ and neuroscientists often talk about the brain being ‘plastic’. This doesn’t refer to the material, although does refer […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

Great Scott!

January 21, 2007 – 3:00 pm

It’s just struck me that Eric Kandel looks remarkably similar to Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Is there something missing from Professor Kandel’s otherwise candid biography? I think we should be told.

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Comments (1)

Eric Kandel profiled

January 21, 2007 – 2:30 pm

There’s a great introductory profile of psychiatrist and neurobiologist Eric Kandel in Columbia Magazine that outlines his life and Nobel-prize winning work. Kandel is best known for his work on how memory operates at the cellular and molecular level. For example, his research has investigated long-term potentiation, the process by which the synaptic connection between […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Comments (1)

The Mystery of Consciousness

January 20, 2007 – 5:00 pm

This week’s Time Magazine has a wonderfully in-depth article on the science and implications of consciousness by cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker. It shouldn’t be surprising that research on consciousness is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. No other topic is like it. As Ren√© Descartes noted, our own consciousness is the most indubitable thing there is. The […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Leave a Comment

Psychologists and the pursuit of happiness

January 19, 2007 – 4:30 pm

The New York Times has a remarkably comprehensive article on ‘positive psychology’ – the research and applied field that aims to understand happiness and human growth. The article takes a critical look at the field, what the research is showing and how it’s being applied and taught. Traditionally, psychology has been more focused on mental […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Leave a Comment

Web guide for psychology students

January 19, 2007 – 9:30 am

The BPS Research Digest commissioned PsychSplash founder Dr. Gareth Furber to produce a list of links to psychology resources on the internet. He oblidged in the form of a poem. This is one of the verses: I must admit, I have a thing for librarians Mostly the younger ones, not the octogenarians My fascination however […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment
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