July 15, 2010 by sean.

New study suggests that older adults benefit from “brain training” [via University of California, San Francisco]:

A commercial brain fitness program has been shown to improve memory in older adults, at least in the period soon after training. The findings are the first to show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of short-term, or “working” visual memory. The research, led by scientists at UCSF, is also one of the first to measure both mental performance and changes in neural activity caused by a cognitive training program.

Posted in psychology, neuroscience | No Comments »

May 3, 2010 by sean.

A couple notworthy posts from Wired’s Danger Room:

Military Wants to Super-Charge Troop Smarts

The Pentagon’s been trying to get ahead of the curve on neuroscience for years, toying with ideas like mind-reading whether people are lying and performance-degrading drugs for enemy combatants. Now, it’s launching a major effort to harness neuroscience in a way that might better prepare soldiers for the mental rigors of modern warfare.

In a series of small business solicitations released last week, the Office of the Secretary of Defense outlined plans for a new “Cognitive Readiness Technology” program with the aim of “making our warfighters as cognitively strong as they are physically strong.”[more]

Pentagon Scientists Inject Necks to ‘Cure’ PTSD

Finding an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder has been a top Pentagon priority for years. And with an estimated one in five veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from PTSD, the military’s been willing to consider anything and everything, including yoga, dog therapy and acupuncture, to alleviate symptoms.

But a small new study out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center might offer more than temporary relief — with nothing more than a quick jab to the neck. [more]

Posted in psychology, neuroscience, augmented cognition | No Comments »

April 9, 2010 by sean.

University of Oxford scientists look for biological roots of religion:

“There is a lot of evidence that religious beliefs flow very naturally from the way the mind is designed,” Dr. Shackelford says. It has long been believed, he says, that atheism is a harder position to maintain because it goes against the natural instinct to want to attach some kind of meaning to phenomena we can’t explain. “Perhaps religion is natural, but not inevitable.” [via GlobeAndMail.com]

Posted in psychology, science, neuroscience | No Comments »

October 27, 2009 by sean.

A research collaboration led by biologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has found a molecular pathway in the brain that is the cause of cognitive impairment due to sleep deprivation. Just as important, the team believes that the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation, such as an inability to focus, learn or memorize, may be reversible by reducing the concentration of a specific enzyme that builds up in the hippocampus of the brain [via ScienceDigest].

Posted in psychology, science | No Comments »

September 13, 2009 by sean.

Social network science researchers sifting through personal records of 5,124 male and female subjects from the 1948 Framingham Heart Study the Framingham explore how relationships directly influence behavior and thus health and happinesss [via Wired].

Posted in psychology, social networks | No Comments »

September 13, 2009 by sean.

UCLA researchers explore the SCARF dynamic [status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fair treatment], how high intelligence often corresponds with low self-awareness, and how attempts to hide feelings often trigger threat responses [via Strategy+Business]:

Eisenberger’s fellow researcher Matthew Lieberman, also of UCLA, hypothesizes that human beings evolved this link between social connection and physical discomfort within the brain “because, to a mammal, being socially connected to caregivers is necessary for survival.” This study and many others now emerging have made one thing clear: The human brain is a social organ. Its physiological and neurological reactions are directly and profoundly shaped by social interaction. Indeed, as Lieberman puts it, “Most processes operating in the background when your brain is at rest are involved in thinking about other people and yourself.”

This presents enormous challenges to managers. Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction, in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system. Like the experiment participants whose avatars were left out of the game, people who feel betrayed or unrecognized at work — for example, when they are reprimanded, given an assignment that seems unworthy, or told to take a pay cut — experience it as a neural impulse, as powerful and painful as a blow to the head. Most people who work in companies learn to rationalize or temper their reactions; they “suck it up,” as the common parlance puts it. But they also limit their commitment and engagement. They become purely transactional employees, reluctant to give more of themselves to the company, because the social context stands in their way.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, neuroscience | No Comments »

August 26, 2009 by sean.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, learning theory | No Comments »

July 20, 2009 by sean.

Website of Media Destruction has an excellent article on how new media is changing the role of government with reference to William Gibson’s 2003 op-ed for the NYT:

Orwell’s projections come from the era of information broadcasting, and are not applicable to our own. Had Orwell been able to equip Big Brother with all the tools of artificial intelligence, he would still have been writing from an older paradigm, and the result could never have described our situation today, nor suggested where we might be heading.

That our own biggish brothers, in the name of national security, draw from ever wider and increasingly transparent fields of data may disturb us, but this is something that corporations, nongovernmental organizations and individuals do as well, with greater and greater frequency. The collection and management of information, at every level, is exponentially empowered by the global nature of the system itself, a system unfettered by national boundaries or, increasingly, government control.

It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret.

In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did. (Emphasis mine)

Posted in psychology, social media, scifi, mobile computing | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Posted in psychology, science | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, work | No Comments »

May 6, 2009 by sean.

Researchers at Princeton discover correlations between cognitive skills, economic preferences and strategic behavior [via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA]:

Economic analysis has so far said little about how an individual’s cognitive skills (CS) are related to the individual’s economic preferences in different choice domains, such as risk taking or saving, and how preferences in different domains are related to each other. Using a sample of 1,000 trainee truckers we report three findings.

First, there is a strong and significant relationship between an individual’s CS and preferences. Individuals with better CS are more patient, in both short- and long-run. Better CS are also associated with a greater willingness to take calculated risks.

Second, CS predict social awareness and choices in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Subjects with better CS more accurately forecast others’ behavior and differentiate their behavior as a second mover more strongly depending on the first-mover’s choice.

Third, CS, and in particular, the ability to plan, strongly predict perseverance on the job in a setting with a substantial financial penalty for early exit.

Consistent with CS being a common factor in all of these preferences and behaviors, we find a strong pattern of correlation among them. These results, taken together with the theoretical explanation we offer for the relationships we find, suggest that higher CS systematically affect preferences and choices in ways that favor economic success.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology | No Comments »

March 30, 2009 by sean.

New research from Brigham Young University on collaboration reveals that diverse groups are more effective problem solving even though they believe they aren’t [via Newswise]:

The experiment also revealed a fallacy in the assumptions we make about our own effectiveness in groups. The subjects in the experiment were members of different fraternities and sororities. In general, when the newcomer was from the same sorority or fraternity as the other team members, the group reported that it worked well together, but was less likely to correctly solve the problem.

In contrast, when the newcomer was a member of a rival sorority or fraternity, the opposite was true — these groups felt they worked together less effectively, yet they significantly outperformed socially homogenous groups.

“What’s really distinct about this research is that, from a self-reporting perspective, what people perceive to be beneficial turns out to be dead wrong, Liljenquist says. “The teams that felt they worked least effectively together were ironically the top performers!”

Posted in psychology, learning theory, collective intelligence | No Comments »

March 18, 2009 by sean.

Posted in psychology, learning theory | No Comments »