Bookmark
Not Just White Noise: The Many Colors of Sound - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/white-noise-sound-colors/462972/?single_page=true, posted 2018 by peter in audio cognition reference
Most people are familiar with white noise, that static sound of an air conditioner that lulls us to sleep by drowning out any background noise.
Except technically, the whirl of a fan or hum of the AC isn’t white noise at all. Many of the sounds we associate with white noise are actually pink noise, or brown, or green, or blue. In audio engineering, there’s a whole rainbow of noise colors, each with its own unique properties, that are used to produce music, help relaxation, and describe natural rhythms like the human heartbeat. If you know what to look for, you can start to notice the colors of the noise that make up the soundscape around us.
Bookmark
Max Planck Neuroscience on Nautilus: Learning to Read in Your 30s Profoundly Transforms the Brain
maxplanck.nautil.us/article/338/learning-to-read-in-your-30s-profoundly-transforms-the-brain, posted 2018 by peter in cognition science toread
In contrast to previous assumptions, the learning process leads to a reorganization that extends to deep brain structures in the thalamus and the brainstem. The relatively young phenomenon of human writing, therefore, changes brain regions that are very old in evolutionary terms and already core parts of mice and other mammalian brains.
Bookmark
Standing desks 'increase pain' and slow down mental ability, study suggests
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/02/23/standing-desks-increase-pain-slow-mental-ability-new-study/, posted 2018 by peter in cognition health msm science
Researchers at Curtin University in Australia observed 20 participants working at standing desks for two hours.
They found discomfort “significantly” increased for the lower back and lower limb regions, which correlates with previous research suggesting standing desk is responsible for swelling of the veins, which can endanger the heart.
Mental reactiveness also slowed down after roughly an hour and a quarter, however “creative” decision making was shown to marginally improve.
Bookmark
Donald Trump’s strange speaking style, as explained by linguists - Vox
https://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12423688/donald-trump-speech-style-explained-by-linguists, posted 2018 by peter in cognition language politics usa
"Leadership is hard; it needs discipline, concentration, and an ability to ignore what's irrelevant or needless or personal or silly," Pullum says. "There is no sign of it from Trump. This man talks honestly enough that you can see what he's like: He's an undisciplined narcissist who craves power but doesn't have the intellectual capacity to exercise it wisely."
Bookmark
Sorry, Science Says Speed Reading Doesn't Work | Inc.com
www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/sorry-science-says-speed-reading-doesn-t-work.html, posted 2016 by peter in cognition msm performance science toread
That's the verdict of a comprehensive review of the science on the subject recently published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The team behind the research looked at decades of studies focused on all manner of techniques and apps that promise to help you devour words at an incredible clip. Sadly, what they found is that what looks too good to be true almost certainly is.
Bookmark
BPS Research Digest: Why do so many people believe in psychic powers?
digest.bps.org.uk/2016/02/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in.html?m=1, posted 2016 by peter in cognition science toread
A large proportion of the public – over a quarter according to a Gallup survey in the US – believe that humans have psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance, even though mainstream science says there is no evidence that these powers exist. It might be tempting for sceptics to put this down to a lack of intelligence or education on the part of the believers, but in fact past research has failed to support this interpretation.
Now a paper in Memory and Cognition has looked for differences between believers and sceptics in specific mental abilities, rather than in overall intelligence or education. Across three studies – this was one of the most comprehensive investigations of its kind – the researchers at the University of Chicago found that believers in psychic powers had memory abilities equal to the sceptics, but they underperformed on tests of their analytical thinking skills.
Bookmark
How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation — PsyBlog
www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.php, posted 2016 by peter in cognition inspiration
Surely one of the best ways to generate motivation in ourselves and others is by dangling rewards?
Yet psychologists have long known that rewards are overrated. The carrot, of carrot-and-stick fame, is not as effective as we’ve been led to believe. Rewards work under some circumstances but sometimes they backfire. Spectacularly.
Here is a story about preschool children with much to teach all ages about the strange effects that rewards have on our motivation.
Bookmark
A Look Through the Eyes of Alzheimer’s
m.nautil.us/issue/31/stress/what-alzheimers-feels-like-from-the-inside, posted 2016 by peter in cognition health toread
An investigative reporter chronicles the progression of his own disease.
Bookmark
How and Why I Taught My Toddler to Read
larrysanger.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/How-and-Why-I-Taught-My-Toddler-to-Read.htm, posted 2015 by peter in cognition howto opinion parenting toread
In this essay, I’m going to try to convince parents that it is possible, and may be beneficial, to teach their children to read even while they are babies or toddlers. I also have remarks for researchers throughout. First, I will explain how I taught my own little one, beginning at age 22 months, and introduce some of our methods. Then I will answer various general objections to the notion and practice of teaching tiny tots to read.
Bookmark
Single Artificial Neuron Taught to Recognize Hundreds of Patterns | MIT Technology Review
www.technologyreview.com/view/543486/single-artificial-neuron-taught-to-recognize-hundreds-of-patterns/?utm_campaign=socialsync&utm_medium=social-post&utm_source=facebook, posted 2015 by peter in ai cognition science
Hawkins and Ahmad now say they know what’s going on. Their new idea is that distal and proximal synapses play entirely different roles in the process of learning. Proximal synapses play the conventional role of triggering the cell to fire when certain patterns of connections crop up.
...
But distal synapses do something else. They also recognize when certain patterns are present, but do not trigger firing. Instead, they influence the electric state of the cell in a way that makes firing more likely if another specific pattern occurs. So distal synapses prepare the cell for the arrival of other patterns. Or, as Hawkins and Ahmad put it, these synapses help the cell predict what the next pattern sensed by the proximal synapses will be.
|< First < Previous 17–26 (71) Next > Last >|