Tom Stafford's Blog, page 139

The tools of language and the craft of understanding

[image error]Stanford Magazine has a fascinating article on how speakers of different languages think differently about the world.

The piece focuses on the work of psychologist Lera Boroditsky and covers many of her completely intriguing studies about how the conceptual tools embedded within languages shape how we think.

"In English," she says, moving her hand toward the cup, "if I knock this cup off the table, even accidentally, you would likely say, 'She broke the cup.'" However, in Japanese or Spanish...

A cortical atlas of ghostly sensations

[image error]Frontiers in Neuroscience has an amazing scientific article that has collected all the studies that have recorded what happens when the brain is electrically stimulated in living patients. It's like a travel guide to the unnaturally active brain.

As you might expect, science generally takes a dim view of researchers cracking open people's skulls just to see what happens when bits of their brain are stimulated, hence, almost all of these studies have been done on patients who are undergoing...

Street football smarts

[image error]The successes of the South American teams in the World Cup have led to some speculation that years of street football may be responsible for the fast paced dexterity that powers the Latino players.

The photo is of some lads playing street football in the Manrique barrio of Medellín, Colombia. I took the photo a couple of days ago and it depicts the typical type of informal football that happens in residential streets across the continent.

The game is a great way of developing ball skills as...

HM's memory lives on

[image error]ABC Radio National's All in the Mind has a fantastic programme that looks back on how amnesic Patient HM was central to our understanding of human memory and how the study his post-mortem brain will continue to illuminate the neuroscience of remembering.

HM became densely amnesic after experimental neurosurgery was performed to treat his otherwise untreatable epilepsy.

His case has been very well covered over the years, especially since he died in 2008, but this edition of All in the Mind

Missing the big picture in the faces of others

[image error]RadioLab has an interesting discussion between neurologist Oliver Sacks and artist Chuck Close about their experience of having prosopagnosia - the inability to recognise people by their faces.

The condition is often called 'face blindness' but the discussion gives a great illustration of why the label is so inaccurate because Chuck Close is famous for his detailed and evocative portraits of people's faces.

At this point, it's worth saying that there are various forms of prosopagnosia, an...

Rebranding PSYOPS

[image error]Wired Danger Room that the US Military are thinking of changing the name of their Psychological Operations or PSYOPS units to 'Military Information Support and/to Operations' that has the forgettable acronym MISO.

Apparently the suggestion has not gone down well with the (dare we say) image consciousness PSYOPS troops. Perhaps rather worryingly, one self-identified member is reported as saying "Some of us joined Psychological Operations because it sounded awesome for it's name alone."

I...

I feel what you mean

[image error]Not Exactly Rocket Science covers a fascinating study on how touching different objects influences how we perceive the world - based on abstract associations between things like weight and seriousness.

Weight is linked to importance, so that people carrying heavy objects deem interview candidates as more serious and social problems as more pressing. Texture is linked to difficulty and harshness. Touching rough sandpaper makes social interactions seem more adversarial, while smooth wood makes...

2010-06-25 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

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Remember the study we covered on how a headache pill can ease the pain of social rejection? The Neurocritic has a skeptical look at the details.

The Atlantic has a fascinating article on witchcraft and the legal system in Central Africa.

The 'Bloggers Behind the Blogs' series is in full swing over at the BPS Research Digest. It seems we lack female psychology and neuroscience bloggers.

NPR has an engrossing case taken from the forthcoming...

Military brain interfaces for sci-fi warfare

[image error]The latest edition of Neurosurgical Focus has an interesting article on the use of brain-computer interfaces in the military.

One part talks about funded US military brain-computer interface projects and it seems someone in the rank and file has seen Avatar one too many times.

Alongside therapeutic interventions, rapid advances in BCI technologies will also create opportunities for neurosurgeons to participate in improving military training and operations, particularly through combat...

Against narrativity

[image error]'We understand ourselves through stories' is a common, even fashionable, sentiment. Not everybody agrees. Philosopher Galen Strawson's 2004 article "Against Narrativity" is a both-barrels attack on this idea. Strawson identifies two theories which he wishes to emphatically reject. The psychological Narrativity thesis is the idea that it is unavoidable human nature to experience their lives as a story. The ethical Narrativity thesis is the idea that conceiving of one's life as narrative is a g...