Tom Stafford's Blog, page 156

Rodent brain in sex claim shocker

[image error]Those tenacious chaps over at Language Log have followed up Louann Brizendine's claims that men have a 'defend your turf area' by chasing up the references in her ominous new book The Male Brain which is showing all the signs of being as scientifically shaky as the last one.

Like a couple of people who commented on our post, they picked up on my previous and erroneous remark that the dorsal premammilliary nuclei had not been identified in humans - it has, but its function, as far as I know...

One Night in Birdland

[image error]I've just re-read an interesting biographical study from last year on the 'Neurological problems of jazz legends' and noticed a interesting snippet about Charlie Parker:

As a result of a car accident as a teenager, Parker became addicted to morphine and, in turn, heroin. Contemporary musicians took similar drugs, hoping to emulate his playing. Through the 1940s, Parker's career flourished. He recorded some of his most famous tunes, including ''Billie's Bounce'' and ''Koko.'' Yet, he also...

Debugging the free will relationship

[image error]In 1987, British TV station Channel 4 had a series called Voices that included four programmes on psychoanalysis. One of the guests was psychologist Sherry Turkle, years before she became well-known for her groundbreaking work on the internet and identity, and she makes some strikingly prophetic comments about free will and technology that ring true today but were dismissed at the time.

This is from the book (ISBN 0851244920) of the discussions. In this part, Turkle was talking with presenter ...

The FBI Evil Minds Research Museum

[image error]The FBI has an appointment-only display called the Evil Minds Research Museum that displays the letters, art and artefacts of serial killers in an attempt to understand their psychology. There's not much about it online but it is discussed in the second part of the two part FBI podcast about their behavioural science programme.

This is the part where head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, Greg Vecchi, describes the exhibit:

One of the most exciting research projects that we have, is we've...

Missing the mind's eye view

[image error]Discover magazine has a fantastic Carl Zimmer piece about a man who lost the ability to see things in his mind's eye after a minor neurological procedure.

Zimmer covers a recently published study on patient MX who lost his conscious visual imagery but could still do tests, like mental rotation, that were assumed to need the ability to mentally picture the procedure to work it out.

All the exams the scientists gave MX confirmed his claim that he was missing his mind's eye. And yet he could do...

2010-03-26 Spike activity

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

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New Scientist has an excellent article on the 'global workspace' theory of consciousness.

Fast food logos unconsciously speed up our behaviour, according to new research covered by the old Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Not Exactly Rocket Science, just moved to Discover Blogs, asks 'when is attempted murder more acceptable than harming someone by accident?'

Why are so many soldiers on antipsychotics? asks Pharmalot.

CNN considers the interesting ...

Easy tiger

[image error]Psychologist Jesse Bering has written one of the most remarkable popular science articles I have read in a very long time that discusses, believe it or not, zoophilia or the sexual attraction to animals. The piece for Scientific American is surprising, unnerving, hilarious, frightening and thought-provoking, all in equal measure.

The article considers to what extent sexual attraction to animals is a perversion, opportunistic sex act or a genuine sexual orientation and gives a comprehensive...

Opening the mind to moral persuasion

[image error]This week's Nature has an article arguing that the recently popular field of moral psychology has neglected the role of public debate and personal reflection in the development of our morality.

The piece is by psychologist Paul Bloom, well known for his work on how we solve ethical problems - something which has become a hot topic in recent years as traditionally philosophical issues have been taken into the lab.

Indeed, many psychologists think that the reasoned arguments we make about why we...

For Kitty Jay

[image error]This is the final resting place of Kitty Jay.

The site, known as Jay's Grave lies on the edge of Dartmoor, in England's West Country. No one really knows the full story of her life, as the details have been lost in time, but the tragic tale usually goes something like this.

Kitty Jay was a teenage orphan, probably in the late 1700s, who was given a job in a local farm as an apprentice and later became pregnant by the farmer's son. Some stories say she fell in love, others that she was raped, ...

Emergency response psychology in Madrid

[image error]Madrid is one of the very few places in the world that has emergency response psychologists that attend the scene of accidents and disasters alongside the police, paramedics and fire crews. I recently interviewed Teresa Pacheco, one of the founders and current members of the Madrid team, about her work for the latest issue of The Psychologist.

Could you tell us a little about the psychology emergency response team in Madrid?

The SAMUR-Protección Civil emergency services are part of the Madrid...