If I showed you a picture of an obscure person from your past, there’s a good chance you’d remember them, and even be able to tell me something about them. But if I asked you to sit down and write a list of all the people you knew, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t remember that person? Why?
Posts Tagged ‘brain’
January 24th, 2013
Burnt Out: What Spit Tests and Brain Scans Tell Us
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Some estimates put the number of North Americans and Europeans suffering from burnout at about ten percent. The word “burnout” might sound like flimsy psychobabble, but science is showing us differences between the brains of people suffering from it, and those who don’t.
Some call it exhaustion depression, and others call it work stress, but what is really happening, and what can we do about it?
December 13th, 2012
Psychological Illnesses Diagnosed Via Brain Scan
6 Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Believe it or not, there really is a difference between healthy brains and “mentally ill” brains. Unfortunately, it’s also true that some medications are over-prescribed, and some illnesses are over-diagnosed.
A new study has revealed that MRI scans can be used to diagnose mental disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, and Tourettes, using a machine learning algorithm.
There is only a 1 in 10 million chance that the results of the study would occur by chance.
November 7th, 2012
How to Have Self Control: Gargle Sugar Water?
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
A new study demonstrates that if you gargle sugar water, without even drinking it, this can temporarily help you maintain your self control. Previous studies had suggested the already counterintuitive idea that drinking sugar water could help with self control, but the new study demonstrates that the energy from sugar has nothing to do with it.
The study was led by psychology professor Leonard Martin from the University of Georgia. In the experiment, 51 students were asked to perform two tasks.
October 31st, 2012
Social and Analytical Intelligence Inhibit Each Other, Brain Study Concludes
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
A new study reveals that cognitive empathy and analytical reasoning are not only powered by two separate networks in the brain, but that these two networks actually inhibit one another.
Using fMRI, researchers in recent years have uncovered two networks in the brain, often called the task positive network and the default mode network (also called the task negative network).
Most studies suggest that this task positive network becomes active when we are asked to pay attention to something, be more proactive, and generally be more conscious of what we are doing. At the same time, these tasks usually deactivate the default network, suggesting that these two networks inhibit one another.
October 24th, 2012
Improving Self Control: Brain Study on How Affirmation Works
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Self affirmation theory, first proposed by Claude Steele in 1988, suggests that when a new belief threatens our point of view, we protect our integrity by reminding ourselves who we are. Under this model, self-affirmation helps us tame confirmation bias, which often causes us to be blind to ideas that threaten our existing world view.
By falling back on this sense of integrity, we allow ourselves to be more open to new ideas without feeling as though we are jeopardizing who we are.
The model may sound a bit “touchy-feely,” but many psychological studies have demonstrated how self-affirmation can help improve our performance on various tasks in experimental studies. Unfortunately, very little of this research has focused on what is actually happening in the brain, until now.
October 24th, 2012
The Psychology of Group Violence is Protected by Morality Shifts
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Three studies conducted by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, suggest that the violence of a group is justified by a subtle shift in the way things are framed. In other words, if a group commits violence, it frames morality in terms of authority and loyalty. The violence of other groups is instead framed by appeals to concepts like harm and fairness.
October 16th, 2012
Brain Development in Children is Enhanced by Stimulation
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Scientists have known for a while that early experiences can effect brain development, but up until now this was only seen in children who underwent trauma. But a recent study at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that subtle things like books and educational toys will actually influence the way a child’s brain develops.
The study was led by Martha Farah, the director of neuroscience, and took twenty years. The results suggest that stimulation up to the age of four has an impact on the way the brain develops.
October 7th, 2012
Sleep and Memory: The Sleeping Brain Acts Like it’s Remembering
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
Scientists have known for quite some time that that sleep plays an important part in choosing which memories get stored, and which get thrown out. But a new study at UCLA suggests that the way the brain talks to itself is actually the opposite of how we thought.
September 28th, 2012
Friday Roundup: A Trick Reverses Opinion in Seconds, A Breakthrough Optic Cable, and Ending Muscle Aging
No Comments, All Posts, by Carter Bowles.
This week we learn that people will completely reverse their opinion, and justify it, if they are fooled into thinking they answered a survey question differently than they actually did. Meanwhile, a fiber optic cable sends the equivalent of 5,000 HDTV movies per second, a common drug halts muscle aging in mice, and listening to music while you study and sleep could help encode memories.