psycho

A collection of 110 posts

psycho

the sweet smell of putrefaction

Oh, you skeptics and naysayers, you timorous, trembling deniers of controversy, you lovers of the status quo.. How you mocked my bold theories about the The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Zombies. You couldn't accept my perhaps unpalatable conclusions about the zombie sensorium. But it seems there is converging evidence

psycho

a losing run

Today's best Eureka Alert headline Medical therapy for restless legs syndrome may trigger compulsive gambling [linky] But, crazily, it's not as crazy as it sounds.. Restless legs syndrome is a sleep disorder that involves tickling, tingling sensations in the legs and a strong urge to move

psycho

Autism speaking

I'd urge you watch this video of an autistic woman demonstrating her private language for interacting with the world and then 'translating it' into our language. [youtube]JnylM1hI2jc[/youtube] She is very eloquent in both. You can support research into the understanding the causes and helping

psycho

spiders on drugs

when spiders are fed drugs they tend to build bizzare webs, the national film board of canada has some informative video footage [gvid]sHzdsFiBbFc[/gvid] the original images can be found here here, for example are the webs on spiders on caffeine http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm

psycho

the cognitive neuroscience of ghosts

You may have laughed at my cognitive neuropsychology of zombies. At least I hope you did because that was the main intention of it. But it seems that ghosts and hauntings are taken more seriously by psychologists. But I have just been updating my google calendar of Cognitive Science Talks

psycho

Irony research..

1. Eric Schwitzgebel has meticulously collected data to show that books about Ethics get stolen more regularly than other books in the philosophy section. via cog daily 2. Research reported in the New York Times suggests that pessimists die earlier than optimists. The latest in a series of similar findings

psycho

500 Introverts

I am leading a discussion group for some of our new first years. One class a week the have a seminar on a general psychological topic of their choice and I am there to 'facilitate' their discussion. It's a delicate balance between admitting my ignorance or

psycho

two left then right down the number line to nine

I like it when simple almost silly experiments links two areas to give unexpected results. This is  one that you can even try yourself (though I think it works best if you are under 10 years old). Line bisection is a task which is usually used to in neuropsychological testing

psycho

Cognitive Science Seminars in London 2006-7

http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk...onseminars.html I've put together a google calendar of forthcoming pychology and cognitive science seminars in central London. Share and enjoy! (And let me know of any errors or omissions)

psycho

Similar and dissimilar others

We just had our weekly journal club discussing: Mitchell, J.P., Macrae, C.N., & Banaji, M.R. (2006) Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others, Neuron50, 655-663 It's a moderately neat scanning study that purports to show different neural mechanisms for making judgments

psycho

What on earth are you doing?

"Caspar, what on earth are you doing?" Goodness knows I've heard that phrase often enough. Well finally I have an answer of kinds: http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/people/caspar

psycho

Knitted Brain with zippered corpus callosum

http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu/Brain/ Wonderful knitted model of the brain with false colour yarning and convenient reversible callosotomy zipper. Hosted at the what is probably the world's only Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art

psycho

Look, it's completely safe.

My colleagues fired laser beams through my head yesterday and here i am to tell the tale.. with very little observable impairment.

psycho

baby brain lasers

http://www.sheddinglight.org.uk/ We do a bit of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) in our basement but the machine doesn't look anywhere near as cool as this.. Basically it works by firing laser beams through the baby's head and seeing what comes out the other

psycho

BONKERSFEST - JUNE 3rd

http://bonkersfest.com/ BonkersFest!A one day arts festival celebrating madness,  creativity and eccentricity Had to have it pointed out to me that CR founder had changed her name by deed-poll, in honour of the troublesomely wonderful neurotransmitter, serotonin All the lunacy and creativity of a festival squeezed into the

psycho

Single ladies, come to the Babylab!

http://www.eurekalert.org...c-wat050406.php Women attracted to men when they see interest in children refected in their faces Slightly daft research finds that women attracted to men who like babies. Ladies, I love babies.. I'm an honest to toddlers infantologist. (Mind you, you probably ought to

psycho

Group Gleefulness

http://sohoexperiment.blogspot.com/ One of my own favourite and most personally significant psychology experiments isn't an experiment at all in the strictest sense, more a set of observations. But it is scientific, it is fun and it was an impetus that steered me towards studying developmental psychology.

psycho

Experimental process

http://sohoexperiment.blo...nt_archive.html An example of one moment in that experimental process that recently surprised me comes from an experiment we are running to see how sensitive babies are to patterns in their environments. We show them two different sequences of coloured shapes that appear one at

psycho

Interest in art increases with age?

http://mixingmemory.blogs...ality-meme.html Mixing memory provides a thoughtful summary of what are basically some meaningless numbers culled from getting a bunch of bloggers to take a political compass test and an IPIP personality test. Like him i can't get too excited about the results that it

psycho

three bedrooms six car garage

http://www.hardestyreales...tings/regan.htm looking for pictures of houses to bore babies with, i don't think i can use this one as they'd surely be too bamboozled as to why it needs such a large garage.. This 1998 built home has 3 bedrooms and

psycho

skull kings

isn't this a pretty picture?

psycho

bad analogy

http://www.futureoftheboo...auses_of_b.html reviewBreaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"Mr. Dennett believes that explaining religion in evolutionary terms will make it less real; that is the whole purpose of his book. But this is like saying that because water is made of two

bad

The light not so fantastic

http://www.timesonline.co...2022194,00.html The Times Online, 4 Feb Very annoying article full of utterly trite and pointless speculation about how some art might tap into 'deep-rooted' brain processes. I don't doubt that it might but this goes nowhere to proving it. Maybe

psycho

multiple embedded Socrates

following on from my earlier post, straight after reading mixing memory on Keil's work on our shallow knowledge, I happened to read chapter of Semantic Cognition by Rogers & McClelland (2004) that attempts to model our causal knowledge systems with a connectionist model. Except that it doesn'

psycho

INTELLIGENCE TEST??

This supposed INTELLIGENCE TEST is moderately diverting.. but certainly not very rigorous or intelligent. (far too much general knowledge required for one thing among many) 24 H in D -> 24 HOURS in a DAY 26 L of the A -> 26 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET etc. I&